Sequim, Washington - 31 May 2016

We left Seattle and headed down to Tacoma to cross over to the Olympic Peninsula. The day was clear and warm.  We finally saw Mount Rainer! With the clouds that have been hanging around since Eureka, we didn’t see any of the Cascades until today.

We certainly were headed the right direction as far as traffic was concerned.  There were miles of cars, trailers, and RVs making their way, very slowly, into the Seattle area. We had no delays and arrived in Sequim, our home for the next few days, by midafternoon. The drive was beautiful - winding roads through green lush forests with occasional views of rivers and lakes.

We took advantage of the good weather and took our first excursion into Olympic National Park via the Hurricane Ridge Road.  The park has over one million acres of land and there are no roads that go all the way through the park.  Highway 101 goes all the way around and there are a few roads that enter the park for no more than 20 miles.  The Hurricane Ridge Road is one of those and it climbs up to about 5,000 feet where the park service has built a very nice visitor center with panoramic views of the Olympic range. Several black tailed deer were munching the wild flowers in the meadows behind the visitor center. From the other side of the ridge, you could see all the way across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Canada. We also had some great views of Mount Baker.

After making our way back down to the park entrance, we decided to take the next spoke in the road wheel and go see the Elwha Valley dam area.  We didn’t get too far up the road before we discovered that the road was closed. To compensate, we had a nice short walk to a smallish waterfall and read some park signs about the Elwha dam which was about 8 miles up the closed road.  There were actually two dams that were put in about 100 years ago.  In 2010, the largest dam removal project in U.S. history was started. The river is a salmon and trout river (11 different species) and they expect the salmon run to grow from about 3,000 to over 400,000.  There were lots of warning signs about not messing  around the site of the dam since there were lots of steel pipes under the water which could pose an impaling risk when jumping into the water. Enough to deter me, but I bet it is a popular destination for teen groups.

We plan to visit the rainforest park of Olympic National Park tomorrow. 

Mt. Rainer has a dominating presence over I-5.

 

Excited to cross the Tacoma Narrows Bridge! Some may know this bridge as "Galloping Gertie." In the 1940s, high winds in the narrows caused an earlier version of the bridge to start swinging in a sinusoidal fashion - you can find videos of this on YouTube.  After about 2 hours, the bridge broke up. A new bridge (with a modified design) was installed in 1950.  The vertical posts you see in the picture are the original posts.

Bremerton is the site of a ghost fleet of Navy ships. Four Vietnam War era aircraft carriers including Kitty Hawk, Independence and Ranger are in the process of being dismantled.

Russ is the person who takes almost all of the photos in this blog.  He spends a lot of his time in this pose.



The vistas of Olympic National Park as we climbed up the Hurricane Ridge Road were spectacular. The ridge is named because of high winds that can crop up.  It did not live up to its name today.





Where is Julie Andrews when  you need her?




There are something like 60 glaciers in the Olympic mountains, but just like everywhere else, they are rapidly shrinking.





Several black-tailed deer were in the meadows around the visitor center.  Even though there were lots of signs warning people not to approach them, several tourists were taking pictures of themselves standing next to the deer.



On the other side of the ridge, we had views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Canada.

 

This is Victoria, British Columbia.  We are headed there in a couple of days.





Heard lots of song birds, but didn't see many.  This one was enjoying the patch of snow.




Mt. Baker across the Strait. We figured it was about 60 miles away, as the crow flies.



 

A small (about 50 feet) but very pretty waterfall was visible after a short 5 minute walk. We found this while attempting to visit the Elwha River dam.