Somewhere between all the shredding, sorting, graduating, estate-selling, retiring and downsizing, we actually had the wherewithal to mail in a reservation request form to secure a spot at Salt Creek Recreation Area just west of Port Angeles. This was to be our first real “fulltimers” experience, since Bellingham was really all about the kids. At the time, we knew the dates we chose were kind of a crapshoot – anything could go wrong and derail our plans. But we gave it our best guess, chose the site we wanted and sent it off via snail mail. A week later we received the confirmation reply. We were giddy with excitement!
Of course, we had that unplanned trip on Whidbey Island the previous week, so by the time we finally got to Salt Creek, we already had a week of real-life fulltiming under our belts, including repairs. Nonetheless, for us, Salt Creek was a significant milestone. We’ve been here many times before, camping with our kids in Alfred Hitchpop. I even camped here with my posse – our girls only trip where we made a complete spectacle of ourselves during our arrival and setup.
On the drive from the ferry in Port Townsend, the first familiar markers we look for are the signs on the road leading to the Dungeness Spit. There is a place there that sells wiener pigs and the road to Dungeness is named Kitchen-Dick Road. This is such a well-known juxtaposition of signage, there used to be a band named Kitchen Dick and the Wiener Pigs. We always like to see what form of vandalism has befallen the road sign – usually someone has scratched out the letter “K”.
Sadly, on this trip, both signs were nowhere to be found. Maybe the guy selling the pigs retired and the county tired of replacing the sign. Who knows.
We continued our trip on through Port Angeles toward Salt Creek. Once we made the turn off Highway 101 onto Highway 112, we kept our eye out for the bread man, Ken. He is usually found in a wide turnout on the road, manning his little trailer loaded with pure yumminess. Fruit pies, cinnamon or apple breads, cookies of all flavors and – my favorite – the stogie – a long, rolled pastry full of cinnamon. Delicious! Ken bakes all this goodness using palm shortening instead of butter and organic evaporated cane juice instead of white sugar, but whatever he uses, it’s pure bliss. He’s been doing this for over 30 years – and he’s been in this same spot for 28 or so, much longer than we’ve been coming to Salt Creek – so yeah, we’ve been customers of his for many years. Ken says he gets repeat customers from all over and I don’t doubt it.
Ken, our local friendly bread/pie man. We cannot pass his stand without stopping.
Our snack swag. It’s a serious addiction!
The entrance into Salt Creek isn’t far from the bread man and once you arrive at the gate, if the fog has burned off and the sun is out, the panoramic view of the campground on the bluffs of the Strait of Juan de Fuca is stunning. Upon our arrival, we were not disappointed. We’ve had the best weather on our trip so far, and Salt Creek was no different. We were so happy to be back in our favorite campground!
It’s always beautiful at Salt Creek! Scoopy is no stranger here, but it’s her first time with us.
Salt Creek is isolated, yet it is a great basecamp for visiting so many awesome places. On this visit, we went back to Dungeness Spit, Sequim, Rialto Beach, and Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.
We made morning walks a routine while in Salt Creek and you can see why!
Scenes from nearby Tongue Point, just a few minutes walk from our campsite.
Wild trees at Tongue Point. Our kids used to call this old bunker “Narnia”
Steven all ready to go at Salt Creek. Linda down by the tide pools by our campsite.
It isn’t a perfect campground. There’s little connectivity, unless you want to pay roaming charges to connect to the Canadian cell towers. There is water and electric only, no sewer, but there is a dump station. Lots and lots of locals come here, and they love, love, love their campfires. They build them all day, every day. In fact, this place is like Baconville in the mornings, the smell wafts from every direction. (But hey, what’s not to love about that??) Honestly, none of these things bothered us. In fact, we camped right next to a girl’s soccer team, more than a dozen 16-year olds. And they were perfect neighbors.
We also met Eric and Dee from Michigan, who camped across from us in the tent area. They were there with their two kids, Jake and Adelaide. Turns out it was Eric’s birthday, so they invited us over to celebrate. We had no gift, but we supplied Eric with a few shots of Cuervo and in return, we got lemon pie. Win-win! Thanks, guys!
Steven and I have been discussing how we will review Salt Creek on rvparkreviews.com. To me, it’s a 10. I love being there, it is beautiful and peaceful. He thinks we need to mark it down for not having FHU and WIFI. All I know, and Steven agrees with me, this is one of our very favorite places and we will be back every chance we get.
The colors are so beautiful on Hurricane Ridge. Kinda feels like we were in Switzerland!
Deadwood on Dungeness Beach Yes, he really is loving this new life!
Bald eagle spotted near Dungeness The Chicken almost got a sister!!
UP NEXT: Goodbye Washington, hello Oregon.
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Ah, yes – figuring out how you are going to review campgrounds! Love the photo of Steven. That says it all.
Lovely photos here, another place to mark for a visit.
Maura
We have a Salt Creek restaurant here but not nearly as wonderful as your campground :-). Great shot of Steven – sugar high from the bread guy? I think if you can make the best of a campsite full of teen age girls you are definitely going to do fine in this life :-). White chicken certainly looks like she's from the same litter!!
Reviews are tricky. It was certainly a "10" when you were there with the kids and Alfred. You were camping. Now you're living. If the lack of FHU and WiFi actually bothered you this time, then you'd probably want to mark it down. But if it still didn't bother you for the short time you were there, than go all out and still call it a 10. It's all about what aspects of a park are important to you and whether or not they are present. It's always subjective and as long as you explain how you arrived at your number, readers will be able to evaluate the experience.
Great place to start the full time experience:)
sounds and looks like great place.not one we have been to..at least not yet!!
We only did a day trip to Salt Creek from our base in Sequim but we loved it too! I would love to stay there some time. Those are some long day trips you managed during your stay!