A Room with a View

Kalaloch (clay-lock) Beach Campground in Olympic National Park is one of those stops that we planned months in advance – maybe six months – the day you could make reservations, we were on it!  It is the only campground in the park that takes reservations and it sits atop a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean with beach below… ahhh… And, when your trailer is 34 feet long, there are only certain sites you will fit into – especially in a national park campground – so you plan ahead.  But it pays off.

We pulled into (or near) our site around 4pm and saw that the trail to the beach was just across the road.  While I helped Matt get the trailer squeezed into its allotted slot, the kids rushed down to check out the ocean waves.  Matt couldn’t even hear me giving backing directions over the roar.  Yahoo!  Even with the fog rolling in, you could still barely make out the beach… and I couldn’t wait to get down there myself.  Since we are dry camping, that moment came as soon as we were parked and level (no hook-ups to anything means less work setting up).  At the bottom of the beach stairs, I was greeted with a “Beach Logs Kill” sign and giant piles of immense driftwood.  Wow!  It only took a moment to find the kids, who were climbing in, on, and around the “killer” logs.  I wonder if they read the sign…

We all enjoyed a relaxing evening overlooking the ocean.  After dinner the kids tried to build a campfire while Matt and I supervised from our chairs with beverage in hand.  We all watched our breath in the cold night air…until the chill sent in inside.  I could get used to this.  Snuggled warmly in our beds with our heads mere yards from the ocean, we were lulled to sleep by the sound of ocean waves pounding the beach below.