Yeti on Spring Break!

I did such an amazing job not murdering my family as I did all the work to prepare us for a 4-day Spring Break trip that I… well, did all the planning, prepping, and packing so I could go play for a bit.

We headed to Sol Duc Hot Springs on the Olympic Peninsula–and there is no “ugly time” to visit this area! There is an RV campground–really, just a potholed dirt parking lot with hook ups–just across the river from the hot springs and resort (“resort”). We did the hot springs a few times– Mama LOVES hot water! There are three spring pools, at 103, 101, and 99 (wimpy!) degrees. And then one giant swimming pool, also fed by natural, but less preferred, springs, and my understanding is that pool is 55 degrees year round. I got pretty good at warming up, jumping in the cold pool, swimming accross the long way until I had a brain freeze, and then defrosting in the hottest pool. Kyla, as predicted, was my buddy in all such nonsense…and the others weren’t.

Our campsite also connected to the Sol Duc waterfall trails and Dwayne, Kyla, and I bundled up to explore. We had umbrellas, snow clothes, and tough boots–and needed them all on this April mountain trail.

There was a small restaurant at the hot springs where we played our favorite games while waiting for our food: cribbage and Does Mama Like Beer Yet?

That’s a no.

After a few nights, we headed back inland and again passing Crescent Lake, stopped by Marymere Falls for a Mama-mandated 1 mile hike to the falls. Let’s just say I’m writing this 7 months later, and I still remember the bad attitude from Thing 3 and the abosolute detonation of Thing 2, who is not shown in any pictures. Definitely a classic “I like this enough for all of us” hike.

We did one night at Dosewallips State Park, on the west side of Hood Canal, and I finally, finally got my herd of tall, skinny cows! Dwayne calls them elk.

I really liked this park–lots of exploring to do, as the park is connected to a river and tide flats, as well as several nature trails hugging the campground from the other side of the water. And I love it when engineers have a sense of humor in their christening of bridges.