Keeping them busy

So, we have visitors.  What better way to let them know they are welcome and show them you appreciate their presence than by exhausting them?  So, again, off to the wild blue wherever.

Today's journey saw a lot of driving.  Hours and hours of driving.  Michael read about a trail a while back and we decided to take a chance and check it out.  It wasn't a sunny day, it was cool and a little damp, but hey...

Sometimes cloudy is cool.

Way up north there is a place called Freshwater Bay.  It is supposed to be good wildlife watching. 

Of course, as soon as we arrived we were detoured by tons of ripe thimbleberries, but we did eventually get down and look at the place.

We didn't see any of these things.

There weren't a lot of people there and those who were seemed to be in boats.  Undeterred, we wandered along the beach for a bit.

Not particularly exciting

We did see one of these, though.  Whatever it was.

Michael in his native habitat.

Climbing Max.

We set the thing free we think.

Nicholas looking happy.

That's better.  It's all in the angle.

Oooohhhh, kayak.  I need one of those.

Enjoying a solitary moment.

Loves dead sea creatures only slightly less than live ones.

Max: "What the heck do you like about this stuff?"

Neat place, but not quite as exciting.

So, we had driven for around two hours in order to get out there and only wandered around for an hour or so.  Since we had come all this way, it seemed like we needed a little more bang for our buck.  Also, we knew we wanted to take Nana and Nicholas up to Hurricane Ridge.  It was kind of on the way back soooo....

Suddenly...mountains.

And deer that just don't care.

It was a little colder up there.  No longer swimsuit weather.

It looked a bit different than last time we went.  The snow was gone, replaced by a startling number of wildflowers.  It was also cloudier than last time, but that was OK.

Oh yeah, and I have a zoom lens.  Tee Hee.

Good looking kid.

group photos are so tough.

Today's unidentified species.

They make it easy at the visitor's center.

Neat topo map of the Olympic peninsula.  You can see Bremerton on the bottom right.

For some reason, this place seems to keep coming up.

Mt. Olympus even came out for a moment.

Really pretty place.

Eventually we had to go.  There was one scenic stop on the way down the mountain though.

Nice overlook of Pt. Angeles

Again, group shots are hard

Even a mountain goat came out to say hi.

Aaaannnnd I think we're all done here.

Maybe tomorrow will be a rest day. 

Maybe.