We’re sitting at Olympic National Park on the first night where it’s actually cold going to bed. Last night we were sweating just laying (lying?) there. (We were in Sol Duc Hot Springs Campground last night). This post will have no pictures, because my service isn’t good enough for that, sorry!

We slept in Wednesday, recovering from our brutal slog on Tuesday (insert referral link to the previous blog entry here). After our oatmeal, apple, and peanut butter breakfast, we biked along a beautiful trail the approximately 20 miles into the town of Port Angeles. From there we went to Avis, and rented a Subaru Outback. (Testing for Mark and Darragh’s first car purchase in Bellingham). We we’re very excited with the car, fitting both bikes easily in the back, and celebrated by going to the local pizza place for lunch where we ate a LOT of pizza.

We then drove the 40 miles up to Sol Duc Campground, stopping along the way to view the river and other scenic points. We made note of a great cliff jumping spot, and then went up to the campsite! The car registered 95 while we were pulling into the campsite. Woof. Glad we didn’t bike.

We setup our tent and got the campsite setup. It was hot enough out that we were sweating just sitting there. So we biked down to the local “hot springs” to see if they had cold pools. But the hot springs was rather disappointing. It was essentially pools (with tile and everything) and some of them smelled like silver and were warm. So we opted to go back to the place we saw we could go cliff jumping! That was too far to bike, so we went back up to the campground and got the car.

Or attempted to get the car. It failed to start when we turned it on (dead battery). I think we had left a door open for about an hour, and the battery looked a bit corroded, so between that, something caused the car to not start. Thankfully, a guy traveling with his family (who i think was named Jesse) had jumper cables, and helped us out! And was also on a great road trip with his grand kids to all the National parks!

With the car started, we went back to our cliff jumping spot. After waiting a bit for the battery to charge, we went down and cooled off in the river. It felt amazing. We have some great photos we can upload later!

After the cliff jumping and swimming, we went to a restaurant in the park for dinner, and then to bed! We had a westerly morning the next morning to take the bus to Forks. Unfortunately, it was still way too hot out at sun down. Both Ryan and I slept shirtless with no fly on the tent and no sleeping bag over any part of our body. We were still sweating until midnight.

The next morning we woke up at 5:45AM to get to the 7:45 bus to Forks. We were worried about the bikes not fitting on the rack, but everything worked great! And the bus happened to be free today, which was a double bonus! So with the rental car returned, we made it to Forks with just our bikes, and bought food and snacks for the day. By 10 we were happy, cool, and on the road.

The first 10 miles of the ride we powered through. We were on a fairly busy road, and while the scenery was beautiful, we were just cranking miles. I think we averaged 14.5mph on that section, which was great, because it was slightly uphill!

From there, we turned into the park road. We still had 18 miles to go, but it was beautiful! We’re biking along the Hoh river, which is all glacial/snow melt, and it looks gorgeous. The speed limit for cars was 35 for most of the way up, and we had plenty of time to enjoy the area! We stopped lots to look at the river, and to go into shops! At one shop Ryan bought a new shirt and a pretty cool map of the area!

We made it up to the campsite by 3pm, setup camp, planned tomorrow, and went for a swim! It was a wonderful day.

Tomorrow we will bike to Kalaloch campground with in the park. We don’t have a campsite there, but they have a waitlist we’ll try to get our name on. If we can’t, there’s State Park land we can camp on in a pinch! But we’re optimistic!

For now I’m (for the first time this trip) zipping myself into my sleeping bag and sleeping!! Goodnight!