Olympic National Park

Pix from our time in the Olympic National Park and surrounding areas ...

First pic is from Crescent Lake ... SUPER clear water.  This show rocks and trees and twigs under the water. Wind was blowing which rippled the surface.  *I* thought it was pretty cool!

Next shot is from our campsite in the Hoh Rain Forest ... stayed there for 4 days.  Beautiful, magical place!

EVERYTHING is covered with moss and/or lichen. The trees are unimaginably big ... waaay too much for a photo to convey.  Some grow to 300 ft. and are nearly 1,000 years old. One had fallen along the trail ... it was 199 ft. long and and over 25 ft. around. Nowhere near the biggest.  Ferns were EVERYWHERE.

Got more pictures of "Fuzzy Water" on our 6 mile hike through the rainforest when we came upon
several waterfalls 3 miles into the forest.

Glacier National Park

Selection of pix from our visit to Glacier ...

Atmosphere was pretty "foggy" due to all the wildfires in WA, OR, and MT.

Water is a grayish blue due to all the "Glacial flour" - rocks ground to dust by the glaciers as they move - really pretty colors. Got a LOT of pictures of "fuzzy water.: :-)

The Beargrass flowers were all over the mountainsides - they only bloom once every 5-7 years.
Kinda special that we were lucky enough to be there to see it happen.  FYI - bears don't eat it, but (as the story goes) the person who named it saw a bear eating grass behind a rock and thought it was eating the flowers ... so he named it Bear Grass.

The streams were flowing madly everywhere due to the heavy snowfall this past winter.
If you look closely at the shots from Avalanche Lake, you can see the hillside is covered with them from the melting Glacier on the opposite side.

The Panorama at the bottom is from Many Glaciers Lodge area - we could have sat and looked at it all day!!

Yellowstone

Pix from our 3 weeks in Yellowstone ...
Grandson Ethan (11) accompanied us for most of our stay.

The pictures of the Bear with her three cubs were especially cool.
The mother bear had just killed a fawn and was teaching the cubs to eat it.
Happened 25 yards off the driveway into Roosevelt Lodge & Store.

Margie's eyes got REALLY WIDE when the 4 ft Bull Snake wander in for breakfast about 6 ft from our picnic table in Mammoth Campground!