I couldn’t believe how quickly our motorcycle trip around the Olympic Peninsula flew by!

From exploring La Push and its beaches to hiking Ruby Beach and the Hoh Rain Forest to discovering Cape Flattery and the Juan de Fuca Scenic Byway, we experienced so many incredible, new places and made incredible memories.

By our last day, however, if I’m being perfectly honest, I was getting a little tired. Not of traveling and seeing new things, but from riding my motorcycle, hiking and enjoying so much of the outdoors! Clearly I need to do this more often!

Feeling that way reaffirmed our decision to start at the far end of our journey and work our way back home. We didn’t have far to go from Port Angeles to Lynnwood, and our itinerary allowed us to play things by ear and get back in time to put things away, settle down and hang out with our cat.

We spent our last night in Port Angeles at the Olympic Lodge, which is on the east side of town on a golf course with the Olympic Mountains towering overhead. I thought we’d start off early and head to Hurricane Ridge, but the monitors at the front desk showed how cloudy it was on top with no signs of clearing up. It was pretty cloudy the last time we went there with my parents so we decided to skip it this visit. Had it been clear, I would have loved to have hiked and actually seen the surrounding area.

Instead, we packed up the bikes and drove to Dungeness Spit, where the wind off the water was blowing the clouds away, giving us glimpses of blue sky.

There were quite a few people coming and going as we took the trail through the woods and out to the spit. We didn’t have the inclination to walk the 11-miles roundtrip to the lighthouse at the tip, but we did spend some time wandering the shores and exploring the debris dumped by the waves.

We didn’t come across any wildlife until we headed back up the trail and came across a friendly little bird that posed for a few pictures! We took the longer trail back and had a peaceful walk through the woods, occasional sun beams piercing through the leaves.

The sky was a little gray as we left so we continued northeast through Sequim and on to the Victorian seaport of Port Townsend.

We were just in time for lunch so we climbed up a few floors in an old building along the water to pop in a restaurant called Sirens. We walked up to the bar to place an order but were told they were waiting on tables so we headed outside and grabbed a great corner table overlooking the water.

While the interior atmosphere was really fun and the outdoor seating offered great views of the surrounding area, the service left quite a bit to be desired. We quickly wished they hadn’t bothered serving and had just let us place our own order and pick it up from the bar when it was ready. The food was ok, but we were ready to go by the time we finished eating, given how long we waited to place our orders and then to receive our orders.

After lunch we walked around town, checking out a few shops and eventually found Jane Dough Gourmet Shortbread. The shop is a really cute, clean and airy room in an old building with a little glass display case of shortbread cookies and a small display case of ice cream. I thought long and hard about getting the lavender ice cream with a lemon cookie, but there were so many yummy sounding cookies we decided to just get a medley of cookies so we could try multiple kinds.

We walked a few more streets downtown, occasionally selecting a cookie to split between us as we discovered our favorites. When we’d had our fill we packed up the rest, returned to our bikes, and hit the road one last time. Several hours later we had successfully caught the ferry from Kingston back over to Edmonds and from there were quickly home.

It was the perfect ending to an incredible day and trip. We saw so many things, but also noticed so many other places and parks we would love to go back and explore. For instance, I’d love to do the lower loop of the Olympic Peninsula or spend more time exploring Port Townsend and other places on the peninsula.

As always, I can’t wait for our next (motorcycle) adventure!