July 2018August 2018 September 2018

08/24 - Back to the Elwha - The Smokey Bottom Trail

With Olympic Hot Springs Road closed, and likely to remain closed for some time, we've been missing the Elwha River much past Madison Falls. It's a 45 minute walk from Madison Falls to the Altair Bridge, and another 15 minutes gets one to the old dam overlook. We usually turn back there, but this time we pressed on. We made our way down towards the river bed along the Smokey Bottom Trail. It descends, crosses a stream and then offers wonderful views of the Elwha River. We miss making our way towards the river by way of Michael's Cottage and Hume's Ranch, but this will have to do for now.

A view of the Elwha River

Another view

The Smokey Bottom Trail is a bit overgrown, but passable.

The river again

Trees

A slug

Another river view

Late summer color

The Elwha Valley

Lupines

A last peek at the river

Keywords: elwha

08/19 - Obstruction Point - Lupines and Grice

Hiking the trail out of Obstruction Point is a lot like walking through Venice. It is hard not to take a picture postcard perfect shot by just raising one's camera and pressing a button. This time, we captured the brilliant sun, the late summer scene, some grice or grouses, or perhaps both.

Instant picture postcard - It's instagrammable up there.

Lupines

Mountains

Little lakes below

More mountains

Flowers

More lupines - This wasn't a great season for them, so we really appreciated these.

Green

Another picture postcard

One grouse

Another grouse - To paraphrase Walt Kelley, The grouse is a singular animal; no one can say two of them.

The trail

Even more flowers

Keywords: grouse, obstruction point, summer

08/17 - Foggy Day at Rialto Beach

There is nothing like a day at the beach. We set our sights on Rialto Beach around low tide, and we lucked out. The coast was shrouded with fog and cool and damp. We could barely see the sea from the parking lot, and as we made our way north we entered our own private world with just us, the Pacific Ocean and the gray.

This is a view from the Barnes Creek parking lot on Lake Crescent. We stopped en route.

Rialto Beach

Along the beach

Flowing to the sea

Seastacks

Stones

More seastacks

Anemones

A starfish

Plovers

Sea ducks

Keywords: rialto beach

08/10 - Wedding in Minnesota

We went to a wedding in Minnesota, a few hours west of Minneapolis. It was flat country, but beautiful in its way. True to the stereotype, there were midwestern humor, a Lutheran church, at least 10,000 lakes and acres of corn.

A map of Minnesota

Lake Minnewaska

In the town of Glenwood

A view from our patio at the beach resort

Sunset over Lake Minnewaska

Old trees at the church graveyard

Fields of corn, as promised

In the beautiful old church

The church again

Keywords:

July 2018August 2018 September 2018