Northwestern-most point has the secret

I woke up at Heart O' the Hills around 7:30 (maybe a little earlier) and I ended up waking up the rest of the kids at 8. I had everything from outside put away, but we still needed to disassemble the van sleeping arrangements before we could leave. Mary was on the bed with me, Joey on the front seat assembly, Lily on the bench and Katy in the hammock.  Once sleeping bags and mats were all rolled we hit the road, it was probably 9am.

Mary helped out by handing out breakfast. I had bought some orange and raspberry scones (which were AWESOME) and they also had some dry trix cereal. We had only about 2 hours drive to get to Neah Bay, following the shore of the Straight of Juan de Fuca pretty much the entire way.  We saw a cool sounding place down by the water called Pillar Point Recreation Area and decided to swing down and check it out.  It turned out to be perfect timing at low tide, and even though it smelled a little the kids enjoyed exploring the exposed rocks and had fun finding different shells and crabs (dungeness crabs I think, although I'm not sure). We were there from about 10:15 until 10:45.

Great campground. Would stay again.

Mary remembered to get a picture next to the NP sign

Cool clamshell

Biggest crab we found, about 2 inches 

I really need to be better at taking note of the time, I know Melissa would not approve of my approximations or inaccurate time estimates.

That being said, it was around 11:45 when we arrived at the Makah Cultural Center. This area is all part of the Makah Indian Territory and therefore visitors need to purchase an annual pass to hike or any other activities. We paid $10 for the pass, everyone used the bathroom (Katy was saying she could barely hold it in) and we headed out to Cape Flattery, the northwest-most point of the continental US.  It was a longer trail than I was expecting, but it still was relatively short at maybe 3/4 of a mile? This point was used by the tribe for a lookout, and they were probably there when the first explorers came with their huge ships into the Straight.  Joey says this was his favorite hike so far, and that everything didn't even seem real. It was an incredible view, and I agree with him that it seemed almost more fantasy. The pictures probably won't do this area justice (again) but Mary and I took TONS!  Even though the trail could be done in a shorter time, we spent at least 3 hours here, just enjoying the views. If I lived out here I could see visiting every week. You can really feel the soft, slow power of the water, eroding the cliffs more and more with every wave.

First outlook, Ocean side

Some sea caves on the Strait side

Joey climbing down lower using a rope

End of Trail: Furthest Northwest point of the Mainland US

Once we finally pried ourselves from the trail, we headed south to Mora Campground. This was another hour and a half drive, but it went quick enough. This was another FCFS campground, but like Heart O' the Hills, there were still plenty of sites to choose from on a Monday evening.  We ended up at site 32, another interesting site with some huge tree stumps. Lily found a huge banana slug near one of the stumps almost immediately. We set up camp a little, collected some firewood for later in the evening, and decided to go out to Rialto Beach, probably 5 minutes further down the road. Even though the kids were a bit hungry and some didn't really want to go, that quickly changed when we actually arrived. Piles of HUGE driftwood logs, millions of smoothed rocks, the beautiful backdrop and the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean kept them busy for another few hours.

Usually I would get a little bored and want to head back, but I just loved to see them all playing together, creating their own wave-dodging games, finding their own special stones... If they didn't get soaked and start complaining about freezing to death, I could have stayed with them for any amount of time.  We headed back to the campsite, started a fire, and eventually cooked the rest of the hotdogs, along with a pack of strawberries and the remnants of the doritos. Mary helped everyone get some roasting sticks and they had some more toasted marshmallows.  And then everyone decided to go to bed around 9pm.  I like that they have enough personal responsibility to decide they are tired when they are, and not fight sleep. I got them tucked in: Mary and Lily in the tent, Joey in the bed with me, and Katy on the van bench.  And they all fell asleep while I made sure the fire was out.

Milage is 149438 at the end of the day. No idea how many miles today or total, but we can get back on that horse later. I just wanted to enjoy the day with my kids.