Port Angeles, Washington

Olympia National Park.....Hurricane Ridge

Even though there had been a dusting of snow the night before, the roads were open up to Hurricane Ridge.  We drove our car as far as we could, which was to the visitors center, about 17 miles. 


On our drive through the park a black bear sat alongside the hill. It sat there eating and watching us as we took his pic.

He was not to scared of us, and yes we were more afraid of him.

The road past the visitors center was open to hikers.  The wall of snow was impressive to see as well as intimidating.

 

The kids had climbed up on a bank. David was hoping to sink further into the snow than he did.  We figured if they fell through the snow they wouldn't have to dig to far to get out.

Incredible views from atop Hurricane Ridge. Elevation 5200 feet.
The 17 mile road leading to Hurricane Ridge is prone to avalanches due to high speed wind conditions.

                                    Not your typical  sled dogs.....mush!


 We hiked down the road as far as we could until we came to the snow plow.  Beyond that point we were told it was not safe.

As we were making our way back down the ridge, at this point of interest we could see the Cascade Mountains into Canada.

Warrenton,Oregon

                          Fort Stevens

Built in 1863 and made of concrete steel.
 

We rode our bikes through the  trails to Fort Stevens from our RV, roughly 10 miles. 

  It was really beautiful that day.  We found out that this area looks like this for most of the year, quite pretty.

We finally reached the Fort. Standing at the top of this Fort you could see for miles.  An ideal location to watch for enemy war ships off in the distance.

This Fort guarded the mouth of the Columbia River from potential British attacks during the civil war.

The kids enjoyed checking out all the underground bunkers. 


The six 10 inch rifles on the West Battery were the primary weapons for Fort Stevens.  Strategically located on the Columbia River, the heavy 10 inch shells were designed to penetrate the exterior  armor of enemy ships. They look small in this photo but they are very large.

The Battery Mishler is the most interesting feature at Fort Stevens. It had circular gun pits with 360 degree fields of fire.  It wasn't until the end of World War II that the guns were removed. This battery is the only facility of its kind open to the public in the United States.

Although the big guns have been removed, nearly all the batteries remain and are the primary features of this tour.

This is Cindi and Jasmine way of telling David break time....lets go outside.



I picked up this little window hummingbird feeder and in our travels it has been interesting to watch the different types of hummingbirds feed from it.  They will fly right up to the window and its really neat to sit and watch them.  They have tiny little tongues that come out there long becks, it is really neat to watch them from up close.

Beverly Beach, Oregon

                       Oregon Coast 
                                             Aquarium

           The aquarium was a 15 minute drive from Beverly Beach                                 

                                                 

World's Largest Crabs

 Watching them walk sideways using all their legs was really neat or creepy, I don't know which. We could not believe how big they were.

With a leg span of 13 feet it was amazing to see. They live on the bottom of the pacific ocean near Japan. They feed on dead animals and shell fish.  They live to be around 100 years old.

There was a tide pool and we were given instruction on how to touch the anemones. There were star fish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, some things we did not want to touch. There were a couple anemones that would hug your finger, yea...and you were really glad when they let go.

Beverly Beach State Park
 

  We hiked over the tide pool and rock to a secluded part of the beach and found about a dozen sea lions sunning themselves.

They were a bit surprised when they saw us......a few jumped into the water. They were keeping their eyes on us though.

We found a few anemones ourselves out among the rocks....

 David was getting first hand, trade secrets on how to pan for gold. These guys were nice enough to show us there panning tools and techniques. They showed us some of their flakes of gold they found, probably keeping the bigger chunks hidden, nothing to see here move along......

With gold prices what they are these days it pays to pan.  We did not find gold on our excursion but we did find pieces of Oregon Jade and Agates, which are not really worth anything but they are pretty.

Eagle soaring..............

I'm sure this eagle saw us before we saw him.  He watched us come up the beach and would not let us get to close before taking off. Seeing this bald eagle on the beach was incredible. Yesterday at the aquarium we learned that the wingspan of a bald eagle is 6 to 8 feet.




                                      Evening Sunset 

 
We hurried across the road up over the dune to watch the sunset.  Other people had the same idea as we did.

Washburne, Oregon

We drove up hwy 101 along the coast about 60 miles to Washburne State Park.

 Before arriving we went online to see what would be interesting to visit. Once we found a site and were settled in we checked out the place.

We hiked to the Heceta Lighthouse from camp, about a six mile hike, round trip.   It was like walking through a rain forest.  All the branches, bushes, trees had moss growing on them. It looked like it had snowed moss on everything. We half expected Kaa, from Jungle Book, to drop from one of the branches.  Once we make it out of the jungle the views were incredible.

Once we arrived at the top we sat and had lunch which we had prepared earlier. We took in the incredible views and fresh air. We toured the lighthouse once we finished with lunch.


Very interesting story behind this lighthouse. It was named after a Navy Captain Don Bruno Heceta. From this site the light can be seen 50 miles up and 50 miles down the Oregon coast. This is a website which tells about the area. The photos on the website are much prettier to view.


http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=131

What the website doesn't mention is that the light within the lighthouse had roughly 380 pieces of glass that had to be cleaned  by hand daily back then, because kerosene was used to keep the light burning at night for the ships to see. To keep the light rotating weights had to be used, sort of like how a grandfather clock works.

There were 58 steps to the top of the lighthouse, our legs were screaming. There were two landings before we reached the top and each had windows to look out.

 If you worked at this lighthouse you earned $600 a year, which included a place to live, back then this was good income. Because of where this particular lighthouse was located, if you had a family they had to stay here with you in the residence lighthouse as well.  You had a garden and home-schooled your children.  There were two additional buildings near the lighthouse that were used for storing kerosene. The closest city was Florence, about 14 miles away. Your only means of travel was by wagon.  It took 3 to 4 days to travel to Florence. The trip began 4 miles over the hills then  onto the beach for another 10 miles. The beach access was the trickiest, when it was high tide you could not travel the beach., it would be completely cut off.

You can not see from this photo but along the cliffs were hundreds of sea lions sunning themselves. They say this is the largest sea cave in the world, and thousands of sea lions live here.