...J&J's Excellent Adventure: Olympic National Park

Wow. We spent the weekend over on the Olympic Peninsula and now we are hoping to go back and spend many, many, many weekends over on the Olympic Peninsula. What a magic place! It didn't start out great though - when we arrived at the ferry terminal on Friday evening we found out that the ferry was canceled due to high winds. Hmmmm.... how to get there? We ended up driving around part of Puget Sound and taking two other ferries to get there. But we got there! And it only got better from that point on. This national park is quite famous for all the rain it gets - and here is where we got lucky! It was sunny! Sort of, a type of WA sunny. But unreal and grand nonetheless. We were given wonderful views of the Olympic Mountains and sun rays shining through the Hoh Rainforest inside the park. A real treat, especially for my poor Mom and Dad who had been stuck with gray, rainy weather since they arrived.

We also saw a bunch of Roosevelt elk - a surprise! We totally didn't expect this and yet, there they were, grazing right along the side of the road. We had great views right from our car, a true national park moment. Ha! No hiking involved. Some schmuck in the car in front of us decided to get out and walk right up to them though - scaring them and sending them a bit further away. My yelps at the dumb dude didn't seem to bother him....why must people harass wildlife?

Moss paradise in the Hoh Rainforest

Barber #1, 2, and 3 plus a Dimond. Huge Sitka spruce.

Bigleaf maple covered in moss

This was the other super awesome moment from the park! An American dipper!! Yahoo! Now, I'm an east coaster - so this was a totally new bird for me. It is the only songbird that will regularly swim in fast-flowing rivers, chowing on aquatic insects. We watched two individuals swimming, dipping, and doing a cute little dance/bob on the rocks when they got out. Very VERY cool. If you go to my Picasa album you can see a video of this little bird.

On our way back to the ferry, we stopped at Dungeness Spit - a national wildlife refuge. We didn't have the 5 hours it would take to walk to the end of the spit and back, but we enjoyed the long beach and the views of the horned grebe offshore. After leaving the spit, we took the ferry back to Whidbey Island and headed home to Anacortes. The ferry ride was a wildlife sighting mecca! Not only did we spot harbor porpoises, but there were a bunch of Rhinoceros auklets!!! As Jay would say... "oh my word" (in a southern accent). That was another new bird sighting for us and a very exciting one. Anyway, it was our first weekend leaving the nugget cats and we were sooo happy to arrive home to find them in one attention-craving piece. The next day, Monday, I brought my parents to the airport and now they are safely back east giving their own cats some needed love.