Picture of the Day - 7/30/08

Somedays, you'll just have to accept a bonus picture! We spent much of the day at the Makah Indian Reservation in the NW part of the Olympic Peninsula - in fact, we ended up on the MOST NW corner of the continental US! Most of the coastal region of Olympic NP is a temperate rain-forest and reminds me a lot of some of the areas on Hawaii around Hilo. The Makah tribe has been living in this NW corner of the peninsula for generations and fortunately, they were not too badly displaced during the "Americanization" period in the late 1800's to early 1900's. Their early culture revolved around whale-hunting and the people lived in long-houses of cedar. The museum/cultural and research center is world-class and is considered by the Smithsonian as one of the top ten natural history museums in the country. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside, but there have been hundreds of artifacts unearthed very recently from a long-house village that was covered by a mud-slide (I believe) in the 1930's. The displays are top-notch!

After visiting the museum, we headed out the road to Cape Flattery - the furthest NW point in the US - and took the 0.75-mile trail to the viewpoint. The picture above shows a portion of the trail with slices of cedar tree trunks as "stepping stones". Other parts of the trail were rough-hewn cedar wooden walkways. It was a lovely walk downhill to the cliffs. The bonus picture shows Sheila, me and Foxie at the viewpoint, where you can also see the lighthouse on Taboosh Island. Tomorrow, we tackle some of the rain-forest trails. Rain is expected!  :)