July 15 - Hoh Rainforest

We drove up to the rainforest but desperately needed some gas. In this remote area we had to pay $4/gal. I was livid! Everything is so green here. Not surprisingly – 120 inches of rain a year. July is their dry month and it was quite hot. We joined a ranger led trail and learnt so much about the park and our ranger. He was really engaging and fun to listen to. We saw western hemlock, sitka spruce and Douglas fir. Many branches were covered in a thick layer of moss. The nurse logs were interesting. The ferns and forest growth reminded us of the vegetation we saw at the redwood forests. Upon our return to the campground, the change in weather was so sudden it surprised us. As soon as we got close to the coast the blue skies vanished and the fog enveloped us. We stopped at Ruby beach and explored the stacks on the beach. There were many pebbles on the beach and people had made numerous piles on the large driftwood logs. The effect was quite pretty. Rocky hopped up onto the logs to smell the pebbles but all he managed to do was topple them off the logs. He had not idea that he was wreaking such havoc. Back at the campground Mike and Rob rushed down to the beach to prepare our evening beach fire. They also built a wonderful wind shelter upwind of the campfire. We had dinner and read until it was dark enough to light the fire. The sunset was great and the wind died down a bit. We got the kindling lit but it seemed to die soon after. We went off to another fire to get a burning log to restart our fire. We returned to our fire with the log and to our surprise our fire was burning quite well. Ant deserted us for another fire and “better company”. Rob and Mike wondered off after a while, so once I had had my fill of the smoke I smothered the fire with sand. We went to bed after our 1 min showers. I hope our water will last until we leave. I love the tranquility here.