![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cowlesmountain.com\/Travels\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/HurricaneRidgeSaltCreek-011.jpg\")
<\/a>down at a large crescent-shaped beach with actual waves.\u00a0\u00a0 We were at least 30 miles from the ocean at that point, so seeing what looked like ocean waves was a surprise.\u00a0\u00a0 There was this nice looking campground on the other side of the road from the beach and we saw a few folks crossing the road to get to it.<\/p>\nWe kept driving and the road kept getting closer and closer to the water until the road started to climb a cliff along it and then turned in toward the highway, all the time getting narrower.\u00a0 It wasn’t wide to begin with and was just a lane wide when I decided to pull into a dirt road to check the map.\u00a0\u00a0 I noticed that we should have turned off at the park sign, so we turned around and headed back to it, passing the beautiful beach and wondering how cold that water was in the middle of July.<\/p>\n
Turns out that the park was bought from the military after it was decommissioned due to not needing 16″ guns to guard the entrance to the Puget Sound anymore. To think I really wanted to go to the rain forest, but the drive there and back was over 6 hours.\u00a0\u00a0 Way too much time in a car.<\/p>\n It was probably a 30-minute drive back home from Sequim.\u00a0 When we got back, a neighbor came over while I was still gathering stuff from inside the car and said he needed to apologize to me.\u00a0\u00a0 I asked what for.\u00a0 Turns out earlier in the morning I had asked why he had a small plastic step outside his coach where his automatic steps should be.\u00a0\u00a0 He mentioned they had stopped working recently.\u00a0 \u00a0I had asked if he had checked the magnetic sensors that are there right inside the door, and he said he had.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Turns out he hadn’t and it got him thinking.\u00a0\u00a0 Later he looked at them and they were not mounted back correctly after having someone install new carpet in his coach.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I can now see he has moved that plastic step aside and the steps are deployed!<\/p>\n On Saturday I got a text from Verizon that I had used $50 of International Roaming already.\u00a0\u00a0 I had to call them and it turns out while we were at Tongue Point my hotspot latched on to a Canadian cell tower.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I told them I wasn’t in Canada and asked them if they could turn off International Roaming.\u00a0\u00a0 They did and credited the $50 charges too.\u00a0\u00a0 Turns out its $2 per megabyte for international roaming data.\u00a0 Ouch!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We didn’t get on the road till after 1 pm on Thursday afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0 It was turning out to be one of the warmest days since we left San Diego over a month ago.\u00a0\u00a0 We headed west on the 101.\u00a0 \u00a0Yes, it’s 101 west up here where it makes a big loop around the Olympic Peninsula … <\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 They removed the guns but left the bunkers. \u00a0 They reminded me of the gun emplacements I saw in <\/a>Normandy many years ago.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After driving thru both bunkers, we headed over to check out the campground in the park.\u00a0 It <\/a>was quite nice, but was raised up from the beach below at least 50 – 60 feet, and the edge of the campground was eroding away with just orange barrels and netting to keep you from falling down it.<\/p>\n<\/a>While there, I programmed Hurricane Ridge into the GPS and we started out to find it while heading back toward our home base for the week here.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There was a lot of red on the map, and we figured out quickly what it was when we arrived at the beginning of the road that goes to the top:\u00a0 \u00a0road construction and lots of it, probably 10 miles of the 19 miles to the top.\u00a0\u00a0 That was a long, slow trip up the mountain, but worth the wait as at the top it felt like you should be singing Edelweiss in the Sound of Music. \u00a0 The scenery was spectacular! \u00a0 This could have been the place they filmed the mountaintop scene.\u00a0 Huge meadows and stunning views in all directions from a short hike to the overlook at the top.<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Lots of deer up there too.\u00a0\u00a0 Dusty would have been in heaven if we would just let him run free!\u00a0 \u00a0They didn’t appear to notice the visitors and would walk right past you as if you didn’t exist.\u00a0\u00a0 We <\/a>snapped a lot of pictures up there!\u00a0\u00a0 It was just such a stunning vista with all the mountaintops ringing the area; and if you glanced north, the view of the strait and Vancouver Island in Canada was right there too.<\/p>\n<\/a>We stayed up at the top so long that the road crew was all packed up on the way down, so we made it down in record time.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the way home, we decided to find another Mexican restaurant and we found one in Sequim with a large patio and pretty good food for being so far from Mexico.<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n