olympic national park

My sister and I’s trip was too quickly coming to an end when we woke up in Forks one morning ready to make the long drive back to Seattle. Before we made our way back to the city, we had a few stops along the road trip back first!

We made it to Olympic National Park and queued up in the long line of cars waiting to drive to the top. Once we made it to the ticket booth, the road ahead was miraculously empty and we started making our way up. At first the road was gloomy - we were driving through thick fog which looked beautiful surrounding the trees at all the viewpoints we jumped out at.

Suddenly as we were driving, we break through the thickest part of the fog and find ourselves on the other side of the clouds where it was a beautifully sunny and warm day. We made it to Hurricane Ridge Visitor Centre where there were yellow wildflowers growing in the fields and a pair of deer grazing in the grass - mamma and baby.

We spent a couple of hours here looking out to the landscape of snowcapped mountains and doing a little souvenir shopping at our last National Park stop of the trip. Soon it was time to make our way back down through the clouds and into town.

Our next stop was the Olympic Game Farm where you can drive around and the gorgeous animals poke their heads into your car window asking for food. Here are the famous bears who wave back at you when you wave your hand! I think the day was too hot for them, so they were all lazily lounging around instead.

After being in the car for so many hours, my sister and I made one last stop for dinner on the highway before heading into Seattle where I will have one last blog post from our entire trip coming next week!

all photos edited with my NEW Washington Lightroom Preset

la push

How do I describe the feeling where you’ve wanted to experience or see something for years and you finally get the chance to do it?

Well, this was me when we arrived at La Push for the first time. But first, I need to start at the beginning. 

Our day starts in Mt Rainier National Park. My sister and I wake up in our wooden cabin to the sound of rain trickling in the forest surrounding us. By the time we were on the road, it was pouring and we couldn’t believe our luck that during our week in notoriously rainy Washington it only rained once during our transit day and not on any day that we headed off to explore a National Park. 

On our 5 hour drive, we zoomed down highways lined with beautiful pine trees, stopped off at cute country towns, visited the tallest Spruce tree in the world, took photos by placid blue lakes surrounded by fog and made it to our accommodation in Forks where we had to run from the car in the pouring rain to get out all of our things.

I was prepared to visit La Push in the rain - it doesn’t phase me too much - but the one thing I really wanted to see was a sunset over the water behind the mini mountains in the ocean. That afternoon we headed off to the beach (where my sister felt very weird testing out what it felt like driving on the opposite side of the road for the first time!) and with our luck during the rest of our trip in Washington, the clouds parted just as we arrived.

We spent the rest of our day walking up and down the beach, taking photos with the mountains in the background, exploring the giant driftwood washed up on the shore and we even managed to spot a seal swimming and having fun in the waves.

The day comes to an end and we get to experience that magical, red, glowing sunset I’ve always wanted to see in La Push. We took hundreds of photos and made our way back to Forks.

The adventure continues. 

all photos edited with my NEW Washington Lightroom Preset