We woke up early to say goodbye to Cesar as he had to go back to work and we had to hit the road again! This time we headed west for the last time into Olympia National Park. With the weather change and the exhaustion from weeks of travel, I was kind of sick and neither of us were feeling up to much hiking. In addition, driving around all of Olympia National Park would have taken us over 7 hours and at this point in the trip, believe it or not, we were sick of driving. So we meandered through the small towns west of Seattle to Lake Quinault on the Southwest side of Olympia National Park and enjoyed the bit of scenery we were able to see. We drove down a rocky road further into the rainforest area and enjoyed the view. Maybe it was just our traveling weariness or being sick, but we weren't too impressed by what we were seeing. Don't get me wrong, Olympia is beautiful and we know that we only saw a teeny, tiny bit of it, but compared to The Grand Canyon and Yosemite, we were a bit underwhelmed. Maybe next time we make it out there we'll travel along the North side of the park and see a different part of the rainforest and mountains.
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The small blue dot on the map above marks Lake Quinault. As you can see, there's much more to Olympic National Park that we did not see.
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| Olympic National Park near Lake Quinault |
Despite the fact that it was a little boring, we learned all about the salmon that swam up this little creek to spawn. The hatchery workers caught the adult fish every year during the spawn, squeezed out the eggs and milt, and raised the fry till they were big enough to have a reasonable chance of making it back to the ocean. I think the hatchery said something like 95% of the fish born made it to release size, which is much, much better odds than nature's normal way, and its the only way that enough fish are hatched for people to recreationally fish for salmon along the coast.
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| Underwater cameras are pretty cool. |
After the hatchery we stopped for a short nature hike -unfortunately, sickness didn't really allow us the energy for a real hike through the temperate rainforest, but the nature hike was still enjoyable. The consistent greenery is due to the constant rain that falls in the area and the fog that covers it the rest of the time. They get over 100 inches of rain a year! As you can see from the pictures below, it was green, really, really green. According to NPS.gov, the Olympic National Forest has the "largest accumulation of organic (living or once-living) matter on the planet, surpassing even the tropical rain forest". We enjoyed learning about the Nurse Logs, or the giant trees that fall, giving life to new trees, moss, lichens and ferns to grow in their rotting material.
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| GREEN!! |
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| Check out the tree growing on and around the old stump! |
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| A Nurse Log - Tons of little trees growing on it! |
After a short while of more driving, we found our campsite along the lake and set up camp. Our site was gorgeous and we enjoyed the sunset over the lake before we headed to bed early. The next day we would be traveling all the way to Glacier National Park in Montana.
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| Our gorgeous campsite overlooking Lake Quinault |
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| An excellent spot for dinner, don't you think? |
Wednesday July 27th -
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After a good night of sleep, we made some oatmeal (Snoqualmie Falls, for those who know their oatmeal), packed up camp and hit the road again for a 12 hour drive all the way to Glacier. We made a few stops along the way for food, blogging at a Starbucks near Seattle (believe it or not!) and gas of course. Washington is a big, beautiful state, that we would definitely go back to in order to explore a little more.
We crossed into Idaho just in time for the sun to set as we drove through the mountains. What we saw of Idaho was gorgeous, but we were only there for about an hour or so, not sure if that really counts!
Once we reached Montana it was dark out and we still had a long way to go. Despite the darkness we were hopeful of making it all the way to Glacier. We drove listening to more books on tape and watching the millions of stars come out for the night. However, with midnight approaching fast, I was still getting over my weird sickness and was having trouble sleeping upright in the front seat. We stopped at a small gas station about an hour outside of the park and decided to repack the back of our car so I could sleep behind the front seats where the bucket seats go. It's not quite long enough to stretch out, but at least it was flat enough to fall asleep. Nate drove the last hour and stopped in view of the entrance gate to the park on the side of the road. He climbed in back with me and we slept the rest of the night on the side of the road.
Thursday July 28th -
Sleeping on the side of the road seemed like a good idea at the time as we were exhausted, but when we awoke to a lawn mower outside the car just after 6:00am, we knew we had made a bad decision. Again, the area in the back of the car is just a little too short to stretch out, and barely enough room for two, even two people who are married. It was much smaller than our tiny tent! We woke up cramped after not sleeping well and wished we had stayed in a motel or something. We drove through the entrance to the park, parked in the visitor center and got out to stretch our legs. Hot chocolate and coffee were much appreciated as we tried to wake up. After the long day in the car the day before, and a horrible night of sleep, we treated ourselves to a big breakfast at the cafe in town before we ventured further into the park. Pancakes and bacon were absolutely delicious and gave us the energy we needed to explore Glacier!
More to come soon of our incredible Glacier Adventures!
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