ONP with Kathy and Bob (part 2)

Back to the beach on another lovely day in Olympic National Park:

We were looking for the Tree of Life on Kalaloch beach - and there it is!  Hard to imagine how it got this way, also how it's still quite alive (possibly why it's named as such):

An impressive tree, to be sure!

The first "heart" we would come across in ONP, also one of the prettiest:

Just across the 101 and the world changed completely:

Bulbous tree trunk:

View of the ocean from Kalaloch Lodge (where we had an excellent lunch):

Just a bit further north we went down one of several trails that drop back to the beach, with an opportunity for more tide pool and starfish viewing:

Interestingly-shaped rocks at the water's edge, reminds me of Maui (just in different colors):

Ocean pose:

The tide was rapidly coming in that afternoon.  A couple people had walked on dry sand to this little hill, and not long later it was an island.  The guy gets points for carrying the woman across the water back to her sandals:

This tree didn't fare as well with beach erosion as the Tree of Life has (so far):

The gray angled layer is called Bobstone:

Back across the road to the forest and the Big Cedar Nature Trail, where I tested the "panorama" function on my phone amid the giant trees with reasonable success:

Whatever is going on here??

One more time back to the beach.  This one is called Ruby Beach, although we didn't see any particular reason for the name:

And that's as high as she goes:

I can see why they filmed a vampire show in this area:

Karate Kid pose:

We had heard about long wait times to get to the Hoh Rain Forest, so we waited until the end of the day to drive in and that worked really well.  With a lack of recent rain it was relatively dry for a rain forest, but it was still a wonderful place to take a walk and admire the dense vegetation:

My favorite sign in the park:

It's not obvious in this picture (because there is so much greenery) that the large dead tree is hosting a bunch of little new trees growing up out of its mossy surface:

A better/larger example - biggest root stalk I've ever seen, with normal-size trees growing on top of it:

John gave us a "stump speech" (his joke not mine) - I'd vote for him!

On our final exploration day with Kathy and Bob :( we drove over to Cape Flattery and apparently all these tall trees has made us smaller:

Bob had been searching for a big yellow slug (we had been promised oodles of them but apparently it wasn't wet enough lately) and he finally found one, yay!  Bob, you just had to wear the yellow shirt for them to recognize you:

The trail down to the cape has amazing views:

We are fans of this hike - it's worth the effort to get here:

Beautiful shoreline in the foreground and Canada on the horizon:

Random marine sculpture as we were driving around:

Our excellent AirBnB, our wonderful travel buddies and roommates, and so much gratitude for these days we spent together!

Photo credits include John, Kathy, and Bob

ONP with Kathy and Bob (part 1)

We were very excited to explore Olympic National Park with our friends!  It's a huge park with tons to see, so we tried to capture several flavors.

Starting with a shuttle ride up to Hurricane Ridge, with perfectly blue skies and views of the mountains (still with snow in August!).  I think Bob and John were trying to get out of the way of the mountain view in this picture:

Looking down at the town of Port Angeles:

A sign at the top of Hurricane Hill helped us figure out what we were looking at across the way:

Yep, that's about what it looks like, with Mount Olympus a bit further in the background so it's not obvious that it's the tallest peak in the park:

I believe this was a grouse hiding behind a bush next to the trail:

Taking a break at a scenic spot with a convenient tree to sit on:

Beach time!  With an occasional bit of driftwood sculpture (I'm assuming no one was using this as an actual shelter):

The fog quickly cleared as we walked along Rialto Beach.  This is either "beach #1" or Bob is trying and failing to point at our "Hole in the Wall" destination:

Just the beginning of all the awesome sea stacks we would see in the next couple weeks:

A starfish, cool!

We had a great time peering into tide pools:

Little sea creatures, tiny clams, not sure what we were seeing but it was all interesting:

The green blobs had some strange things going on, and there were more starfish gathered in rock cracks:

See that tiny speck of white near the top of the little tree on top of the rock?  It's a bald eagle:

That's Bob and Kathy back there:

Marvin the Martian thinks the Hole in the Wall is pretty cool:

Rivian has a set of fast chargers in the town of Forks (very helpful!).  While waiting for Tug-E to charge, we spent some time wandering around and checking out the little stores.  They were ready for tourists:

The Twilight series was filmed around here, and John got to meet a couple of the stars:

We were driving north of Forks when we noticed interesting sculptures that appeared to be made out of found items.  Turns out they are part of "John's Beachcombing Museum" and if you are ever driving through here you should definitely make the time to stop in.  So much great stuff to see!

A man named John (whom we even got to meet) has been beachcombing for many years and was finally convinced to put his collection on display.  What a fun and unique museum:

Bottles and crab pot tags:

After the tsunami in Japan, many items from across the ocean landed in Washington:

An excellent assortment of ducks:

Buc-ees even made an appearance (this might be part of the Texas coast display):

Every time we turned around we noticed something new - we could spend hours in here trying to see it all:

This is what had caught our eye from the road (made mostly of buoys):

Back at our AirBnB, Kathy made good use of the hammock:

The next day we drove over to Lake Crescent and hiked to Marymere Falls, very pretty:

Two ducks that might be interested in going for a swim?

John found some calmer waters and set yellow Ducky afloat:

This is what happened next:

YouTube link if the embed doesn't work:

https://youtu.be/U8dgLXYnVJc

We are clearly in a different ecosystem here, with lots of green things and fun shapes:

And funky moss-covered limbs that I might be trying to hide behind?  I don't think Bob was fooled:

A bunch of people were out enjoying the lake:

Kayaks for rent (we probably considered it):

Ducky hankered for another adventure, but then we probably would have had to rent a kayak to retrieve him:

It would be something to see how many people fit into these canoes:

Forest photography:

We're not in the desert anymore, Toto!

It's really something to see (highly recommend!)

What a wonderful start to the ONP sightseeing, and our excellent journey continues in part 2.

Photo credits include John, Kathy, and Bob