Olympic Peninsula

After weeks of blue skies, we finally found some gray skies and cooler temperatures (except in Forks, WA - the rainiest town in the USA - where the skies were blue and we had a pizza with cashews on it!). The beach we most wanted to go to (Shi Shi Beach) was closed due to Covid, so that was a bummer.  I don't think Terry and I had ever seen beaches with so many logs on them.  I did love looking in tide pools on Ruby Beach. I wish we had checked the tide schedule when we arrived.  The morning we were there was the lowest tide of the month, and we could have seen a lot more if we had gotten up a few hours earlier.  

Ruby Beach

Lots of logs made some interesting driftwood

Sea anemones

Rain forest

Pizza with cashews! Really good!

Rainiest town in the USA

Lake Crescent Lodge

Lake Crescent

View of Canada from Hurricane Ridge

A rainbow!

Lighthouse on Whidbey Island

Deception Pass

Skyline Hike - Mt. Ranier National Park

We almost didn't make a stop at Mt. Ranier. Our hostess in Yelm (see previous post) convinced us that we could hike at Mt. Ranier in the morning and still drive to Olympic National Park to camp for the evening.  We were a little concerned that the summit would be cloudy, but the sun came out, the wildflowers were beautiful, and we had a great time!

This "halo cloud" was gone after about an hour or so

the highest we got on the hike

Bend, Oregon to Yelm, Washington

Scenery and stops of interest. Made some new friends. Though God certainly shows His glory through creation, His most special creation is people, and this part of the trip reminded us of that.

Last one on the planet is in Bend! We felt very nostalgic and had to stop.

Sunset at Cascade Locks, OR on the Columbia River.

Terry with Terri, our camp host at Cascade Locks. We don’t believe in coincidences but in blessed encounters. This gal turned out to not only be from Knoxville and went to the same high school and junior high as Terry, but was actually the aunt of Terry’s high school girlfriend! And to top it off, she had also lived many years in Fayetteville,AR! We had a great time meeting her and marveling at all the connections, and she even treated us to breakfast before we pulled out! And we’re now friends on FB!

Multnomah Falls. Thankful for someone not so afraid of Covid that they can touch our cellphone and give us a “real photo” instead of yet another selfie! We thought the falls along the Columbia were beautiful and impressively tall, but for sheer charm we preferred the falls of the N. Umpqua. Less pavement and people.

Portland City Hall. Boarded up but otherwise looking OK. We were expecting more of a war zone, but downtown Portland looked pretty good. It was a very pretty city. We did see a lot of homeless. Maybe they show up more because they literally set up tents in plain view.

This is the big Black Lives Matter display in downtown Portland.

A sign of the times. One if many Bigfoot sightings.

Mt. St. Helen’s. This blew up 40 years ago.

Yet another waterfall near Yelm.

Stayed in Yelm with Sue and Daniel McGowan. Sue is a good friend of my sister Ann and was such a fun host. Any friend of my sister’s is a friend of mine! And as Sue pointed out, we are sisters in Christ and therefore family anyway! A special treat was playing duets of hymns. Yes, these pianos are outdoors on the shore of a glacier-fed river! Something I never expected to do. Since Covid, Sue and her husband have organized an outdoor spot for the arts and worship by this river in their backyard. How neat is that?! 

Waterfalls of the North Umpqua

Our camping neighbors at Kangaroo Lake spoke very highly of the waterfalls along the North Umpqua River.  We spent an afternoon in search of waterfalls.  Each had something unique.

The first stop was Clearwater Falls. This was not really a hike but a short walk.  The cascade was very pretty with all the bright green moss.  

Next up was Susan Creek Falls.  It had an upper and lower portion.

After that came Fall Creek Falls (compare to Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee that we visited a few weeks before).  It also had an upper portion and a lower portion.  I'm pictured sitting at the bottom portion.

And Terry climbed up near the top of the upper portion:

The last fall we hiked to was Toketee Falls.  It doesn't look this way in the photos, but it was getting close to dark, so this was the last waterfall we saw (and also the tallest on our hike).  

One thing we noticed about these falls is that there is SO MUCH WATER!  And this is the dry season! There are also lots of blowdowns in the rivers and so many interesting rock formations (I assume because they were formed by volcanic activity).  This was one of my favorite days of hiking.  After getting heat exhaustion and throwing up on the previous day's hike (a first for me), it was great to just have some more leisurely hiking in the cool of the day.