This morning was a little slower morning because the only thing on the agenda for the day was to drive a few hours to Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park. We packed up all our stuff…including an entire load of laundry which was scattered around the hotel room on various surfaces because the dryer didn’t really work.
Below is a rough photo (with maybe 1 or 2 extra bags) of what we pack/unpack each day. We have worked really hard to try and cut down on it but we just can’t find a good way. To the kids, it’s just magic and everything they need just appears where/when they need it.
We drove up to Ruby Beach and got lucky snagging a parking spot right at prime time. We had to circle a few times, but other people seemed to give up really easily and just left the parking lot and missed out on the beach. We spent our usual 30 minutes out of the car before leaving where we pack up the hiking bag, make lunches, switch footwear, go to the bathroom etc. It really is a production!
We hiked down to Ruby Beach which really is cool because you approach it from pretty high up so you can see up and down the beach which is littered with massive pieces of driftwood and man-made teepees.
The adults ate their lunches on a piece of driftwood while the kids played in a driftwood teepee they found. After lunch I had to bring Brooke back to the top to visit the bathrooms and she met her match in line. Usually, Brooke is the kid who is super energetic and friendly. Well, behind us in line was a 4, 6, and 8 year old who shared those same personality traits and had been cooped up in a car for 3 hours. I think this was the first time I’ve ever seen Brooke be overwhelmed by people 😀
Afterwards, I played with Beckett by the water while Jaclyn and Brooke explored the tidepools in the rocks. Beckett literally kept himself entertained with a plastic cup from Best Western for almost an hour.
INSERT GROSS TIDEPOOL THINGS
—> Hi, it’s Jaclyn, taking over this part of the blog! Jay asked me to edit this post and I found the all-caps text above haha! In my opinion, tide pools are not gross at all, and in fact, quite exciting and interesting! We were trying to find a starfish, which we didn’t come across, but we did find this cool sea anemone.
Brooke and I explored for quite awhile and I was proud that she came along, despite being slightly out of her comfort zone climbing over and around the slimy barnacle-covered rocks. She gave me a big compliment by saying I reminded her of Jack from her Magic Tree House book because he is the “brave one.” It was a fun little excursion for us girls, while Jay and Beckett stayed safely behind on dry land.
After we all re-united (and Jay took a small beach nap) we walked around to a little pond towards the back of the beach. There were infinite stones to throw into the water and we all had fun making bit splashes and skipping rocks. Brooke also decided to try and engineer a bridge with some of the driftwood.
We left the beach in late afternoon and only had a 40 minute drive to Forks, WA, however we could tell Beckett was so wiped out that he may not make it to the hotel awake. We asked Brooke if Beckett was sleeping, since it’s hard for us to see him clearly in the mirrors. Brooke’s response was, “his eyes are heavy.” The next song that came on in the car happened to be “Heavy Eyes” and he was fast asleep. Just another funny coincidence of timing!
We got to Forks and Jay and I worked quickly as a team to make a pasta dinner, get the kids bathed and in bed so they could get to sleep for the night.
Forks is the town that the Twilight series is filmed in. The town itself is really rural, but it did have some pretty views. I went for a nice evening run and found a boat launch and some river views. It was a nice way to wind down for the day.
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