Dungeness Doesn't Disappoint

Strait of San Juan de Fuca from Dungeness Recreation Area

When we started planning our summer route I knew we would be on the Olympic Peninsula near the end of July. One of the first reservations I made was for Dungeness Recreation Area based on Nina's campground review. It sounded like heaven.

Changing our initial route to start north on Hwy 101 rather than south didn't change where we planned to be this week. In hindsight I would have planned a lot longer on the Oregon Coast and tried to change our reservations here to the end of August - but we'll just do that next time :-)

Although I expected to dry camp a lot more, we have had at least water/electric at every stop except our one-nighters at Harvest Host locations. So this is our first experience with managing the electrical system for more than half a day.

Like every other system in the motorhome, we will gain confidence with experience and get the hang of it eventually. Also like every other system, the owner's manual is nearly worthless for anything other than the obvious "name of buttons" that is more insulting than helpful.

Maybe it's coming from the drought of California, but water and tank usage is very easy for us. I think we could easily go three weeks with access to a laundrymat. We'll test that when we have our solar and can boondock (hopefully this winter).

Anyway, back to Dungeness.

This is a county park so the Discovery Pass is not required and some of the rules are different from state and national parks. One is that no alcohol is allowed. So naturally we really wanted a few beers on our first night.....but we followed the rules.

Loop 1 is all first-come, first-serve and Loop 2 is about 75% reservable. Less than half are occupied in each loop this week.  Most of the spaces are very long - easily accommodating our rig and Jeep with room to spare. They could be wider, especially toward the front of each site, but most will accommodate slides. We are very comfortable in #51.. The big bonus is the view of the Strait from our passenger side windows - can't see it from the picnic table due to the fully grown foliage that separates the site from the Bluff Trail. If you have solar and/or satellite this is the one for you.

Beautiful view of the water from our large side window

Each loop has it's own bath house which are close enough to each other to "borrow" from the other loop as needed. Showers are "bring-four-of-your-friends" size with good pressure and warm water. Insert quarter for each 2 minutes which isn't the pain I thought it might be. Bathrooms and shower are kept very clean.

Updated and clean (you get weird looks when photographing a bathroom)

I screwed up when we arrived and parked in #53 because that was our original reservation and on my calendar. I forgot we had been moved to #51 to add Wednesday night. The camp host knocked and said someone else had reserved the spot for Sunday night. I assured him it was ours, then checked my email again after he left and discovered the error.  #53 is a much tighter spot, and although we were set up, it only took a few minutes to move us to the better site. So glad those people came in as we would have had to move on Wednesday anyway and found out what a great site we should have been in :-) Nice to have some good travel karma saved up!

We love watching storms - especially over the water or coming across the desert - and the Bluff Trail gave us our first opportunity on Sunday afternoon. While the rain barely reached us for more than off-and-on sprinkles for a couple hours, the show was gorgeous to see. Having the trail this close is a big reason to stay here.

Watching the storm

On one side of the trail is the Strait

and on the other side Half Shell peaks out

Tessa contemplates the obstacle course ahead

Although not posted, I read "dog-friendly" ends at the Refuge so we turned back here

We're seeing some of the incredible natural beauty here while taking care of a few mundane-but-necessary things that we've saved for a good size town like Sequim.

And I'm so glad we are staying at Dungeness!