The edge of Olympic

It was hard to leave Portland, but we were looking forward to tales of rain forests, glaciers, mountains and cities to the north. Our first stop in the Evergreen state was the cozy Lake Sylvia, a beautiful forest clad lake west of Olympia. We got a sweet campsite right on the water and gave our NEW tent its first taste of the outdoors! There was an osprey hanging out in the tree right above us, and we watched him make noisy dives into the lake to retrieve silver fish in his talons.

We splurged on new digs just in time for the exceptionally rainy Washington west coast. Here is the tent without its rain-fly, which makes for a great place to hang out and play games or read in mosquito infested areas :)

And here it is, with the protective rain-fly that works so well to keep us DRY

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From Sylvia, we drove to Lake Quinault, at the edge of the national forest. It looked like this while we were there...

...though, apparently, in the right weather it can also look like this:



The fancy lodge down the road, overlooking the water. Note the unique details on the chimney.

We did a great hike in the forest there, where we found lots of wild berries, some very large spruce trees, and excellent interpretive trail signs that included local Tribal legends.

Sooooo many ripe thimbleberries!! The most we've found so far. Yum.

Learning more about our favorite forest creature, the slug.

Lou with the alleged "largest spruce tree in the world." Questionable, but interesting nonetheless.

So lush.

An octopus tree in the making.

exercising the self-timer function

We also spotted this unusual plant for the first time. It is known as Indian Pipe, or ghost (or corpse) flower, which we first mistook for a fungus as the entire plant is the same waxy, white color. It turns out that it is a plant that is devoid of chlorophyll and gets all its nutrients from a fungus in the soil.

the ghost

Like a verdant starry night