We left Aberdeen, Washington, and continued toward the Washington coast. There is a great little visitor center near Beach #1. I asked the young man (I sound so old when I say that, but “cute kid” sounded bad, too) where we could find the best tide pools and he suggested Beach #4. Off we went.
Grace had been totally nutsy antsy to get down to the water to look for critters and so far we hadn’t found a good spot. Beach #4 fulfilled all her creature finding needs.
And Caroline found a new friend. Meet Sam.
Right away Grace found some sea stars. No, she didn’t rip them off the rocks; she gently removed them. No creatures were harmed during this vacation (except those we squushed by accident when walking through the rocks, and there weren’t too many!).
Brad also had a lot of fun playing on the beach. He and the girls played one of his favorite games, jump rope. He really wanted to do double dutch but the girls aren’t as good as he is (VA state champion, 3 years running).
Between Beach #4 and Ruby Beach was one of the 6 largest trees in the world, a humongous sitka spruce. Had to get a picture of that!
Next we drove north to Ruby Beach, one of the highly recommended beaches to visit There is a large creek or small river that flows onto the beach where it slows down and forms sort of a pond. There are billions of perfect skipping stones right there and I think there are very few people who can walk past that calm pool of water and not skip a few. Look at the concentraion on his face.
Caroline wanted me to take a picture of her jumping off a log. I love the tongue out and leg position. Not sure what she was going for, but funny she was.
And this was Grace, enjoying the peace of the beach.
After the beauty and open expanses of the Washington coast we turned inland toward the Quinault Rainforest and Lake Quinault. 
We hiked up to some falls that were near the lodge and visitor’s center. It was more of a hike than we had expected and the rain was kind of unpleasant. Grace’s “raincoat” was far from waterproof and she was a soaking mess when we got back to the car. But it was pretty.
No surprise that at this time we decided to generally stay in the car unless there was no other option. There was a nice route around the lake that we opted to take.
Until we got to the world’s largest spruce tree. That required a short hike. No other option.
It was scenically foggy and luckily I could take most of my photos from the comfort of the car, including this waterfall below where a black lab was happily frolicking.
During our drive around the lake the girls were, for some reason, singing Christmas songs. Don’t ask us why. The weird thing was that while in the midst of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” we passed this tree. Totally bizarre.
We didn’t pass any other Christmas trees on the trip around the lake, just an elk and another car or two. Weird.
The Martin family of Katy, TX and Joyce, WA were kindly putting up with us for a few days so we drove to their adorable house and hung out with them until bedtime. We were looking forward to an early, fun-filled day.
No comments:
Post a Comment