created 9/15/09 in the early AM... yawn.
Wanted to do something with today. Yesterday (Saturday), I played cards with my sister, watched the Husky Game on TV, got take-out Chinese for lunch, and updated my book lists before chat, during which I watched Cyrano de Bergerac. A nice, slow, sit-down sort of day.
Unlike today! I had thought on Friday that I'd like to go see Hurricane Ridge on the Olympic Peninsula this weekend, so that's what I set out to do. Woke up at 8:30, saw people as they left for church, and waited for my Mom to get up, so she'd know what I was doing. Turned out she was not busy at all today, so she came with me! We had a quick little breakfast of peaches and toast, and took off just in time to catch the 10:45 Edmonds Ferry. After getting to Kingston, we were the last ones off of it.
The sky was absolutely, clearly cloudless; we could see the Olympics from across the Sound, as we sat aboard the ferry and talked about our various Saturdays. For the 84 mile drive, we listened to an unabridged reading of "The Silver Chair" from The Chronicles of Narnia, by Jeremy Northam; I love his Puddleglum voice. We actually finished the thing by the time we got to Kenmore on our way back! Very nice indeed!
Upon reaching Port Angeles, we headed first for the waterfront where we found the last of the Washington aquariums that I hadn't been to. There was a little beach, and a paved waterfront walkway that looked very nice, but my goodness! the aquarium itself was just fabulous! It's not technically an aquarium, but a science research center that has tanks of animals that the public can come in and look at. They had a basket sea star, which I have only seen once before, and part of a squid that had washed up on a beach a week before. It was frozen, but we could touch the beak and the little teeth in the suction cups on the tentacles. Yikes! I wouldn't want to swim with one of those! They also had a ghost shrimp under a microscope connected to a small TV screen. Oh, my! And the Lion Nudibranch - which I had never seen before! Wow! At first we were the only people in the place, so the volunteer lady talked with us for quite a while about the animals, photography and many other things. :) Gosh, we ended up taking almost 2 hours there!
Right after that, we walked to a nice restaurant right on the waterfront and treated ourselves to CCCLT sandwiches (as opposed to BLT, and no, that's not the Civilian Conservation Corps - that would be Cheddar Cheese, Crab, Lettuce & Tomato) on sourdough bread along with a crab dip appetizer. It was very crabby, and we were extremely happy.
Next up, we got a little lost trying to find the trail-head for the mountain, but found it on the second try; signage was a little lacking in this town. Anyways, it was 17 delightful miles up a winding, wide road, with lots of overlooks. Here's a great site with lots of pictures from the entire park. We saw a pair of deer on the side of the road once, and got out at only one of the many overlooks. When we got to the top, there were deer all over the place! Mostly mommies with fauns! So adorable! We spent a while in the visitor's center, watched their 20-minute movie, shopped at the gift shop, then drove the rest of the road along the crest to the picnicking area and hiking trail at the end. Driving down the mountain felt a little more precarious at times, since there weren't always guard rails, and going downhill, the lane was on the edge. Pretty fun really! :)
Back in town (yes! we made it!), Mom and I stopped and had Mexican for dinner. I had a chicken enchilada (we both had small dinners), along with some guacamole with our chips. On the road back, it started getting dark fast. By the time we were crossing the bridge across Hood Canal, they had these signs up saying that the Ferry wait was 2 hours! That frightened us a little, but we pressed on, and found out they were lying! We made it on right away.
What an adventure! I'm so very glad I had company!
Jp
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