Finn River Raven

Day 3: Sound & Fury Morris danced yesterday at Finn River Cidery in Chimacum. After the first set, I happened to notice an old friend in the audience: Raven, carrying his customary bit of the sun's fire, perched on a branch above the plaza. There could have been no better omen for the day.

Chimacum is a long way from home, so I had planned an Expedition to include a little geocaching and botanizing on the way up the Olympic Peninsula. The two go hand-in-hand. Caching often takes me into the woods, and I assumed that the more marine environment along Hood Canal would provide a wealth of lichens. It didn't take me long to figure out that I had entered a lichenological dead zone instead. Even the maples were bare of colonies. Botanically, the only thing worth noting was the presence of a few cascara trees in an area I would have thought was too heavily shaded to support them. At the cidery, I found minor lichenization of maples which included a Xanthoria and a Parmelia. Still, I had managed to get out into nature to experience a different ecological niche even if I hadn't made any amazing discoveries.

Thrifty Scot that I am, I decided that to avoid a $6 toll-bridge crossing at the expense of $3 in gas and 45 minutes of my time, I'd drive home the long way, i.e., down Highway 101 through Shelton and Olympia. It was a good choice. A canopy of green and gold filtered the slanting light of sunset as I drove through the National Forest, a far more pleasant way to end the day than barrelling along a freeway.