Hoh Rain Forest / Drive to Portland

Thursday, September 15

We woke up in the rainforest, with light rain still falling. I was getting more real Pacific Northwest weather!

We took a quick morning walk around the campground and then made breakfast. Then I had to leave Auggie in the van while I walked the quick one-mile nature walk in the park – dogs not invited there, either. Very cool nature – massive trees, big, green healthy ferns, lichen covering their limbs, again making a human feel awfully small.

We learned about nurselogs.

We saw trees that had begun germinating on nurselogs and looked like they are now on stilts since the nursing tree has since disintegrated.

 We saw the remains of a fallen tree longer than 190 feet.

Though the visit was short, it was a very cool experience.

After we left the Hoh, we continued south on 101, a route we would follow all the way through the state of Oregon and into California. We took our first long walk on a broad Pacific beach, where Auggie frolicked, sniffed everything and had a blast. Still gray and rainy, the weather made for some pretty cool scenery on our beach walk.

We then climbed back into the van and made our way south to Portland, where we would spend a few days with  Stephanie, Matt and Amelia. We got to their house early evening and started our fun visit.