The Cool Cool of Olympic National Park (2001)

The Hoh Rain Forest on the west side of Olympic National Park

It is going to be a whole week of high temperatures in the 100-and-teens, so time to remember good times in cool places. I had the chance to visit Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State back in 2001. I attended a convention in Seattle and, afterwards, headed to Vancouver Island and, right before returning to Las Vegas, Olympic National Park.

I am fairly certain that these waterfalls were in the northern part of the park, the part where you enter from the City of Port Angeles.

Going back into the time machine to back in the day when vacation photos were shot on film and  developed days (or weeks!) after the end of the vacation and you could see the few photos you snapped on the trip.

A weird fact about Olympic National Park is that you can't get from one place to another within the park. You have to leave the park to get another section of the park. There are multiple entrances into the park off Highway 101 which encircles the park on the three sides. So, to get from section of the park to another, you have to go back out to the 101.

I do believe, however, that there were big ol' trees in every section of the park.

It was quite green, even in the summertime.

At this point, I'm not sure if I'm in the northern section of the park or the Hoh Rain Forest section of the park. This doesn't look especially "rain forest-y," but the Hoh is not the Amazon basin.

This is definitely the Hoh Rain Forest in this picture, as this definitely looks "rain forest-y" to me.

As does this. Weirdly enough, it was not raining in the rain forest when I was there. It was sunny and only slightly humid. Well, sunny in the parts where the tree canopy lightened up enough to let the sun shine in the sun is shining.

Yet it was raining in Las Vegas when I got home. No rain in the rain forest. Rain in the driest desert in North America.

But I did have a chance to snap a feel pictures (on film!) of the Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific Ocean off the Olympic Peninsula is quite different from the California coast.

It's Washington, so of course there's going to be wood.