UP and DOWN the coast

1st Beach Trip of 2014

We got a little wild 

once we found out it

was pirate week at the beach! 

BUT, I suppose 

it wouldn't have been complete without 

a sword tournament!

                                            

Hoh Rainforest

Life lately has been straight to the grind stone with me in school and Sam remodeling the house. So when my Geography teacher offered extra credit to go on a  field trip, it seemed as good as any excuse to get out for a bit. It was a 4 hr drive to the Olympic National Park and sweet Sam drove the whole way! So we made a pit stop at a rocky beach along HWY 101. It had a small forest before the beach, which silenced the loud crashing waves along the shore. The forest had trees with burls it was so interesting.

The Olympic National Park Hoh Rain Forest turned out to be one wet adventure this weekend. By the time we got there it was dumping rain like the raindrops were little bouncy balls. My "I can do it" hiking girl attitude vanished, as I told Sam "lets just do a small trail and sleep in the truck tonight." Sam's eyes beamed with relief because he knew what it is like to hike the Hoh in the rain. Last time he came back with some gnarly blisters. Sad to say most of the pictures we shot the first day didn't turn out because it was raining so hard and was so dark in the forest the flash kept picking up the ginormous raindrops. Although, I did get a shot of this old phone booth covered in moss!  Once it got too dark to see we left the Hoh to do some more spelunking.  
We ended up spending the night parked outside a beach entrance and thought we would check it out in the morning. We were both awaken by a torrential down-pour. Later we discovered it was hail! Thank goodness we slept in the truck!