A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

Our home for four days

Sadly we left our motel in Forks that had been our base for the past four nights.  We drove on Highway 101 across the northern end of the peninsula to go back over to Port Townsend where we had arrived by ferry back on Tuesday afternoon.  Typically for the morning the skies were heavily overcast but the patches of blues were getting larger.  Many of the mountains were still covered over by the clouds.  Later in the day it was mostly sunny with the beautiful blue skies.

Morning clouds on the mountains.

 The Olympic Peninsula has had a little bit of everything that should make it appealing to everyone.  You can enjoy the unique natural settings of rainforests and beaches;  you can experience the drumming of the Quilleute and then attend a fiddle concert;  you can appreciate the history of the many different Native American tribes in the area along with the different industries (such as lumbering)  that have dominated the area;  you can enjoy the fact that each of the beaches or waterfalls or streams that we visited were very unique.  There were so many different places, and so many different things that we wanted to do, that we certainly were not able to complete our "to do" list.

Our first stop for the scenic views was as we drove along the shore of Lake Crescent.  Highway 101 clings right between the cliff sides and the shoreline.  The tree-covered mountains rise up along both shores.  Lake Crescent was cut off from Lake Sutherland (just to the southeast) by a massive landslide 7, 000 years ago.  Distinctively different species of fish have developed in the two lakes.  There are few homes along the lake because of the terrain and lack of access roads on the north shore of the lake.  Only non-motorized boats are permitted on this lake.

Our second stop was driving up the Elhwa Valley to the Elhwa Dam.  There were beautiful views of snow-covered mountains (Mount Carie) and the Elhwa River was rushing down the valley with the snow / glacial melt of greenish milky white water.  The Ehlwa dam (110 feet high) and another dam (220 feet high) further upstream will be removed because they were built without salmon ladders.  Both were built in the early 1930’s for generating hydroelectric power.  The removal of these two dams will be the largest dam removal project in the world.  The removal will start in September.  The lake behind the dam contained many drift logs.  There was one gate open to release water and there was a mist above it.

Mountains above Elhwa Dam

Elwha River, the bluish tinge is rock ground up by glaciers in the mountains.

Madison Falls

 Just past the National Park toll booth (as we were leaving) was a trail up to Madison Falls.  The falls were just a short hike up hill and the path was paved.  It was a lovely little falls.  The rocks at the side of the falls were heavily covered with moss.

We arrived in Port Townsend in time to have a quick picnic lunch and then attend the Festival of Fiddle Tunes concert.   The Festival of Fiddle Tunes is in its 38th year and provides a week-long series of workshops.  There had been about 400 students there for the workshops.  There had been special concerts on July 4th, an evening concert on July 8th, an afternoon concert just for kids on the 8th, and then the Saturday afternoon concert on the 9th.  They use the facilities at Fort Worden State Park for all of these Festival activities.  Fort Worden is an old army installation and all of the old buildings are still there and now some of them are used as a conference center.  The building used for the concert was a large building (they referred to it as the balloon hangar) with large movable doors on the side.  There was a stage at one end of the building and an inclined floor with many rows of seating.  The ceiling-height door at the front side near the stage was opened and people could sit out on the grass.  We were in row XX and there were still more rows behind us.

The old balloon (blimp) hangar, now converted to a theater.

 The structure of this Festival is very similar to that of the Augusta Festival in Elkins.  When we were getting our picnic lunch out of the car, a couple came over and noted our WV license plate.  He commented that he would usually be at Augusta for the Cajun Week right now, but he was out here for this festival this year.

Some of the student demonstrating what they learned

Paul Dahlin and family

Liz Carroll and John Do

There were five different groups of performers.  All of the performers had previously been winners of the National Heritage Award given by the folklore division of the National Endowment of the Arts.  Most of them had been honored for activities beyond their musicianship; they designed and built instruments, they worked to spread the learning and appreciation of different kinds of music.  The first musician was Wayne Henderson, a guitar player from the mountains in southwestern Virginia, who had developed a unique style of playing the guitar and also built guitars, mandolins, and fiddles.  The second group were Dudley and Jacqueline Laufman from New Hampshire who played the fiddle and the accordion, and called a round dance.  They had a dance floor at the side of the stage and he called one dance.  The third was the Savoy family from Louisiana who performed Cajun music.  After the intermission Paul Dahlin and family from Minnesota (in traditional Swedish dress) who work on spreading the traditional music of Sweden.  The final performers were Liz Carroll (a fiddle player from Chicago) and John Doyle (a guitarist from Asheville) who performed Celtic tunes.

After the concert, in honor of the former director of the festival who had passed away this past year, all of the musicians and students formed a long procession around the field playing “Soldier’s Joy”.

The procession, including everyone - students, teachers, and performers

We found a restaurant (called Bay View Restaurant) that was looking right over the water next to the ferry terminal.  We could watch some sailboats that were still out on the water; one of the ferries coming in to the terminal and unloading / loading and going back across to Coupeville; and several boats anchored just off the restaurant.  Eb had salmon (stuffed with a scallop mousse) and I had halibut.  We shared a piece of cherry cordial cheesecake which was very rich.  The owner had told us on entering that he had created the cheesecake for his wife because that was her favorite kind of ice cream.

We located our place for tonight – a cottage on a farm at the junction of Highways 20 and 101.  There is a full kitchen with a stove and equipped with all of the utensils.  However, there is no internet here.  I am typing this up in Word tonight and, hopefully, we can copy and paste this into the blog tomorrow at our next place to stay as we start our return to the east.