We're Here!

We've Arrived!

Welcome to Olympic National Park and the Olympic National Forest!

After two on-time flights, we arrived in Seattle WITH luggage and headed to the rental car place.  We have a Toyota Corolla (gas is even higher out here - about $4 a gallon from what we've seen).  We headed south towards Tacoma and Olympia on I-5.  Traffic wasn't too bad but the road was so bumpy and noisy.  It took us a little over an hour to get to Highway 101 that circles the Olympic Peninsula.  Traffic was very light on it and the views are simply amazing!  We saw mostly Douglas Fir trees along the way.  The mountains seemed to pop up all of a sudden.  We followed along the Hood Canal that runs along a lot of the east side of the Peninsula.

Some of the the houses we saw along the canal seemed to be sitting just below the road on maybe 30 to 50 feet of land.  I mean these houses are ON the water!  The "towns" we drove through are maybe a block or two long.  We only made one stop today and that was at Mount Walker.  We drove 4 miles up a gravel road to the top.  The view was amazing!  It was a pretty clear, sunny day.  On the way down the mountain, two deer crossed the road in front of us.  Our first wildlife!

                                               This is the trail at the top of Mount Walker

      This one was about at the bottom of Mount Walker.  The trees seem to go on and on!

                                                    Looking east on Mount Walker

                                                                  Looking west

We're staying at a quaint little place, Mt Walker Inn in Quilcene.  The room is small and we have a choice of sitting on the bed or on one of two straight-back wooden chairs!  There is no air conditioning and we don't need it!!  The windows are open and it is a little cool - could have used a jacket when we went to eat.  The highest temperature I saw on the car today was 79.  I could get used to this weather.  

We drove around town before going to eat and saw our first bald eagle.  There are supposed to be a lot of them out here.  We ate dinner at Logger's Landing, next door to where we're staying.  On the walk back, we stopped and picked some blackberries or boysenberries that were growing wild along the property.  Yummy!!

Tomorrow we are on to Sequim (Squwim) to see some lavender fields and then on to Port Angeles, on the north side.

Before I sign off for tonight, I want to share this picture of Mt Ranier that I took from the plane window.  It was absolutely beautiful!

I guess all of you will be a day behind unless you like to stay up late because of the two hour time difference.  Our plan is to go to bed early every night and be ready to head out by the time it's light outside.  Don't want to burn daylight!!!  Hope to see all of you tomorrow!