9/4/2015
After a few days in Port Townsend, we wanted to get outside. On the recommendation of a friend, we went to Dungeness Spit, near Sequim, Washington, a town known mostly for its lavender farms and retirement homes.
A spit is a sand promontory that extends off the coast. Sand is blown along a beach and deposits at the end. This process, continuing over decades, can form a spit. So basically its a beach with no inland area, and the Dungeness Spit is the largest of these in the US.
German apple pancake. This is after it’s “deflated” – it starts out hot and filled with air
But we didn’t start there. Sequim has the single best pancake place I’ve ever been to, Oak Table Cafe. They serve German apple pancakes, which are voluminous and gooey. I’d been here before but didn’t properly remember just how enormous they were. Alex and I ordered both a pancake and an eggs benedict.
Needless to say, we left with our plates empty and our bellies aching. If we were to survive, the hike would be a necessity.
Typical view of the spit
Luckily, it was just down the street (a street named “Kitchen-Dick Road,” for the record), as part of a national wildlife refuge.
We hiked out the spit and back, and let’s just that 5.5 miles on the sand is longer than it looks like – we only made it halfway, and because the spit curves we looked no closer to the lighthouse that terminates the spit at the end of the hike, than at the start. Luckily, the weather was beautiful, warm with clear skies.
Driftwood bear? Maybe?
As a huge extended beach, one of the defining features is the extensive amount of driftwood of innumerable forms.
Looking landward
Eventually we had to call it quits – we had an appointment back in Port Townsend for mid-afternoon and couldn’t spend the whole day, but we both had a good time.
Lighthouse at the end of the spit
We’ll have to reach the lighthouse next time.
On the way in and out from the parking lot, there’s a short 15-minute hike in a stunning Pacific Northwest forest, the kind where the air itself feels green.