Olympic National Park

Lon and I skipped school today to get the Jr. Ranger Badge from Olympic National Park.

The garmin had so much trouble finding the right way to go, we ended up not using it.  We got on the ferry in Edmonds. We could not have planned it better. We pulled up to the ticket window, he told us line 1. I thought  we were going to have to wait. Nope. We got right on the ferry! Pretty fun

Going over the Hood Canal Bridge. It looks so different than I remember it. We passed Chimicum and I thought of Bullwinkle. He was from there.

Playing with the animal skulls. Lon got his booklet, and the Ranger told us that he had to do his five parts, watch the movie instead of a Ranger talk, since they did not have those yet. He also had to go up and do a small hike at Hurricane Ridge. That works for us.

Black Bear Skull

The wolf skull. We learned that the wolf is extinct on the Olympic Peninsula.
We watched the 25 minute movie, looked at a few more exhibits, then he did his five required elements in his booklet.

He used this booth to tell me what he learned. They even had puppets

Going up, up, up!!

All the way up to Hurricane Ridge.  It was COLD up there, about 38 degrees. The wind was blowing too. Brrrrr
It was beautiful. Almost no one else there.

Learning more about the animals that live up there

Both Lon and I were very thirsty. We could have bought a bottle of water for almost as much as the refillable container. The container had the Hurricane Ridge Logo on it.  Since we could fill it up there, we did that. Lon had fun doing that.

Time to go out and play in the snow. Okay, Lon played in the snow piles, I just took pictures of it all.

King of the snow pile!

A pretty shot. We were getting really really cold. We did not dress for Hurricane Ridge.

Critters. There are two of them, and I think they are marmots. They were small, brown and fuzzy and this picture is not a good one, but it was the best I could get from so far away.
Lon saw a deer on the way to the park, I saw a deer on the drive down from Hurricane Ridge and then when we were out of the park we saw three deer on the road side.

It was a FUN drive down the ridge. I went slow, and told Lon we were looking for more critters.

This was a different Ranger from when Lon got his booklet.  He told us that we had to do everything in the book since we did not get a ranger talk. Um, no. Lon calmly told him that was not the deal. He said, well if that was what you were told. Thank you.  There was a section called Hiking Bingo, that was one of the ones we gave a pass, there were 9 activities in the book, Lon did 7. (More than required by his age) Hiking Bingo was not going to happen, not at Hurricane Ridge, there was too much snow!  Lon had a great time out there. He saw a lot of things he would like to see more of when we have more time. We only had a little while out there.  We will have to go back, soon.