Day 3 of 10 - 2019 Pacific Northwest Road Trip - Sequim to Forks

A last minute addition to the trip's schedule, the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge is a sandbar or spit––as it's called––on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, just south from Canada. At the very end of this long, 6 or so miles of sandbar sits a lighthouse, New Dungeness Light, built in 1857. We had too many road miles to cover that day to take on the 10+ mile hike, but maybe someday we'll return, conquer the walk, and be able to tour the lighthouse. I could have easily made a full day (or more) of Sequim and surrounding areas. I had planned to stop at a waterfall not far out, but we passed it on account of exploring the spit that morning and stayed along the coast. I love that you can find views of both the coast and of snow-capped mountains––it's not a common sight!

We stopped for lunch in Port Angeles at what is now one of my favorite lunch spots, the New Day Eatery, complete with smoothie bar and bakery. I'm not a huge veggie burger fan normally, but their seasonal special––sweet potato veggie burger––sounded like the essence of fall flavors and I had to try it. Another of us grabbed a pizza. We had smoothies. Everything was amazing. We left with all sorts of baked goods for the road.

We tried to make Cape Flattery that evening for sunset, but just missed it. Due to the onset of darkness, and some other complications (we did not have, nor knew, that you had to have a permit) we had to turn around. (For anyone making this trek, since this land is owned by the Makah tribe, you have to acquire a permit––a Makah Recreation Pass––to visit Cape Flattery and surrounding areas about Neah Bay. Unlike grabbing permits at parking lots, to which I'm accustom, you have to check in at local businesses to purchase, all of which run on their own hours.)

We spent the night in Forks in a unit that didn't look too impressive from the outside, but was recently redone and very clean on the inside. Our AirBnB host was overly caring, willing to make a run to the supermarket at 9pm on account of there being no paper towels for us (to which we said thanks but that's not necessary, we can surely live a night without paper towels). We ate our New Day Eatery goods before crawling into our beds.