The Hoh Rain Forest

Today’s plan was to start off with brunch at a local Chinese restaurant.  Well, they do have things like egg foo yong, pork fried rice with egg, and egg rolls, don’t they?  So, it’s not as far fetched as it sounds.  Deb and Rod decided to take their truck today, so we went in two vehicles.  Brunch was great, and then we took off for the Hoh Rain Forest which is part of Olympic National Park.  To make the visit more authentic,  it was raining.

We saw this Roosevelt Elk relaxing on a river bank as we got to the park:

We then made our way to the visitor’s center, where the trails begin:

We chose the Hall of Mosses trail which is about .8 miles around:

This fungus grows on the side of the trees:

Amazing trees with moss that grows all over them:

We decided this was a unicorn:

Jim was dwarfed by the size of the trees: The sign below describes the tree in the pictures below it.  I took the pictures about halfway down the fallen tree:

Then I turned around and took a picture of the half I’d already passed:

In the rain forest, even though it was raining, we didn’t feel it much through the tree cover.  Mark, Deb and Rod stopped to chat:

Dortha and I on the trail:

After going through the rain forest, we wanted to visit a tree nearby that is supposed to be the world’s largest red cedar, at over 173 feet tall and 19 feet in diameter.  It’s located about 8 miles from the park and is known as Duncan’s Cedar: The tree is mostly dead, but there are a few live branches way up near the top:

Dortha is tiny next to this giant:When we got back to the rv park, the group gathered in the Castle for a happy hour.  I took the dogs out walking, and while we were out, I picked a bunch of blackberries.  Deb is going to make us a cobbler with them.

Tomorrow is another travel day to Hoquiam, Washington.  More adventure awaits!