HOOD CANAL & LAKE CUSHMAN

The next installment of our motoring adventures took us to the Hood Canal and Lake Cushman area on a sunny Saturday. When you live on the Olympic Peninsula, Hwy 101 on the Hood Canal is one of our very few driving options to escape the Peninsula. It is a pleasant drive with some spectacular scenery along the way and enough wiggly road (yes, it’s a technical term!) to keep the driver happy. 

After passing through the burg of Quilcene, the road goes through ONP for a bit then dips down to the water and the town of Brinnon. You can find Whitney Gardens here, and if you have a bit of time, makes a great break. They have beautiful Rhododendrons and so much more. 

As we were motoring down the Canal, we saw hundreds of motorcycles heading the opposite way. We finally pulled over at Lilliwaup and just watched them pass by.

There were also many, many, many boats, (mostly on the water) due to it being the official opening day of boating season. There were pickups and boat trailers crammed into every conceivable place possible. 

At Hoodsport, we turned off to Lake Cushman…uncharted territory for us. We wandered up the road and eventually found ourselves at Cushman No. 1 Dam.

Since we didn’t know the area, we just motored around. We found the Lake Cushman Resort, which has RV spots and a nice little store with a huge deck and dock area.

  
Then we found a terrific view point.

    

We also found Skokomish Park, which we thought was a State Park, but is actually privately owned. It has two campgrounds and a lovely boat launch area. We toured around one loop of the campground, and Coop had to pretend he was camping!

After we ran out of paved road, we decided to turn around and go back down to see if we could find a place to have lunch. After looking around for a bit, we decided not to try any local diners and went to the IGA store instead. The roast chicken looked good so we got some to go and headed out to Potlatch to have a picnic in the park by the water. The wind was pretty strong, but the sun was still out, so we claimed a picnic table and had our lunch. Food definitely tasts better when eaten outdoors!

We finally packed everything up and started heading back North. Since it was so windy, the boats were coming off the water as fast as they could and as we motored up the road, we saw long lines of pickups with boat trailers waiting to pull their boats out of the water. Fun day. 

On a more somber note, on the Canal we came to where there had been a fatal accident involving a motorcycle and a sedan, and they were letting alternating single lane traffic get by. Kind of put a damper on the day. It also served as a reminder that you may think you have the road to yourself, but just around the corner might be someone else, so stay in your lane.

Drive safe & happy motoring!

 

HURRICANE RIDGE BOUND

Hurricane Ridge is in Olympic National Park and accessed via Port Angeles. The road starts at the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center and continues up 17 miles, with a gain in elevation of over 5,000 feet. Also a mecca for serious bicyclists who want to test themselves against nature. Silly, I know, but I must confess to being one of those bicyclists a time or two myself thanks to a husband who has done that ride more times than anyone can count!

Up the road, Heart O’the Hills is the real entrance to the National Park and you will have to pay a per vehicle fee of $15 or if you have an Olympic National Park seasonal pass, it’s good for any ONP entrance.

Once past the entrance, the road twists and turns with amazing views around each corner. There are several viewpoints where you can take a photo op, and also three tunnels to go through. When you finally arrive at the top if it’s a clear day, the view of the Olympic Mountains is simply jaw dropping. The Ridge is a fantastic winter sport area, with skiing, snowshoeing, sledding and x-country skiing. The only drawback is road closures due to weather conditions…they don’t call it Hurricane Ridge for nothing! In summer, the Ridge is a great place to go for a picnic and a hike on the many trails in the area. The snow doesn’t leave until about June, but the road usually clears enough to safely navigate up without chains after April 1^st.

We had a great time motoring up the road, going through the tunnels and seeing the pretty lights on the dash, and looking up the mountains through the sunroof. Oh, I almost forgot…Coop turned 27000 miles on the way up!

It’s funny, motoring with Coop has opened our eyes again to the wonderful place we live. It’s like having a new car also gives us new eyes to see things through.

Once at the top, there really was not much to do but enjoy the view as we were in between seasons. Skiing is over for the year and there is too much snow to do anything else. An impressive amount of snow. Really, REALLY a lot of snow!
 

After taking many photos of the scenery, Coop, each other, and Coop in the scenery, we headed back down the road. We had great sunshine so had the sunroof open all the way, and I was taking some pictures out the sunroof at the mountains to the side when I noticed it looked like it was snowing. I  told Steve it was snowing and how cool is that? Then we realized it wasn’t snow, it was hail. Now those of you with a sunroof know the dilemma…do you close the sunroof then open again after the squall, or do you just go for it and leave it open? Well, we happened to be equipped with a sunscreen (what I call our screen door) so we closed the screen door and let it hail.

 

It never hailed so hard that it accumulated much, and only the tiniest of hail got through. The screen door was dry by the time we wound our way off the mountain.

 

Coop is an awesome car. We are constantly finding ourselves amazed by his cornering ability and the way he handles the road. Now, this sometimes is not a good thing for the driver because when you have to go the speed limit and Coop corners so well, it’s just not as exciting as when you are able to race around. At one point motoring up the Hurricane Ridge Road, Steve turned to me and said “Coop corners so well, I’m bored driving!” HA. Any other vehicle we had to brake and slow down for the corners. Ah well.

 

To get his fix of exciting driving, Steve headed Coop out to Piedmont Road where we still had good weather going for us. After navigating that frightening, ahem, exciting road, we turned east on Hwy 112 to head back home. On the way we realized we had not been to Freshwater Bay in quite some time so down the road we went. Freshwater Bay is a wonderful little place with a boat launch, a beach and a picnic area that’s open in summer. I have many vivid memories of picnicking on the beach, beach combing, kayaking, and so much more. It was one of my grandma's favorite places and you know how some places awaken a sense memory? Well, I can still taste her fried chicken and potato salad. Yum!

 

 

Over the years it seems Bachelor Rock has gotten smaller, but maybe my imagination is just larger than life here.

Life may not be perfect, but it sure can be fun.

Happy motoring!