There was a number of cars backed up in front of us and all of the drivers were out walking around. We assumed that it was an accident that had blocked the 2 lane road but were quickly informed that it was a tree that had completely fallen across the road. Good thing we slept in, because it appeared that the tree had fallen during the night and they were just now clearing the 
way. They had already sawed through it with many chain saws, and as we arrived they were sending someone for a tractor to come and clear the sections off of the road. We only had to wait about 15 minutes before the tractor came rolling by and had the way cleared within minutes. When we finally arrived to the beach we were both taken aback by the beauty of the shoreline. There were large pillars of rock sticking
out of the ocean shoreline and giant waves crashing like a shotgun blast every couple of seconds. I'm sure what we saw was just a prelude to the pacific coast highway and we are in store for many such views, but for the time being, it
was stunning. There was supposedly a 1.5 mile trail to a place on the beach called Hole in Rock, which we had planned to take before leaving the national park and heading back to the city. When we got there we figured out that the "trail" was really just the beach front, which worked just as well for us. We debated what to wear, shoes or sandals, but quickly decided on sandals which proved to be the better choice in the end. As soon
as we got to the beach, I hopped right into the water, letting a huge wave come and overtake me getting not only my feet and legs wet as I had intended, but also soaking my shorts up past my knees! We took our time as we walked the beach watching with every step what the tide brought in. We had arrived at high tide so we weren't able to view all of the tide pools like we had hoped for, but we ended up finding enough to please our curiosity. As we walked, we spotted a sea otter just off shore, a star fish that had washed ashore, numerous bullwhip kelp, and even a dead octopus
that had washed up with the tide! The 3 mile round trip hike took us about 2 1/2 hours because of all the stops we made to enjoy the scenery, pick up rocks for our collection, or just poke washed up
sea life with a stick. The decision to wear sandals payed off big as there was multiple times that the tide overcame us while walking, not to mention a river that fed into the ocean which we had to ford. The
ocean was a perfect end to our Olympic experience, we could truly say that we did it all; mountains, rainforest, and beach. We hopped back in the car and completed our loop of the Olympic peninsula and headed back into rush hour traffic. Our destination was Camano Island, north of Seattle to
stay with one of my mom's boss's sister's and her husband; Jane and Levon. Thankfully the traffic wasn't as bad as the first time we traveled through, it was a Tuesday and people tend to stay later at work on Tuesdays vs. Fridays, but in the end it wouldn't have mattered if there was 10 times as much traffic. Why??? I had found the carpool lane!!! Since there was 2 of us, we qualified, and it was amazing. We flew past everyone, and sure enough, each car we passed only had one person in it. I couldn't believe that some of these solo drivers wouldn't just cheat and hop into this empty lane, but none did. I felt guilty being in it myself and kept expecting to get pulled over because it seemed so unfair. Utilizing this gold mine, we cleared all of rush hour in no time. Because we got through traffic so fast, that meant that we also undershot our ETA to our new hosts house, so to compensate for this, we stopped off to grab a bite to eat at Famous Dave's! I know its a chain and that we should be out trying the local fare, but sometimes you just crave familiarity, and BBQ! We had a spectacular meal and then carried on to Camano Island. We called Jane and Levon as we got close but no one picked up, they had gone out to dinner as well. They had told us earlier that they always leave their house unlocked and we were free to come whenever and just make ourselves at home. This was good in theory, but we had no idea how to get to their house. They had assumed that we had a GPS or internet and we would be able to find the house, but alas, we didn't. So instead we were treated to a self guided tour of Camano Island, at dusk. Our tour didn't last to long before we received a call and much needed directions. As we arrived at their place, we were greeted by everyone sitting outside on the porch eagerly awaiting our arrival. We were welcomed like family and shown into their house. We spent the night talking around the fire, getting to know one another, and plotting out our adventures for the next couple days. We decided that tomorrow would be spent taking a ferry out to the San Juan Islands to visit the port town of Friday harbor. We spent the night in John's room (their son) which was really cool. They live out in the country so there was no street lights, but the moon was full and shown brightly into the windows which created a perfect setting to doze off to.
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