Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Mom and Jonah Road Trip: Hoh Rainforest


I did a report on the rainforests of the world when I was in 8th grade and that was when I learned that we have one right here in the United States.

It's not what you think about when someone says "rainforest".  It's not a jungle.  But it is a rainforest and a valuable and beautiful thing.

It was almost a four hour drive from our campground.

I figured I would just go by myself.  No one else seemed interested, and it would be nice to have a day on my own.

However, a few days before we left, Jonah expressed some interest in going, and plans changed.

I was actually really excited.  Hanging out with Jonah is pretty awesome.

We brought all the music.


Michael instructed us to take lots of pictures.

We did that.

For most of the drive, Jonah did the talking, which was fine by me.  Often it's hard for Jonah to get a word in with the rest of his talkative family and his especially talkative sister.  He loves to talk too, but he hates conflict, so he sometimes just stays quiet.

We discussed Minecraft, Skyrim, getting married, and jobs.  Not necessarily in that order.

We stopped at Subway for lunch.

About an hour later, I saw this:


I had to stop.

Anytime to see the Pacific Ocean is a good time to see the Pacific Ocean.

Jonah was a little reluctant to get out of the car, but he was glad in the end.

It was cold and windy.


There was a short hiking trail through the woods to get to the shore.  We saw these crazy bulbous trees.  I'm sure it's a parasite of some kind.  Does anyone wish to enlighten us?  Do you recognize these sorts of growths on trees?

 
 There were a lot of them.


The beach was covered in driftwood.  We had to step across it to get close to the water.

A scientist was at the shore taking water samples.  It was neat to watch her.


It really was windy.









We had fun touching the sea foam and talking about Greek mythology.

Then we made faces.


And headed back up the trail to the car.

It was late in the afternoon, and we still hadn't seen the forest!



It was a long drive.

We were both ready to hike when we finally found the right location in the midst of the National Forest.  All of the Visitor's Centers were closed.  Many of the roads were closed.

There was a parking lot next to several trail heads that we finally settled on for our exploration.


We saw this tree on the way.


And decided on this trail.










 It was...

Just lovely.

It was also getting late.

We were both hungry.

So we left and drove toward food.

I had to pull over to catch this:


Jonah waited in the car.

After two hours of driving we finally found an open restaurant.

Jonah brought my computer inside to play some Terraria and show me what he was doing on the game right now.

I got a fantastic veggie burger.

Jonah got chicken fingers and fries.


Oh...and I got this cute dessert.


It's just adorable, isn't it?

After dinner it was very much dark, very much night, and we were very much tired.

I showed Michael all the pictures and we all crashed into bed.

Oh yeah, we're in Washington now... did I mention this?

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