After several years on the road, Cheryl had almost caught up to me on our checklist of visited U.S. National Parks. The only one that I had been to, but she hadn’t, was Mount Rainier in Washington State. So we
Mount Rainier National Park
Olympia, Washington
Continuing our second tour of the Pacific Northwest, we spent the week of August 20-27 in Olympia, the capital of Washington State, visiting our friends Deb and Chuck. Like so many of our other RVing friends, we first met them
Olympic National Park: Beaches and Hoh Rain Forest
After a week in Port Angeles, we drove to the west side of the peninsula, not far from the coast. With several days of rain in the forecast, we headed out early in our stay to explore two of the area’s scenic beaches and the Hoh Rain Forest, one of the finest remaining examples of temperate rainforest in the United States and one of Olympic National Park’s most popular destinations.
Olympic National Park: Hurricane Ridge and Sol Duc Valley
Our RV park near Port Angeles, Washington gave us a good base from which to explore the northern side of Olympic National Park. The huge national park occupies most of the center of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, but there are no roads within the park connecting its various hiking and sightseeing destinations. It can take several hours of driving to get between these points on Highway 101, which rings the park. So instead, we planned to visit Hurricane Ridge, Lake Crescent, and the Sol Duc Valley from Port Angeles, and then move around the peninsula to visit other parts of the park.
Road Scholar Independent Living and Learning in Florence trip (post index)
Here is a chronological index of all the posts from our six-week Road Scholar Independent Living and Learning in Florence trip to Italy in Spring 2025.
Recap of our six weeks in Florence (video)
Richard, one of our fellow Road Scholars, assembled this beautiful 4:16 video summarizing our six weeks together in Florence. He showed it at our farewell lunch on Saturday, but was kind enough to send us all a copy to share. It’s a great recap of this fabulous trip.
Heading home
A driver picked us, Georgia and Lori up from our respective apartments at 3:45 am, and we arrived at the airport half an hour later. We were all smiles in this photo, but we were half-asleep and sad to be leaving Florence.
Boboli Garden and farewell lunch
On our last full day in Florence, we walked through the Giardino Boboli (Boboli Garden), one of the few places on our “must see” list that we hadn’t yet visited, and then bade farewell to our Road Scholar classmates and group leaders over yet another fabulous meal.
Winding down
Today was the final day of language classes for three people from our Road Scholar group enrolled in the Classical Italian course (the others, in the Survival Italian course, had their last class the day before). We were all starting to pack up and prepare to head home, but we met together for dinner in the evening.
Bardini Gardens and symphony
With just three days remaining, we were trying to cram in a few more experiences that we’d missed so far, including a walk through the Giardino Bardini. Then in the evening, our group all got dressed up to attend a symphony in the city’s beautiful modern concert hall.