Falling in Love with the Olympic Peninsula

It’s true that there’s a moment in every new place that I visit, especially National Parks, that I say “Okay, this one’s my favorite.”

But it’s also true that every time I say it, the northwest corner of Washington state pops up to say “Maybe your second favorite.”

The forests are verdant. The lakes are azure. The perfection is kind of surreal, to be honest.

Take a spin through your points of interest, and you move from temperate rainforest to sea-stacked coast, to cloud-drenched alpine.

One of my favorite moments on the trip came during a trip to stunning Rialto Beach. After lingering in La Push a little longer than we meant to, thanks to a trio of harbor seals that popped up just a few feet from shore, we got to the Rialto parking lot just in time to watch the brightest end of the sunset.

Legs dangling from a thick round of driftwood as the colors faded, the stars that followed the sunset sent me rushing for my tripod to capture some astral shots. I even caught a shooting star.