awesome

We have arrived in Seattle and have delivered back Sophia our car. We will live on a sail boat for the next three days. It should be raining all day but the sun was here for most of the time. We love it!

After bad luck both at Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier, (that was the view):

(Pic by Mr. K.)

we spent a wonderful sunny evening at one of the most beautiful campsites so far. Very small, nice people, and a wonderful lake. They don’t have WIFI, and therefore not too many guest go there. Internet seems to be a standard when you go camping nowadays. Also the big flatscreen is a must.

We are slowly moving north again and will have to give back Sophia next Monday and then spend some days in Seattle, before going to Portland and the lovely Oregon!

It has been raining a lot in the last few days. Not so much fun in a car which is not totally water proof. We’re trying to do the best and hope for the sun to return.

We have moved south to Mount St. Helens. The big volcano that erupted 30 years ago. We visited a lava tube today, which was formed 2000 years ago. It was very cold inside and the water was dripping from the roof. The tube was as high that you could drive through with an rv.

Basically it’s full of mushrooms here. The red fly amanita (Amanita muscaria) was everywhere. This is actually not only coffee land but also mushroom and lichen land!

Unfortunately we only got a little glimpse of Mount St. Helens. She is covered in clouds, but the snowy flank we could see for 10 seconds looked very impressive. Please come back sun!

It should have been raining today, but the sun was shining and it is still around 70° (very funny I know, it’s above 20°C). We enjoy everyday the weather man is wrong.

At the moment we are in Olympia the capital of Washington. Someone once said „Olympia is the worst city of the United States!“. I would not say that, but there is really not much going on here. However, suddenly we saw a hummingbird (Stellula calliope) at the harbor, drinking on some red flowers. And this changed my view of the city immediately.

Also we visited the Olympia Coffee Roasting Co today. They are roasting coffee and we enjoyed it very much. Coffee is one of the reasons we actually went to this part of the world. And we are getting closer and closer to Coffee Land, Seattle and Portland!

We have moved to the southern end of the Olympic Peninsula to a town called Hoquiam. On the way we passed the beautiful Lake Quinault. Only people from the Quinault Tribe are allowed to fish, because they are concerned about pollution and a decline in salmon population.

Today we went to Westport, a fisher village 20 miles from Hoquiam. I’m already talking in miles! I got fish and chips and we had the most decent cappuccino since we left Vancouver.

We have left Port Angeles behind and driven west towards the coast. We past Forks with the Twilight mania and found some very remote beaches. The waves were pretty high and did not invite for swimming. Last night we parked our Camper facing the ocean. It got cold at night but in the morning we could watch the waves from our bed:-)

I used the tripod to take the pictures from the sunset and was amazed how much more color you can get with a longer exposure.

Today I watched a spider making a net.

Today there was a cute little market in Port Angeles. All local people selling their fruits and vegetables. We also had a delicious coffee and bought chantarelles for dinner. Then we drove west towards Lake Crescent and jumped right up on Storm King Mountain. Pretty steep trail but totally worth the effort!

Pretty cool light when you manage to get up very early in the morning!

We have made it to the USA. A bit scared how the US custom would treat us, we queued up to take the ferry to Port Angeles. But everything was very easy. The scanner for our passports did not work and we were lucky to be able to stay in the air-conditioned room for a while. Everybody was very nice and we were allowed to enter the US.

Port Angeles is a small city but right at the edge of the Olympic National Park. We intend to stay here for a while. The park is huge and offers many scenic hikes. Today we walked for hours, saw birds and chipmunks, but just when we came back to the car park there were two blacktail deers.

PS: by the way the monkey eye problem is solved and his name is Gromit.