Back to the Blog! August 10-17, 2008

After leaving the casino we headed to McChord AFB south of Tacoma, Washington. The weather was dreary--raining and windy. As we approached the southern end of Hood Canal, the skies cleared a bit and there was no more rain. We were lucky enough to get one of the last 2 sites with hook-ups (water and electric) when we arrived in the afternoon.

We used McChord AFB as our base to explore the area. One day we took a trip to Mt. Rainier. We did a few geocaches along the way.

Alder Dam was a geocache along the way.

Another place was Elbe Sculpture Garden. We would have missed it completely if we hadn't been geocaching! It reminded us of the place near Paula's that she took us to years ago.

The artist used wood and metal to create these creatures. The rocking horse is over six feet tall!

We finally got to Mt. Rainier National Park. It would be a great park if someone would re-engineer the parking areas!We drove to Longmire, the first ranger/visitor station and it was packed! No parking anywhere, so we continued on to Paradise. What a mess! They are constructing a new visitor center so most of the parking area is blocked. There was an area along a 2 mile loop road that was marked for parallel parking. Problem was if you parked there, it was quite a hike up the hill to the current visitor center. We saw signs for a shuttle, but never saw one!

We parked in the day use/picnic area and walked to the visitor center. It was a bit disappointing as the power was out! We heard a generator running, but that was for the cash register, not to run the movie or light the exhibits. As we stepped out of the center, we had a good view of Mt. Rainier.We found a map and walked Nisqually Vista Trail. It was a 1.2 mile loop trail that had views of the Mt. Rainier, waterfalls, glaciers, and wildflowers. There were also some signs we needed to read to claim a geocache. Mt. Rainier was behind us in this picture, but the clouds had already moved into the area.

If you look closely you may see a waterfall on the right and one on the left. Both feed the Nisqually River in the gorge below.Even though it was the second week of August, there was still snow on the trail. Many of the backcountry trails were still impassable due to snow.After hiking Nisqually, we drove back toward Longmire. We stopped at Narada Falls picnic area to eat our lunch and check out the falls.Our next stop was Carter Falls Trail. This was one of those trails that goes uphill until time to turn around and come back down--and a steep uphill it was!About 200 yards beyond Carter Falls was Madcap Falls, but it was not marked on the trail signs! We could see it much better than Carter Falls.
When we returned to Carter Falls, we found a short trail off the main trail that gave a better view of the falls. No, we didn't lean on the railing.
We rested a few minutes then headed back down to the car. This trail had an interesting bridge for us to cross to get from the parking area to the main trail. It was just a few feet over the water and bouncy!We returned to Elbe to get a cache that was crowded when we first went near it. Elbe also had an interesting motel---cabooses on the railroad tracks. The dining car was a pizza restaurant.

The rest of our time at McChord we spent geocaching the nearby area, defrosting the refrigerator, restocking the pantry, and enjoying the campground. We decided not to visit Seattle because of TRAFFIC! It was the worst we had seen since we lived outside of Washington D.C. Even in the middle of the day traffic crawled along bumper to bumper on the interstate. Side roads were just as bad. We made it to the Tacoma Dome to see an rv show, Fife to visit the Honda dealer (for touch-up paint to hide a rock chip on hood) and Camping World. Other than that we stayed close to Ft. Lewis and McChord AFB.

Most of our trip we have been following record breaking cold or snow. Now we are in a record breaking heat wave. It was in the mid 90s at McChord. Seattle broke several records.

After leaving McChord on Sunday, August 17, we headed toward Spokane. The drive was eerily similar to our drive through west Texas. Only the temperature was over 100 degrees during this drive!

And yes, we are now headed east, not west.

We checked into the fam-camp at Fairchild AFB and plan to stay until the heat subsides (Tuesday or Wednesday). Our plan (if we have one) is to head to Glacier National Park.

Beyond Clallam Bay--August 7 & 8, 2008

We left Clallam Bay and headed for Port Angeles and Sequim. We continued our trek on US 101. Our stop was 7 Cedars Casino just east of Sequim. The weather was dreary for most of the drive, but the scenery was still outstanding. The casino was further from Port Angeles than we had hoped, but it would serve our purpose as a base while we went to Victoria, British Columbia.

After checking the ferry schedules, we knew we would have to get an early start--the passenger ferry we wanted left Port Angeles at 7:45 a.m. We had a 25 or 30 minute drive back to the port from the casino. I set the alarm on my cell phone, we were up and ready to go by 6:30. We stopped at one of the coffee kiosks along the way for our morning coffee. It seems that there is a drive through coffee place on every other corner in Oregon and Washington.

We arrived at the port, found a parking place for the day and headed for the ferry. When we purchased our tickets, the clerk gave us tickets for the 8:10 ferry, but said we might make it on the 7:45 if there was room. Well, there was plenty of room and off we went to Victoria. The ferry took a little over an hour. As we approached the port, we saw a tug pulling a barge. It reminded us of Mayport.

The ferry had to wait for several float planes to land. The planes land, then taxi to the docks to let passengers disembark.

When the white light on this buoy is flashing it means a float plane is coming in for a landing. There are several companies that fly to Victoria.Once we cleared customs, we headed for the tourist information center to purchase bus passes for the day. The agent sold us our passes and gave us directions to the place we needed to be to meet the bus going to Butchart Gardens. We walked the few blocks to the stop and had about 15 minutes before our bus arrived. We looked in the stores near the stop then helped some other tourists with the bus schedule to the gardens. Our bus was right on time and we enjoyed viewing Victoria for the hour it took to get to the gardens. We were glad we didn't drive as there was a lot of construction with many detours.

The entrance to the gardens was beautiful. There were hanging baskets and well-manicured flower beds everywhere.
The gardens were built on an old limestone quarry. The sunken gardens were sodded and planted in the early 1900s. It was and still is owned by the Butchart family. Jennie Butchart had a vision of beautiful gardens and was able to hire professionals to help her achieve that goal.In addition to the sunken garden, there are a rose garden.....

....Japanese garden.......Italian garden.....
,,,and garden areas to transition between them. We had a good view of the house from Three Sturgeons Fountain.There area several areas where you could retreat and enjoy the surrounding area and people watch. There were many tourists from all over the world.The gardens need continual care. We saw people dead-heading flowers throughout the park. In a nook near the rose garden we saw a truck with all the dead-heads.

We spent a couple of hours touring the gardens and the gift shop before heading back downtown. We walked around the downtown area to find a place for lunch--and Irish Pub. After lunch we continued exploring downtown. Near the ferry landing was Parliament.

A few blocks from Parliament was the Empress Hotel.

We headed back to the ferry to make our 5:30 boarding time. We went through American customs before boarding. Much to our surprise and everyone's, we also went through American customs when we arrived in Port Angeles.

We enjoyed our day in Victoria. Saturday we moved on to McChord AFB near Tacoma.

Clallam Bay and Cape Flattery--August 5 & 6, 2008

Tuesday morning we drove north on the Olympic peninsula to Clallam Bay. It is a small fishing town located by the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We planned to stay 2 nights so we could visit Cape Flattery--the northwestern most point in the lower 48 states. After we checked in, we did laundry--ugh!Wednesday we drove west to Cape Flattery. We did a few geocaches along the way. Cape Flattery is located on the Makah Reservation. To visit the reservation you have to have a $10 permit, but it is good for the calendar year. The road to the trailhead took us past and old Air Force Station which now houses the tribal council.

Once at the trailhead, it is a little over a half mile to the westernmost point in the lower 48 states.

The trail is very wet, even on a dry day. The Makahs built a wooden path for the wettest places.
At several places along the trail you could stop and view the ocean on either side of the cape.

There were rock outcroppings and caves on both sides.

These starfish were clinging to the side of the cave wall even though the tide was low.

As we neared the cape, the fog thickened, but the views were spectacular.
Of course there was a photo session at the cape.

This fishing boat was going out even though the fog was thickening.

From the cape we drove back into town to visit the Veterans' Memorial. Neah Bay is proud that many of its citizens have served in all our nation's wars and all have come safely home!
From the memorial we went to the Makah Museum. One of our geocaches was located on the totem pole outside the museum.
Inside the museum there were many artifacts from the Ozette Dig of the 1970s. Ozette was buried by a mudslide over 500 years ago. In the 1970s, the ocean uncovered some of Ozette. The items were recovered and are now housed in the museum.

No cameras were allowed in the museum, so no pictures. Whaling was an important part of the Makahs' lives. There were examples of 7 different sizes of canoes. The largest was used for whaling. Over that canoe was the skeleton of a gray whale--it was longer than the canoe!

One of the young ladies of the tribe was making baskets. She was using the bark from a red cedar tree. I found out you can evenly split red cedar bark lengthwise without using a knife or scissors.

The museum was filled with history and many hands on exhibits in addition to the protected artifacts.

Before we left Clallam Bay Thursday morning, we walked to the county park on the bay. We could see the village of Sekiu which is west of Clallam Bay.

You can barely make out British Columbia through the fog behind us.
There was a totem pole in front of the visitor center.
When we left Clallam Bay we headed toward Port Angeles and Sequim, Washington.

South Beach and Olympic National Park--August 4, 2008

South Beach Campground was quite a find. The campground overlooks the Pacific Ocean. There are no hookups, just a picnic table and a fire pit for each site. We were lucky enough to pull in and get this great site. Here is a view of the campground from the beach. My view of Washington beaches has changed--this one had large driftwood and rocks on the beach.Monday we went sightseeing. Our first stop was at a big cedar tree. The tree is no longer living, but the top has many other trees growing from it!
Our next stop was the Hoh Rainforest. The first parking lot we saw was filled, but we soon found out that it was for hikers making the overnight trip to Blue Glacier (about 19 miles).
There were two trails that meandered through the rainforest. The first took us over Taft Creek. The water was so clear you couldn't tell what was underwater and what wasn't! The moss hanging from the tree was out of the water, everything else was underwater!

We hiked through the Mossy garden which had old growth. The area near Hoh River had newer growth--mostly grasses and ferns with young trees. We hiked the Rainforest Trail and had to walk between these two downed trees!

From the rainforest we drove north to Forks and then we drove back to our campground. The sunset was fantastic--but still chilly outside.

Tuesday we moved north to Clallam Bay.