Forks, Washington

Good morning, my friends. Alternative titles for this post might have been "Construction Zone Ahead," or "Red Light District," but I'll stick by my old standby of telling you where we are when we reach a new destination. I'll say more about the road construction in a minute. 

We arrived in Forks, Washington, yesterday afternoon. As we drove out of Olympia, we saw a couple of barns.

Surprisingly, we saw these cooling towers for a nuclear power plant near Elma, Washington. They were easily visible from the highway as we drove by. We wondered aloud whether there were any nuclear power plants in operation in Washington. As it turns out, there is one in the state...on the Hanford site, near Richland. But we're not anywhere near there, so what's this about?

As it turns out, this is what remains of the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant. Construction started in the 1970s as part of a nuclear project (Washington Nuclear Project 3 and 5), but the project was canceled in the 1980s due to soaring costs and financial troubles. Also public support for nuclear power waned after the incident at Three Mile Island. The plant never generated a single watt of nuclear power, making it one of the most expensive public works cancellations in U.S. history. Today, the site operates as the Satsop Business Park, and the giant towers remain as a famous local landmark and occasional movie/photo set.

Driving on, we crossed this bridge.

It spans the Chehalis River. There was a train bridge right beside us.

The first town of any size we came to was Aberdeen, Washington

Samuel Benn, a New York City native, established a homestead on the Chehalis River in 1859. He later platted a town at the site and named it Aberdeen. According to historical accounts, the name has two possible origins: from the Ilwaco-based Aberdeen Packing Company, which opened a cannery on the homestead in 1873, or from the Scottish city of Aberdeen, named by an early settler who had lived in Scotland. Like the Scottish city, Aberdeen is a port settlement situated at the mouth of two rivers—the Chehalis and the Wishkah. An earlier name for the settlement was Heraville, which was recorded by Benn.

Wikipedia tells us that by 1900, Aberdeen had become home to many saloons, brothels, and gambling establishments. It was nicknamed both "The Hellhole of the Pacific" and "The Port of Missing Men" due to its high murder rate. One notable resident was Billy Gohl, known locally as Billy "Ghoul", who was rumored to have killed at least 140 men; he disposed of the bodies in the Wishkah River. Gohl was ultimately convicted of two murders.

And with no clue that we'd left Aberdeen, we entered Hoquiam, Washington. The two cities share a common economic history in lumbering and exporting, but Hoquiam has maintained its independent identity. It shares a long rivalry with its more populated neighbor, Aberdeen, especially in high school sports. Hoquiam was incorporated on May 21, 1890. 

Its name comes from a Native American word meaning "hungry for wood", from the great amount of driftwood at the mouth of the Hoquiam River. And there's the river.

Okay, and shortly after that, we took the right fork, heading toward Forks. (Pun unavoidable.)

The next bridge we crossed spanned the Humptulips River, and with a name like that, you know I had to look it up.

Just past the bridge, we entered the wide spot in the road known as Humptulips. The population of the area was 236 according to the 2020 census. The name Humptulips was the name of a band of the Chehalis tribe who lived in the area. The name comes from a local Native American language, meaning 'hard to pole,' referring to the difficulty local Native Americans had poling their canoes along the Humptulips River. According to other sources the word means 'chilly region'. It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names.

Just after leaving Humptulips, we came to the first bit of road construction we would encounter...and we were expecting this. And despite anything I'm just about to tell you, the road construction was a minor inconvenience. We were stopped for about 15 minutes here, and that was the longest delay of the day.

We'd already been given the heads up about this, and this is what Google maps told us. We could have taken the northern route, but we'll be coming back that way, and so we chose the southern route.

There isn't a lot to see along here, despite it being a coastal route. The image below shows our view for most of the day.

There were no towns, no gas stations, and...most importantly...no restrooms. We finally found a gas station that required taking a spur road off the main highway, leading to the town of Quinault.

This was a winding road that seemed to lead nowhere. Even when we reached the town of Quinault, it was a small Chevron station with a sign posted that said "no public restrooms." Shoot. We drove on a little farther to this recreation area. This is Lake Quinault, and I'm showing you only about 5% of the entirety of the lake. It was a large lake. There was a gift shop across from where we were stopped. The only option was a portable just down the road. Hey...works for me. Also, I forgot to bring any earrings with me, and so I found some affordable little studs in the gift shop. 

Moving on, we crossed the border into Olympic National Park.

Soon, we reached a spot where we could see the Pacific Ocean. Looking south, it looked like this:

Looking north, it looked like this:

And if you squint your eyes, you can see an island out there with a lighthouse. That's Destruction Island and the Destruction Island Lighthouse. Destruction Island is a small, 30-acre rocky island sitting about 3.5 miles off the coast. It is part of the Quillayute Needles National Wildlife Refuge and serves as a protected sanctuary for seabirds. The Lighthouse was built in 1891. The historic 94-foot masonry tower once guided ships along the dangerous Pacific Northwest coastline. The light was deactivated by the Coast Guard in 2008, and the island is closed to the public. 

Just north of this, we came to another area of construction. Here, there was just one lane of traffic, controlled by a stoplight. We waited about five minutes here.

Moving on, this is what we saw.

Just a few miles on, we came to another one. We waited just a few minutes here.

Beyond that...yet another. We waited another few minutes here.

This is where the Hoh Bridge is, and we were expecting this. 

There's the Hoh River.

Beyond that, we came to another. At this one, we had the green light. We sped up to get through before it changed.

Beyond that, it changed just as we approached.

We weren't finished yet, though. There was one more. This one changed to green just as we arrived.

And phew! We made it to Forks...our final destination! All-in-all, I think all the road construction delayed us by no more than a half hour.

We'll be heading back through some of that construction this morning. We want to go tide-pooling at Ruby Beach, and the lowest tide will be this morning. The tide isn’t particularly low, however, and so we’re not expecting the tide-pooling to be particularly revealing. We'll have breakfast and head out fairly early. There's a beach hike south of there I'd like to check out too. There is one other hike we want to take here in Forks as well, and I'll say more about that when we do it. 

I was sad to learn that one of the hikes we wanted to take is inaccessible because of a road closure, and so that will give us a free day here. It's been a busy couple of weeks, and we were busy in Olympia too. It'll be nice to have a day to do nothing, and we'll just soak it up.

So...hiking and tide-pooling ahead. Time to be on my way.