Annie and Peter's Adventures in Life

September 15, 2023

Hi All,

It's been a while. This is the third time on the trip that I have had Wi-Fi so I've been doing these updates on my phone. Well, I had my phone in my back pocket and put it between my now bony ass and black top. The phone did not survive. It survived but was out of commission until yesterday.

We're having a couple of health issues so this will be the last update until we return.

We left Rainer National Park and headed up to the Olympic Peninsula to visit Olympic National Park. Another amazing place! Olympic NP is mostly wilderness so if you really want to see it you need to hike into it. Many of the people staying in our campground were there to hike Mt Olympus. We did not. Looking at the map of the park I notice a section around Lake Cresent. I went to the ranger at the information Center and said, "We are avid hikers, but my wife's knees make that impossible right now. It looks like you have some old people stuff around Lake Crescent. Is that so?" Truth be told - it was my male ego that made me say, "My wife's knees." It's true but unnecessary. Anyways, he giggled a bit and said yes and showed me a couple of one-mile walks which we took advantage of. It was a beautiful area which we quite enjoyed.

The lushness of the forest was intense. Like nothing we had ever seen. The magnificence of these places is almost overwhelming. We camped in a Hoh rainforest - pronounced ho.

We saw our first Roosevelt Elk at the park. All the elk we have seen have been a great sight. Roosevelt elk are beautiful animals. The beaches at Olympic were loaded with driftwood. First the trees are washed down the mountain during floods. It was quite the sight.

Annie has these sores in her mouth which have been rather painful. We went to a walk-in clinic in Beaver, WA. Annie called to see if she was going to get in. The phone was answered, "Beaver clinic, Jonas speaking." Jonas was the doctor. He owned the clinic as well as the store, defunct gas station and a takeout sandwich place all attached. While I was waiting during Annie's time with him, I had a cool conversation with a guy who brought in his daughter for a physical so she could join the cross-country team. Jonas had no answers but gave Anne a prescription for lanicain to numb her mouth so she could eat.

We had the prescription filled in Forks, WA. That's right you Twilight fans - that Forks, WA. We wore turtlenecks.

Lake Crescent. I think Crescent Lake sounds better, but they forgot to ask me.

This is not Jonas' place but similar.

At our campsite.

Who needs sandcastles with all this wood.

From Olympic we headed down towards Redwood National Park. First stop on the way was Cape Disappointment State Park. It was not a long drive, so we had some time to check the area out once we got there. The beach was a one minute and thirty-seven second walk to the beach. Annie loved it. We actually stayed up late enough to see the sunset and it was worth it.

We also got to check out the Lewis and Clark interpretation Center. I'm a big fan. This is the spot where they reached their destination. I believe William Clark's quote was, "Oh joy, the Pacific Ocean!" I learned there that Thomas Jefferson sent four expeditions out after buying the Louisiana Territory. I will need to research what the other three were up to.

This was in Olympic. I missed it above.

From there we took our time getting to a quick overnight at another beach state park in OR. On the way we stopped at Cannon Beach where the famous Haystack Rock is. It is a rather impressive rock in the ocean. We looked for the pirate ship. Must have sunk.

From the quick overnight we headed to Redwood National Park. It turned out to be a very long 239-mile ride. We spent a little over an hour at an incredible Oregon beach and another 2 hours doing laundry along the way. By the time we got to Redwood that 239-mile drive took nine hours. Yepper - nine hours. When we got there, we found out that the campground in the park had just reopened that day after being closed for some time due to fire. I figured I didn't see an email because my phone was junk. That wasn't the only reason, however. When I made the reservation, I mistakenly made it for August instead of September. Luckily, they had a site for the three nights we were planning to stay. A beautiful site with a redwood tree right there.

The park was amazing! We walked through a few groves of these amazing trees. MINDBLOWING! These trees are among the oldest living things on earth. And kind of tall.

We took a walk through Fern Canyon. Our wedding invitation had ferns on it so they have always been a favorite. It was worthy. We walked through a stream with a wall of fern on both sides. Part of Jurassic Park was filmed there. I don't like any of the pictures we took there but wow what a walk. From the end of that walk, we took a path to the beach and sat in the sun for a while. We saw a seal floating near the beach for a while and then disappear, a huge jelly fish and a star fish. On the drive to the trailhead, we saw a pretty big herd of Roosevelt Elk. Anong them was a 12-point buck and a mother nursing her baby. Pretty cool.

This beach chair didn't make the whole trip.

"Hey you guys!"

The Oregon beach we stopped at

Looked like a momma seal and her baby.

It's a pretty big tree. People used to corral their animals in there.

Enlarge for some amazing stats.

Thank God I was there.

Not a bad camping spot.

Fern Canyon

A waterfall covered in moss.

From Redwood we headed up to Crater Lake National Park. We met up with our niece and nephew-in-law Claire and John there. They live in Bend Oregon and when we started talking about our trip they said, "We want to show you Crater Lake." And they did. I don't know how many times I have said this since the beginning of the trip, but what an amazing place! A volcano collapsed into itself. It's called a caldera. After a couple of centuries of snow melt and rainfall this gorgeous lake replaced it. It happened under 8,000 years ago. That means people were present to witness it. Dude! It is the deepest lake in the USA at 1,949 feet. And is a beautiful deep blue. Blue as the deep blue sky.

We got to the park late in the day and was able to catch a glimpse of the lake and mountains opposite at sunset. A couple of days later the four of us got up to see the sunrise over the lake. Wow!

From Crater Lake we came here to Bend to Claire and John's beautiful home. It has been a most wonderful visit with the exception of the health bullshit. We are heading home from here. We will be stopping at my brother and sisters-in-law in Boise and My brother in Columbus but everything else is getting blown off so we can get home and deal with this.