Friday 24 October 2008

Washington

Day 322 - September 15

We packed up Dolph and drove to Ford just south of Vancouver downtown for an oil change and to replace one of the headlights which had gone out. Afterwards we drove back to Emma's, finished off packing Dolph completely, blogged at the cafe and said a sad goodbye to Emma.

We drove to the border, and had no problem crossing back into the USA. This is the border crossing we were most worried about, because it was Murray's third tourist visa for the states on this trip (Minnesota, Alaska and now Washington). They could have given us a hard time - since it's frowned upon to get so many visas in such a close time frame, but we got a nice immigration guy who only asked us only a few basic questions then gave Murray a new I-94, and laughed as he said 'g'day mate' as we walked away. Gosh that was a relief - I was actually shaking with relief!!

We drove on to a city called Mount Vernon, had some dinner and then slept at Wal-Mart - again.

Day 323 - September 16


Dolph woke up happy and ready to get back on the road

So, we stocked up on groceries and then in the morning noticed the 'no overnight parking' sign... hmmmmm. Well, there was actually other people there in motor homes when we arrived! I guess it's just frowned upon at some locations, but if you don't cause any drama they never do anything about it (knock on wood).

We drove westwards to Whidbey Island across some lovely bridges and finally got to Keystone where we could catch the ferry across to north west Washington. We got there JUST as the 10:15 was leaving, so we bought our fare ($14 - wow that's cheap for the two of us AND Dolph) and got in line for the next ferry - at noon.

It was a TIGHT TIGHT fit - but they managed to fit a ton of vehicles on board

Me waiting in the truck

We left Dolph safely locked up and then got this unusual view of him from above. That is gorilla tape on the roof of the topper, to keep rain from coming in. The previous owner scraped that bit so hard it was super thin and leaked in heavy rain! But no longer!

We arrived at Port Townsend half an hour later and then drove west towards Port Angeles.

We had a nice tailgating lunch at the Hurricane Ridge visitors center, and then went inside to get stocked up on brochures and information. We were very disappointed to learn that the ridge road was closed other than 2 days a week because of repairs though!!! That meant we wouldn't we able to go:( It is meant to having amazing views of Olympic Park

Murray took some lovely Autumn shots outside the visitors center

And some berries

SO, we backtracked a little bit and checked into the local KOA campground to make sure we had a spot to sleep that night.

Then we drove up the alternative to the Hurricane Ridge - Deer Park Road.

The 18-mile Deer Park Road is narrow and steep, the last 9 miles are gravel and VERY narrow!

The drop offs next to the road are quite scary - but the views are AMAZING!!

Check out all those crazy curves - VERY hard to tell if a truck is coming, thus you have to take them slow

We took Dolph up to the top of the road for a great view

A view of Port Angeles and part of Olympic National Park

Murray with a great view of the park behind him

The Pacific Northwest has a reputation for being dark and gloomy, shrouded in year-long mist and indeed the west side of Olympic Peninsula is the wettest spot in the lower 48 states.

However, the dry eastern side of the Olympics, where we are now, tells a different story. By the time rainclouds pass the northeast of Mount Olympus and the Bailey Range, they have dropped most of their water.

So, here in the eastern Olympics they say they are in a 'dry rainshadow.' Just as less sunlight reaches the shadow of a tall building, less moisture reaches a mountain's rainshadow. The Hoh Rain Forest in the west of the park can get 140 inches of rain a year, but Sequim (just north of deer park, and in the eastern part of Olympus park) only gets only 18 inches a year!

Me on the Rain Shadow loop hike that we did - to the top of Blue Mountain - with amazing panoramic views of the lowlands and mountains in the background - stunning.

We caught the sun streaming through the trees as we drove back towards the campground. We didn't want to drive down that precarious road in the dark!!

Back at the campground we sighed with RV envy...

and then set up to make our dinner

But the dark caught up with us and we had to finish cooking and then eat in the dark. It is times like these that we are glad Mike and Beth showed us their awesome pop up camping lantern - we LOVE ours! Such a great idea:)

Day 324 - September 17

We spent the morning in Port Angeles doing admin (wifi and post office) and then set off for Lake Crescent. The drive to the lake was lovely (that's the lake in front of us)

We parked at Lake Crescent and then hiked back under the road and on to the Marymere Falls trail - where we came across some massive trees


We also crossed some unusual bridges made out of fallen trees - very cool

The trail goes through some lovely old growth forest

And Marymere Falls was lovely (although not very full because it is late in the season...)

Mo the photographers assistant carrying the tripod

Nestled in the valleys of Olympic National Park are some of the largest remnants of ancient forests left in the country

Trees here can tower 300 feet tall

We then drove on towards Sol Duc Falls

We first stopped at the salmon cascades - we didn't see any salmon, but the view was pretty

And then we drove on towards the Sol Duc Falls trailhead. Look at the tall dead tree in this pic. Like an arrow! Soooo tall!

Eventually, after a short 1 mile hike, we arrived at the GORGEOUS falls

Stunning views

The thundering three-chute Sol Duc Falls are quite a sight

Murray doing what he loves most

A stunning view from back on the trail down towards the bridge and the falls



Murray posing at the top of the falls - this shows just how big these falls are.

On the way back I HAD to pose by the root system of this gigantic fallen tree - just gives you some scale for how HUGE the trees are here - wow

Some mushrooms Murray spotted

Amazing that each ring signifies a year's growth - this tree is ancient!

And THEN we spotted our first banana slug - very exciting!

And some VERY unusual and brightly colored mushrooms

The Pacific banana slug is the second-largest species of terrestrial slug in the world, growing up to 9.8 inches long

We watched him eating this mushroom for awhile then moved on - pretty gross to watch - slimy!

That night we reheated the chicken and rice meal we had made the night before. AND added a little creamy soup for a nice meal

We spent the night at a campground in Mora - near the beach

Our neighbor - the campground was tucked into the lush forest - chilly but so pretty

Day 325 - September 18

We got up early and drove to the nearby trailhead to Second Beach

After a short hike we made it out to the driftwood strewn beach

The weather was cloudy and a bit dismal, but the views were still lovely

Me on the driftwood

Me by a disgusting looking squid we found washed up on the beach



my foot - for scale - ewwwww



We thought these green sea anemones were pretty cool looking

A lovely view up Second Beach

We drove on to the point in La Push - I like this photo of me with an unusual totem pole

Then we drove on back to Mora and got a picture of us in front of this great sign on the way

This is the area where our campground was last night - gorgeous

Rialto Beach was lovely but the driftwood was EVERYWHERE! I took a small piece that was rubbed smooth by the ocean to keep

Then we drove on to check out Hoh Rain Forest

But first, before hiking, we tail gated and had sandwiches for lunch - of course (we are getting quite good at this!)

Then we went on the .8 mile Hall of Mosses loop trail through old growth temperate rain forest

But first Murray made a call from a moss phone booth. "M it's me checking in, have you spoken to Q yet? Well when you see him tell him his rocket launcher camera doesn't work! If you need me I'll be in the hall of mosses trying to save the world from the banana slug rebel movement."

The upper reach of the conifers - many over 200 feet tall - is an environment apart. Birds and flying squirrels you might never see near ground level nest up there.

A plethora of mosses, ferns and plants complete for space on the forest floor; grazing elk keep the understory open. By the way - when I hear the word plethora I can only think of one movie - The Three Amigos! ha ha

Dead and downed trees decay slowly and support new life as 'nurselogs.'

Mild winters, cool summers and up to 12 feet of annual precipitation produce giant conifers that dominate this rain forest

Olympic National Park was created in 1938 before it was developed, and thus looks much like it has for 5,000 years

This short - less than a mile loop - took us 3 1/2 hours to complete - LOTS of great photo opportunities (I'm glad I brought my book though!)

This is a stream - those vibrant green plants are under water - I think this photo looks amazing

But eventually the trail had to end and we had to move on

On the drive out of the rain forest area Murray and I got a photo with this giant spruce

We stopped briefly to have a look at Ruby Beach

and we stopped by Beach 4 (apparently there is quite a high tsunami risk on this coast - we saw these signs a lot)

Beach 4 apparently has tidal life when the tide is low ... but not now :(

We then checked into a state campground in the Kalaloch area

Murray finally shining up his boots with wax to protect them from the elements - it was WELL needed!

We had some very nice chili for dinner

And we were quite happy with the campgroud which was RIGHT by the beach - nice to fall asleep to the sound of waves.

Day 326 - September 19

In the morning we drove to Beach 4 (even though the ranger at the campground last night had told us not to bother because the tide wouldn't be low enough this time of year to see anything...)

We laughed like crazy when we saw this sign - gotta love those cartoons!

When we got there we were the only people around and wow was it gorgeous

Sea anemones were all over the place

The starfish were GORGEOUS !!!

Me with some brightly colored starfish

They are so intricately patterned - amazing

Olympic National Park includes 73 miles of wild coastline

The marine sanctuary extends 20-40 miles off shore and 135 miles from north to south

And the ranger said we wouldn't see anything!!! Gosh I'm glad we still went!

It's a beautiful area - but interesting to note that severe currents, rocks and infamous weather has doomed many ships along this wild coast

Most of the beaches on this coast area accessible only by foot or boat (we hiked down to them)

In the pools and on the rocks of the tidal zone live a diversity of marine life -

barnacles, seat stars, small crabs and many other animals

A star fish (or should I call it a sea star?) trying to unstick himself

I think? he's trying to move

Such a cool unusual view of this amazing animal



Me waiting for Murray to drag himself away from all the great photo opportunities before the tide came in





These are actually officially called Ochre sea stars

They usually grow to be 10-12 inches across and are ravenous hunters

They feed on mussels, snails and other slow moving creatures



The tidal pools were just on the other side of this huge rock



The sunlight streaming through the trees that morning was stunning

These are what they call 'sea stacks' - which occur all along this coast

Once we finally were able to pull ourselves away, we continued driving south to go to the Quinault Rain Forest (which is still a part of Olympic National Park)

We went to see Bunch Falls - a gorgeous waterfall right by the water.

However, this is the only photo we have, because Murray - trying to get a good photo - stood in the middle of the stream and slipped. Big camera, nice lens and Murray all went into the water. Luckily Murray came away with just some bad bruises and cuts on his legs, but the camera and lens went completely under - and they were WET!

He wiped them off as best as he could, then we drove back towards the visitors center

On the way we stopped to see the world's largest spruce tree - although I don't know how they can still claim that since the top fell off years ago....

John Dee Dee liked it enough for a photo though

Me checking on our planned route - we had quite a drive ahead of us that afternoon

On the way we spotted this bumper sticker which made us laugh so hard we HAD to take a photo (the one on the right) - I know Dolph wants that sticker

We eventually arrived in Westport, and then set up in our 'office' to work on the blog (i.e. the laundry room)

We shared a nice bottle of wine in our 'office' and got a lot done on the blog - fab

Day 327 - September 20
In the morning we drove out to see downtown Westport and the docks

Dolph liked the view

Lots of cute little fishing boats

Then we drove south past TONS of cranberry bogs!

We were too early to see the harvest (which is is October)

but it was cool to look at all the fields (I had no idea this was a big cranberry growing area)

We drove on down to Long Beach and had a great (as always) subway sandwich
then we drove to leadbetter state park - which had disappointing views .. to be honest



So after a quick visit we drove back to check out the historic town of Oysterville - they had quite a few amazingly restored houses



We loved their windows - filled with 99 bottles of beer on the wall... ha ha

It is one of the oldest communities in Washington and was once the hub of oyster farming

We stopped by a pile of discarded oyster shells on the way back and WOW did it stink - BAD

The pile of shells - disgusting

We then went to the wacky 'Marsh's Free Museum' in Long Beach - we thought this was pretty creative though - live crabs for sale in painted shells - cute

This museum is home to the infamous Jake the Aligator Man - lol

Oh sorry - WORLD famous - yah right

I then pulled this horse drawn sled (from Minnesota) out of the way so we could go

And punished Murray the good old fashion way in front of the world's largest frying pan. Click to enlarge and see the pain!

Murray pretending to be a gordo (fat - in spanish) in front of gordos (see we do still remember SOME Spanish - thus why we found the name of this video store funny)

We were sad this elephant ears store was closed - they sound yummy (they are essentially just huge deep fried donghnuts in the shape of an elephant ear)

I liked this carve sea lion

Murray in front of Long Beach - which CLAIMS to be the longest beach in the world at 25 miles

There are actually 7 beaches longer that this one, including two in Australia (the longest is actually in Brazil and is 149 miles long). A bit of an exaggeration I must say....

There have been a LOT of shipwrecks in this area - every name on this map represents one - wow

We then drove down to Cape Disappointment

Murray - sooooo 'disappointed' !! - with the North Head lighthouse

In 1788, while in search of the Columbia River, English Captain John Meares missed the passage over the river bar and named the nearby headland Cape Disappointment for his failure in finding the river

We also hiked out to another lighthouse, and spotted this coast guard training center on the way

It is an important training center for rough weather

The Cape Disappointment Lighthouse - with the sun cleverly placed right behind the light.

This is the point where Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific in 1805 after their historic journey across the West which was then called the Louisiana Territory. Their expedition traveled over 8000 total miles over a period of 2 years, 4 months and 10 days.

Murray spotted this sign on our hike back down (and yes we did peek over there - there wasn't any weapon firing going on at all - false advertising!)

We then decided to cross the bridge because we needed gas and the closest town was in Oregon

It was SUCH an unusual bridge - check out this steep incline we had to climb

While we were filling up with gas I took this photo, then Murray came back for the camera and took a photo of it too - TOO funny (if you know British slang....)

We drove on East through Oregon, and then finally back up into Washington

In the city of Kelso we decided to finally use the gift certificates my sister Megan and her fiance Mike gave us and had a FABULOUS meal at Red Lobster (I LOVE CRAB LEGS!!)

Murray ordered the 'endless shrimp' and ate a variety of shrimp meals until he was so full I practically had to roll him out of there

Day 328 - September 21

This morning we drove north to see Mount Saint Helens National Monument

It was too cloudy and rainy and miserable to see the mountain, so we went to the great visitors center and watched the movie and read all the great displays instead

This is a photo of Spirit Lake and Mt. St. Helens - before the explosion

At 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted

Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale

the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche

Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown down or buried beneath volcanic deposits

At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond

The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments

This catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980, was the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States

Fifty-seven people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (300 km) of highway were destroyed

The eruption caused a massive debris avalanche, reducing the elevation of the mountain's summit from 9,677 feet (2,950 m) to 8,365 feet (2,550 m) and replacing it with a mile-wide (1.5 km-wide) horseshoe-shaped crater

The debris avalanche was up to 0.7 cubic miles (2.9 km³) in volume

Much of the land the explosion destroyed was logging land - so as much as possible was salvaged

Prior to the 1980 eruption, Mount St. Helens was the fifth-highest peak in Washington

Magma reached the surface of the volcano about October 11, 2004, resulting in the building of a new lava dome on the existing dome's south side





Murray demonstrating how hot magma is - at his hand's peril!!! Ahhhh!





We thought this was a very interesting depiction

Isn't it amazing that they can tell this just because the rings were closer together in that section?

a core view of the same tree - there was a HUGE explosion in this area in 1480

The area is now protected as a national monument, so that the area around it can recover naturally
The ash cloud from this explosion actually circled the globe - in two weeks

We liked this artwork depiction of the eruption

We also stopped by the Forest Learning center - where I tried on this 'eagle hand'

I also tried out the helicopter

This is sign tells how much timber was salvaged after the eruption

Wow

The forest learning center was very good - we watched a few videos about logging which were very interesting

And then we caught this view of the lava path valley before deciding to turn back

The weather was just too poor to see Mount Saint Helens :(

So we crossed back over this bridge

And then tailgated and made grilled turkey, cheese and tomato sandwiches - yummm

It was great

Next we stopped by the bigfoot visitors center - apparently he has been spotted a lot in this area

Me with bigfoot, in the pouring rain!

Next up ................. Oregon

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