That said, here are some photos of spring break! We visited the Olympic Peninsula this year, which (for my non-Washington readers) has gorgeous coastline, beautiful mountains, and the only rainforest in the northern hemisphere.
Our first stop was Kalaloch Lodge, on the coast. The cabins are rustic but cozy, and since the Kalaloch beach is a popular place to dig razor clams, the lodge restaurant serves delicious clam chowder.
The beach at Kalaloch has it all. Weird rocks, beach logs in jumbled piles, clams, birds, kids, and ecstatic dogs. Happy Meal requires only a shovel at the beach. We could see him from a great distance, shoveling, shoveling.
There were hundreds of these odd, clear things at the tide line. I learned what they are, but by now I've forgotten. Faintly, I recall that it's some body part of a clam, shed when the clam doesn't need it any more, similar to the Spanx undergarments that movie stars discard after they walk the red carpet. Don't resent my astounding Bermuda-Triangular mastery of marine biology, social commentary and metaphor.
Kalaloch is not far from the Hoh rainforest, so we spent a day exploring there.
The trees in the Hoh are giants. Since the climate is so damp, few develop taproots, and this makes them prone to falling.
The trees that fall, like the one above, usually become nurse logs. You can see the five younger trees drawing nutrients from the nurse log.
On the way back to Kalaloch, we stopped at Ruby Beach. It's not far north of Kalaloch, but a totally different beach. No sand, but smooth rocks.
Back at the cabin, we made hobo pies and watched the sunset. More photos in a future post...
