Olympic Peninsula

Though we were reluctant to leave the beautiful Cascade Mountains behind, we decided to spend the last few days of our trip on the Olympic Peninsula. We traveled by car and ferry across the Puget Sound to Port Townsend, a cool, eclectic city we would like to spend a lot more time in some day.

While on the Olympic Peninsula, we stayed in the small town (the largest one of our trip, though) of Forks, Washington. In addition to being a really fun logging town, and being very close to tons of beautiful places (inluding Olympic National Park), Forks is also the setting for the Twilight book series. The people of Forks have embraced their accidental stardom, and every store, restaurant, and hotel now caters to Twilight tourists.

Once you get your Twilight fix (for Jeremy and Tenny, that took about 3 seconds), there are a million (no, really) other fun things to do in the area. Here are a couple examples (with more to come):

Sol Duc Falls

Sol Duc Falls is a beautiful waterfall at the end of an easy (about 1 mile, pretty flat) trail that winds through the Olympic rainforest.
I couldn't decide which of these pictures to include, because a different Tenny showed up for each of them, and he's so cute in both.

Sweet Tenny

Crazy Tenny

And now, an important Public Service Announcement from Suzanne: this bridge is dangerous for small children. Do not take your youngins here without a leash.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program: this is a great little hike. You should really try it someday.

Hoh Rain Forest

The Hoh Rain Forest is a temperate rainforest on the western side of Olympic National Park. It is one of the wettest spots in the Continental U.S., receiving between 140 to 170 inches of annual rainfall.

"The Big Sitka Spruce Tree," older than America, and bigger than our house.

The rolling phone gathers no moss.

Suzy shot this Roosevelt Elk.

There are a handful of trails that branch out from the visitor's center. No matter which way you go, it's going to be beautiful. Even at the end of the summer, the enormous trees are teaming with mosses and fungi and all sorts of bugs you don't want your child to touch.

Tennyson's favorite part of the rainforest was a little stream that was filled with baby salmon. He would still be sitting there watching the "fishies" had his mean parents not pulled him away.