Traveling the Gold Coast Highway

It’s been an interesting few days since my last post. I left the northwest coast of Washington and headed south along US 101, otherwise known as the Gold Coast Highway. My first stop was at the Hoh Rain Forest, which is just a few miles off the highway. I was expecting something more impressive, but it was really just a lot of mossy trees. It was interesting to see how more quickly the trees grow there than elsewhere, and the roots were pretty interesting, however there wasn’t much WOW factor. While I was hiking the trails and left Karma in the parking lot, a fellow Canuck wrote in the dust of my rear window “Cathedral Grove on Van Isle is much better – a fellow Canuck”. I’d have to agree! I fell in love with those giant trees. I did see some very large trees along the highway though, where they post simple signs like “Big Pine Tree” or “Really Big Tree” and when you drive in, that’s just what’s there, one really big tree. When I stopped at the huge cedar, a couple of rushed Americans remarked “well at least we didn’t have to walk a ½ mile to see another dead tree” and they hit the road without really making it up to the tree and took no photos. They passed up on a really cool tree. It had hollowed out quite a bit at the base, and I went right into the tree cave…kind of reminded me of a book I read years ago about a young boy who lived inside a tree one winter, called “My Side of the Mountain”. Look for the Tim Horton’s cup in several of the big tree photos…you can barely see it in some, but be sure to click on the photo to enlarge it and then look. And no, there have been no Tim Horton’s along the way in the US, I just found used one I had from Friday before I went south of the border. I may keep it for a while for perspective. Hint - it isn't in the photos of the mossy rain forest trees...

I camped at the Hoh Rain Forest, although it was rather hot and dry…apparently they get the most rain in the fall, winter and spring. From the Hoh, I traveled south along the 101, stopping at Ruby Beach to see the “stacks” which are much like the Hopewell Rocks in New Brunswick, very picturesque. I took one of the photos from inside a small cave I climbed into. From Ruby Beach I drove along the 101 to the Moclips highway and headed for the beach. I found a gorgeous beach at the bottom of a rather steep hill, and the cool thing about the beach was it was hard packed sand that everyone drove on. I was a little leery at first, but then realized the sand was very hard packed and it was unlikely I would get stuck in the sand. I parked Karma and set up for the afternoon. I read, I wrote, and I swam…well, I waded. The water was significantly warmer than the frigid waters off the west coast of Vancouver Island, however the surf was very rough with row after row of cresting waves crashing down simultaneously. So I went in as far as my waist, and let the waves wash over me. Very refreshing, and the sun came out for just a short period, pretty much while I was in the water, and then went into hiding once again.

After a lovely day at the beach, I packed up to head to a campground for the night, and headed up the hill. That’s when trouble started. It was a rather steep hill and not being able to thunder across the beach to gain momentum to get up the very steep hill, I had to drive in low gears. First was too low, and second was still a bit low as the engine revved at about 3500 rpms or more, so I chucked it into third…big mistake. Big friggin’ mistake. The van stopped dead and stalled out on me and I started to roll backwards down the hill. HIT THE BRAKES!! Uh-oh…the brakes are not nearly strong enough to stop the van going backwards downhill. Karma went flying down the hill backwards like a god damned freight train! HOLY SHIT!!! The van was pretty much out of control and careened down the hill towards the beach. Not wanting to take out whatever was behind me, I tried to veer off to the shoulder at least and before I knew it, Karma SLAMMED her ass into the grassy bank of the ditch next to the shoulder, stopping just a few inches from a large tree. As we hit the bank, everything on the dash went flying towards me and everything in the back shifted all over the place. What a mess. I shakily got out of the van, checked out the damage, which didn’t appear to be too bad, but could have been much worse. Then the realization hit me that Karma could very well have slammed into another car coming up the hill, or worse, some people walking up the road from the beach. That would have been utterly disastrous, and this journey would have come to a screeching halt. Thankfully none of those things happened and I collected myself and called AAA for a tow. I sat in the van to wait for the tow truck and it was unbelievable how many Americans drove by without stopping and worse, how many drove by, slowed down to rubberneck, and then kept on going without even asking if I needed help. Assholes. The first car to stop was an Asian couple who offered their help. After that, a few cars did stop and offer their help, including one gal who said there were some boys with some pretty big ass trucks on the beach who could probably pull me out. Thanks, but AAA was on its way.

Karma was towed out of the ditch pretty easily, and once we took the mud out of the exhaust pipe, and assessed the damage, it didn’t appear to be too much, just the plastic corner guard on the bumper was ripped off and another dent in the chrome bumper. Phew, no big deal. Only we couldn’t get the van started, and there appeared to be gas dripping out through the exhaust system. Okay, maybe you better tow me to the top of the hill and we’ll try to start it, but no go, engine was too flooded. I was towed to the nearest campground down the street, and he dropped me into my site. It was 7:30pm by this point and no auto shops were open. The tow-truck driver felt it might start in the morning once the gas that flooded the engine evaporated. It didn’t, and I called AAA again for a tow to a repair shop in Ocean Shores, about 22 miles away. Moclips is just a tiny little town with few services. The repair shop was busy so Karma and I had to wait our turn, parked in the back. I stretched out on the bed and read for hours until the mechanic came to fetch us. He couldn’t find any real significant issues, but went through the system methodically, checking for air supply, gas supply, spark, etc. He cleaned the plugs, and put a charger on the battery as we had tried to start it so many times, it was beginning to labour. And then it started. He didn’t see any damages under the van, so the only real damage was the bumper…big whoop. Phew, it could have been so much worse, and I was getting out of this mess with just an $87 bill. He noticed my alternator belt was quite worn, so I had him replace that as well, and then I drove off. I had had visions of a huge bill because I ripped out the transmission, careening downhill backwards in first gear (which I wasn’t even sure of as it all happened so fast). I also had begun planning what I would do if the van was a write-off, fearing the worst. Thankfully, we both came out relatively unscathed, but I have to admit, I was pretty shook up about the whole thing, mostly over what COULD have happened, not what did happen.

So here I sit in my van, writing this post, as the misty Washington fog lays a thick blanket over the town of Ocean Shores. I’m parked at a run-down RV park next to the beach. Checking in was interesting to say the least. The RV park office was in a steam bath of a mini-home(trailer), and the campground owners were an aging overweight drawling bald white guy, and a very aloof Mexican gal carrying an ugly dog in her arms. It took forever to check in, as he asked me the same questions over and over again, and at one point, answered the phone and was talking to both of us at the same time. The dude on the phone didn’t quite know what he wanted and bald white guy had him on speakerphone so we all heard his humming and hawing. Bald white guy apologized for being so scattered, stating that he and the missus had not had any sleep in the last 24 hours…I didn’t ask why…

The park is pretty run-down, with filthy bathrooms that appear to be falling apart. They claim to have internet access, but not at my site, which is not very far from the office. I’ll have to go back to the steam bath and post from there I reckon.

So next stop? I booked into this dump until Saturday when I leave for the Gorge again. Van Morrison plays on Sunday night, but my camping pass is for the whole weekend, so I thought I might go a night early and meet some folks who might be there for the Van show. The weather forecast for the Gorge this weekend is stinking hot at 30C and absolutely no shade at the campground. Good thing beer and ice are dirt cheap in the US…