Week 29: 07/12-07/18

Week 29

     07/12 - Exciting and long day today. Thanks to Ryan's parents having a rental car, we finally had the chance to do some exploring outside of the city! We decided to head out to Olympic National Park, the only rainforest in North America. We too the Bainbridge Ferry across the sound to Bainbridge Island. From there we headed out to the north side of the Olympic Peninsula. After a couple of hours we made our first stop at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. The views were breathtaking (once the clouds blew out a bit) and we met some very friendly deer....so naturally I took a deer selfie. I would suggest going to Hurricane Ridge for sure, particularly on a clear day.

Hurricane Ridge

     After Hurricane Ridge we headed back down towards sea level and drove over (another half hour) to Lake Crescent. This was a cool lake pressed right up against the rainforesty area. Which leads me to the next activity, the rainforest. Where we were, it was easiest to go into the rainforest area by Marymere Falls. The rainforest was crazy cool and the trees were ridiculously huge...ridiculous. It was a nice little hike too, with soft moss, loam, and cedar sawdust underfoot. Also recommended.

     After leaving the rainforest we had a decision to make, keep going around the peninsula or turn back...we kept going, with an ultimate destination of Ruby Beach in mind. However, we got hungry so we stopped in Forks, WA to grab a bite to eat. Luckily, we ate at the only bar in the very small town that wasn't "Twilight" themed, because that's where they filmed those movies and it's all that town really does....other than logging.
     Eventually we arrived at the Pacific Ocean. At long last! Ruby Beach was a really cool place that was covered with large smooth stones, as well as big rock scarps. Because it was a bit overcast, the beach was cool and spooky, giving an ominous power to the ocean's crashing waves.

     After Ruby Beach we began our long drive home, passing through Aberdeen and Olympia on the way south around the peninsula. It was a long day, resulting in around 7.5 hours of driving overall.

     07/15 - Today after work I went with some work people to Food Lifeline, a Northwest food bank. We volunteered packing watermelons! It was a lot of fun and for a great cause, win win win. All in all we set a record by packing 40,000 pounds of watermelon in under two hours!

Before

After

     07/18 - Today Ryan decided it would be good to join me on one of my weekly excursions. We started off by heading out to Volunteer Park in Capitol Hill, one of the few parks I hadn't visited yet. It had a cool water tower and is the location of the famous "Black Sun" sculpture. I also played a "Piano in the Park" art/music piece. From here, we walked over to the cemetery where the one and only Bruce Lee is buried! It was kind of weird to see a tourist attraction in a cemetery, so I didn't take pictures....I'd rather not have the ghost of Bruce Lee haunting me...

      After all the park stuff, Ryan and I jumped on a bus and headed out to Bite of Seattle, an annual food festival. Most of the festival was pretty typical but the actual "bite" part was cool. You get a plate of several different bite-sized versions of local restaurant specialties. My favorite was the steak topped with a blueberry-and-corn salsa. I also really liked the fresh basil/strawberry cheesecake, but everything was on par.
     Keeping the day rolling, I decided that Ryan had to check out Discovery Park (he doesn't get out much due to the GRE). We bused over and chillaxed on the beach. We ended up playing "tide chicken" -- a game we made up where two people sit in the sand, build up walls, and wait for the tide to rush in. The first person to get wet/bail is the loser. It was childish and fun haha. After Discovery we ended the day as all days should be ended: with 8 oz. of grass-fed American beef, fries, and mac n' cheese at 8oz. Burger and Co....still the best burger in the world. It was a long week.

Profound Thought of the Week: Get outside. Now. Just go outside and enjoy it.