Wednesday on the Olympic Peninsula

Instead of a beerscape last night, there was a winescape. And I finally figured out how Poppa picks beer (and wine). He's really not looking for the beer with a picture of a fish on it. He likes different HAIRSTYLES! Look at this picture and then look back at all the beerscapes. What do you see? Different hairstyles!




At the campground last night, our neighbor asked Poppa where in Pennsylvania we live. (He saw the license plates on the truck and trailer.) Poppa told him we're from Pittsburgh. He told us he's from Ambridge, which is only 30 miles from where we live! And his father, Allen Russen, works near our house and does the same kind of work Poppa used to do.

Our neighbor is now an assistant school district supervisor in Alaska. His school district is about the size of Oregon, but only has 2,000 students! He has to travel by bush plane between schools. He suggested that we look for a TV show called Flying Wild Alaska.

This is the 2nd time in 2 weeks we've met someone from Beaver County (next to home in Allegheny County), plus meeting Ray who grew up in Bradford, PA. Small world!

Today we went west on Highway 101 again, just not as far. Friends Bob and Maggie rode their tandem bicycle across the entire USA a few years ago. Poppa wonders if they ever encountered a sign like this (click to read it):




We thought we had seen a lot of beautiful white birch trees until we read the sign in the rain forest yesterday. There are no birch tree on the Olympic Peninsula! These are red alders. They only look like white birch because of a fungus that grows on them:







Lake Crescent is absolutely beautiful. When we rode past it yesterday, it was as smooth as a mirror, and looked gray because of all the clouds. Today, the wind was making lots of waves, but the blue sky made the lake blue:




We hiked to MaryMere Falls:




Then Nana mentioned lunch, so I checked out this little squirrel for a snack. He just wouldn't let me get close enough:



Poppa and Nana had lunch at the Lake Crescent Lodge, with this for a view:



After they had lunch, I went hunting for lunch myself. "Here, duckie, duckie!"




Poppa spotted a license that would be perfect for Nana on this trip:




We ended the afternoon at the Sol Duc Falls:





Tomorrow we head back to Seattle for a few days, then on to Glacier National Park. The most famous road in Glacier national park is "Going to the Sun". It's about 50 miles long. Our Alaskan neighbors were there a week ago, and only 1 mile of the road was open - the rest was still snow-covered. As of this evening, 15.5 miles are open from the western entrance (where we will go in) and 13.5 miles are open from the eastern entrance. We will get there on Tuesday next week. You can look at current snowplowing progress each day to see how much of it is still being plowed! I hope they get it done before we get there.

Posted from Nana's iPad