Catch-up on Olympic Peninsula

Ah well, back in the land of strong WiFi… hard to pull myself away from the Pacific.  Fortunately the smell of African cous cous with lamb meatballs is a nice consolation prize.  Plus the Dungeness crab season just opened on July 1st, so we shall feast on fresh crabs tomorrow.

So, here's to catch you up a bit on what we were doing while we were in the "WiFi dark."  We stopped by Lake Crescent on the way, as I described in an earlier blog.  The waters are very deep and very clear, and Robin was telling me about the gorgeous turquoise color.  On our way out the skies were overcast, so we didn't get the full effect.  Still beautiful of course...

On the way back today, we got the full effect in the bright sun.  I even went in for a swim in the chilly waters.  The photo doesn't do it justice of course, but you can get an idea… Just such an incredible blue!

It almost looks fake, but I did not doctor these photos in Photoshop!

We spent a night at the campground at Lake Crescent, and then spent the next night at Bogaschiel State Park.  The river was low, as they all are now, but still beautiful…  lovely white stones, but not quite as nice as the pebbles we collected in Sequim.

Theo liked hanging out with us next to the river.  It was quite cool, we had on sweaters the first day.

The next day we headed over to Kalaloch campground in the Olympic National Park.  We stopped and got more ice and some food in Forks (isn't that a good name for a spot to get food?) - before heading into the wilderness of the park.  We left the sunny day and proceeded into the ocean cloud bank.  Still feels kinda eery to me, but still beautiful.  This was the beach the day we arrived.

Theo's back was sore, so I avoided taking him on the climb over the many logs (big trees become driftwood here and wash on the beach!) that were at the base of the ramp.  Robin went for a walk and we went back to the campsite.  Theo didn't like seeing his pack split up…He did the same thing the next day when she disappeared down this path.

On one of our walks,  Robin found this unusual growth in one of the trees!  A spooky hand!

Then we headed over to Ruby Beach.  I posted pictures of that in my last blog post, but here are some more.

One of the reasons we went to Ruby Beach was because the Park Service map listed it as having a handicapped access, so I thought I could get Theo to the beach.  Robin scoped it out ahead of me, and after a ten-minute walk down a rather steep trail (for a wheelchair, anyway, for example) the entrance was blocked by the driftwood logs again.  Guess its pretty hard to keep them clear…

Robin stayed with Theo at the beautiful vista where Mac was parked while I took a leisurely hour-long walk.  Very nice…