Day 7: Lake Ozette to Bogaschiel State Park

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Written by guest blogger, Craig Skiles. (Post 8 of 14)
Originally posted here.
Commentary [in green] provided by yours truly.
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Saturday June 13, 2015, 77 miles (124 km) - Total so far: 349 miles (562 km)

We started on time today (6:30) because I am now aware of Sarah's little trick of popping out of her tent fully ready to ride. I seem to muck around with coffee and breakfast and toilet duties for an hour, all while clanging pots and crinkling plastic wrappers. Sarah just silently pops out fully formed and ready to ride.

Today we are going to camp at Bogachiel State Park. But first we must backtrack the 25 miles to Clallam Bay and then head towards the city of Forks on Hwy 101.

Riding the Ozette-Hoko road during the cool of the morning was a delight. We even had a chance to see a herd of Elk peacefully grazing in a clear cut.

Although it's sad to see clear-cutting,
it's helpful to know that there's a plan for reharvesting.

Once in Clallam Bay we again stopped at the Sunsets West Co-op store, where I had to buy more sunglasses to replace the ones lost at Lake Ozette. Amazingly they had a serviceable pair for the incredible price of $2.50 (Chinese imports at their best).

After climbing the coastal ridge and dropping into the Sol Duc River valley, Sarah stopped and said I should ride the beaver. I made it clear to her that I was a happily married man and that she shouldn't take advantage of our isolated location to force herself upon me.

Sarah shamelessly rides the beaver.
(Craig thinks Sarah has experience riding beavers.)

[Sarah: Oh dear lord almighty! An example of Craig's senility at its prime!]

With that embarrassing misunderstanding behind us, we hammered on toward the city of Forks. Once there, we stopped at the city park and ate all our remaining food so that we would have room to put new goodies into our panniers. The park has a nice covered pavilion at which to eat, but the restrooms had been vandalized and were locked. The portable toilet provided was even too disgusting for me.

Craig's city par lunch concoction.

[Sarah: Though Craig and I both like the 4Ps (Pringles, Poptarts, Peanut Butter, and Pancakes), we do have some differences in our lunch preferences. Here is the recipe for Craig's lunch concoction, shown above:

Olympic Peninsula Spicy Wrap

• Spicy Black Bean Dip (from Trader Joes)
• Oscar Meyer Salami Slices
• Sharp cheddar cheese, chopped (the cheaper, the better)
• Spicy sauce (generously donated by Jack-in-the-Box)

Snuggle all ingredients within a flour tortilla and enjoy.

I'm more..."mellow"...in my lunch preferences. Think tortilla, beans, and tomatoes.]

Next we stopped at the very nice library in town and enjoyed two hours of free wifi and phone charging. The library is modern, professionally run, and a great asset for the city of Forks.

Sarah at the library.
Notice the mess of pluggage!

[Sarah: I've learned a lot about Craig on this trip. For example, I've learned that Craig has an amazingly knack for taking the most unflattering photos. (Case in point, above photo). When I called Craig out on this, he told me that his wife, Dianne, will often ask to look at the photos stored on his phone (or whichever device holds his photos). She'll browse through the photos and secretly delete all the photos which do not have her seal of approval. Craig is married to one helluva smart woman, eh? Note to self: Adopt Dianne's sneaky photo deletion methods.]

Craig at the library.

Then we went grocery shopping. Since the state park was only five mile out of town, I bought a chicken and a beer and planned to have a feast this evening.

At Bogachiel State Park, we took a hiker/biker site and briefly met Toby, a bike traveler from Germany who is on an extended trip on the west coast of the United States. We took showers and enjoyed the cool evening with the feast we had prepared.


Today's route: