12 Oakdale

Our last chance to see Mount Olympus, and it was the cloudiest of the trip. Never the less, we decided to drive up Hurricane Ridge to at least say we’d done it. As we climbed, the fog became more and more dense. It wasn’t smoke, because I had to run the windshield wipers to keep clearing off the droplets. Dang, I wish I had my Tacoma truck with its fog lights. I crawled along at less than 20 miles per hour and prayed some local wasn’t going to fly into us.  Then, suddenly, we were above the clouds, and it was a beautiful sunny day. And we could see the mountain tops with their receding glaciers. We walked along the meadow trails where the Olympus marmots were supposed to be gamboling, but it must have been their day off. A couple of chipmunks came close enough for me to be suspicious that perhaps they had been given the occasional trail mix treat. I did see two juncos and two yellow-rumped warblers, in addition to the ever-present crows. This has not been much of a birding trip. Wr...

A ferry ride aboard the Coho to Victoria. So calm I didn’t realize we were underway. We also didn’t realize it was September 11, until the ferry agent mentioned the ship would be stopping for a moment of silence at 8:50 AM. Everyone was given a carnation as we boarded, to throw into the water during the silence. Very touching. A little over an hour later, and we were on Canadian soil. What a beautiful city, but rather than stroll casually around, we hightailed it over to the tour buses parked in front of the Empress Hotel to get our tickets to visit Butchart Gardens, or as the guide said several times, the World Famous Butchart Gardens. After making a fortune in the early 1900’s, owning a limestone quarry used in their cement factory, the Butcharts had wagon loads of topsoil brought in to create the gardens. 55 acres of beautiful flowering plants. Lots and lots of color. Petunias, begonias, daisies, hydrangeas, etc. A wall of dahlias with some blooms as big as dinner plates, others so ...

Three nights at the Paradise Ocean Hotel, which is ocean-front but a long way from the water. In this part of Washington, the beach is wide, hard packed, and open to driving on, at least after Labor Day. I ventured out a ways, but didn’t want to get stuck in the sand. I was unnerved when I saw a station wagon backing out, with a guy jumping up and down on the back bumper. I’d never seen this technique of getting out of soft sand, and didn’t want to try it.  Our first day we drove up Washington State Road 109, stopping at all the state parks and most of the beach access points along the way to Talohah, capital of the Quinault tribe, at the north end. After Labor Day, this area is deserted. We had the beaches mostly to ourselves. At the North Jetty in Ocean Shores, I spoke to a birder from South Carolina who is driving all around the country with his wife. He pointed out wandering tatters and black turnstones among the rocks. Another beach had a family flying kites which is a big pas...