Day 10: taking in the olympics

started the day with a run along the sidewalks/ bike path of port Angeles harbor. There's a spit of sand the path goes all the way out to, but you run through a couple paper mills to get there. Interesting at

least, if not gorgeous. Post run, we made the drive up to hurricane ridge to check it out. Not a ton of hiking up there and tons of people but great views of the mountains and a good lunch spot.

Wish I would have read up a little more on sol du sec hot springs before we drove down out next dead end park road. It was 14$ to get in and more like a pool than a natural hot spring. Kate wasn't super hot on the idea of hiking up here at first, but it ended up being a good alternative to the hot spring. We ended up with a nice hike up for a mountain lake. Only saw 2 other parties in a grand total of 5 miles.

Our problems for the day started there after. We had planned to camp at mora campground near the coast, but even arriving reasonably early, they we full. We tried la push camping next, but they had just sold their last site. Ironically, we were debating heading there first and had we done that, we probably would have gotten it. Emptied handed, we drove back into forks and looked into motels- all full.

It's also important to note right around here that the Jetta was increasing making grinding noises when we were stopping. Possible brake problems that made us increasingly worried.

 There isn't a whole lot down coast from here save a state park with 20 sites. We figured we might as well start driving anyway and swung by the state park just in case. Luck turned and they had a few sites still left. Cooked up some leftovers along with a hogie for a reasonable recovery of the evening.

We were in luck in the morning as forks had an auto repair open on Saturday. A youngish guy took a look and confirmed the need for new brake pads. They did not have anything in stock, but he was confident we could make it back to port Angeles. We called ahead and found a place that would take a look today.

So, here we sit, at a coffee shop, getting our brakes fixed. Kate's out for a run with some nice views of the paper mills again, I had to wait for the call from the auto shop. It's looking like the extent of our Washington coast experience will be forks and port Angeles.

Sometimes life gives you port Angeles. And you just need to squint really hard on your run and pretend that the smoke coming off the mills is just mist circling some tall mountains off in the distance.

And hey, we could have been stuck in forks.

Or Lemmon, sd

Or probably many other places without a view of the ocean.