Just a basic Traveling Day

This morning we left Spokane Valley and spent all day heading east on I-90, going through the remaining few miles of Washington, the narrow width of the northern panhandle of Idaho, and across Montana to Bozeman.  We went up and down fairly high mountain passes where we saw the signs for chaining up and chain removal parking areas.  We looked out at snow-covered mountain peaks on both sides of us.  We went through flat river valleys where there were farms and ranches.  And we went through the dry, rolling plains where there was very little other than light brown grass and the pale green sage brush bushes.

Typical scenery for the first part of the day.

In the afternoon there were storm clouds all around us and we did have some misty drizzle and some steady rain.   On the radio we heard the severe thunderstorm warnings for the area that we had just come through.  In these valleys you can see the storms and the lightning from a long way off.

Our one stop of the day was late in the afternoon in Butte.  As we arrived it was still raining, so we went and did some grocery shopping, hoping that the patches of blue sky would catch up with us - and they did.  We visited the Berkley Pit which is the most contaminated mine pool.  There are embankments around the edge and you must walk through a short tunnel to get out to a platform that overlooks the large pool of water.

Looking out at the Berkeley Pit.

Mining at the Berkeley Pit has been in operation since the 1890's.  They first panned for gold in that area.  They have had underground mines from which they obtained gold, zinc, silver, and cobalt.  Most recently there has been an open pit copper mine there for many years.  After the open pit mine was abandoned, the pit has gradually filled with water and it contains a variety of metals (copper, aluminum, cadmium, zinc, and sulfate as well as  arsenic).  The pH level  of the water is 2.5.  Their displays emphasized the positives;  they stated that life does exist in this water in the pit, but it turns out it is one small aquatic insect (the water boatman) and some iron-eating algae.

There is still a working mining operation here, the Continental operation,  just to the southeast of the Berkley Pit.

The Continental operation, being watched over by Our Lady of the Rockies (the large white statue on the ridge).

The water level is currently at about 5,100 elevation level.  When it reaches 5,410 elevation (which they have predicted will happen in 2018) it will reach a critical level that would endanger the groundwater of the town.  They have built a water treatment plant on the east side of the pit that will be able to treat seven million gallons per day, or five thousand gallons per minute. 

The town has old Victorian mansions and a multistory old hotel that show the historic prominence and wealth of this town.  The center of the town shows the decline that came with the decline of the mine.  There are some lovely new houses on the outskirts of the town that look out on to the snow-covered mountains in the distance.

The rains caught up with us as we left Butte but the darkest storm clouds stayed to the north and south of us.  We have been very lucky in that the only times that it has rained has been when we were driving and in the car.

Today we have lost the first of the three hours as we head home.  Yesterday we were in the Pacific Time Zone and now we are in the Mountain Time Zone.  We had been three hours different from Morgantown and now we are only two.  From here we are heading for Yellowstone and the Tetons.  For the next two nights we are probably not going to have internet access, so it will be a couple of days until there is anything new here

Snow, Snow and More Snow

Every morning as we set out, I often start thinking about a title for the blog.  Today my first idea was "Traveling between the Two Peaks" since we were going to be driving between Mt. St. Helens to our south and Mt. Rainier to our north as we drove along Highway 12.  My second idea was "Heading Back East" since today was our first day of driving back eastward toward home.  Then, as we got south of Mt. Rainier, we decided to take a long side trip and drove up to Mt. Rainier National Park and spent the middle of the day enjoying the magnificent views and the snow.  For most of the trip we have been viewing the snow-covered mountains from a distance, but today we got to be in the snow, up close and personal.

First, as  we were driving along Highway 12, we saw a sign for a scenic view of Mt St. Helens.  We drove up the small side road until we came to the overlook.   It was a very distant view of the mountain and not very clear since it was so far away.

Mt. St. Helens from really far away

When we came to the sign for the turnoff to Mt. Rainier, on the spur of the moment, we decided to drive up to the Mt Rainier National Park so we could really see it and because Eb had never been in Mt. Rainier Park (I had been there when our family went to visit the Seattle World Fair).  We entered the Park at the Stevens Creek entrance.  It turned about to be a good decision and we had a wonderful time on this unplanned side trip - only we didn't have enough time to do all that we would have liked.

Here we are at one of the first good views of Mt. Rainier

We drove up the park road to Paradise Inn (5, 400 feet in elevation).  In the park information it indicated that the road had just opened July 1st and only remains open until October 15th.  At the beginning of the drive we were going through heavily forested woods and rushing streams and waterfalls.  We had numerous spots along the way up where we could view Mt. Rainier, as well as the sharp craggy peaks alongside.  The road had numerous places where it dropped off sharply on the side with no guard rail for reassurance.   The higher we got, the more snow we saw in the distance, and then, finally, the snow was all around us.  The patches of snow grew larger and more numerous the higher we climbed.  The small lakes along the road were still ice and snow covered.  The melting snow made magnificent large and small waterfalls along the edge of the road.

Mt. Rainier, at 14, 471 feet tall, is the tallest peak in the state of Washington.  Mt. Rainier, as with the other tall peaks around there is a volcanic mountain.  The top of the mountain is covered with several glaciers, one of which is Paradise Glacier.  The average snowfall at Paradise Inn is 700 inches, while the record snowfall is 1,100 inches. .  Last year they had 900 inches of snow.  The hillside behind the Inn was still completely snow covered and people were hiking up and sliding down.  The height of the snow along the sidewalk was about 10 - 12 feet high.  You could see the layering in the snow, seeing the amounts that accumulated in different storms.

Right behind Paradise Inn

A young fox sunning himself (herself?)

As we drove back down from Paradise Inn, we had snow banks much taller than the car on both sides of the road.  Very near the beginning of our descent we came upon several people with cameras standing in one of the turnoffs.  They indicated to us that there was a very young fox along side the edge of the road up against the snow.   We joined them in watching and taking pictures.  The snow covered the ground under the trees in the woods.  The mounds of snow were piled along the side of the road.  There was snow everywhere, particularly on the north facing slopes.   It was not just a light covering of a few inches;  the snow was many feet deep.   I was most amazed by the young pine trees that only had their tops sticking out through the snow;  the thought that they could survive such harsh conditions.

 

View down the road just below Paradise Inn.

We enjoyed a quick picnic lunch as we came back down near the park entrance.

We drove north in the park through the snow and woods until we came to Highway 410 which took us east across the Chinook Pass at 5, 430 feet and on to I-82 at Yakima.  Once we crossed over to the eastern side of the mountains we were in the "rain shadow" and immediately were in a semi-arid plains habitat.   All you viewed was dried brownish grass and the light green sage brush bushes.

As we got further eastward on I-90 and out in to the flatter valleys, we were in to rolling farm land and fruit orchards that all benefited from irrigation.   We saw spillways where the river water was routed in to channels leading out in to the fields.  We saw large "sprinklers" watering huge fields.  As we got to the town of Naches, we stopped at a fruit market and bought a large flat of Rainier cherries, which are yellow or yellow and red cherries, that are just as sweet and taste the same as our Bing cherries.

As we were continued driving eastward we saw a huge collection of wind turbines.  The Wild Horses Wind Farm Project has 127 wind turbines covering an area of 900 acres.   They are very tall and the blades are huge.   The one display showed that wind turbines are taller than the Statue of Liberty, but not quite as tall as the Seattle Space Needle.

Just a few of the windmills at Wild Horse.

Tonight we are staying in the Ramada Inn in Spokane Valley, just east of Spokane and almost on the Idaho border.  We have gotten back to where we were on Wednesday, June 29th when we were in Coeur D'Alene and then that Thursday we drove north through Spokane and up to Oroville.  We have made a big loop up to Manning and British Columbia and then out to the Olympic Peninsula, and now we are back here on the Idaho / Washington border.  Tomorrow we will retrace our drive across Idaho along I-90 and drive into Montana to Bozeman before driving down to spend three days in Yellowstone and the Tetons.  Then it will definitely be time to head due east to home.

Wonderful Whale Watching

Point Hudson Harbor at Port Townsend

Our boat - the Olympus

Woke up early this morning and drove back in to Port Townsend and down to the Point Hudson Harbor which was full of tall sailboats and large ocean-going yachts.  We found our boat for the day – The Olympus – and joined the other 11 people for the whale watching tour.  There were two from Germany, two from Minnesota, two from Ohio, two from Arizona, and a French speaking family of three.  The boat had a glassed-in seating area and then an upper deck and a small lower deck in the stern.  It was a four-hour tour – taking us 1 ½ hours to get across the Strait of Juan de Fuco, 1 hour to look for whales, and then the 1 ½ hour return trip to Port Townsend.

Looking back at the north side of the cloud-topped Olympic Mountains

As we were out on the water we could look to the east and see Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier (just barely).  We could look south and see the Olympic Mountains from a very different perspective than we had been seeing them all week.  On the way across the Strait we passed a gaff-rigged schooner that had four very large sails up.  Our boat stopped moving so everyone could take pictures of this rather unique boat, and so that the sailboat could get by without encountering our wake.

We finally arrived along the south shore of San Juan Island and joined the many other whale watching tour boats that were parked there.  There were small inflatable boats that had come over from Victoria, BC, Canada and that held 14 – 18 people to a very large three deck boat that had come from Seattle.  There were also small private boats.  Our guide was communicating with the other pilots to learn the location of the whales and they all moved along the coast following the whales.  Along the shore was the “whale police”, a boat from the Washington State Fish and Wildlife.  They would give warnings, and could give tickets ($5,000 fines), if boats got closer than 100 feet to the whales, or traveled too fast through the area.

The area along San Juan Island has a resident group of orca whales that has approximately 87 whales in the group.  They are divided up in to three families or pods (J, K, or L).  Families of whales stay together for life.  The researchers have used visual patterns on the dorsal fins to identify the individual whales and have given them names and have collected data on the whales using photographs.  The oldest whale in this pod is a female who is approximately 100 years old.

The orcas swim back and forth along the coastline of the island feeding on salmon.  The large male orcas can eat as much as 350 pounds of salmon per day.  While they are feeding, they are moving relatively slowly.  Even while they are sleeping they are still swimming slowly.  They are able to dive quite deep, but usually stay in the top 20 feet of the water.

Our first contact with an orca was seeing a dorsal fin come up out of the water and then going back down again.  I noticed that you could always hear the noise of them breathing out right before their fin would appear.   With the male orcas, the dorsal fin can get up to 6 feet high.  Sometimes you could also see them slap their tails down and/or you could see the splash of water.  Sometimes they would be in groups of two or three as they would come out of the water.  A few times we were able to actually see them “breach”, their nose and upper bodies would come up out of the water and then they would splash their bodies down on to the water.  Our guide told us that, if you saw them breach once, it would usually happen again, and it did seem to happen that way.

Our boat would stay in one place for awhile and then move to another as the group of whales moved slowly back and forth along the coastline of the island.  All the other boats were doing the same thing, so we had quite a parade of boats.

During the actual whale watching, we were all out on the upper and lower decks.  But on the way back to Port Townsend we all went back to the enclosed deck and ate our picnic lunches and napped.  We swung past Smith’s Island and sand spit which is a national wildlife refuge.  We saw numerous birds, including the large black cormorants.  The have long necks and a very large wingspan.  They would be sitting on land with their wings stretched out to help get them dried off.  Along the rocky shore of the sand spit we saw two mother seals and their very young pups.

Cormorants and a couple of seals with pups

After returning to the harbor, we drove out through the cute little shops of Old Port Townsend and then headed south on Highway 101.  We made a quick stop at Old Fort Townsend State Park which I had thought might be similar to Prickett’s Fort.  However, there was no reconstruction of any fort, but there were many trails through the woods and along the shoreline of Puget Sound.  Down on the rocky shoreline there were many large, whitish clam shells.  Walking along the shoreline was limited because it was high tide.

We continued to follow Highway 101 along the length of Puget Sound until it ended just before Olympia.

Puget Sound, about midway between Port Townsend and Olympia

We are staying tonight in a Motel 6 which is in Centralia, which is just south of Olympia.

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.

Walking on Pacific Beaches

Even though the morning started out overcast and misty, it quickly cleared up in to a blue sky, sunny day.  This seems to be the pattern for this northwest region, and explains the high amount of rainfall.  I usually have a sweatshirt or a fleece on because the temperatures have been in the middle 60s.

Leaving Forks we traveled south along Highway 101, past the turnoff to go back up to the Hoh Rain Forest, and after that the road started going right along the coast down to Kalaloch.  Most of the time, however, we couldn't really see the ocean because we were up on a cliff covered by fairly heavy forest.  The first beach that we stopped at was Ruby Beach.  Each of the beaches required a hike down to the beach level.  Even from above the beach, you could hear the pounding of the surf.  Ruby Beach is a cobble beach until you went out to the low tide line where we could walk along the reddish brown sand.  There was the usual pile of drift logs piled along the beach.  To the north were a number of sea stacks.  Near the biggest sea stack there were numerous tidal pools.  In the tidal pools were starfish, sea anemones, barnacles, at least two different kinds of mussels, and one snail.  Along the beach we collected the shells of Pacific razor clams.

Judy (with her newly found walking stick) at Ruby Beach, with the largest of the sea stacks in background.

Some of the animals in the tidal pools: barnacles (top left), starfish (top right), mussels (bottom left), and sea anemones (bottom right)

While I sat on one of the drift logs and enjoyed relaxing in the sun and just looking out at the surf, I met a woman from Rockford, Illinois, who looks for heart-shaped rocks and collects them from each beach that she goes to.  She gave me one of her rocks, and, on returning later, gave me several more.  I found several more and later passed one of them on to a young girl that we had stopped to chat with her father.  It was fun to pass it on to someone else.

As we were hiking up and down to the beaches, I greatly appreciated having my walking stick.  When we were at the Rialto Beach on Wednesday I had been walking along with another man, while Eb went back to the car to get my sweat shirt, and when we came to the end of the paved walkway and had to negotiate climbing down to the beach, he offered me his walking stick which was a piece of wood he had picked up along the beach earlier.  It was just the right height for me and had a relatively smoothed off end at the top.

World's largest western red cedar tree, with Judy (lower right)

On the drive to the next beach we pulled off the highway to view the world's largest Western Red Cedar Tree.  The base of the tree was a mass of gnarled roots up above the ground.  Around that tree there were many other very large trees.  As you got further back into the woods, the ground got wetter and your feet squished along on the path.  The sign had indicated that the trees grew so large because of the relatively mild climate and huge amount of rainfall.

All around the edge of the parking lot were bushes containing orangish-yellow berries.  Eb picked a handful and they didn't have a very strong berry taste nor were they overly sweet.  Except for the color, they looked very much like blackberries.   Later at the ranger station, I asked the woman for the name of these berries and she answered that they were safe to eat.  I told her that we had already eaten them and just wanted to know their name, which was salmonberry.

Arriving at Beach 4 we found a picnic table and enjoyed eating our picnic lunch;  enjoying the sun and the lack of wind.

The hike down to Beach 4 was challenging to say the least, having many, many steps and a steep descent.  Even when we arrived down near the beach level,  there was a choice of climbing down a ladder or climbing down the large boulders.  I decided to stay up on the top of the boulders and enjoyed the view of the surf and the surfers.  I talked with three of the surfers, as they came by, who were there to celebrate one of their birthdays.  They were all in full wet suits, and all four were surfing in the waves right next to the large sea stack.  The beach was primarily coarse sand with the usual drift logs along the back edges.  By that time in the afternoon, the tide was coming in and was starting to bring the water further up on to the beach.

Beach 4, from the overlook.

Back in Forks, we stopped briefly in the city park to see the train engine displayed there.  It was a Shay engine (just like the ones used at the Cass Railroad).  This one had been used in the timber industry, just like at Cass.  This particular engine was oil powered, while the ones at Cass are coal powered.

Rayonier (timber company operating in this area) engine 10.

Walked across the road to one of the restaurants for a salmon dinner, sitting in the booth under the head of a stuffed elk with a huge rack of antlers.  They had advertised homemade pies;  I had lemon meringue and Eb had cherry pie - both of which were excellent.

Back at the motel, we needed to get organized and packed up.  Tomorrow we will be leaving Forks and going back across the north of the peninsula to Port Townsend.  Not sure if we will have wireless for the next two nights, so I may be typing the entry each night, but not getting it posted right away on the blog.

Sitting in the Hot Springs

Woke up to an overcast and drizzly morning and made a lazy morning of it.  Went across the street to a retaurant and enjoyed an excellent omelet for breakfast.  It was chilly enough that I enjoyed a cup of hot spiced apple cider from the motel office as we came back to our room.

We are staying in the small town of Forks (population 3, 500) which is on the western side of the peninsula.  It is an old lumbering town and there is a museum here about the timber industry.  It advertises that it gets more rain than anywhere else - 114 inches per year.  The woman here at the motel said that they don't measure the rain in inches but in feet.  It is primarily a tourist area now, with many motels and restaurants.  Forks is also the setting for the novel and movie of "Twilight" and there are tours to the many specific locations from "Twilight", as well as several souvenir stores with just "Twilight" items.

Downtown Forks from our motel

Spent most of the morning busily trying to make reservations for various things after we leave here at Forks.  We now have tickets for a fiddle festival concert on Saturday afternoon, motels for Saturday and Sunday nights, and a whale watching tour for Sunday morning.

Finally, when the drizzle stopped around noon, we got on the road to go visit another section of Olympic National Park.  The National Park takes up the entire middle of the peninsula but 95% of the park is only accessible by trails, not by roads.   We drove around to the north side of the peninsula and followed the Sol Duc River up a narrow valley.  We were again in tall pine forests with moss on the trunks and hanging from branches.  The river was full of rapids with the piles of downed trees along the sides.

Sol Duc River, with driftwood.

At the end of the road was the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort where there were pools fed by nearby hot springs.  Luckily my bathing suit was in the back of the car and I enjoyed sitting in the mineral hot spring pool which was 103 - 104 degrees (while the air temperature was 65 degrees).  I had been wearing my sweat shirt as we had been coming up the Sol Duc valley and getting in and out of the car at various scenic views, but was quite comfortable in the hot springs.  While sitting in the pool I could look up at the tree covered mountains and up at a sky that was partly sunny with large patches of blue.

Soaking in the hot springs pool at Sol Duc Resort.

Driving back to Forks, the fog was coming in over the coastal mountains and it became heavily clouded over.

Spent some more time trying to plan for next week and starting the return trip eastward.  We will include a brief stop at Yellowstone and the Tetons on the return trip.

Westward to the Pacific

The Monarch (left), and walking through the rain forest (right).

Our first destination today was the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. The area is affected by the moist winds from the Pacific Ocean that are then lifting up to get across the Olympic Mountains and drop their precipitation on the coastal side of the mountains.  The area gets an average of 136 inches of rain a year;  luckily July is a dry month for them.  The drive in to the Visitors Center was along the Hoh River which had numerous sandbars covered with driftwood.  On the way in we also stopped at the "Monarch", the largest Sitka Spruce which was more than 270 feet tall, 12 1/2 in diameter, and 500 to 550 years old.  We hiked on the Hall of Mosses Nature Trail and wandered through this temperate rain forest.  Along with the many downed trees, the ferns covered the floor of the forest.  Moss hung from the branches and covered the trunks of the trees.  At the Visitors Center we learned about epiphytes, plants that get the moisture and nutrients in the air.

The forest floor - ferns and mosses.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch in the Visitors Center picnic area and, for the first time in a while, didn't have to hold everything down and didn't need a sweatshirt to keep warm.

Our second destination was the Pacific beaches.  First we went to the Rialto Beach in Mora which was part of the Olympic National Park. As we got close to the coast, the fog was coming in from the ocean.  The beaches were lined with driftwood (large trees actually) and you had to work your way through to get down to the  beach which was covered with large cobbles.  Even from the parking lot, before we went over the dune, we could hear the roar of the surf.  The large waves crashed on to the beach, and it was obvious one of the reasons that no one was out in the water.   Also, it was very windy and you needed a sweat shirt to keep warm.

Rialto Beach

Next we went to First Beach which is right in the town of La Push which is on the Quileute Indian Reservation.  Again the beach was lined with the large driftwood trees, but the beach was sandier and there were waves but not the crashing surf.  There were three sea stacks (small rocky islands) and a breakwater that protected this beach.  It was also right next to the marina which contained mainly large commercial fishing boats.

First Beach, La Push, in the fog.

Our main reason for going out to La Push today was because we had read that there was to be an Indian Drumming Ceremony that evening (scheduled every Wednesday).  We arrived at the Quileute Community Center at 6:00 (which is when it was supposed to start) and found that they were starting with a community pot luck dinner which we were invited to join.  We were planning on going to the seafood restaurant across the road, so we didn't join in.  Everyone was seated in a large circle.  The drums that they were using looked very much like the Irish bodhran and there was a group of drummers, as well as others sitting in the circle who also were drumming.  The man who appeared to be the leader of the group welcomed everyone and stated that this was a healing ceremony and everyone was to have left their bad feelings at the door.  He also mentioned the respect shown for the elders.  They began with a group of the women dancing while holding symbols of paddles.  The group had what appeared to be three generations of dancers - the youngest appearing to be 7-8 years old.  Then they greeted each of the visitors by name and telling where they were from.  There were about 2 dozen visitors from a variety of different locations.  General announcements were made about an upcoming event and the need for volunteers.  Then a man got up and gave a speech about how he had grown up hating the "white man".  He talked about how the children (including himself) had been taken away from their families and sent to boarding schools.   He talked about "grandparent rights" and how he had lost his grandchildren for the past three years.  He also mentioned the problem of alcoholism on the reservation and several raised their hands to indicate that they had had that problem.  After that, a family was invited to come forward and the woman first said that she was proud that it was her sister's birthday and presented her with a cake.  Then she said that her daughter had brought up her grades so that she had straight A's.  And finally there was someone in the family with a new baby.  The three were seated in chairs in front of the family and people from the circle came up to greet them and throw money on to a blanket in front of them, while a group was drumming and singing.  It had the feeling that we had been invited in to share their general community gathering rather than a performance for strangers.

We had to leave this ceremony early because the restaurant only stayed open until 8:00.  So we went across the street and enjoyed an excellent seafood dinner - crab cakes and steelhead (sea trout).  We sat looking out on to the ocean, but it was quite foggy so you couldn't see very far out in to the water.  On the drive back to the motel, we left the fog behind as soon as we got away from the ocean.

When we got back to the motel, we counted out quarters and got two loads of wash done at the laundromat here at the motel.  We have been gone long enough so that this was becoming necessary.

We haven't decided on the plans for tomorrow because there is a slight chance of rain showers.  We have been very lucky with the weather so far, so we can't really complain.