Saturday was Junior Ranger day in the National Parks. So we decided to stay an extra day and go back to the Olympic NP visitors’ center for the festivities. The place was positively hopping. We had considered stopping by on our way out of town. If we had, we’d have found no place to park our rig — the lot was full.
Elise works on her bird mobile. Look carefully. Can you spot the entirely camouflaged family?
The would-be Jr. Rangers had to complete five of nine activities listed on a little card. Elise began her quest by making a bird mobile. Then we walked through the woods with a ranger looking for things that don’t belong in the forest: for example, Scooby Doo in purple car lodged in a tree. After this she hung out with an entomologist as she focused a microscope on various petri dishes to show…common, everyday, backyard bugs! We saw countless ittle bugs, made big on a television screen: little mites, big mites, translucent mites, beetles smaller than half of a grain of rice, lethargic millipedes, and frenetic centipedes.
Bugs made big
Lastly, Elise completed the scavenger hunt around the visitor center and turned in her card and her work. She pledged herself to a life of poverty, celibacy, and alms-giving — oh wait, that’s the Order of Friars Minor. Anyway, she came away with a very fine patch, certificate and pin.
We went to the vigil Mass at Queen of Angels Catholic Church and headed back home. Since this would be our last time in a long while to do any tidepooling, we went out in the dying light anyway and scrambled about. We saw little, sandpapery sea stars, a little sea slug, anemones, barnacles and mussels of course, and tons of little crabs — hermit and otherwise. Danine and Elise scoured a small beach made entirely of shells and found many beautiful limpet shells. The best find was by Elise. She found two mossy chiton shells. We’ve been trying to find these little guys alive, but no luck. It was nice to put a face — or shell — to the name finally.
As we got ready to leave, Elise shouted, “Seal!” We looked out at the water just beyond the rocks, but didn’t see any seal. What we saw were two otters lazily swimming and diving along the shore. It was a treat to watch them go, and nice way to end our time here.
That’s Dan Lieberman. He sings songs about the forest.
