Sequim (pronounced “Skwim”)
This town was our first stop on the official Olympic Peninsula. This place was on the top of the list for the most anticipated location throughout our journey. There’s just so much to do; it’s captivating! The diversity of opportunities to explore the natural beauty of the OP is abundant. From snow-capped peaks of pristine mountains, the surreal experience of hiking in the Rainforests, to Ocean beaches, to the water itself and all it’s sea life we had a blast. We stayed in Sequim for 6 days, (“Rainbow’s End RV Park“) and literally wanted to extend to several more, but we ran up against the annual Lavender Festival which had the town booked for months prior. Sequim was named “2017 Best Northwestern Small Town” by USA Today and we certainly agree. Due to the “rain shadow” caused by the Olympic Mountains, Sequim is one of the driest places in Western Washington. It averages just 16 inches of annual rainfall (as opposed to the rainforests in Forks and Quinault with TEN FEET of annual rain!)
(4 of 6 of these Days will be covered separately with their own blog entries)
Day 1: a visit to Dungeness Spit.
Day 2: a very scenic drive along the Juan De Fuca Hwy 112 over to the northwestern most point in the contiguous US, Cape Flattery. Neah Bay, the Makah Indian Tribe, Shi Shi Beach, and Lake Crescent.
Day 3: Ventured into the Olympic National Park on the Hurricane Ridge.
Day 4: Port Townsend – explored the maritime town and took a hydrofoil boat out to Watch Whales!
Day 5: a full day to have fun at several Lavender Farms.
Day 6: a very full day taking the Ferry over and back from Port Angeles to Victoria British Columbia on Vancouver Island in CANADA.
Pictures of Dungeness Spit (album 36)
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Dungeness Spit & Lighthouse
On Friday afternoon, Caleb arrived to Sequim to join us for the weekend. Since sunset doesn’t occur until 9 PM or so, we had plenty of time to hop in the car and drive the 3 miles over to the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. It’s a beautiful place and sanctuary to shorebirds, marine life and mammals. Many trails offer walks into the woods to spot black-tailed deer, or choose the wetter option which we did by taking the trails leading to the beaches. A bit underprepared, the winds coming off the water of the Strait of Juan de Fuca kept us from hiking too far down the Spit. This spit is the longest naturally occurring sand spit in North America at 5.5 miles long. Had we been better prepared and it been earlier in the day, we may have done the 11 mile round trip hike out to the Lighthouse, which was built in 1857 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. A very cool place to play on the beach; one side being the choppy/windy seaside, the other being a calm marshy bay, delineated by a natural log jam pile that many have built shelter forts from logs to get out of the winds.
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Purple everywhere!
Sequim is known as the “Lavender Capital of North America”. We were just a week early and missed out on the annual Lavender Festival held the third weekend in July. Yet the joy of strolling through field after field of purple scent was celebratory enough. There are over 25 Farms scattered throughout the countryside, all easily spotted when driving down the road by purple flags on the fences. Most of the farms also have orchards of other fruits and berries: strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, boysenberries, blackberries to name a few.
We visited one of the U-picks, where they hand you a small sickle and send you out to collect your very own bouquet. Interestingly, there are over 100 cultivars of lavender plants – some are short and bushy with loads of blooms, others are longer stemmed, and the colors run from faded pastel purple (almost white) to electrically charged neon purple. It was fun to select a wide assortment to bring back and scent the RV for days. Visit http://www.sequimlavender.org for more about each Farm and Shop.
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