Kalaloch Beach Campground to Quinault Rain Forest, Olympic National Park, Washington.
Woke to a temp. of 44 degrees F. and some sunshine interspersed with rain showers. The Kalaloch Beach looked so beautiful this morning. The tide was out, the waves were pounding the beach and the shore birds were quite busy. A great view to go with a hearty breakfast.
Met some lovely RVers last night. Two couples, friends for many years, now visiting the area together. Also met one of two women traveling together in a small Winnebago View and were headed south through California and then east to Florida. They’re planning six months of travel. Chatted about the “how to’s” of boondocking and solar for RVs. They had done some boondocking in the past but had some questions. Hope we helped. Boondocking is really pretty easy as you get away from big cities and towns but they were looking for places in the cities and towns (like Los Angeles).
Jerry did some option trades this morning and the stock market seemed to be behaving today. We’d like the stock market to cooperate for awhile and pay for some of the gas for this long trip. One can only hope. Gas in this area is running $4.49. I busied myself with stowing all things that might fly around inside the motor home while we travel as we have decided to see the Quinault Rain Forest.
Arrived in the Quinault Rain Forest before lunch and walked the two short trails that start at the Quinault Rain Forest Ranger Station. Walking through the area we suddenly heard huffing and what we quickly realized was a panicked herd of Elk crashing through the undergrowth to get away from us. Yikes! It’s not the tourist season here, not even the Ranger Station was open, so we must have taken the Elk by surprise though were were certainly making noise. We could only hope that in their panic they did not get hurt and would not charge us. We could see them running back and forth in the undergrowth but happily they managed to find a way to get away from us without charging us and didn’t seem hurt.
One of the trails led to an old homestead that was intact. The rangers must do some demonstrations here in the summer as you could see into some of the old buildings and there were some old tools on display. We poked around the homestead for some time trying to imagine what it must have been like to live here by your wits and hard work.
What can you say about a rain forest except “beautiful”. Some of the trees here are huge and the adjacent lake is specular. Early on in our travels to beautiful places we learned just how inarticulate we can become. Many times all we can say is “Oh, Wow!”, “Beautiful!”, “Oh, look at that!”, etc. We never get jaded by the beauty though no matter how much we see.
Driving along hwy.101 you could see many places where the trees have been clear cut. We know that timber is the crop in this area and we recognize the need for wood. Some places that were clear cut were screened by trees that had been spared and fronted the highway, a much less jarring view. It seems to us that leaving some trees to screen the scarring of the land should be a standard practice. It doesn’t change the situation but esthetically it would be a reasonable choice.
