On The Northern Olympic Peninsula

Right now I'm in Sequim Washington on the upper most tip of the Olympic Peninsula.  There was a bit of rain getting here but not bad.

Some photos and a few thoughts:

The photo below is from Lake Crescent on 101 - about 20 miles from Port Angeles.

                                   The mouth of the Columbia River

                                                    

                                         The bridge crossing over the Columbia River in the back ground

 Riding a motorcycle gives me a lot of time to think. There are few distractions other than the road.  No radio, no cell phone, just the road and a lot of time to notice what's around you.  One of the towns I passed through on my way to Port Angeles was the logging and mill town of Aberdeen.  Just riding into town brought back a lot of memories.  The smells of raw cut lumber, logging trucks, one after the other, bringing Cedar and Fir into the mills. The look of the town could have been any other logging town in the US.  If you substituted timber with coal - it could have been any other small town that survives on bringing the natural resources of the area to market.  The town looked a lot like Fort Bragg about 30 years ago.  There was a lot of activity and people were working but the town was struggling.  There were a lot of "company" houses- a lot of them were vacant, some were occupied, some were in better shape than others but they were all, company homes with the company is living off the backs of their struggling employees.  But the good news is the employees at least have jobs and I'm sure if you asked any of them how they felt about their employer - they would be positive.

I'm not making any statement about the value of these jobs.  The employees are feeding their families.  I'm very familiar with struggling small logging towns.  They're my town.

This is a photo of a clear-cut section of timber land.  It looks bad but it's just a part of the picture.  I've seen many sections of clear cut areas throughout Oregon and Washington but I've also seen hundreds of timber blocks of reforested areas.  The future has been planned.
  

                                             

This photo shows the cutting and replanting schedule.  Congratulations to the Washington timber industry.  It won't happen with oil.

                                  

I ended up feeling pretty good about how Washington is managing one of their top natural resources.

Tomorrow I will be in Seattle at the BMW dealership getting a new front tire and then spending the weekend with my cousin Bill and his wife.