Looking For Texas Rainforest Whilst Looking At Hoh Rainforest In Olympic National Park

With rather regular frequency I see something somewhere, like Facebook, which triggers what I guess is a bit of a homesick feeling.

I saw that which you see here, yesterday, on Facebook. A scene from the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park in my old home state of Washington.

The Hoh Rainforest is the most well-known of the Washington rainforests. But, it is not the only one. It is not even the only rainforest in Olympic National Park.

Upriver in the Skagit Valley, the location where I lived in Washington before moving to Texas, there are rainforest zones.

But, the best, by far, is the Hoh Rainforest. Walking the trails in the Hoh Rainforest is a sort of otherworldly experience.

I do not know if there are any rainforests in Texas. I suspect not, though the vegetation can get a bit lush in Texas, in some locations, I've seen nothing which comes close to looking like a rainforest.

My most recent time walking in the Hoh Rainforest was in the middle of winter, back late in the previous century. Rain dripped, with fog making the rainforest look even more eerie than it usually does. Raincoats and umbrellas made the rain tolerable.

Tskawahyah Is No Panther Island With Blind Alligators

This morning I flipped the page on my wall calendar and saw the image for August, which is that which you see here.

A sea lion on a beach in Olympic National Park, at Cape Alava, with Tskawahyah Island barely off shore, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean.

I saw this and realized I needed to add it to my ever growing series of actual island photos in my ongoing, multi-year effort to educate some landlocked landlubbers as to what an island actual is.

There is a small minded town in Texas where the locals are being conned into believing a cement lined ditch, dug possibly one day far in the future, dug around an industrial wasteland, then filled with polluted river water, somehow will make that industrial wasteland an island.

And even now, years before maybe, if ever, that cement lined ditch is ever dug and filled with water, that industrial wasteland is already referred to as Panther Island, with multiple events held at the imaginary island.

There have been no sea lions spotted at the Panther Island Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in polluted river water.

However, there was an incident with a blind alligator.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a demented plot by some demented Fort Worth local, who for some reason has a long range plan to turn the town into a national laughing stock.

If that is the goal, attaining it seems to be within reach...

A Rainy Saturday In Texas Feeling Homesick For Washington & The San Juan Islands

I was up late Friday night, which has caused me to be up late Saturday morning. I hate it when that happens.

Rain was in the forecast for today. Looking out my peephole on the world this morning I can see it has already been raining.

Raining and 40 degrees. Welcome to a stereotypical Pacific Northwest Western Washington type winter day.

In Texas.

Speaking of Washington, this morning's New York Times had a list of "The 41 Places to Go in 2011.". The San Juan Islands of Washington was #2 on the list, between Santiago, Chile at #1 and Koh Sumai, Thailand at #3. Washington's Olympic National Park was a little further down the list.

I was shocked, shocked I tell you, that no location in Texas was on the list of places you need to go in 2011.

The dock to board the ferry to the San Juan Islands, in Anacortes, is about 20 miles from my abode in Washington. When I lived there I took the San Juan Islands for granted, but had a great time anytime I took the ferry out to the islands. I did this twice in the months leading to my move to Texas. If I remember right the last time included going to the San Juan County Fair at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, eventually sitting at an outdoor bar watching the harbor and catching the last ferry of the night to the mainland.

The San Juan Islands are in the rain shadow of the Olympics, hence getting way less rain than where I lived. What those who have never lived in the Northwest, who think it rains all the time, don't understand, is the geography is so diverse you can easily escape the rain, if you want to, unlike in my current location, where there is no escape, no ferry to anywhere.

So, I'm starting Saturday just slightly homesick for Washington. And all there is to do there on a rainy day.

Mount Rainier, Olympic National Park & Mount Baker

Eighteen days til I'm on my way to Washington. I've not been there in summer since 2004. The mountain you see in the photo was out the entire month of my visit. In Washington-speak, when you say the mountain is out it means the sky is clear and you can see Mount Rainier. I'm hoping the mountain is out every day of my visit again this time.

I've not hiked a mountain since 1998. I'm bringing my hiking boots with me. I hope I get to see how good a shape I'm in. Below I'll put a video of some guys climbing Mount Baker. Mount Baker is a volcano near where I lived in the Skagit Valley town of Mount Vernon. Mount Baker was about 30 miles away as a crow flies. I could see it from my kitchen window. The last time I hiked Mount Baker was with nephew Joey, sometime in the 1990s. That's Mount Baker, as seen from I-5, looking through a notch in the hills in south Mount Vernon. My nephew has a restaurant at a golf course on the other side of that notch. My house was just a bit to the left of the notch.

The hike up Mount Baker, with nephew Joey, took place from the south side. There is a big ski area on the north side of Baker. It's a much longer drive to get there, over the twisty turny Mount Baker Highway, that is not suitable for an acrophobe. The ski area of Mount Baker holds the world's record for deepest snow. My last time up there was with nephews Chris and Jeremy. They now live in Phoenix. We hiked up Tabletop Mountain where I took my all time favorite photo of the two of them sitting on top Tabletop with Mount Shuksan behind them and Mount Baker to our right. That is Jeremy in the photo on the right, sliding down Tabletop Mountain heading towards Mount Baker. That day at Tabletop Mountain was probably the most fun I ever had with my nephews. As you can see, there are a lot of mountains in Washington.

Go here for more of my photos of the Cascade Mountains and hikes I've gone on.

Below is a nice tourist type video giving you a good idea of what it's like to visit Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks. Below that is the Mount Baker video.



The below video is of a climb up Mount Baker from the side of the mountain I hiked it with nephew Joey. The video starts in the Skagit Valley flatland.