Sea lions, otters, fishing, and big trees

Today we had a pancakes and sausage breakfast at the campsite. I buy the pancake mix made with Almond flour by Birchbenders (keto friendly mix). That doesn't make my blood sugar go up and I use the no-sugar syrup. It was good to have some big fluffy pancakes!

After breakfast and showers, we drove to the Kaloloch Ranger Station. On the way back we stopped several places. Beach #4 is supposed to be the beach with tidal pools, but it was high tide so they were all covered. Instead, we watched several men fishing for smelts in the surf with nets. One in particular had more success because he was working while watching a sea lion. Wherever the sea lion moved, he moved there as well. I think the sea lion was literally chasing the fish into his net! We also saw an otter further off shore. Apparently they are more rare here than in Alaska, mainly because they were hunted almost to extinction. The whole scene was fascinating and we watched nearly an hour.

Then we drove to two different big cedar tree sites. One was on the National Park and the other was on state of Washington lands. It was really cool to see how these huge old trees were continuing to support the forest ecosystem.

There's been and still is a lot of logging in this area. The town of Forks is a logging community and everywhere you can see the aftermath except on National and State lands. Some areas are replanted as a renewable resource, but you can still see the stumps of what were trees that were hundreds of years old in their midst. People do need wood for lots of things, but its sad that the really old trees were sacrificed.Weiterlesen