slow and steady wins the race?

7/14 (Day 3) After our very long day getting to Port Angeles we decided to take it easy on this day and hang out in Port Angeles for a while with Colby and Dave. They made us a delicious breakfast and then took us on the Port Angeles tour.

First, we went downtown to pick up a few things and then headed out to the spit (narrow piece of land that juts out into the harbor). We passed the paper factory which was very stinky and obnoxious, then hung out for a while taking in the awesome views of the Olympic Mountains. After that we headed up to Hurricane Ridge. It's a park really high up in the mountains that gives you 360 degree views of the Olympic peninsula and an awesome view of Mt Olympus. There is still snow on the ground up there even though it was 70 degrees out. We hung out up there for a while and took some pics. After Hurricane Ridge it was time for some lunch. We grabbed some paninis (Ethan got Subway) and took them back to Colby and Dave's. After we filled our bellies we decided it was time to go.

We only had about 30 miles to go so we thought we would get to the next campsite with plenty of daylight left. But, we did not account for the fact that our muscles were still VERY sore. The going was really slow again, but we did get ice cream, go down some seriously big hills and got to ride along the coast of Crescent Lake. Ethan took some pretty cool videos of the views with the GoPro camera attached to his helmet. It was beautiful and made the ride worthwhile.

About 5 miles or so before the campground we stopped to check out Marymere Falls. I decided it was too much of a hike for me and we were running out of daylight. It would be faster if Ethan went alone and got some pics. He decided to run there to make it even quicker. He did the 2 mile out and back hike in 20 minutes and got some great pics of the falls.

When we finally made it to the campsite we pulled up and the sign said it was full. Just as I was about to burst into tears, a girl from a group that had passed us earlier invited us to stay at their site. We were saved! We are so thankful for nice people :] We got there pretty late so we ate dinner in the dark (which consisted of one small can of chili from Colby and some crackers...we were planning on going to the store there, but since we got in so late it was closed).

The campsite was mostly concrete so we found a spot in the corner that was softer. Unfortunately, it was on a hill so our sleep wasn't nearly as good as we needed it to be. We tossed and turned, but were very thankful to be at a campsite and not in the wilderness!