I’m not here.

Another photo from the trip to Scenic Beach.

We went to Scenic Beach again this evening, enjoying pizza and a sunset.

Last weekend I had the good fortune to backpack the High Divide and Sol Duc River trail, enjoy an overnight at Lunch Lake and summit Bogachiel Peak for unobstructed views of Mount Olympus.

Along the trail blueberries, both low bush and high, grew everywhere and they were deliciously sweet. The high grew in the forest shade and the low in the umber heather hugging the ground. We feasted continuously on the hike, often contemplating if there had been any need to bring additional food.

I found the trail to be a little more strenuous than I was anticipating, probably from dehydration. Fortunately, with some breaks along the way, we made our destination.

A quick swim in the lake and we were ready for dinner and sunset.

The next morning I didn’t get up as early as I had planned but I did manage to capture the morning sun. Unlike the trip to Marmot Pass, I didn’t have to do any lengthy hiking from camp to take my morning photos.

I’ve heard the Olympic marmots calling before but had never seen one — now I have! This guy was sunning on the rocks and let us get quite close before scurrying down the side of the rock pile. In my zeal to get the photograph, we ended up taking a side trail up Bogachiel which required a bit of scrambling, lucky for us we had ditched the big packs for the short summit.

The views from Bogachiel did not disappoint. It’s difficult in this photo to get the perspective of our elevation above the lakes and the expanse of the Basin. On our descent from the High Divide we took a short rest along the trail, laid on our backs and watched the mountains — it was perfect.

And what’s a trip without at least one flower photo? The most picturesque flowers of the entire trip were right after Heart Lake just as we had started back down the trail and I was too lazy to take the backpack off again — next year I’m heading straight there for the colorful flowers along the little creek.

In all we hiked almost 20 miles, ate pints and pints of blueberries and enjoyed a great weekend in the mountains. I’m anxious to go back next year with a bucket just like Sal’s mom.

Some time had passed since our last visit to Dungeness Spit so with good weather predicted we trekked out to “where people can spit?”.

The Spit is located in Sequim, which has the distinction of being extremely dry (relatively speaking) year-round owing to its location within the Olympic Mountains’ rain shadow. Among Sequim’s other attractions are numerous lavender farms benefiting from the dry, sunny environment. And, we were soon to learn, some pretty cool marine wildlife.

Our first activity was a picnic, followed up with some, hopefully, family fun geocaching. Until now the geocaching excursions have been solely father-daughter, but my wife went along this time, found the cache and even admitted it was fun! The view from the cache location certainly helped I’m sure.

While we were walking back to the car a couple on bikes, who had been leap-frogging us along the path to the cache, said “Did you see the whale?” What?! Whale? We stopped for a couple minutes to watch and sure enough we saw the distinctive spray of blowhole water and the back of the great beast cresting. We were told it was heading towards the Spit, and fortuitously we were as well.

We’re clearly not on the “whale sighting” list because when we finally descended to the beach it was lined with photographers who’s gear made mine look like I was a child. (I’m talking some serious glass — bear this in mind as you see the marine animal photos. Through the binoculars the views were great, these photos don’t do the scene justice.)

The first thing I spotted at the beach was not the whale, but this seal playing in the surf and popping it’s head out here-there-everywhere. It acted like a dog (or kid) hiding from its master (or parent).

And then we saw the whale, cool! My daughter didn’t care, it was just a whale and there were holes to dig with must-have driftwood, but my wife and I were thrilled. People all along the beach would shout “There’s the whale!” each time it came up for air.

We hung around the beach for a couple of hours, watching the whale crest but never breach. It just kept swimming back and forth surfacing every couple minutes. I pictured it mouth-wide-open slurping food up and down the coastline.

There was some debate about whether it was a gray or humpback whale. I’m going with gray but I have no idea really, this was my first non-zoo whale.

When the fog rolled in we departed. What had been a view for miles quickly degraded in a manner of minutes to a couple hundred feet until we ascended to the parking lot where we were again greeted with blue skies overhead. The Spit is a cool place to visit — the budding naturalists certainly feel so anyway — and the weather can change quickly so be prepared should you go.

On the drive back, on a whim, we stopped at the Jardin du Soleil Lavender Farm because the weather was so agreeable and we were in no rush to get home. Good move. The farm is beautiful. The lavender was past prime but standing downwind from 10 acres of lavender fields you’d never know it. The yellow sunflowers, purple lavender, green grass and blue skies with the white whisping clouds — I could have stayed all day (and would love to see the farm at sunset) — but we did eventually need to get home.

I love old barns and I love living here.