This weekend I went up to Sequim, Washington (Sequim is pronounced squim) to get Key certified for scentwork (that’s tomorrow’s blog.) It’s a bit of a drive, five hours up, so I decided to make it a long weekend and go the long route coming home.

Friday

Friday we got off to a late start because I had some doctors’ appointments and other things, but we had hit the road by 10:30 and were in Sequim by 3:30, so we were able to get a short walk in to dim Key’s energy to a dull roar.

We visited a place called Railroad Bridge Park. Unfortunately, my camera decided to act up, so I only one picture of the site.

The trail was marked by lovely engravings. I love a good compass rose.

We paused for our second selfie of the trip and tried to get the “railroad” in the background.

It was a shorter walk than Key would have hoped, but it was dark and we checked into our AirBNB.

Saturday

Saturday morning we got up early and got in a hike before the trial. I really wanted to go to the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, which has a spit and lots of cool bird sightings. But it didn’t allow dogs (unsure of the point of that) so we settled on the county-run Dungeness Recreation Area nearby.

The birding wasn’t bad, but it didn’t yield a lot of exotic species.

This is my favorite picture from the day.  If I paint it, the title will be: “Trail. Partner.”

We had a very successful trial (more about that later) and ended the day by going to the John Wayne Marina and Washington Harbor for a little more birding before calling it a night.

We saw the Sequim elk herd on on our way back to the AirBNB.

Sunday

Unless the weather turned terrible, I thought I would go west along the sound, cut down south along the coast, then head east again through the Olympic Forest. This was a long day, but I thought the scenery would be worth it.

The scenery was gorgeous, but the weather got progressively worse as we went along.

We did a bit of serious (wet) exploring at a little roadside cutout labeled “Shipwreck Point.”

We were trying to reach Neah Bay, but when we got there there was a sign that it was a Native American reservation and we would have to pay to get in. I was already concerned about time, and the weather was just getting worse, so we turned around to head south.

Someday I will go back when I have more time. There seemed to be a bald eagle on every tree in this area. This is where I got my favorite picture of the day.

Once we got back to 101 and headed south, the weather turned from windy, cold, foggy, and rainy to drizzly.

We saw another herd of elk at Forks.

When we stopped at Ruby Creek, it was practically balmy!

 

This was about the last photo point, because I was getting very worried about time.  I would have loved to go down to the beach and explore (and I know Key would have been game.)

But we’re home now and have a list of possible places to go again!