Day 271 of a Year Long Road Trip Along America’s Scenic Byways
Mount Walker
We started out the day taking a four mile dirt road up to the Mount Walker Viewpoint. There is both a north and south viewpoint. On a clear day, the Seattle area, Mount Rainier (the highest peak in Washington), Hood Canal with one of the longest floating bridges in the world over tidal waters,
Mount Baker, and several other peaks in the Olympic Mountains are part of the scenic panorama. Today, however, fog was the only view. Mount Walker is home to a handful of caches, though, so we picked up a few before bouncing back down to Highway 101.
Falls View Campground
A hop skip and a jump away from Mount Walker is the Falls View Campground in the Olympic National Forest. As the name implies, there is a view of a waterfall from the campground. We made a quick detour here to take a look. I started down a steep trail and then opted to turn around because there was not a soul around, and I didn’t want to risk falling on my stitches without being able to reach help. It’s amazing how something so minor can induce fear or change a thought process. The waterfall wasn’t that spectacular anyway so we moved on to Port Townsend and Fort Townsend State Park.
Fort Townsend State Park
Port Townsend, located at the entrance of Puget Sound, is a lovely coastal town. Busy enough for activities, yet quaint enough to be interesting. We just stopped for lunch before we continued to Fort Townsend State Park. We walked down to the beach for a view of the water, a bridge in the distance, and an industrial plant.
Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge
From Port Townsend, we turned west and followed the northern shore of Washington to Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. I was hoping to spot some Dungeness crab or at least find a place where they are on the menu – they are my favorite!
Petey and I walked along the bluff for a view of Vancouver Island and the Strait of Juan de Fuca before Petey got relegated to VANilla while I walked along the five and half mile Dungeness Spit.
Had I walked the entire length of beach which was littered with enormous pieces of drift wood, I would have reached a lighthouse, but an eleven mile walk was not in the cards for the afternoon. Instead, I inspected the pebbles which had washed ashore, checked out the drift wood, and watched the birds flit around.
For the night, I stayed in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Port Angeles, the largest city on the Olympic Peninsula and near a main entrance to the Olympic National Park. I figured this would be a good place to be in case there were any complications with my sewed up fat! ETB
Map of My Road Trip Across the USA
For a summary about my road trip across the USA, click HERE. For the interactive map, see the below link.
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Obviously you are on the mend which I find difficult to understand since your wound was really awful looking and large.
take care of that leg