Northern Washington

Yesterday we moved north out of the Vancouver area. We drove past Mount St. Helens and over the Toutle River. That is the river which comes down from the volcanic mountain. It still has a gray shoreline from when the volcano erupted in 1980. Another river we passed had three deer standing on a sandbar, a bit unusual for the middle of the day. Before going on I have to mention another river we saw yesterday with a rather unusual name- it was the Duckabush River. Maybe some canoeist had trouble navigating that river, or maybe there really is/was a Mr. Duckabush. Driving on Highway 5 a strange monument caught my eye. All I could see was several high towers, one had on it what looked like the figure of Jesus, another an eagle. I researched that later. What we had passed was the Gospodors Monument Park. The Jesus figure is really Mother Theresa. One tower is a memorial to all Native Americans, the other one remembers all of the Holocaust victims. There are apparently also other smaller works of art in this park. That is sum total of what I found out about those monuments. After Highway 5 we took Highway 101. Yes, that is the highway we had taken in California. If we kept going up and over the Olympic Peninsula on that highway we would head south and back to California. It was a beautiful drive along the Dabob Bay. We were entering higher elevations, the foothills of the Olympic Mountains. The road was narrow and curving, going up and over many forested hills.  The shoreline was a bit muddy in appearance because the tide was out. We drove through many small picturesque villages. Sadly many of the restaurants,shops, and gas stations were closed with for sale signs on them. One village  we drove through had a building with a sign on it indicating it was a tribal headquarters. Down the road further from that building was a brightly lit casino. It seemed to be doing a good business, its parking lot looked almost full. By late afternoon we arrived at our destination, which was the town of Sequim. Here we have plans to spend a couple of weeks with my brother Wayne and his wife Mary Jo. We are in a beautiful park, the picture below is what we can see out of our side door.