Washington Vacation - Part 2

Sunday, July 3rd, we went to church. Our reunion drastically increased the size of the local ward. After church, we meet at the little branch building in Joyce to prepare and eat dinner. We also played card games, the kids played and colored, and we had a patriotic family program.

The kids singing a song for the family program

Between other activities, we took family pictures. As it turned out, I was the only one with a tripod, so I ended up taking a number of the pictures. Luckily, we had been able to buy a new memory card Saturday evening, so my camera was back in working order.

The entire group that was there on Sunday

After the program and pictures, we went back to Salt Creek in another attempt to see the sunset. There still wasn't much of one, but we did see a little color in the sky.

Monday morning (July 4th) we headed out with Melissa and Max to the Hoh Rainforest. While this area was definitely full of all sorts of moss and fungi, it was less dense than the Quinault Rainforest was. We hiked along the main trail a ways, and it rained on us during a good portion of the hike.

The moss-drapped trees here had branches that almost looked like soft hairy green arms. They kind of reminded us of the limbs of orangutans. At one point, we also spotted the largest slug we have ever seen making its way across the trail.

The trail follows pretty close to the Hoh River in many places. We were interested to learn that the river gets its milky blue color from glacial flour, which is made of tiny particles that form when a glacier grinds against the bedrock. The bedrock is ground into what looks like a flour, and that is then washed down into the river by melt-off. This stuff isn't toxic, but apparently it will clog water filters, so you aren't supposed to take water to drink from the Hoh River. Instead, hikers can take water from tributaries flowing into the Hoh River, which lack the glacial flour.

At the end, I ran/hiked ahead of the group in an effort to make it to Tom's Creek, where there was a small waterfall visible through the thick foliage. I did succeed in this, but somehow passed everyone else on the way back without seeing them. I ended up searching all over, and then waiting a short time at the visitor's center until I saw them at another trailhead. It would seem there was more than one point you could start the trail from.

After leaving the rain forest, we headed out to Rialto Beach. Walking out to Hole in the Wall had been one of the things I most wanted to do during the trip, so I was very disappointed when it was decided there would not be time to make it there and get back in time for dinner. Still, it was a scenic beach, and we enjoyed wandering about, skipping rocks in the water, taking pictures, and watching the waves crash in.

There were also a lot of driftwood logs along this beach, but not nearly as many as there had been at Ruby Beach.

After a hamburger/hot dog dinner that evening back at Brittany's house, we played some on the rock climbing treadmill machine they had. Then we headed out to the pier in Port Angeles with other family members to watch the fireworks. It was pretty cold, but we enjoyed the show in any case.

Monday was the last day of the reunion, so everyone else left Tuesday morning to go home. We stayed an extra day though in hopes of seeing more of the park. We didn't want to drive out again to a far-out point though, so we decided to try for Hurricane Ridge. The view from Hurricane Ridge on a clear day is fantastic, but the area seems to have just as many, if not more cloudy days as clear ones. We tried to watch to Hurricane Ridge webcam to see when it would be clear enough. In the meantime, we tried to get a bit of laundry done and we hiked a short trail behind Brittany's house. I particularly enjoyed observing all the wildflowers along the way, many of which I was unfamiliar with.

Foxglove

Avalanche Daisy

 

The trail led us to a hill from which we could see the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the mountains across it that are part of Canada.

After returning from our hike, we found that the power was out at Brittany's house, so finish our laundry was put on hold. We ate lunch and decided to try Hurricane Ridge. The drive up was pretty by itself, and as things turned out, it was clear enough at the top to see a good portion of the mountains...at least at first.

According to the informational plaque, these rocks used to be
at the bottom of the ocean

We hiked up to Sunrise Ridge. The mountains around there were visible at first, but within a few minutes the clouds came rolling in and covered them up.

Before clouds arrived

After clouds arrived

Even with the clouds obscuring our view, the area was pretty. We saw a black tailed deer right next to the trail at one point.

After visiting Hurricane Ridge, we headed down to the pier to see the boats. We also made sure that Austin had some time to play on the nearby ship playground. He had been hoping for a chance to explore it since he saw it before fireworks the night before.

It was quite windy, but it was fun to walk along the shore. I especially enjoyed watching the birds. Too bad I don't own a good pair of binoculars.

That evening we were able to attend one of Nate's cousin's Eagle court of honor. We also finished packing up our things so we could leave first thing the next morning.