May 2008June 2008 July 2008

There are fields of phlox.

06/28 - Hurricane Hill Road Is Open

We were up at Hurricane Ridge yesterday and had a pleasant surprise. Hurricane HIll Road is open. On our last visit, the road had been partially plowed, as far as the first picnic area, and was open for hikers. Now the road is open for traffic all the way to the Hurricane Hill trailhead.

Being lazy sorts, we decided to walk, rather than drive, so we set out from the lodge along the road. The snow is melting fast. The views are spectacular, as usual. The big show is the flowers. We have never seen so many and so many all at once. Already, there are lupines, phlox, glacier and avalanche lilies, indian paintbrush, yarrow, and a good many we don't know the names of. There were even mushrooms, which are not all that common a mile up. Clearly, the wet winter, with nearly twelve feet of snow, had something to do with this.

As it turned out, Friday was the first day the road was open. The Hurricane Hill trail is generally clear, though there was a big pile of snow near the start, and the rangers reported a fair bit of snow in that shady patch about a mile along. Next time, we aren't going to be so lazy. We are going to drive out to the trailhead and get to the top of Hurricane Hill. Wish us luck.

The air is scented with phlox.

Some early lupines

Glacier lilies

Drunkard's Corner: We noticed the wobbly line this time. Next time, we'll drive, but we'll stay sober.

Keywords: flowers, hurricane hill, hurricane ridge, summer


Low tide, but the beach is rocky.

06/24 - Good Hiking Tides at Dungeness Spit

There have been some good hiking tides at Dungeness Spit lately. Yesterday, there was a -0.6 foot tide around one o'clock, so there was lots of beach to walk on. Check our tide tables, or our little notice on the left banner of this page, to find some other good tides in the near future. We have to be honest and report that the beach, while broad, was a bit rocky, with lots of small stones that kept us hopping. Still, we made it pretty far down, and we'll try for the lighthouse later this season.

Looking back at the mountains.

Dungeness Spit is more than just seagulls.

Keywords: dungeness spit, tides, birds

06/23 - Hurricane Hill Road

Snowshoe season is over, but Hurricane Hill Road is stilled closed, at least to traffic. The park service has plowed the road for about a mile, to the first picnic area. The rest rooms there are still buried under mounds of snow, but a lot of the road is completely clear. We took a walk, and we can report that the first flowers of the season are coming out. The phlox, with its small white flowers is covering the hillsides and scenting the air. We've also spotted little yellow avalanche lilies, some yarrow and a few brilliant paint brush.

Insert a picture here

If you smell something sweet this time of the year, it is probably the phlox.

There are also avalanche lilies.

There's also some indian paintbrush.

It looks like the mountains have made it through the winter.

Keywords: flowers, hurricane hill, winter

06/18 - The Three Laws Of Accounting

Accounting has three inviolable laws:
  1. Your books must balance
  2. All the books must balance
  3. The books aren't going to balance themselves
If these look familiar, they are based on the three laws of thermodynamics, except with the second and third laws in reverse order:
  1. You can't win
  2. You can't break even
  3. You can't get out of the game

Keywords: science

06/13 - Flowers At Lake Crescent

Winter lingered a lot longer than we had hoped this year, so we've been desperately looking for signs of spring. Well, we've found some. For example, we have several nearly ripe strawberries in our yard. If anything, they're a bit early. On the Spruce Railroad Trail today, the roses were out along with a few other flowers that we should recognize by name, but didn't. For your enjoyment, here are a few pictures.



Keywords: flowers, spring, spruce railroad, lake crescent

06/13 - Cutting An Odd Figure

Actually, we printed, cut and taped this rather odd figure. It's a Szillasi polyhedron, and with the hole in the center, it is equivalent to a torus. It has seven faces, each touching the other six, so it demonstrates that you need at least seven colors to color a torus, unless you don't mind adjacent patches having the same color. It's also kind of odd looking, so it makes a pleasant addition to Domaine Cliché's collection of oddities. If you want to find out more, and maybe even make one of these for yourself, check out our Szillasi Polyhedron page.

Keywords: art, science


It tastes better than it looks

06/09 - Turkey Tetrazzini

We recently ordered a heritage breed turkey from Heritage Foods, and we just happened to find the most amazing little peas at the Port Angeles Farmers' Market. These peas were so tiny, they make petit pois look like beachballs. So, we decided to make our own version of turkey tetrazzini. This dish is generally loathed, and for good reason, but we figured that with a proper turkey and those amazing peas we could do better.

We wound up adding some shitake mushrooms and heavy cream along with some wonderful garlic scallions, also from the Farmers' Market. These weren't scapes, they were full grown scallions, and they tasted a lot like green onions with an extra garlic note. We put it all together with the turkey, then we cooked the peas by putting them in the colander we used to strain the pasta. The hot pasta water steamed them perfectly.

We'll admit that the picture doesn't really do this dish justice, but take our word for it. This is the right way to make turkey tetrazzini.

Keywords: food

06/07 - Elwha Update

We were on the Elwha trail the other day and took a couple of pictures. There isn't much to report. There is lots of water in the streams, and there is still snow on the mountains.

UPDATE - 6/15/08 - On the way back from our hike we noticed something unusual: a small patch of rock larkspur growing in a cliff face along the side of the road. Rock larkspur is an alpine plant, and we had never seen it growing so close to sea level. Together with our earlier sighting of glacier lilies on the Whisky Bend Trail, it suggests that this year's prolonged, cool spring may have roused plants that usually lie dormant.


Keywords: elwha

May 2008June 2008 July 2008