Olympic National Park

  For thousands of years the Olympic peninsula was cut off from other land  by glaciers and the ocean so the plants and animals developed in isolation. In 1909 the area that makes up the park was protected as a national monument. Most of the other land on the peninsula was eventually logged. Because this is one of the largest old growth temperate rain forests it’s a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site.


 
This river becomes a torrent in the spring from melting snow and rain. If you look closely you can see some of the full size trees that get washed down to the ocean beaches.

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All Around the Puget Sound

  We’ve just been hanging around in Washington State. Ever since our motorhome hit 300,000 miles we’ve been thinking that we really should start looking around for a replacement. We found a guy who does custom builds so now we just have to decide whether we want him to do it!  While we’ve been debating we took in all of the local museums.

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Visiting Eden and Burt

  We’ve been having a good time visiting , eating Eden’s creations and getting slaughtered  at  Boggle!  Eden and Burt are camera shy so no slide show.

Camping on their street                                        Eden and Burt’s house        

           The cats didn’t mind posing for pictures!    

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument , Washington State

 
 I remember being surprised when Mount St. Helens erupted because I didn’t realize that there were active volcanoes on the US mainland. Many of the people living in the area never considered it either. Even the scientists weren’t sure when or what was going to happen. The volcano had been rumbling for a couple of months and access was restricted but  57 people were still killed in the eruption.

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It’s a blooming artichoke!

A Week In Portland, Oregon

Sorry , no spectacular scenery this week! We’ve been using our museum passes to see everything. Most of the museums don’t allow photography.     The history museum had a lot of the costumes from the Broadway production of The Lion King which were amazing.
This is a great city to visit because almost everything is within walking distance of the down town area.

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12 Years and 300,000 Miles !

 Our little camper just keeps going ! From Alaska to Key West and from Newfoundland to San Diego. Every so often we think about getting a new one but we can’t seem to find one that can take us all of the places that this one has so we’ll keep the duct tape and caulking handy for the next 100,000. We’ve been meandering up through central Oregon. This is where we camped Friday night – beautiful and free on national forest land.
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Crater Lake National Park , Oregon

    Mount Manzana erupted 7,700 years ago ,then the volcano collapsed forming the depression which filled with water. It’s 1,943′ deep. All the water comes from snow melt and there’s no outlet except for percolation. And it really does look this blue!


 
Strange snow and dirt formation.          
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