On clear days we can see the snowcapped Olympic Mountains from our street. Friday we set off with family to take a closer look. David was here from Missoula. John and friend Tiffany came from Cambridge/Harvard.
We drove into Seattle and took the ferry to Bainbridge Island.
Crossing Bainbridge Island, we then drove over Hood Canal and onto the northern edge of the peninsula. We had lunch at Downrigger’s in Port Angeles. The restaurant overlooked the Strait of Juan de Fuca and was next to the dock for the ferry to Victoria.
Rialto Beach was spectacular in a very rugged way. The fog added a sense of mystery. Rocks/islands off the coast were shrouded in mist and then periodically appeared as the mist shifted. Huge tree trunks were washed up on the shore, bleached by the sun, and scoured smooth by the wind and water. The pebbles were tiny down by the water and got progressively larger until some of the smooth oval stones were larger than my hand. The shapes were wonderful and beautiful.
See the birds flying in the mist?
Our route took us through Forks, a very tiny town. The Twilight series takes place in Forks. Twilight signs and references are everywhere.
This gauge (white post in front of bicycles) shows Forks’ rainfall for the year – 6 FEET so far this year. They usually get 10-12 feet a year. (Note: we remind you that Kirkland where we live, gets less rain than Columbus, Ohio. However, it does rain more often in Kirkland/Seattle than in Columbus.)
Ruby Beach was even more stark and spectacular than Rialto Beach.
There were sea stacks (tall stacks of rock sticking up out of the ocean) and lots of huge driftwood. Some of the stacks had tide pools with anemone and star fish.
Throughout the day we saw beautiful evergreen covered mountains as well as areas that had been logged and replanted. The clearcut, unplanted areas were in stark contrast to the beauty of the rest of the area. And those snow capped Olympic Mountains we can sometimes see from our street? We saw them only a few times. Most of the day they were somehow hidden by the terrain of the 2 million acres of Federal lands on the Olympic Peninsula.
Our homebound route took us down around the bottom of the Puget Sound. We had dinner at Duffy's in Aberdeen. It was named for the 1940s radio show Duffy's Tavern. John was adventurous and tried the yak burger. Yaks are raised on a nearby farm.
This was a day full of sunshine in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
No comments:
Post a Comment