Washington Coast Trip: Part 2

I'm back! :D
And ready to get some blogging done. I hope everyone's had a great week. :) I haven't had anything too exciting. Aside from me getting a second pair of Converse.... *Laughs maniacally*
   But yeah. Let's get on with this thing, shall we?
   ((So, I left off with us at Second beach...))

I might have drawn a certain nurse-bot in the sand....

Behold!!! Our mighty sandcastle!! 

Rock in the ocean with a little forest growing up out of it. There were many of these. And also a piece of driftwood peeking around the corner...

This is either a shrimp or some kind of weird bug whose name I can't remember....

Oh, how I love those waves!! 

One of the many jellyfish pieces we found. This one was little teeny tiny.

Misty green landscape... *Drools*

Okay. Look at this thing. You know what this is? It's a float. I don't know my languages very well, but is that writing not Japanese?! This thing floated all the way from Japan or somewhere to the Washington coast!! What?!

Misty rock and ocean... *Continues to drool*

I took so many pictures of this spot as we got closer and closer to it. So I did you all a favor by not posting all of them. XP

A sea cave. And a blurry photograph of my parents. 

I couldn't resist another shot of the landscape. 

There's a bit of a story behind this. One day, my mother and I were in the Walmart near where I lived. And I saw a Big Hero 6 towel. I showed it to Mom, and she endured my nerding with patience before we moved on. I thought for sure that I could bring some money next time and buy one. The next time we came, they were gone. Gone. So I continue to search fruitlessly. Until we go on our trip. In the Walmart in Port Angeles, I finally find another BH6 towel. We were actually in the Walmart to buy towels, so this was the perfect opportunity. I didn't pass it up this time around.

I just loved the mist and the ocean and the rocks and pretty much everything. 

From inside the sea cave. This was a really cool moment. The tide was coming in, so the waves would rush in through the crack and swirl around my ankles, trying to get to the back of the cave. Before they would be pulled back in on themselves and pushed aside by the next wave... I could have watched it all day. :)

The sun came out for just a minute, but it was still foggy, but everything was blue, and THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE SHOTS, OKAY!!!!! 

Birds, rock... Gorgeous view... 

The surrounding landscape. And some random lady who got in the way of my picture. *Shakes fist at lady* 

Heading back from Second beach. So, I actually touched this squirrel. He was so cute, and so focused on the nut he was eating I don't think he even realized I was there. I got about as close as my camera is in this shot, and put a finger to his fluffy little tail.  He then jumped a little, hesitantly took the nut out of his mouth, and eventually made his way into the undergrowth. 

The sunlight filtering through the trees

On Wednesday, my dad and brother took a day to do some fishing. So, we went to this river, and here are some strange and cool flower type things I took a picture of on the hike.

Another strange and cool flower thing

That evening we went back to Second beach. Today, the sun was actually shining! So, blue, blue, blue everywhere. :)

Foam and blue.... 

Family. <3

Behheh! I miss the ocean!!

There were so many cool tide pools. We saw so many starfish and sea anemones.... It was lovely.  

A sea arch.... 

Some sunshine and ocean.

And one last shot to wrap up this post and Second beach. :)

   There we go! Next week is the last part in this little series. I'll cover watching the sunset at Ruby beach, the Hall of Mosses, and heading home. Using no more than thirty pictures.... I might go a little over the limit I set for myself next week. 

   Thanks for reading/looking! :D Have a great week!

MR

Washington Coast Trip: Part 1

G'day, readers!
   Did everyone have a good week? I hope so! :D
   ((OKAY. So, I've got quite a few pictures to dig through for this post.... But I've got some really cool ones, so it'll be worth it. :) Yeah, that picture you now see floating at the top of my blog? That's one of the ones I took.
   Before I begin... I'm going to try really hard to not let this drag on and on forever and ever and ever. So, there will be 3 posts in this series, and each post will have NO MORE than thirty pictures. Along with a brief explanation underneath them. :) ))
   And now, let us begin!
   My family and I went on a trip to the Washington Coast a few weeks ago. We stayed in a little town called Forks, just a few miles away from the coast. Apparently, Forks is the town where the Twilight saga was filmed, or where it takes place, or something like that.
   Lemme tell you. There were whole STORES dedicated to Twilight, Twilight themed motel rooms, Twilight souvenirs. Twilight. EVERYWHERE.
   *Shudders* But, we didn't spend much time in the town itself. We were mostly on the coast, or hiking to the coast.
   The ocean was worth all of the Twilight everything. It was so beautiful. I mean, going to the ocean has been a dream of mine for a loooooong time.And I actually got to go and live that dream. It was amazing!!
   But now I'm rambling. Gahhhh. Okay, picture time. Here we go.

Watching the sun rise as we got up bright and early on our way! I think this might be the first time I've ever seen the sun rise before....

Here we are, a few hour later. We're close to Yakima, Washington at this point, and this is the barren wasteland we were driving through. It was hot. Like, 113 degrees hot. MISERABLE hot. 

Oh. Oh look. 113 degree weather, and our car catches on fire. ON FIRE. Well, something happened with the oil thing-a-ma-jig, causing it to burn... So we're driving down the road, about thirty minutes away from Yakima. And my dad spots Mt. Rainier. So he says, "Look, it's Mount Rainier!" Followed quickly by, "We're on fire!" Our entire trunk area was packed full of stuff, so we couldn't see behind us. And I guess that we were travelling fast enough that the smoke was just flowing right under us. But my dad glanced in one of the side mirrors and saw the smoke billowing up in our wake. So we jump out, dad opens the hood after a minute, sees the oil spilled everywhere.... Great. But we had some friends that live in Yakima that we were already planning on seeing. So they got a mechanic friend, drove out to the middle of nowhere where we were stranded, and drove us to Yakima. We actually had to get a rental in order to continue with the rest of our trip, but the damage wasn't too bad on our little ol' Blazer. Thus, after about an hour or two of detour, we made it back on the road. 

Skipping ahead a few hours. After eating lunch at this yummy little café, we continue on and spot this waterfall. Mmm, it was gorgeous!

Ah! Mt. Rainier itself! Stopped in a little pull in to get this picture. 

After a few more LONG, LONG hours of driving, we make it close to our destination. And through the tress, we see it. The thing we've been travelling over 10 hours to see. The ocean. We pull over on the side of the road, and take a trail a little ways down to get a good look. And there it is. So, I present to you, our very first glimpse of the beautiful Washington coast. 

We finally make it to camp that Saturday night and get everything set up. And we wake up the next morning and go to church in Port Angeles. Here's a picture of where we went. 

After this, we do a little shopping. Not enough shopping, not enough at all. We only visited ONE STORE. But, this is the store we went to, and it was seriously cool!!! It had just the kind of weird, out-of-the-ordinary type things that I so love. They even had Doctor Who Yahtzee, for all of you Whovians out there. ;)

Yes. YYYYEEEESSSSSS. After getting a calzone from Gordy's pizza, we drive back to Forks area, and head to our first beach, Rialto. Cue crazed excitement from all four members of my family. 

Another shot of the lovely ocean. 

Rialto was the rockiest beach we went to. I mean, rocks EVERYWHERE. But, I love rocks. And I also love this shot. 

Ocean again!!

Allow me to give you a mental image of Rialto. There's the wide Pacific ocean, then there's all of these lovely rocks, then there's piles and loads of twisted driftwood. And then there's this gnarly Pacific rainforest. I mean..... IT'S LIKE PARADISE, PEOPLE!!!!

I also love this shot. Very, very much so. 

Do you know how many pictures I took of the crashing waves?? DO YOU?!?!

Tully's coffee. Yum-er-oon. 

Hiking into.... Third beach. I think.... All of the different beaches kind of run together....

I also really like this shot. I just have this thing for mist..... 

THIRD BEACH!!!!

More of Third beach and the surrounding landscape. 

So, if you hike over this ridge by on Third beach, you reach this place called Taylor Point. It's supposed to be more secluded and all of that stuff. So we did. And wow. That was a pretty tough hike, hehheh. Here's an example of what we had to walk over.

Taylor Point!! And one of the many cool rocks in that area. 

Taylor Point again...

Here's a little sea cave/arch/hollow. You might note how the rocks have a neat reddish tint to them

Ah. Another shot of Taylor Point that I'm rather fond of. 

*Mimics fanfare* Ta-da! It is now Tuesday, and we are on our way to what I believe is Second Beach! Geesh, the landscapes and forests in this area were breathtaking! I almost liked them as much as the ocean.

I also have this thing for gnarly roots and the like....

Let's take a moment and appreciate the awesomeness of this tree. LOOK AT THIS THING!! It's practically screaming at me to build a tree house on it! It's even got a built-on slide for Millie's sake!

SECOND BEACH!!! This is my favorite of the beaches we went on. :)

And one last shot of Second beach before I wrap this ginormous post up. 

   WOW THIS REALLY IS HUGE!!!! But, thanks to all of you who stuck with it! I'm actually moving through this at a reasonable pace. I'm already on day three, and it's only part one! Yay!! XD 

    See you all next week, when I will continue to blog about this wonderful, amazing trip. 

   MR