Monday - - 18 July 2011

The Elwa River - in the clear
Leaving the Elwa campsite today in bright sunshine - the first sunshine since we arrived here.

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Cresent Lake -

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Logging truck photos taken on the fly - there is a lot of harvesting outside the park.
The loggers do re-plant.

On the road to Forks WA

Some trees had been harvested or the lower part of the trunk would have branches

Half of mountain in the background has been clear cut. Foreground has been re-planted and is beginning to grow.

Rich forest - clearcut above behind.

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Forks, Wasington

Some stores in Forks take advantage of being a setting for the Twilight vampire movies

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Camped at Boagchiel State Park
State parks had electrical connections, and
after several days without in the National Park it gave us an opportunity to recharge batteries.

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The Hoh River

Trees lean toward road - Hoh Valley - driving up into that part of Olympic National Park

The trees are beginning to get taller - The Hoh valley is known for its very large trees.

                 
Tall Sitka Spruce tree

How big is this Spruce tree... here it is next to our Suburban.

The entrance gate to this part of the National Park is some distance inside the actual boundry.

Decidious under canopy in otherwise coniferous forest.

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Various epiphytes live on the trees

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Forest floor, when ever there is any light at all.

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From the Hoh Valley we drove west to Rialto Beach
where the Pacific Ocean creates a high energy cobble beach,
and the driftwood consists of huge logs.

Rialto Beach - a cobble beach - just north across the Quillayute River from La Push, WA

this is a high energy beach lots of wave action from the Pacific Ocean

a bit of very small kelp seaweed

a bit of fucus (genus fucales) seaweed (the Y shaped parts are its natural floats)

Rialto Beach collects huge driftwood logs

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Looking East up the Quileaute River.

La Push WA from Rialto Beach looking across the mouth of the Quillayute River

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Weatherbeaten, salt spray limited part of the forest behind Rialto Beach

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LaPush WA headquarters of the Quileute reservation
Picture shows the Senior Center and a school building

The restaurant and the community center

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The Rivers Edge Restaurant - looks very nice inside - we arrived just before the supper rush.
There is a glass wall on the North side of the restaurant which looks out over the river and towards Rialto Beach.
We saw and immature Bald Eagle competing with a bunch of the local seagulls for fish scraps as we ate.

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Some are having a lot of fun with being the Twilight vampire movie setting

The other side of the sign - this near Mora WA

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Tuesday - - 19 July 2011

Left Bogachiel State Park, Washington
and drove South.

Enroute we saw a sign pointing to a big tree
Indeed there was a big tree - a large grizzled pacific red cedar.

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One can look up the hollow lower part of the trunk

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To Fort Canby State Park
where there is a very nice Lewis and Clark expedition Museum on the Washington side of the Columbia River.

It is set on a tall bluff overlooking the mouth of the Columbia River.

I remember taking pictures at this location,
but have not found them on any of the 4 cameras we were using, and
do not have any break in the numbering sequence on the photos on any of the cameras.
I wonder what happened... The museum was very interesting and had some original artifacts
from the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Crossed the Columbia River to Astoria, Oregon and stayed at the KOA campground located just West of Astoria proper.

Next page - Oregon - Astoria - Tillamook - Depoe Bay - Brookings