seattle flashback

this is where gallery two starts…

our next trip took us to mount saint helens [G] (wikipedia: de | en), on september 26th.
it was really impressive to see this natural monument – an until-then dead volcano that blew off its top in 1980 and changed the whole hinterland into a moon-like landscape. 75 people and millions of animals died, back then.
the dead trees are still lying there (they didn’t burn up because the air was filled with ashes, and oxygen was quickly used up), and every single one is pointing away from the point of blast.
when we met heather’s grandmother a little later, she gave to me three jars with ashes that she had collected in may 1980, october 1980 and may 1981. that was an incredibly nice gift!

 
two days later, we went to leavenworth [G], a bavarian village in the center of washington state.
they do daily public shows with shoe-plattling (schuhplattern), and have some very specialized shops: i remember kris kringl, a christmas shop where christmas music is running ALL YEAR, and that nice shop called a matter of taste, that offers loads of sauces, dips, dressings, mustards, … and has free samples everywhere :grin:

i couldn’t find a picture, but there was one sample that was titled something like this:
VERY, VERY HOT SAUCE! ADULTS ONLY! DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU AREN’T SURE!
and, well, …they didn’t lie :neutral:

on september 30th, we went on a scenic drive along the shore of the olympic peninsula [G] (the area south of port angeles). there are lots of amazing views, especially in potlatch [G], mount walker [G] (with a bunch of birds that we fed apples to), lake crescent [G].
ruby beach [G] would probably have had a nice view itself, but it was pretty foggy –

which created its very own ambience (in combination with the huge pieces of driftwood everywhere)!
our next stop on the route was kalaloch lodge, where we were staying overnight so we could visit hoh rainforest, one of the world’s few temperate rainforests, the following day. although it had been kind of a dry year, the forest was very much alive, and several-meter-long carpets of mosses were hanging off every tree.