Alonda's college friend Elyse and her husband John visited us in August. We took them up to Olympic National Park for three days. Our first stop was the "wettest place on earth," the Hoh Rain Forest. This place holds the world record for rainfall. It was, of course, clear and sunny the entire time. Here we are next to the Hoh River. 
We then drove the 20 odd miles to the Pacific Ocean. This is Kalaloch beach. Try to imagine the storm that piled up those logs.
This is the group of all four of us at Kalaloch overlooking the beach.
Alonda and Elyse enjoyed walking the clean, flat, sandy beach. The beach is almost perfect for lazing in the sun and swimming, but if you notice what they are wearing in August, you will know why no one was swimming.
This is Marymere Falls. Elyse wanted to visit waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest, so we visited three of them. 
John and Elyse are from Illinois. They spent a lot of time looking up at the Western Cedar, Douglas Fir and Western Hemolock trees.
This photo was the morning we went up Hurricane Ridge. This is near the Visitor Center and you can see the morning fog mixed with smoke from one of the wildfires. The fires were not set, they were from lightning or other natural causes. Forests actually benefit from an occasional fire, since it burns out the underbrush and renews the soil.
We all hiked up to the top of Hurricane Hill.
This is the view from Hurrican Hill. Some "hill"! This is looking north. The town below us is Port Angeles and the water is the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Pacific Ocean is just to your left and across the water, you are looking at Canada.
We missed our twice weekly yoga classes, so Jim did a tree pose next to a tree.
This is Sol Duc Falls. It is also the site of a natural hot springs. The National Park hot springs hotel and resort burned down in 1914 and was just rebuilt two years ago.
This is Madison Falls. It feeds the Elwha River which flows into Crescent Lake. This falls was less the 100 meters from the parking lot and was the easiest one to reach!
The company was excellent, the weather perfect and the scenery spectacular! If you haven't visited a National Park recently, we highly recommend it!
