Hello Sequim lovers,Hope you enjoyed our hiking adventure to Lake Angeles in our last post and want to know more about our retired Sequim life. Having lived in Hawaii for so many years, we did not only notice the dramatic difference in climate and nature between the two states but there was another big life style difference. We noticed immediately that every second home had a recreational vehicle standing on their property, from small camper van to trailer and big RV buses. On our first outings around Sequim and Olympic National Park, we were impressed by the good size number of RV parks at all kinds of locations, rates and features.
A little while later, it must have been after our visit to Victoria B.C. on Vancouver Island, we thought wouldn’t it be nice to have a small unit ourselves, big enough to sleep and cook but small enough to still get some decent mileage with the ever rising gas prices and be able to drive comfortably. The search started! The Internet was the best way to go. We were lucky to find a nice camper van Coachmen 1991, really well taken care of by a couple living about 80 miles south of Sequim. They had already bought a bigger unit, as they wanted to take the grand children along for their trips. We liked the camper van, checked everything out carefully and drove it home the same day.
Our first longer visit took us to Bavarian Village in Leavenworth, after we visited long time friends from Hawaii
on Whidbey Island. Whidbey Island…beautiful place too! Our new motor home drove fine up into the mountains, even mastered the 4000ft pass without a problem. And Leavenworth turned out to be that wonderful place to be as announced online and in catalogues. We loved the setting in between forests and high mountains (must be gorgeous in winter!). You love gift shopping? No better place to be. Influenced, of course, by German traditions, like nutcrackers and wonderful Christmas pyramids. If you like German cuisine, plenty of restaurant choices there serving German dishes like Sauerkraut with Bratwurst or Wiener Schnitzel.Our KOA RV Park was totally meeting our expectations. Wonderful green settings with stream running by and panoramic mountain views. Swimming pool and Jacuzzi and very clean and modern showers and bathrooms made our stay complete. We met the nicest people from all kinds of places, from Canada and even Germany. Take your RV or motor home to Leavenworth. You will love it!
After that wonderful experience, we tried another short RV trip right here in the Sequim Port Angeles next to Olympic National Park area. Out ‘fishing’ class with Peninsula College in August helped us a lot. We did three field trips on which we were visiting secret places for fishing but also just for enjoying the great outdoors and nature. That information came handy with this RV trip.
We still went online for more RV park information and came up with some good search results http://www.nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/campgrounds.htm We went on our way with a short list of parks which we liked according to their location, amenities and fees. However, one never knows. We pulled in at least 3 parks and pulled out again for one reason or the other. That’s the advantage with a small camper van…easy getting into a park and easy driving out again.
After checking three parks, we decided to enjoy our day before searching further for the perfect RV park. We had a wonderful picnic at Crescent Lake and enjoyed a great hike to Marymere Falls. Scenery of both places is most impressive. We never thought we’d find so many mushrooms on our way and good ones, according to our knowledge. Next purchase will be a mushroom book (better be on the safe side). In any case, when it was time to get settled for the night, we decided for Shadow Mountain http://www.shadowmt.com/park.html , which has full hookup at $25/nt. Views were nice but Hwy was a little too close. Next night, we were much happier with the free RV Park next to the Hungry Bear Café (actually wanted to stay at the Hungry Bear RV Park as it has hookup but nobody was around to take our money). That park is next to the Sol Duc River, where quite a number of people go fishing. We hiked on a trail and must admit felt very lucky that some park rangers had marked the trail with pink ribbons. One can easily get lost there otherwise. After three days in the great outdoors, we were happy to make it back home to our comfortable bed and big house.
Stay tuned till next time from sunny Sequim!
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