We took a three-week road trip around the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 2017, and I am recounting our trip in a series of blog posts. You can read the previous posts here: Ashland, Portland, Bellingham, Vancouver, Seattle
Days 14-15: Kalaloch, Washington
We left Seattle and headed Southwest towards the coast and our next destination: Kalaloch, WA.
Kalaloch is technically not a city in its own right, but rather an “unincorporated resort area” within Olympic National Park. If you wanted to be even more precise, you might even say that we were actually staying in Forks which is the setting for the infamous Twilight franchise.
When the Twilight phenomenon swept the world about 10 years ago, I was already too old and jaded to be seduced by a story featuring sexy glittering vampires, but the impact of the book series on the culture at large is still intriguing to me. Even though Forks was a 30-minute drive from our resort, we did manage to fit a brief visit there into our itinerary. If the Twilight books did boost the town’s status as a tourism destination all those years ago, there is little outward evidence to suggest that the community takes much pride in being known as a place where teenage vampire kink fantasies are born (can you blame them?). I imagine that if you are a real, die-hard Twilight fan you could find a lot to appreciate about Forks that isn’t visible to the naked eye, but with our superficial knowledge of the book and movie series, we were disappointed with the lack of Twilight-related city ornamentation.
Thankfully our reason for visiting the Washington coastline was not to see Forks, but rather the Olympic National Forest. Alex had visited this same destination with his family many years ago and had been eagerly anticipating this stop on our road trip itinerary. He told me all about how lush the rainforest would be, and I was excited to see it in person.
On this trip, Alex and I took great care in making sure that everywhere we brought Cosmo was dog-friendly. We sat on outdoor patios in the freezing cold, frequently chose to eat in the car with Cosmo instead of leaving him alone, and we would always ask employees when the rules about dogs in any establishment were not explicitly stated. I appreciate and respect all the reasons why dogs are not allowed in certain places: Dog allergies are real, food safety is real, animal waste is real, noise pollution is real. These are all valid and reasonable, and as a dog owner, I am acutely aware of how irresponsible dog ownership can impact a community.
(Can you sense the impending “But….” yet?)
Despite Alex and I double and triple-checking that Olympic National Park absolutely allowed dogs, we had overlooked the part about dogs not being allowed on the single one-mile rainforest trail we had been planning to visit for months. When we saw the sign with the infamous slashed red circle surrounding a silhouette of a Labrador (it is never a silhouette of a Pomeranian – just sayin’), we were gutted.
We stood at an impasse. For 15 minutes we paced the parking lot while running through various scenarios, all of which would have resulted in one or both of us not getting to experience the trail. Alex and I are big rule-followers, so the choice to bring Cosmo into the park with us was not without the discomfort of knowing that we were waving a big, entitled flag. In our defense, we figured that our small, quiet, elderly dog who would be carried exclusively in his backpack (his feet literally never touched the ground within the park) for the entirety of our outdoor hike was as safe a way to bring him along as any.
In the end, Cosmo left nothing behind in Olympic National Park except the faint whiff of dog breath, and no one ever questioned us about his presence. We made a point to leave a small donation at the Visitor’s Center before leaving anyway.
After Vancouver and Seattle, I was revived by the slower pace of our itinerary at Kalaloch. Besides a couple car trips to visit Forks and the National Park, we mostly stayed within the grounds at our resort for two days. Situated on the coast, the Kalaloch Lodge has direct beach access from which we enjoyed beautiful sunsets and walks on the sand with Cosmo. At night we would light the wood stove in our cabin, drink wine, and play one of the many board games we had checked out from the main lodge. It was the perfect setting for me to reset my attitude and appreciate where we were, what we were doing, and where we were headed.
Before leaving on the last day, we got up early to visit the tidepools at nearby Beach 4. As the sun was rising, alone on the sand with no one else around, we captured some of the most breathtaking images of our entire trip. These pictures show the beams of sunlight as they poured in through the shoreline trees to reflect off the misty ocean air. I am not a spiritual person, but being on Beach 4 that morning was very special. Those beams of light made a small crack in my cold, dead, vampire heart.
Next stop: Pacific City, OR
