Tuesday on the Olympic Peninsula

(We were all tired, hungry, and grumpy when we got back Tuesday night, so I'm writing this at breakfast on Wednesday.)

After posting my last blog Monday evening, we watched "Jeopardy" and they had a category called "See-attle" - Autumn might have liked that.

Remember the view from our campground Monday? Here's the same view on Tuesday morning:



It's a good thing we went to Hurricane Ridge on Monday - we wouldn't have seen anything on Tuesday.

On Tuesday we drove on Highway 101 to Kalaloch. That's pronounced "CLAY-lock". How do Nana and Poppa expect me to learn to spell correctly if they don't pronounce things the way they look?

At Kalaloch we went to Ruby Beach and Nana found a ruby! Actually, it's a garnet, but that's what gives the beach it's name. Like in Oregon, there are big carved rocks called "stacks". If you make the picture big, you can see me.




The beach has lots of logs and other pieces of wood:








I tried on a cedar log canoe for size. This would be pretty scary on the ocean:




Next, we went to the Hoh Rain Forest. They get 14 FEET of rain each year, and everything is green on top of green on top of green:






Spooky:



Young trees can't find room too grow on the ground, so they start growing on fallen logs called "nurse" logs:



Here's a colonnade:




Back on Highway 101, Poppa saw a sign that said "Big Cedar Tree", and couldn't resist turning off onto a little road. After a mile, the pavement ended and it became 1 lane. 3 miles later, after much complaining from Nana, we found it:






Yes, we're in this picture:






It was a busy day.

Posted from Nana's iPad

On the road again, again! The Olympic Peninsula

I'm back! I took a few days off because I was having so much fun with my brother and cousins in Seattle last week. I'll add some comments about that to catch up later. By the way, it got up almost to 70 degrees yesterday and this morning we don't have any clouds for the first time in a week. I learned that this month is called "Juneuary" here in Seattle.

Here is another of Poppa's beerscapes. Can you see anything different about it? Here's a hint: it's in Seattle.




Today, we're back on the road, planning to tour the Olympic Peninsula until Friday or so, including the Olympic National Park.

Instead of taking the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, we took the long way around, down Puget Sound to Tacoma and then up the other side.

We crossed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which is now quite safe. However, that wasn't the case in 1940 when the first one was built. You can see an amazing video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzczJXSxnw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

or read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940)

Anyway, we got across safely.

We continued up until we got to Port Angeles. Here is the view of the Olympic Mountains from our campground:


Yes, I know there is a fence in the picture. If you were my size, do you think you could hold the camera up high enough to look over the fence?

After Poppa and Nana got the trailer set up, we drove to Hurricane Ridge, almost 5,000 feet above the campground. As we looked to the south, we could see the Olympic Mountains:


There was even snow at the visitors center:



But not as much snow as there used to be:




From the other side of Hurricane Ridge, we could see Vancouver Island in Canada:




Then we went to the Elwha River, which used to have two dams making lakes. Now they are removing the dams so the salmon can swim upstream again to lay the eggs that will hatch into lots of little salmon. I think that's a good idea because I like salmon. I mean, I REALLY like salmon.

Tomorrow we're going to visit Lake Pleasant and see another big waterfall. Then we'll go to the Hoh Rain Forest where they get 14 FEET of rain every year!


Posted from Nana's iPad

Seattle can be boring...

Actually, we're spending Tuesday in Bothell, just north of Quinn and Tessa's house.

I don't care what Nana says - Seattle does have some crappy weather. I looked at the weather forecast on my new iPhone and saw a 5-day high of 59 degrees, with rain almost every day. Oh - Sunday might get to 64! That's the second week of June!

So today Poppa and Nana did laundry, cleaned the trailer, and did grocery shopping. I stayed in the trailer and played "Angry Birds":





One bright spot - Poppa has promised to take me to Archie McPhee's. If you get a package in the mail, it might make your hand vibrate, make farting sounds, smell like a skunk, but it only means I LOVE YOU. Or I just wanted to send you a smelly present.

And Poppa will take me to a great car museum_. Nana isn't going on this trip. Not only doesn't she want to, she's not invited! Poppa and I will visit some of my own family history: Jaguar and Cougar, as well as our vast family recipe: Impala, Mustang, Thunderbird, Firebird, etc..

On the Cultural Enrichment side, Poppa is trying for tickets to Wow ! That Old? King Tut

Meanwhile, near the campground, there are some nice ducks here (heat up the griddle, Nana), but wait until I show you pictures of the duck appetizers at the "Country Village" up the street! WOW!

Posted from Nana's iPad

Back to Seattle

Really short post tonight. We got up late and all the horses were gone! It rained most of the way back to Seattle. We're at the Lake Pleasant RV Park in Bothell, just outside of Seattle. It's REALLY nice, with a pleasant lake in the middle of it. Oh, maybe that's where the name came from!

We met a man named Ray Dickerson at the campground. He grew up in Bradford, but he left in 1959, before Poppa moved there. His grandparents were from Port Allegany, just like Poppa's grandparents.

After setting up the trailer, we did a little grocery shopping, then went to Quinn and Tessa's house where Nana is fixing pasghetti for dinner.

Talk to you tomorrow!


Posted from Nana's iPad

Oops - I pushed "Publish" too soon...

Here's the rest of my post for Sunday, but AT&T probably won't be able to handle it until Monday morning:

Did I tell you our campground is the Silver Ridge Ranch? Half of the camper have horses with them. There were 4 horses in individual corrals right behind us Saturday night. On Sunday morning, everyone was getting ready for rides. On his way back from the bathhouse, Poppa watched a man trying to saddle his horse. Then the horse wiggled his butt and made the saddle fall off.

Poppa didn't want to embarrass the man, so he pretended he wasn't watching and came back inside the trailer. And immediately borrowed my iPhone to make this video through the kitchen window. there were at least three failures before the horse was saddled:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVnBFORQsdQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

(Sorry - Poppa finally got something on YouTube and the quality is terrible! He even specified HD. Back to the manuals...)

Later, we met Damon and Avi and drove to Leavenworth for lunch. The scenery on the drive was great, as it has been so often on our trip. Leavenworth was initially a lumber town and then a railroad town. When the timber ran out and the railroad moved its headquarters, there wasn't much left of the town. Someone got the bright idea to make all the buildings look like it was in Bavaria, dress up in dirndls and lederhosen, play polkas, and sell lots of beer and bratwurst. Throw in lots of gift shops and voila! (I don't know how to say that in German) You have a tourist town.

Actually, it was kind of fun.

I met guys wearing lederhosen:




Got a picture with Avi, Damon, Poppa, and Nana:



Got a ride on a Percheron from a woman wearing a dirndl:


Met a goat (Nana, she's getting serious about the nibbling - get me out of here!):



Then a couple group photos:







And one more shot of Tessa:




Monday morning we go back to Seattle for a week. Hope to do lots of walks, see more parks, play with my brother and the kids.

Poppa hopes to get together with Maureen, his tennis friend from Pittsburgh. She's visiting her daughter who works at the University of Washington Medical Center.

Posted from Nana's iPad

Hangin' out again and being a tourist

I used my new iPhone to look up "Cle Elum". The local pronunciation seems to be "clay EE'lum". Wikipedia tells me that the name is a corruption of the Kittitas Indian "Tle-el-Lum" meaning "swift water", a reference to the Cle Elum River.

Wikipedia also says that the city population is 1,872 but the metropolitan (giggle) population is 6,500.




Posted from Nana's iPad

Saturday: Roslyn, playground, and a birthday party

Today we drove a few miles to the little town of Roslyn. It was originally a coal mining town for the Northern Pacific Railroad:




It has some really neat buildings:



This is a lawyer's office:




Later it became known as the site where a TV show called "Northern Exposure" was filmed. This is the bar that was featured in the show:




We went back to Suncadia and got Damon and Avi, then went back to Roslyn for lunch. The restaurant had the neatest fans on the wall - they waved back and forth. If Poppa ever figures out YouTube, I can show you a video. Just imagine the fans on the wall in this picture waving back and forth. Damon wants to get some for his apartment:





After lunch, we went back to Suncadia and joined Quinn and Tessa on the playground:







there's a really great video of me going down the slide, but... Poppa has to figure that out pretty soon.

This evening we had a birthday party for Terri:



Tomorrow we're going to someplace called "Leavenworth" - something about that name sounds familiar and it scares me.

Posted from Nana's iPad