This bridge was wild…Astoria-Megler bridge linking Astoria OR to Megler WA crosses the Columbia River as it approaches the Pacific and is impressive, scary, cool and LONG. Seeing it the distance, pulling a 35 ft trailer and knowing we had to cross it was pretty intense. Obviously semis and trailers ahead of us were doing it….but there is still something pretty uncomfortable about being that high, for that long, in a truck, pulling a trailer.
We made our way up the coast of Washington to Olympic National Park and stayed at Oceanside RV Park and Resort on the Quiliute Reservation. This park was beautiful…right on the water and the sunsets were extraordinary!
The hikes throughout the ONP were beautiful…it offers coastline hikes, rain forest hikes and mountain hikes, and one of the most beautiful lakes, Lake Crescent I’ve seen. Couldn’t capture a pic of that because we were driving a narrow road, but I recommend checking it out….The hikes through the Hoh Rain forest and to Sol Duc falls were lush with green moss, old growth trees, ferns, etc…and we spotted the Roosevelt Elk on our way out of the park. Loved Simon, the park ranger, and his lessons on the carbon mass in the old growth forests, and how important protecting them is to curbing climate change and his reference to Dr. Nalini Nardkarni, who is now at UofU but who did her research of the tree canopies at Olympic National park when she was at UW. She is amazing if you’ve never heard her speak…check her out. And she has a Barbie patterned after her; so that’s cool.
From La Push (Quiliute Reservation) we headed to Sequim, WA where our friends Jeff and Evin Fox moved several years ago. It’s referred to as “the blue hole” because it gets sunshine while most of the ONP is covered in clouds. We stayed at Dungeness Recreation area right on the Strait of Juan de Fuca and loved the trails leading to the Dungeness Spit..
Jeff and Evin love the calm, quiet, clean air and after hiking with us on Sat, entertained us all day Monday with tours of Sequim, checking out lavender farms, cooking together and getting caught up. We broke out the Vincent and Mary Price cookbook *yes, that Vincent Price, and made a marvelous dessert Coupe Gertrude Lawrence. We also celebrated Father’s Day with Tim sporting a new sweatshirt, courtesy of Eli:
So wonderful to be with people who you don’t see forever, but for some reason can pick right back up and talk deeply about things that matter. Love them!
Now we are in Fall City, east of Seattle and are hanging a bit before heading into Canada. We had a great time visiting the Issaquah Community Center yesterday to find one of the Six Northwest Trolls of artist Thomas Dambo. If you don’t know about these public pieces, check out his site http://www.nwtrolls.org to read more about it. We found Jakob Two Trees and LOVED him. Considered finding the rest of them in Seattle but decided to come back when we had more time. After spotting Jakob, we met our nephew Scott at the Krawbar for a crawdad/prawn boil. Great evening!! Tonight I’m meeting my colleague, Amy, President of Lake Washington Technical College for dinner in Issaquah again and tomorrow we hit the border….