Around the block

We squeezed in another trip after summer had officially ended but before the rains came. This one took us all the way around the Olympic Peninsula. Our first stop was at Hurricane Ridge, where we at long last got to go up in the mountains. Everybody is sketching pictures of forest fires in the picture, although there were none visible that day. (There was some smoke blowing over from the Cascades, though. Canada looked pretty hazy.) DOB had the excitement of driving down mountain roads in a new truck with hand controls. We all got to practice being very, very quiet.

The next day we had wanted to go all the way out to Neah Bay, Cape Flattery and the northwesternmost corner of the state (and the contiguous United States), but we decided it was too far of a drive. Instead we settled on lunch at Lake Crescent, which is a dazzling blue lake dropped in the middle of the mountains (and conveniently located right off Highway 101).

We spent the next two nights in a vacation rental on the Bogachiel River, relaxing, throwing rocks in the river, and feeding cows.

Then we ventured on south, to the Hoh Rain Forest. (That's a fallen tree the kids are walking down, in case you can't tell.) It felt pretty dry, for the rain forest, but everything has its season.

Ron managed to persuade a camp robber (gray jay) to eat off his hat. You had to eat fast if you wanted to keep your sandwich.

Our last two nights were down in Pacific Beach and were less photogenic. We took advantage of YMCA reciprocality, found out our favorite nature center was closed during the week, and spent a couple more hours at the beach, which, surprisingly, still had plenty of sand. We did what we could to remedy that, and we watched "Pirates of Penzance" (kids) "The Princess Bride" (everybody, minus the ROUS and Pit of Despair), and "Horatio Hornblower" (grownups).