Disasterous Camping Trip = Fun

We packed up the car, baby and dogs and headed to the Hoh Rainforest on Friday afternoon. We planned on staying in Forks at a hotel the first night (yes - the current home of Twilight fever). We ran into our first problem on trying to reach Forks. There are two ways to get to Forks and they are equal distance from Seattle, but in opposite directions. The way we went led to the bridge - that had closed for repairs the night before. So we turned around and went the other way. Our 3 1/2 hour drive took close to 6 hours. At least we drove through some beautiful scenery.

Saturday we headed to the Hoh Rainforest inside the Olympic National Park. It lived up to it's name. We got a great campsite right by the river, and it stopped raining long enough to put up our tent. Kendra promptly settled in for a nap. Dan and I worked on putting a tarp over our picnic table to try and have a dry place to eat. It worked great, until the wind started. The crazy wind ripped the tent stakes out of the ground and flipped our picnic table tarp all over the place. And it was freezing.

It basically rained all day. Dan and I finally rigged an umbrella to the baby backpack so we could go on a little hike. We did a 3/4 mile loop called the "Hall of Mosses." It was beautiful - even in the rain.

After a wet and miserable night, we woke up to bright sunshine, cold air and the relaxing sound of the river flowing by. We packed up and headed to Ruby Beach a few miles down the road. We took the dogs and Kendra down to the beach. It was gorgeous! Mickey and Turtle loved it, but were unsure on what to do with salt water. Both tried to drink it, then settled on chasing the foam from the waves.

We arrived back home yesterday afternoon. After a nice, long, HOT shower, I crashed for a nap. Dan played Xbox with our neighbor and started laundry. Everything smells like campfire smoke and dampness.

Despite the rain and cold, I'm already planning our next adventure. Perhaps Mt. Rainier for Father's Day weekend...

We' ve Been Busy!

It's been a busy couple of weeks! Here's the basic recap...

November 9 was Dan's 33rd birthday. To celebrate, we invited a bunch of friends over for some smoked ribs and BBQ chicken - and of course carrot cake. We had a wonderful time, and Dan's ribs were beyond amazingly delicious.

On the 10th we went to see Cowboy Mouth at the Tractor Tavern. It was an awesome show! It's only Dan's 5th (or is it 6th) time seeing them, but he still loves them. We enjoyed a great sushi dinner with Hemant beforehand at a new sushi place in Ballard that just opened.

The week went fast, as week's do. I joined a Mom and Tot Weight Loss Challenge. It's a group of mom's who meet weekly with kids in tow to learn about nutrition and talk about the challenges of loosing weight as a mom. How do we fit in exercise? How do we instill good nutritional habits in our kids? Things like that. We all paid $40 to join, and $10 goes to a charity that helps to fight childhood obesity. The rest goes in a kitty and whoever looses the most weight at the end of the challenge, wins the kitty!

Friday we got a wild hair and decided to make the most of where we live. We packed up our camping gear, Kendra and some food and headed out to Ocean City State Park. We arrived after a deluge that left many sites in the camp underwater. We were able to find a good, relatively dry site, though, and as a bonus it was on the trail to the beach. The Pacific Ocean was about 1/4 mile from our campsite, with nothing between us but the dunes. Laying in our tent that night we could hear the waves crashing on the sand.

We wandered to the beach as soon as our tent was up. Dozens of people with lanterns were wandering up and down digging for clams. Apparently we stumbled into the middle of clamming season. It was fun to watch and we talked to some people about the technique for finding the little buggers. You need a "clam gun" to dig into the sand, so next time those little guys better watch out - we'll be digging too!

There were bonfires on the beach, and a few cars driving around. The waves were huge and beautiful. I loved every moment of it. We went back the next day as soon as we were packed up. It was just as wonderful in the bright light of day. We met some of the clammers from the night before and they relayed how nutty the RVers thought we were - camping in a tent with a baby in November! We had plenty of toasty warm clothes for her, though, and she slept in the sleeping bag with me. If anything the poor child was hot! We're assuming she enjoyed it - since there is no evidence to the contrary!

After a quick drive on the beach (I've always wanted to try that!) we headed for home. We took the long way back and drove up the coast. It was beautiful! We arrived back tired, smelling smoke and sea and thoroughly happy with our adventure. Check out some of our pics here.

Dan is in NY all week, so I get to play single mom. It should be quite interesting!