Olympic NP Vacation Day 5: Deterred by Mud

Today we slept in till 6:30 AM, I know we really slept in a lot, but still made it to breakfast. Today we tried the pancakes. The pancakes were not anything special, just normal pancakes; however, Jim noted we are very close to Canada but can’t be supplied with real maple syrup. After breakfast we headed up the South Shore Road to a couple of waterfalls, so I could take some pictures of the them using my tripod so I could get that nice fluffy water. The first one was a short .3-mile hike to a bridge overlooking the falls. Sadly, this bridge was in the wrong spot, because the larger falls was further down the stream and you could not get a good view of it. So, I had to settle for the smaller falls. I took a couple of pictures of it from the bridge, then climbed down to the water level to get a better picture of it. After taking some pictures at streambed level we climbed back up to the trail and headed back to the car to move onto the next waterfall. The next waterfall was easy to access since it is on the side of the road. We parked in a pull off and then went down to the stream bed. While I took some pictures of the falls, Jim climbed some the rocks nearby. After I was done taking pictures we got in the car and drove over to North Shore Road to take a hike up to a lake.

The hike to the lake was supposed to be a moderate 1-mile hike out and 1-mile back, but we only made it about halfway to the lake. The middle of the trail was engulfed by mud and then a large stream which made it very difficult to travers and determine exactly were the trail was. We determined it was safer to turn back, so we didn’t make it to the lake. Since our hike ended early, we decided to drive down to Hoquiam for lunch.

There is virtually no place to eat near the lodge, our only choices are eating at the lodge with a limited menu or go over to Dino’s to eat. We are getting tired of the lodge and the prices and Dino’s barely rates one star in our opinion. So, we made the 45-minute drive down 101 to Hoquiam to eat at a small diner. For being a simple window serve diner it was decent. Jim had a burger and I had a BLT, we opted not to get the fried gizzards that were on the menu. After lunch we drove back to the lodge, where we played some lawn games. I am horrible at horseshoes but ok at Ladder Ball. Overall, we did not do too much today. I’m still not good at sitting still and relaxing, I like going out and doing things. I’m not sure what we will do tomorrow.

Comments

2025 Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2026

This year was a bit interesting especially since during the day, I’m a government employee, which resulted in a lot of stress and a 42-day furlough. I didn’t attend as many cosplay events with the D.C Cosplay group, now Costume and Camera, as I normally would have, due to schedule conflicts. However, I traveled up to Poughkeepsie, New York for two photo events, one of which I was a featured photographer. I attended two conventions, one of which didn’t turn out as expected and the other just confirmed my decision to take a break from it. Though happily I did a lot of studio work this year, which I enjoyed. But on the other hand, I lost my dear “studio supervisor”, my dog Teddy. He liked to great clients and then “supervise” while lying/sleeping in his bed. I also started to work on the business side of my photography work, by investing in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) site to manage bookings, schedules, and payments. No more trying to juggle...

Cyber Blue

On October 11 th , I worked with Dayvon on a cyber concept shoot. This shoot was designed around a pair of contact lens with a circuit board pattern. This inspired me to think about things like “Blade Runner”, “Tron” and cyber punk in general. For this shoot I used: Canon 80D 2 Speed lights 2 Phottix strobes 2 Phottix Rectangular Softboxes with a grid 2 C-stands Blue gels Silver garage insulation Backdrop stand Black backdrop Connectable foam workout mats For this shoot I started out using four lights. The first two were small speed lights with blue gels attached placed on the floor aimed at the backdrop. The backdrop was silver garage insulation, which looks like silver bubble wrap. The backdrop reflected the blue light forward providing a bit of rim light. My main two lights were the strobes is rectangular soft boxes with grids attached. For this shoot I kept the lighting very low key, styled along that of a photo of Ryan Gosling i...

Return to the National Portrait Gallery

On February 28th, I attended the Costume & Camera (previously DC Cosplay Photoshoots) event at the National Portrait Gallery in DC. I have a love/hate relationship with shooting at the National Portrait Gallery; it is a beautiful location due to its architecture, especially on the third floor, and I’m thankful that you are allowed to do portrait photography there as long as you don’t use flash. What I get frustrated with is the varying colors of light throughout the building and the need to use natural or continuous light. (I’m a flash girly.) For this event, I used: Canon R6 24 - 105mm lens Neewer 12-inch LED light Assistant Camera Settings: This shoot was inside the Portrait Gallery, which has a no flash policy, thus I was using a mix of natural and continuous lighting, which affects settings. My ISO ranged from 100 ISO to 3200 ISO with the most common ISO being ISO 1000. My aperture stayed between F4 and F5, with the most c...

The Munchkin's Notebook

Search This Blog