Several weeks ago, we went on a camping trip to Olympic National Park. It was just our family, which apparently, our kids thought was unusual. True--we have gone on several trips lately with friends and family. So our kids kept asking, "Who are we going with?" or "Will someone meet us there?" The answer always was: "Nope, it's just us. This is a family vacation."
The park was several hours away and it's the furthest away we've been camping. So the kids got special treats in the car, such as fruit roll up, which you can see dangling out of Xiao Yu's mouth.
Along the way, we stopped at Taco Bell for lunch. And to let the kids stretch their legs.
Gabe brought his orange cord and carabiner (that he got for Christmas) along to play with, and fell asleep holding it.
After a few "Are we there yet?"s, we finally arrived. It was time to set up the tent and Xiao Yu helped.
And then it was time for lunch. Cornbread muffins and ham were on the menu.
By the late afternoon, the mosquitos were out in force. So the kids put on long sleeves, and also their wool caps with ear flaps to cover as much skin as possible.
We visited Quinnalt Lodge, which was built a long time ago and has an interesting rain gauge mounted on the outside of its tall chimney.
This rain gauge measures the rain in feet, not inches. After all, we were in a rain forest. We didn't watch our boys closely enough and caught one of them pulling on the rain gauge...moving it from 13 feet to 12 feet. Ooops!
The Lodge faces a lake by the same name. The kids walked onto a gangplank a little bit and miraculously no one fell in.
The Lodge also had a little game room which we availed ourselves of for a little bit. The kids played foosball for the first time.
Elvin ate his s'mores gluten free without the graham crackers.
And finally it was time for bed!
Everyone was fairly tired, so the next morning no one woke up at the crack of dawn, which was nice!
We visited the local ranger station to get the lay of the land...
Karina, of course, picked up a map.
And then we were off on a hike!
It was really pretty, with some bridges over meandering creeks.
Very picturesque.
We tried to make a conscious effort to take more family pictures and more pictures with the parents included!
When crossing the creek, Mommy had to lend a hand.
Since our kids are part amphibian, it was inevitable that eventually they got into the water. Eliana started building a tower of rocks.
Karina followed suit.
Here's another creek...
The kids wanted to descend to this one too.
And Gabe built his tower of rocks (with Daddy's help.)
Eliana and Gabe have developed a complex and elaborate "handshake" which looks more like a dance. Towards the end of the hike, they decided to execute it...
There were some amazingly tall trees in that forest.
We went back to camp because it was now time for lunch. Which meant that it was time to roast hot dogs. Which meant that it was time to light our campfire again and Karina was deemed old enough to light the fire. Very exciting!
She also got to know the literal meaning of fanning the flames. The fire was a little smokey but at least it kept the mosquitos at bay.
And then it was roasting time! Karina put cardboard in front of her legs because she thought the fire was a little too warm.
After lunch we went down to the lake and rented a rowboat so that we could get down on to the water. It was beautiful and felt very peaceful.
Daddy had to do the hard work of rowing against the wind.
At the mid-way point, when it was time to turn around and head back, the girls said they wanted to take over and give Daddy a break. Amazingly enough, they stayed coordinated and made forward progress. The wind pushing us helped too.
And then we went on another little hike. The kids wanted to count the number of rings on the fallen trees. This one had about 100 rings.
This tree had a lot more. Also, we think this picture may qualify for the "Awkward Family Photos" website one day.
And then it was dinner time! We had pulled pork sandwiches for dinner.
In the evening, they kids had a fun game of Uno by lantern-light.
The next morning, we drove a while to the Hoh River Valley, which is another part of this immense national park. The Hoh River meanders along the side of the road and at one point, we noticed a herd of elk relaxing in the sun. We pulled by the side of the road to look using our binoculars. It was pretty neat being only about 150 or so yards from these animals.
We joined a ranger-guided tour which turned out to be quite interesting. The ranger explained that this national park had some of the cleanest air in the world and the EPA uses the air quality there as the measure against which all other air is compared to.
In a stream, the ranger pointed out fingerling salmon the eventually will find their way to the ocean. In January, they return to spawn and the ranger said that you will find bobcats and bears that come to these streams feast on the fish carcasses.
The ranger also pointed out that the three leafed clovers along the trail, called oxalis, was edible and tasted like green apple. But to not eat too much of it unless you were constipated. Gabe wanted to try some and he ended up liking it!
The trees have a huge amount of moss growing on it. Indeed, this hike was called the hall of mosses.
The ranger said this moss was years and years old, and could hold as much as 3 tons of rainwater! Which the trees grow roots into and use as a reserve source of water during the dry season.
We made our way back to the visitor center, which had some neat things, like this leg of an elk.
The kids got Junior Ranger booklets that they could fill out.
Karina was the only one that finished it. So she wanted to turn it in, and then in turn got sworn in as a Junior Ranger, committed to protect the environment etc. She's never had to raise her right hand and give an oath before; we think she was a little surprised at the turn of these events!
But in the end, she got her badge and her certificate signed by an honest-to-goodness real ranger!
On our way back, we stopped by Ruby Beach, which is also part of the national park.
A huge part of the beach is strewn with tons and tons of logs and driftwood, which you had to scramble over. At this point, it started sprinkling--but what do you except at a rain forest?
People had used this driftwood to built little shelters, which the kids thought was pretty neat.
Gabe said he was cold, so he went back to the van early while the rest of the kids continued to play...
By evening it was raining pretty hard, so we retreated back inside our tent. Here's another game of Uno while daddy prepared dinner outside in the rain!
The kids ate pasta with alfredo sauce inside the tent.
Yum yum!
So it rained pretty hard all night. During this, we realized that our tent leaked! It wasn't a huge leak; it's just that at the seams, the water was seeping through. But since it was raining all night long, it was enough where some of our sleeping bags were wet at spots and also a patch of the floor of the tent was quite wet.
We got our ginormous tent about 8 years ago when we went camping at the San Juan Islands and it's served us faithfully ever since. Unfortunately, we will need to buy another one and get rid of this one as having a waterproof tent in the Pacific Northwest is a must. Goodbye tent!
By the morning, the rain stopped and we started up a fire to use up our wood and dry off some clothes. Elvin put his shoes by the fire to dry and ended up melting them a little!
And the kids found a banana slug and admired it for a while. We learned from the ranger that banana slugs love feasting on bear poop!
And as we were packing up the car, Gabe picked up his shovel and pretended it was a guitar.
Here is a rendition of some song that got caught on tape.
Then Xiao Yu joined in...
Here are the two of them...
And Eliana, our true book worm, spent the morning chillaxing in the rain forest, immersed in her book.
And finally, everything was packed into our trailer! (Yes, we now need a trailer to haul all of our stuff around for camping trips!)
And after 4 hours we finally got home, and lay all of out things out to dry from the rain.
So that was our trip to the Olympic National Park! We hope to return someday as there are other areas to explore!
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