Travels of a Paradox: The Olympic Peninsula June 23-30, 2008

Photo by Stephen Hill, PhD

We arrived at the Waterfront at Potlatch on the Olympic Peninsula (the thumb of Washington http://www.explorehoodcanal.com) on June 23, 2008. This was a view out our windshield. We were given the site with a huge lawn on the passenger side of the RV - very nice. This park has only 14 sites for RVs and has cabins and motel rooms. The tide was out when we arrived. Within minutes Ted harvested a bucket of oysters. Clams are abundant too, but they are not in season. The park is right on US 101, but we are far enough from the road that the traffic noise doesn't bother us. We are two miles from the only true fjord in the lower 48 states. Scuba divers come to explore depths to 700 feet and the abundant marine life, including octopi. Fly fishermen can be seen in the rivers and mountains stay snow covered year round. We saw six Bald Eagles; including two females in three days.

Photo by Stephen Hill, PhD

Friends, Steve and Jenny Hill, joined us for a few days. They stayed in a fully equiped "cabin" just feet from our coach. We celebrated Steve's retirement as a psychologist for the Vancouver, WA School District and his birthday.

An afternoon spent re-exploring Sequim (pronounced Squim) and Port Angeles, on the north side of the peninsula was a blast. Steve has sold his photography, so it was humbling to share my attempts. He was going to help me learn to make the most of my camera until I found that I had thrown away the English manual and saved the one in Spanish! I have since printed one in English from the web. Bless the Internet!

Ted and I spent the day after Jenny and Steve left seeing areas of the peninsula we have missed on our previous visits. Foxgloves were in bloom everywhere.

We hiked a forest trail in Dosewallips State Park about 30 miles north of our RV park. The 30 percent grade gave me a good work-out.

Ted said that this is a Goose Pin in the making. That is what this root system is called when the supporting stump rots away and leaves the roots webbed above ground.

Look carefully and you will see Seattle in the middle of this photo. We were at the end of a Forest Service road at the top of Walker Mountain when we took this.