Vikram and Noella's visit to the Olympic Peninsula

Vikram and Noella's Olympic Dream

21 July 04: Port Angeles

Contents

	We decided we had enough time today to make two visits to the park before leaving the peninsula. The first one was to the visitor center at the park headquarters in Port Angeles. This visitor center, much like the one at Hurricane Ridge, contained a lot of information. It had a few dioramas and a room for children to learn about nature. We watched a movie and bought a few things. Then it was time for lunch, which we had at the India Oven restaurant again. Don't be fooled by our affinity for this Indian restaurant: Port Angeles does have numerous restaurants which is wonderful for a town of 18,000. We live in Hyde Park in Chicago, and that has 3.5 times the population, but not as many restaurants. These Port Angeles restaurants have a good variety of foods, however, they are more expensive than say the ones in the Seattle's U-district which encompasses the U of Washington. After lunch we went to the observation tower at City Pier. Most of the photos on this page are taken from the observation tower. The one to the left is of the Olympic Mountains. The tops of these mountains were invariably covered with clouds. However, if the day were warm enough, then by late afternoon the clouds dissipate to reveal the forest clad tops.
	View from Port Angeles looking east.
	Vikram at City Pier, Port Angeles.
	Vikram and me at City Pier, Port Angeles
	Another view of Port Angeles from City Pier, looking south. Port Angeles is a town that relies more on practicality than on aesthetics. The town contains all the basic necessities one would expect in a town, including public transport and some second hand shops. Most of the buildings look rather uninteresting from outside. Our motel exemplified this with its grey paint and red trim. Though from inside it was quite adequate. The one fancy building that we saw was diagonally opposite the street from our motel. It housed a breakfast and lunch restaurant. Port Angeles also has ferry service to Victoria, on Vancouver Island in Canada. It takes barely 20 minutes to travel to Victoria from Port Angeles.
	Freighter at the port. It was bigger than any of the buildings in Port Angeles. It was there the entire time we were in Port Angeles.
	Noella amongst American Indians, Port Angeles.
	Vikram and Noella amongst European settlers. It's easy to tell from the shadows that there's something very strange about us and these so-called pioneers. You've probably figured out by now that we're standing in front of a mural. The photo above is another mural. While both immediately capture one's attention because they are so realistic, the one above seemed to me to be better than this one. Both were side by side on a building near City Pier in Port Angeles.

To "Hoh Rain Forest, Olympic National Park"

To "Lake Crescent, Olympic National Park"

All photos copyright 2004 onwards. Please contact Noella D'Cruz (ndcruz at depaul dot edu) or Vikram Dwarkadas (vikram at oddjob dot uchicago dot edu) before using any any of them.