Ron and Sally Jo Blog

We were thrilled with the many wild flowers that we saw while traveling the Northwest this summer.  We tried to identify some of the flowers but we could not find the names for all.  Maybe some of you can help us!

During our trip to the U.S. Northwest, we crisscrossed the state of Washington several times. We crossed through the Northern Cascades on route 20; we spent time on the Olympic Peninsula; we crossed the state twice on I-90; and we varied I-90 path slightly by traveling on U.S. 12 one time. Our photos for the Olympic Peninsula are in another blog post.

We saw smoke in the air from forest fires across much of the state. When on our northern path we stayed in one town which was a staging area for the firefighters of that area. We drove past places which had burned. (This road was closed a week later for a new fire outbreak.)

The central part of the state is very dry—except where irrigation is used. The Columbia Basin Project is the irrigation network that the Grand Coulee Dam makes possible. It is the largest water reclamation project in the United States. We visited the Dam and also a large family farm where wheat and fruit trees are grown because of the project.

Mt Rainier

We visited both Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens. Contrasting mountains. The slopes of Mt Rainier were so green with a lovely snowy cap. Mt St Helens still shows the scars of the 1980 volcanic eruption with barren slopes, barren trees, landslide scrapes, and a huge crater at the side of the mountain. On both mountains wildflowers were abundant.

On Mt Rainier we hiked through an old forest of amazing tall trees and also hiked to a very high waterfall. On Mt St Helens we learned much about the volcanic eruption and how it has changed the landscape.

We spent two nights on Whidbey Island with an interesting couple who are part of a
Buddhist cmmunity. They have a lovely home with beautiful landscaping, resident deer, and an observatory. We spent a day hiking and seeing the southern part of the island. We took a ferry to the Olympic Peninsula.

We headed to Sequim (pronounced “skwim”) to stay with another interesting couple who live on the edge of Olympic National Park. Our first day we decided to walk out the Dungeness Spit—a 5.5 mile spit of sand with a lighthouse at the end. We started out in absolute fog, not seeing more than 15-20 feet in front of us. We started walking not sure how far we would go. About a mile from the lighthouse, the fog lifted and it looked inviting so we continued. When we returned to the beginning and looked back to the lighthouse, we couldn’t believe we walked that far. If we had seen it at the beginning, we probably would have never gone!

On our way back to where we were staying – along a forested, mountain road—at 4:30 pm a deer jumped out of the forest and landed on our car. He/She rolled off and down the hill and we had a broken windscreen and messed up front end of the car! What a jolt! We were able to drive slowly to the house but the next morning we had it towed to a body shop. The incident changed much of our remaining time in the North West. We rented a van so that we could haul our bikes and continue on to the MCC bike ride in Idaho. But it meant a return trip across the state of Washington from Idaho back to Sequim to pick up the car after it was repaired.

On to seeing the Peninsula – with our rented van. We drove up Hurricane Ridge, visited Port Angeles, stopped along Crescent Lake, and then stopped along the Pacific coast. We enjoyed the rocks, and small pools, and sand—all in the fog.