August 12-15th, 2009 – Twilight, Hikes & Waterfalls
August 12th – Ferry, Port Angeles and Marymere Falls
We got up early to hit the ferry before it became really busy. We didn’t have to wait long before we were boarding. It was the first time for the kids, so they were really shocked when we just drove right onto the ferry! It was a cold, 30 minute ride, so the kids mostly stayed inside. I was shocked at how many jellyfish I saw in the water as we were crossing.
From the ferry drop-off point in Kingston, it was only an 80 minute drive to Port Angeles. We got a room there for the night, and decided to explore the area. Read our blog post about the Twilight Tourist spots we visited, and then went to Olympic National Park.
Cloud cover was really low, so it was hard to see any of the mountain ranges, so we decided to go to a waterfall instead. We found the Marymere Falls Trail. It was a nice, easy mile hike to the falls, besides the 90-foot falls, the best part was walking on the log bridges. The trail was mossy, green and fairytale-like, with only hints of sun poking through once in a while.  See our pictures from Port Angeles!
August 13th – Forks, LaPush, and Hoh Rain Forest
Forks is only 56 miles from Port Angeles, so we spent a good part of the day here visiting all the Twilight Tourist spots, and even getting rained on a little, understanding why it’s the perfect place for vampires to reside.
We visited Hoh Rain Forest which is a temperate rain forest that can get up to 12 feet of rain a year, making it one of the wettest spots in the world. Trees can grow to epic heights, towering more than 200 feet and living more than 500 years. There is so much moss hanging from the trees, that it just makes the whole forest dark, and kind of eerie. You hardly ever see any sun poking through the forest.
We went on the Hall of Mosses Trail, where we saw lots of moss-hung maples, and fallen logs giving life to new moss and plants on this 0.8 mile easy loop hike. After the hike, we continued driving south, and found a neat beach trail to take. It was a nice way to get out of the car and stretch our legs, and see the ocean. See our pictures from Hoh Rain Forest!
August 14th – Twilight Movie Tour & Lots of Waterfalls
We made it to Oregon, and decided to stop in the Portland area at a few places where they filmed movie scenes from Twilight. You can visit our Twilight Movie Tour blog post to read about the places we visited. We actually really liked the Stone Cliff Inn area, as they had lots of hiking trail behind the property, and View Point Inn was absolutely beautiful. I can only imagine the costs of staying at these places for a night, though.
On a side note, we were very happy to start seeing sunlight again. Seattle, Forks, and the LaPush area was very dreary and overcast while we were there. We were starting to feel like vampires ourselves being in that environment. When we got a glimpse of sunlight, we were soaking it up as much as we could!
As we continued our scenic drive back to Cedar, we passed by the Vista House on the Columbia River Highway. We just made a quick stop at the memorial to Oregon’s pioneers, before continuing on our journey to get to Multnomah Falls.
We ended up stopping at Latourell Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Wahkeena Falls before finally reaching Multnomah Falls. Multnomah Falls can bee seen in the movie, Twilight, as Bella and Edward are walking on the foot bridge past the falls, to the baseball field.  We walked up to the bridge, and got amazing views of the 620 foot falls. We tried to continue to the top of the falls, but we were running out of daylight really fast, and never made it to the top, but got some beautiful sunset pictures instead. See our pictures from Oregon!
August 15th – Shoshone Falls
Going through Twin Falls, Idaho, we decided to stop at Shoshone Falls. These falls are known as “The Niagara of the West.” The falls of the Snake River plunge 212 feet over a horseshoe shaped formation over 900 feet in width. Shoshone Falls is best viewed in the spring as diversion of the Snake River for irrigation often significantly diminishes water levels in the summer and fall. Since we were here late summer, the falls were not completely around the horseshoe, but the falls still seemed impressive to us. After doing some hiking here, we headed home to Cedar, home sweet home!!
See picture of the falls here!