rialto beach... it's like the beach, only colder!

I spent the last couple of nights camping on the Olympic Peninsula, which was so lovely. I spent my first night on Rialto Beach, a great spot along the Western coastline where you can camp practically right on the beach, behind the safety of giant piles of driftwood. This is a pretty magical spot, lots of young folk and families gather here, and for good reason. The water is too cold to go for a swim without a wetsuit, but when the tide goes out there are all these tidal pools that allow you to view the ocean-life without actually going in the ocean. I saw three big fat starfish, and weird fat sea plants (that's the techinical name) that would close up when you touched them, and a bunch of snails and all sorts of neat-o stuff.
Then I spent one night camped out in the rainforest. Did you know that there's a rainforest in the Continental US? Neither did I, but it's here and it's really pretty. That's where I saw this giant slug!




The rainforest is very mossy and green and beautful, it looks like a place where fairies and gnomes live in giant tree stumps. I didn't spot any, but a hell of a lot of mosquitoes spotted me, yowsa! I thought I left those jerks in the dust in Utah, but apparently the West Coast has them too. I had to bust out my bug-spray arsenal all over again, I'm sure that the levels of DEET in my bloodstream have gone off the charts!

3:29 PM;

Like a drifter i was born to walk alone...