Olympic National Park

Onions was looking out on the view from our house in Seattle and asked about the Olympic Mountains, so I thought..."WHY NOT, let's go."  So off we went.  First stop, Hurricane Ridge.

I guess the deer are habituated to people as they walked right by us without even any sense of fright.

Blue skies.....

....fluffy clouds.

Just a few miles west of Port Angeles is the Elwha River and the major site there now is the site of the former Glines Canyon Dam.  Built in the early 1900's for power generation the final portion was removed August 2014.

This is looking upstream at the former lake that was created by the damn.  Slowly returning back to its natural state.

And downstream.

My first raccoon upclose and personal.

In my parents tradition, Onions wanted to eat Chinese food in a small town and so we walked about 3 miles roundtrip in Port Angeles for Chinese food at "Fresh Wok." First off, he said he liked it (I think to spite me) and second, I can't believe we both PUT AWAY that much food.  Portion control.....wow.

Lake Crescent

The second day of our trip was a coastal day.  First stop was out to Cape Alava.  Back in 7th grade, we did this as a beach hike and stayed two nights.

I remember it back then being this LONG hike, but Onions and I did it in an hour and fifteen minutes.

Cape Alava is the westernmost point in the continental United States.  Here we are!

Our golden hour was spent watching the waves and the sun go down at Rialto Beach by the town of LaPush.

Looking out at the waves...and way in the distance...Asia.

Sleepyhead

Was scrolling through the photos on my phone and saw a bunch of these pictures with the same theme......

Jeju-do

Students left on May 27th and I had planned a trip to Myanmar with a friend who was coming from the United States but she had to cancel.  Therefore with a week off, I wanted to travel one more time. I wanted to see somewhere beautiful and so Onions found me a cheap ticket to Jeju-do a South Korean island.

Onions found us a cheap ticket on China's ONLY discount no-frills airline out of Shijiazhuang airport. Being that I sometimes don't listen, I didn't know that there was actually a rail station at the airport so I took the train all the way to the city of Shijiazhuang and then had to race back to the airport, barely making the flight.

Sunrise over Jeju

Zach N. (a former student who happened to have some free time during his summer in China) picked a hotel on what turned out to be one of the few sandy beaches.

Why so few sandy beaches?  Turns out that Jeju is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for it's volcanic history.

There are three major UNESCO highlighted sites.  The first is Seongwon ilchulbong.

It's an stunted volcanic crater.

It's a 180 meter climb to the rim.

Looking back from the rim of the crater, you can see that the island is dotted with these little lava mountains.

The central feature of Jeju is Hallesan, the tallest mountain in all of South Korea.  There is also a lake in the crater but it's a long hike and you need to be on the trail by a certain time to ensure getting down before sunset.  We didn't have time. 

I thought this a funny site.  Do they not have any colored cars?

Yes, I ate some kimchi.  But this was an interesting noodle dish.  It came with ice cubes and you poured your soup to melt the ice cubes.

Our second full day was rainy but we still got out to see the sites.  Here is an interesting geological formation.  The lava cooled in hexagonal columnar form.

The third of the UNESCO sites are the lava tubes.  Most of them are closed to the public, but 1 kilometer of this 7.5 kilometer tube is open to the public.

Unlike caves there there all all the geologic formations this is just a big long tunnel.

The streaks on the wall indicate that the lava flowed at different levels.

Another lava dome mountain just in the middle of the island.