This August has been quite an adventure for us. This month marked the anniversary of our first year in Seattle and the Northwest; the month that we said goodbye to our first home here and settled into another; and the month that we get to visit with our family who live 1000, 1500 and 2500+ miles away respectively.
Last week, my family who splits time between Phoenix and San Francisco, were in town to experience their first summer in the Northwest, and we decided to show them all that Western Washington has to offer, by taking them to the Olympic Peninsula.
We embarked from Seattle on a ferry (which is always exciting for me, no matter how many times I've taken one), then traveled to Kingston, Washington and then on to Port Angeles, to spend our first night on the Olympic Peninsula.
We woke up early the next day, and stopped by Crescent Lake to take in it's early morning beauty and have our coffee.
We then continued on to Ruby Beach, one of the most scenic and one of our favorite beaches on the Washington coast. It is now my family's favorite as well.
We had such a great time exploring there!
Our final stop of the day was a hike through the Hoh Rainforest, which has some of the most striking green trees and shrubs that I've ever seen.
It's annual rainfall is 140-170 inches (or 12-14 feet).
After all the traveling we did around the coast that day, we decided to make our way back to Port Angeles for the night so we could wake up at Hurricane Ridge the next morning.
Our decision to begin our next day at Hurricane Ridge was probably one of the best decisions we've made. The fog, the clouds and the views were breathtaking.
We then made our way home back to Seattle after a great weekend spent exploring.
But of course, we're already looking at the map for a spot to go on our next adventure.
Note: We will be traveling and visiting family again soon, so be sure to check back next month in September for another one of our explorations.