Washington state here and there

The Elbe Evangelical Lutheran Church is on the list as one of the smallest churches in the nation. It measures 18X24 feet and can hold 46 peopole. It was built by German immigrants in 1906 and has since been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town of Elbe is located on the road that leads to Mt. Rainier's Paradise area.

The surrounding pictures were taken at a very interesting area along Interstate 90. Just east of Ellensburg, I-90 crosses over the Vantage Bridge over Lake Wanapum and the Columbia River. On either side of the highway in this area are towering basalt cliffs, and there are a couple of overlooks that are worth a stop. Also in the area is the Ginkgo Petrified Forest, where the photo above was taken, and the Wanapum State Park.

There's a Visitor Center at the Ginkgo Petrified Forest where the landscape includes large trunks of petriefied wood as well as the rocks that contain the petroglyphs (above). Additionally, there is a trail not far away that traverses the side of a hill and contains petrified tree tunks that are original to the area.

The day spent in Westport was loads of fun. For a town its size, there is an enormous amount of things to do. A breakwater that separates the town from Grays Harbor is a natural place to start as you're drawn to the boulders to watch the waves crash into them then create a great spray of water over them and any people who might be walking on the rocks.

Then there's the boardwalk which spans the whole length of the town and from where you can access the floats (docks) that make up the largest marina on the Northwest's Pacific coast.

There's South Beach on the Pacific side of the town and a lighthouse, which somehow I managed to miss seeing; and then there's the fishing dock which is filled with people fishing and especially crabbing for Dungeness crabs.

The town has an abundance of brown pelicans which are constantly flying overhead and it has some resident sea lions which can be heard from just about anywhere in town.

Oh, and did I mention the raccoons? They were seen scurrying over and sniffing out the breakwater boulders, probably finding all sorts of good stuff to eat.

Westport is located on a peninsula on the south side of the entrance to Grays Harbor from the Pacific Ocean. At last census, its population was just over 2000 residents.

The two pictures on the right and the next several were taken on Westport.

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On the north end of Whidbey Island is Deception Pass which separates Whidbey from Fidalgo Island. And on Fidalgo is a small beach called Rosario Beach. Besides hiking trails, there is a statue called the Deception Pass Maiden, a young Samish Indian.

Legend says a spirit of the sea fell in love with the maiden, but brought famine to her family when she would not marry him. After a period of drought and to save her family, she agreed to marry the spirit, and upon doing so not only brought the return of abundance to her family, but she, herself became immortal.

It is believed by the local Samish people that the maiden still lives in the sea below the waters of Deception Pass.

Fidalgo Island holds a couple of treasures that somehow I missed when I was touring the state of Washington. I spent a considerable amount of time on Whidbey Island and Fidalgo's most southern tip, Deception Pass and Rosario Beach, as well as its northern tip, the town of Anacortes.

But it wasn't until a friend took me past Deception Pass to the inland of Fidalgo that I became aware of one of the island's great treasures: Mount Erie.

On a less foggy day than my previous visit, we drove over Deception Pass, stopped to take a few pictures and walk down to Little North Beach before heading inland via Highway 20 to the summit of Mt. Erie where incredible viewpoints overlooking Puget Sound can be had.

The next several pictures were taken from the park's overlooks. I've also included some of Deception Pass (sans fog) and its beach. More pictures of Deception Pass can be found on my Whidbey Island photos page.

The Taylor Dock boardwalk is a part of the larger South Bay Trail that links Fairhaven to downtown Bellingham. It passes over the Bellingham Bay for a quarter-mile.In the early to mid-1900s, it was an industrial dock lined with canneries, lumber and flour mills and such. Informative signs along the pier describe the businesses that occupied spots for more than a century.