Olympic National Park

A week backpacking in Olympic National Park in July, 2012.

[Emily] Another adventure to the west coast began with a quick flight to Seattle, four days after Christopher got back from Uganda. We rented a red sports car and drove to the Hoh Rain Forest  I loved the huge trees and ultra-blue hydrangeas along the road. We made a quick stop at a Wal-Mart to buy a thermometer, which confirmed that Christopher had a fever - so our first couple days we took things a little easier than normal-Christopher paced.

After the several-hour drive to the trailhead, we ventured into the rain forest and immediately began marveling at the gigantic, moss-covered trees. Upon arrival at our creek-side campsite, Chris found the first of many banana slugs, which quickly became a game to find a bigger or prettier slug. The mosquitoes were really bad since it was warm so we spent the first few hours in the tent playing cards.