Pacific Beach, Washington is sometimes wistful, sometimes dreamy, always pure peace and solitude. There are no crowds or colorful umbrellas; no spread out towels or portable radios. The smell is salt spray instead of SPF and the view is somewhere through the mist. It is a dream world lost in time to the hustle and bustle of Seattle metro. Somewhere far to the east is America’s westernmost north-south freeway, the I-5, full of fast moving cars, trucks, people and goods, all with someplace they have to be right away. Here on the Olympic coast, the only constant movement is the waves.
Dungeness crabs, sand dollars and starfish do a lousy job of hiding in the crystal clear surf at low tide. In a bounty of sea life, the gulls don’t bother with beachgoers’ crumbs and the people don’t bother what washes up on shore.
Take an access road until you run out of black top. Then keep driving until the waves are a tide’s distance from your tires. Park anywhere you like. Put your chair out next to the truck, zip on a parka on and hang. Fly a kite, ride your bike, play paddle ball, read a book. Nap, snack, stroll down to the 50 degree water to see what washed up on shore. Disappear in the rolling fog until the sun breaks through.
Such is life up on the Olympic peninsula. For a couple of east coasters, none of the familiar vocabulary translates. If you were looking to get your tan on, you are in for a big disappointment. No mini-golf or ski-ball, no boardwalk fries or caramel popcorn. Actually, there are no boardwalks at all. Some homes line up on the bluff that overlooks the wild coast. A combo gas station and convenience store and the Wacky Warehouse thrift shop with live radio station KXBP 89.1 inside comprises the town of Pacific Beach. No worries that this sort-of common name is also used by the popular neighborhood in San Diego. You could never confuse the two towns.
In between periods of thick fog, the sun shines. The summer temperatures rise to the mid 70’s but this last week of July 2020 is in the 60s. A steady wind blows on the beach that will fly a sport kite, and make you glad you brought a jacket.
Roxie is settled on a piece of Navy property a mile or so north of the town with forty RV sites on a bluff overlooking the beach. Campers come and go daily and we are the only out of state plate. Our theory is that western Washington is hard to get to for anyone outside Seattle/Tacoma and a visit is intentional, not along the way. Southern neighbors like California have their own Pac beaches and Eastern neighbors like Idaho and Montana have to go thru the Cascade mountains and the painful congestion of SeaTac. Why bother? You have to really want to come here if you’re not from here.
The draw of 10 days in Pac Beach for us was not necessarily the beach, but visiting Olympic National Park. Using the stow and go method of parking Roxie and taking off with tents, we could see southern Olympic National Forest, Lake Quinault and other natural attractions as day trips with Port Angeles on the Strait of Juan de Fuca as overnights. We’re now in day 5 with one day trip go and nary a stow. The tranquil draw of the quiet surf has slowed our pace. We came to check a park off the list. The coast pulled us in. If we are not careful, we could disappear here forever.
Nothing is convenient to this coastal part of the peninsula. It was more than a very boring hours drive to get to Lake Quinault Lodge, where people were scarce but life is good for plants and trees. Living in a temperate rain forest fed by Pacific storms that move inland and soak the area held in place by the Olympic Mountains to the east, the green moss and wild blue hydrangeas were thriving.
We took the 31 mile motor loop from the lodge through Olympic National Forest stopping for a short hike with mosquitos to see the world’s tallest Sitka Spruce. Pair that with a walk through Kestner Homestead to see barn remains and you’ve seen most of what the Quinault area has to offer.
The highlight of the day was a HTC (hummus, tomato, cuke) on toast sitting by a feeder river just inside Olympic National Park boundaries. Another place to get your alone on, but still not your tan.
We think (hope) we’ll make it to the Port Angeles area. At some point we will run out of food or water or reservations. Surely, that will get us moving. For now we are embracing remote and wild.
