Wednesday 9-13-23 Big Creek Campground National Forest Olympic Mountains

 

Big Creek Campground

We have had a couple of emails asking for an update on the mouse. You might remember that a few days ago we woke up to find a mouse had lots of fun playing with our toilet paper and paper towels. We stopped by a store and bought a couple of mouse traps. They came two to a package for about $1.20. I have no idea how you can make any money on something that had to be manufactured, packaged, sent halfway around the world, distributed and then sold via a retail store for $1.20. But, on with the story. Larry baited and setup both traps, we figured it wouldn’t be long after we went to bed when we would hear one of the traps go off, nope, the next morning both traps were still set and the food was still in them. We kept the mouse traps setup over the next few days, no mouse and no more signs of a mouse. Apparently after having his fun he left. 

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We had two great days at Margaret McKenny campground.

Today we’re moving on to the Olympic National Park area, its only about 60 miles north of us. This will be our first time to this area.

We are headed to Big Creek Campground in the Olympic Mountains. We started the drive by going to Batteries Plus. My Garmin batteries are low and it has been acting up. We have been looking for the batteries in Walmart but they haven’t had any. The batteries were $11.00, much more than what we pay via Amazon but we needed them now.

Next up was heading north on Interstate 5 and then veering off on Hwy 101. We stopped by a local Walmart for a couple of things including a light that Larry wanted to hook up to our new solar charging system. The new system has worked great, we would love the old system to work even half as well. While there we did a little grocery shopping. I remembered our recycling bags so we didn’t have to carry everything out. We also had to show our receipt at the exit door. The greeter had a service dog.

After putting everything away we were back on the road. The rest of the drive was up a curvy mountain road. At times the curves were tight. The scenery was gorgeous with all the tall trees. We saw a few logging trucks. Most of the places that were logged had been replanted. It was nice to see the trees growing back. We also drove by a couple of Christmas tree farms. It was a beautiful drive.

We arrived at Big Creek Campground around 10:30. We drove around and found a site. We had no problem, no one was there except for the host and one other camper. We set the Minnie up for two nights. It cost $20.00 per night but it cost us $20.00 for two nights because of the senior pass. The host was cleaning the sites and we talked to him. This was his first year here. He and his wife have been here for six months and it was time to go home. All the National Forest campgrounds in the Olympic Mountains are closing the 18th for the season, there’s not enough campers to keep them open.

It’s a gorgeous campground and very well kept up. The bathrooms are vault toilets, no running water. There are water spickets throughout the campground. They have hiking trails. The sites are surround by trees and have a fire ring and picnic table.

We relaxed in the Minnie for most of the day. After dinner we hiked the campground trail, which was 1.1 mile loop. It was a pretty hike around the campground. It was flat and very nice. We ended up hiking 1.5 miles. There are signs warning you that there are flying biting bugs. We had a super hike. I ended up doing 7,500 steps.