Good Night, USA: Last to see the Sunset!

Knowing that we had to leave Portland by 10AM this morning, we had 2 choices:  (1) get up early and take a 6mi bike trip/walk around, or (2) sleep in a little, grab a casual breakfast, and hit the road. Even though I really wanted to take a bike ride around Portland, I was more thankful to sleep in a little bit than wake up at 5AM. It’s on the list of things to do the next time we’re back!

We checked out the breakfast our hotel offered, hoping for the free, continental-style we have gotten used to with our Best Westerns and Comfort Inns. Alas, there was minimal food available (granola and yogurt, basically), for $10 each! We left, and headed to Pearl Bakery, which did not disappoint! David and I went to a wedding about 2 months ago where I had gruyere cheese for the first time, and I have been obsessed with it ever since. Needless to say, I was so excited to find a ham & gruyere croissant! Everyone else’s breakfast was delicious, and Amy even got some super photogenic hot chocolate. We left the bakery, retrieved Xena, checked out of the hotel, and hit the road for Cape Alava (the westernmost point of the lower 48). After this trip, we will have hit all four corners of the contiguous 48. We saw the sun rise at the easternmost point last trip, so our plan for this trip was to watch the sun set at the westernmost.

I drove for the first 3 hours, on a beautiful, winding road (Highway 4 up the Washington coast). My only complaint is that there were not nearly enough truck passing lanes. Getting stuck behind a logging truck with sketchily-secured logs was not exactly comforting, and very Final Destination-ish. Shudder. Anyway, I wasn’t exactly driving slowly (I was loving the windy roads and putting my budding cornering skills to the test), so when it got to be about lunch-time, we thought we’d have plenty of time to stop for lunch in Aberdeen, WA and still make it out to Cape Alava by 4PM. David was navigating, and we finally hit a burst of 3G, so he updated the map on his phone to see how long we had for lunch. Panic attack, we screwed up! The GPS told us we weren’t going to get to the cape until 4:45!  

Instead of the leisurely lunch we had planned, we made a quick pit stop for gas in Aberdeen, switched drivers, and made turkey sandwiches for the road. David’s cornering skills are quite a bit more refined than mine, and he was able to apex the corners well enough that we rolled in to Cape Alava at 4:14. A quick bathroom break, then we hit the trail. After all, sunset was going to be at 5:23, and we had to hike 3.3 miles to get to the cape to see it! 

Wild Blueberries!

Chris took off as our leader, and set a blistering pace. I, at least, was sweating and breathing a little hard. I kept stopping to take pictures, and the group would have to stop to ensure that I hadn’t been nabbed by a cougar or a falcon. Finally, I gave up and fell in line with the others, and we made good time down to the cape. Shortly before we hit the beach, there was a trail leading through some campgrounds where we had not one, but two, up close encounters with deer. The first was from about 10-15 ft away and we were able to make noise and scare them away. The second, however, was MUCH closer. Chris came around a bend in the trail and was literally staring a baby deer in the face. We were now somehow standing between the baby deer and the doe, so we slowly moved out of the way. The baby deer pranced right through, and we continued on our way. Finally! The cape!

Just before we got down to the cape. Peeking through the trees. 

There was the beach that we were standing on, and then there were the rocks that came out from the beach and jutted into the Pacific. We knew where we wanted to go! We headed out on the rocks and enjoyed/explored for about 30 minutes before we started to realize that something wasn’t quite like it was before…. The tide was coming in! Amy & I went back to evaluate, called out to the guys that we had better head to the beach, and then continued  rock-jumping our way back to the beach. We made it (dry, except for a minor moss incident David had), watched the sunset, and headed back to the trail. We knew we would have to hike a portion in the dark, but wanted to knock out as much as we could before it got really dark. We made about 1/3 of the way in before we had to break out the flashlights (good call on bringing those, Amy!!). At one point, we stopped and shut the flashlights off. The quiet darkness was almost oppressive, but also peaceful. We are so glad that we made the choice to hike to see the sunset, and it’s something we won’t forget for a very long time, if ever. We made it back to Xena around 8PM, and are just now arriving in Seattle, about to take the Bainbridge Ferry to Sarah's! 

Can you spot Amy & me?

Beautiful. Also, see those rocks? We were there!