Tuesday’s Adventure: Camping! Part Two.

As you know, my family and Mr. Owl and I went camping a few weekends ago (if you didn’t see it, part one is here.) On the last day, we headed out of Kalaloch to Ruby Beach, and on the way, we stopped by what was (I think) just called “Big Cedar Tree”. Which… it was. Huge. What you see in the above picture is only about half of the base of the tree.

I was absolutely mesmerized by its roots. They were twisted and straight, rough and smooth, a poetry of entanglement and contrasts. Nature is seriously amazing.

Mr. Owl decided to climb around the tree without touching the ground– since there were so many roots and branches, I think he nearly made it.

Once we were done exploring the tree, we found our way to Ruby Beach. I’m not sure why they call it Ruby Beach. There are no rubies. Just lots of smooth round stones.

The large rock covered with trees has a narrow, steep path that you can haul yourself up (really, it’s a hands-and-knees kind of path) to get to the top. Mr. Owl and I tried, but after a slight misstep on my part, we decided that it really wasn’t worth it until I was wearing better shoes.

Nonetheless, we clambered around the big rock for most of our trip, and it yielded plenty of amazing finds.

Mussels grouped together and covered in tiny barnacles; a hole in the rocks that plunged down into thundering water…

Sea anemones (they really were that bright color! And you can see the starfish off to the right; there was one spot where the starfish nearly carpeted the rocks they were so plentiful. Sadly, we didn’t get a good picture because we ran out of card space.)

I don’t even know what those things in the center are. Some sort of weird mutant barnacle or mussel? They remind me of dinosaurs.

But the best thing we saw was this:

Huddled in a crack in the rocks, and we think he (/she) may have been stuck, was a baby seal. We probably should have left it alone, and it was probably just fine where it was, but to us it looked stuck. It was sort of wedged into the crease of two rocks, and it was completely dry and panting. So after a lot of deliberation and a little bit of very, very cautious prodding on Mr. Owl’s part, we got it to move off into a safer-looking place (and it took a lot of effort on the creature’s part!) and we left hoping that it would be okay.

When I told my co-worker about it, she informed me that seals are mean and can tear you apart. My only comeback was that Mr. Owl wrapped his sweatshirt sleeve around his hand before touching the seal. Cuz, you know, that would have protected him from claws and teeth… right?

That’s about it from my camping trip! But I already have two more adventures to share with you. They both involve creepy places. Sounds fun, right?

😉

I hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!

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