Tuesday, June 16, 2015

June 15, 2015. Olympic National Park, new zones

CAMPGROUND:  Heart of the Hills Campground inside Olympic National Park.  Small sites. Nice bathrooms.  No hook-ups. $10/night with senior pass. 3 stars
LOCATION:  Outside of Port Angeles, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula. Near Juan de Fuca Straight. 
WEATHER:  nice. Highs in 70s, as we went inland

Sadly, it was my turn to drive again as we headed into the rain forest, leaving the Pacific.  I saw a police car's lights so I slowed down.  Huge logs had fallen from a logging truck onto the road.  It could have been bad.  I'm going to try to avoid following thise trucks on the road!

We left the coastal area, zone #1 of the national park, and drove to the Hoh Rain Forest, zone #2.  How different!  We hiked Mossy Trail, which was full of spruce and maple trees dripping with moss and ferns.  Kind of creepy!


Some really tall trees.....200-300 feet tall.  We could hear birds singing, but couldn't see them as they were so high up.


We drove farther west, passing beautiful Lake Crescent.  We got set up in the campground.  It is practically empty.  It may be because the sites are so small that anything larger than our trailer wouldn't fit.  We drove up to Hurricane Ridge, so called because it is so windy.  As we were driving up and up the mountain.......darn, I was driving again, we started hearing a strange sound.  We checked all our gauges; everything seemed to be ok.  Checked the heater and A/C.  Ok, too.  The higher we got, the more persistent the sound.  It sounded like a rattlesnake.  We were getting worried; there was no shoulder to pull over on.  Finally, George figured it out.....it was our water bottle reacting from the change in air pressure.  Whew!

As we were driving,a beautiful sun dog appeared.



This is zone #3 of the Olympic National Park, the mountains.  We could see Mount Olympus and glaciers in the distance.


Lots of deer happily munching on grass.  The Chinese tourists were thrilled.


From the top of a path, in the opposite direction, we could see Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland.  

Back at the campground, we relaxed and read around a campfire.  

DINNER:   Spaghetti using leftover meatballs from last night. 

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