Olympic National Park - Day 7 Friday July 29

Let's begin with a few additional photos of Lake Crescent, taken after we enjoyed breakfast on the front porch of the lodge.

After check-out, we headed to Sol Duc Hot Springs. En route, we stopped at Salmon Cascades. Each year, Coho salmon take this arduous 70 mile swim to spawn. We did not see the salmon jumping the stream today, but it must be quite a feat!

We hiked through the peaceful woods...

... passing a "teaser" fall...

...before reaching the Sol Duc Falls.

As it got closer to noon, there was a noticeable increase in the number of people in the park, and cars were circling for spaces around the trailheads. Once back on the road, traffic was very slow due to road repairs and volume.

We had hoped to move on to view the Elwha River, where there is a salmon hatchery, but the sole entry road was closed for construction.

When we got to the town of Forks, we just knew where we had to stop for lunch (and, Sully, our burgers were good)!

Here we have today's wildlife sighting. Apparently, there are cattle ranches on the peninsula.

We had hoped to go to the Hoh Rainforest, but traffic came to a grinding halt about five miles from the visitor center. We realized that it would take hours to reach the parking lot, so Charlie made a very impressive U-turn, and we headed back to the main road. We later heard that there was an hour wait for admission to the parking lot.

Then, onto our next disappointment...the road to Ruby Beach was closed. We were able to stop and see the Pacific Ocean. Note all the driftwood.
You can tell from the sky that we experienced that changeable weather of the PNW. A dense fog rolled in over the area, and the temperature dropped 15 degrees (quite welcome, actually).

For our young readers, these are telephone booths, and a testament to how difficult it has been to make phone calls or access WiFi for the past few days.

We arrived at our last lodging before heading back to Seattle, the Lake Quinault Lodge. Quinault translates to "the lake between two rivers." Carved by glaciers, it is really a beautiful place.

Here is our room.

Your questions as to why Bigfoot is in the lobby will have to wait to be answered until we have more than 30 minutes of Internet per day.

Note to self: Bring a hairdryer to National Park Lodges...and lots of patience!

Photos are tagged Alaska and Olympic_NP