Day 72 – May 21 – Port Angeles, Washington

About 4:30 a.m. a train made its way past the Wal-Mart; whistle blowing at each cross street and there are a lot of cross streets.  It was at this point that I realized that I was freezing!  We had two quilts on the bed and yet I only had part of one of them and a little more sheet covering me.  I moved as far to the center of the bed as I could – in the process making Chloe growl at me because once she plants herself on the top of the covers she doesn’t like to be moved.  I finally made her move over and pulled the bottom quilt and sheet as hard as I could and managed to almost get myself covered.  Dorrie and Sadie were quite happy – Dorrie wrapped in the quilts and Sadie asleep under the covers.

About 6:30 the second train went through and at this point I stayed awake until the alarm went off at 7:00 o’clock.  We left the Wal-Mart lot after the third train finally cleared the roads.  It moved very slowly past the entrance roads and then the traffic flooded into the lot.  We finally got on the road and headed out on the next leg of the journey.

We have been driving highway 101 (called the Pacific Coast Highway) since just north of San Francisco.  Today we drove through miles after miles of trees, no sign of the Pacific, no coast just highway and trees.  We finally drove into a small part of the Olympic National Park.  We stopped at a pull out by a sign that said beach access.  We walked to the path and through the woods; we came to a sign that said Spruce Burls Trail and pointed to the right.

A pair of burls on a fallen tree

Burls on a spruce tree

The pictures tell the tale of the path.  There was a sign that said the burls were tumors caused by damage to the tree by worms or insects.  At a later stop at the visitor’s center we were told the sign was wrong; the burls are not tumors and are not caused by bugs or worms.  The real cause is the high winds of the winter force salt water under the tree bark.  The salt causes the tree to react by growing more in that area during the winter months than it would normally.  The burls start out very small, but once started they provide an entry point for additional salt to enter and therefore causing additional growth.

We drove on and came to a place where we could see the coast from the road and there was Destruction Island.  The name comes from an Indian war party that killed several seamen who had gone ashore on the island for water.  This was during the eighteenth century and the name was forever associated with the island.  Destruction Island proved well named for shipping because the island is often hidden under heavy blankets of fog.  The island is about a mile from shore.

We continued on our path toward Port Angeles and stopped in Forks, Washington for lunch.  We may have made a bad choice for a restaurant – the food was not that good.

We arrived in Port Angeles about 3:30 and went into the Wal-Mart to make sure it was okay to stay the night.  After getting permission we spent some money in the store – I sometimes think it might be cheaper to pay for a night’s stay.  But we would still need to buy supplies, I guess it works out.