Double Bluff Park, on Useless Bay, and South Whidbey State Park, April 20th, 2007

What a day for a dog!  We piled into the AdventureMobile, and Kelsy yipped with anticipation as we drove past the exit for Magnuson Park.  It wasn't until we were in line for the Mukilteo ferry that I realized I had left the leashes in the kitchen.  I stopped in Langley and bought 3 more leashes, which I will keep in the truck as backups.  We finally got to Double Bluff Park just in time for a -2.9 tide.  The tide was so far out that it seemed like a mile to get to the water.  I brought the tennis ball chucker, and each time I threw the ball I got a light spray of sand and muck blown back into my face by the light breeze.  I started throwing side-arm style.  Kelsy and Tess ran and fetched, and Porter rolled in the sand. 

In the picture below, with all three dogs swimming in Useless Bay, you can see the tiny Seattle skyline in the distant blue haze. 

After playing in the water for quite a while, I threw the ball along the endless sandy beach, and we eventually worked our way back toward the high tide mark.  The source of all that sand is the bluff, which is constantly eroding and falling down.  I threw the tennis ball up onto the foot of the sandy bluff, and Kelsy and Tess charged up after it.

We saw three horses being ridden along the beach.  I don't know if any of the dogs had seen a horse in their previous lives, but this was the first time since I've had them.  I wasn't sure how they would react, so I had them all sit and stay still while the horses walked by.  Someone else's Golden Retriever went charging after the horses, barking, but the horses didn't care.  I walked about two miles total, up the beach and back, but the dogs ran much farther with all the back and forth.  Porter probably traveled 3 miles, Tess 4 miles, and Kelsy 5 miles.  (Porter tried and failed to catch up to a very swift poodle.  A poodle!  With the funky haircut and everything.  The shame!)  Plus a bunch of swimming.  They got a day's worth of exercise in just the first half of the the doubleheader adventure.

 Kelsy also took in a mouthful of salt water when she first went into Useless Bay.  She usually does this at Magnuson to get a drink, but she knows not to do it at home in the salt water.  She must have drank a lot because when we got back to the truck she drank a liter of bottled water from the bowl.  Then, as we walked a couple of miles through South Whidbey State Park, she drank about a gallon more at various stops.  I was a little alarmed at how much she was drinking and peeing, and we cut the day short because I was worried, wondering if she would ever stop drinking and peeing.  (She's fine now.)

Our next stop was South Whidbey State Park, a 347-acre park with a nice trail through old-growth forest. 

While the trees weren't as enormous as the Redwoods, they were some of the largest I've seen in Washington State.  The terrain was "lumpy" like it is in the Redwoods, and I imagine this is caused by giant trees falling and becoming part of the soil, making mounds over time.  Much of the fallen wood was blanketed with moss.  The forest seemed moist, almost like a rainforest, even though the south end of Whidbey Island only gets 30 inches of rain per year, on average, which is less than the Sea-Tac average of 39 inches.  I imagine that the 347 acres of old-growth forest tends to make its own weather, with the tall trees acting as a mountain and squeezing moisture out of the clouds, and the deep shade preserving moist air and capturing fog. 

The cedar below was a giant, but its root flare was much larger than normal even for a tree of that size.  The tree leaned a little, and this root buttress must be a reaction, an attempt to keep it upright. 

In the "lumpy" terrain, the low spots were mucky and wet.  I smelled skunk cabbage without seeing any, and a hundred feet along the trail we came upon acres of skunk cabbage.  Deer fern and lady fern grew near the cabbage patches. 

The cedar above was protected (somewhat) by a barricade and the sign below.

You could tell by the compacted earth and the worn bark that not everyone heeded the sign.

Elderberry, Sambucus racemosa, bloomed conspicuously along all the trails and forest clearings.  I counted about 35 native species of plants, and very few invasive species.  I saw a couple of species I couldn't identify, like this groundcover, below.

This forest was quite healthy, and the park was clean and free of graffiti.  We were in the park for two hours, and we never saw another person.  The trail to the beach was closed due to an "unstable hillside," but we had seen enough beach for one day, and Kelsy was worrying me with her insatiable thirst.  We drove back to the ferry terminal, where I took the picture below of the northern Cascades.  While we were waiting for the ferry, and just before we started to drive on, Kelsy frantically tried to get into the cab of the truck through the slider window.  Then she tried to get out the back window, but fortunately didn't quite succeed.  I couldn't tend to her because the line was starting to move.  She resorted to urinating in the bed of the truck, even though she clearly wished to avoid it.  I'm sure it was mostly just water.  I told her it was okay, and not to feel bad.  I think it all drained out the back pretty well.  As the ferry started to pull away from Whidbey Island, all the dogs found dry places to lie down, and they slept the rest of the way home.

I found the following plants in South Whidbey State Park.  I only walked one of the two main trails, and never got to the beach, so I'm sure there are many other native plants I didn't see.

Abies grandis                    Grand fir
Acer macrophyllum            Big leaf maple
Alnus rubra                        Alder
Athyrium filix-femina        Lady fern
Betula papyrifera                Birch
Circaea alpina                    Enchanter's nightshade
Drypoteris expansa            Spiny wood fern
Equisetum arvense            Horse tail
Gaultheria shallon                Salal
Geum macrophyllum            Big-leaved avens
Holodiscus discolor            Ocean spray   
Linnaea borealis                Twinflower
Lonicera ciliosa                Orange honeysuckle
Lysichitum americanum    Skunk cabbage
Mahonia aquifolium        Tall Oregon grape
Mahonia nervosa            Low Oregon grape
Maianthemum dilatatum    False lily of the valley
Montia siberica                Candyflower
Picea sitchensis                Sitka spruce
Pinus contorta                    Shore pine
Polypodium glycyrrhiza        licorice fern
Polystichum munitum            Sword fern
Pseudotsuga menziesii        Douglasfir
Prunus emarginata            Bitter cherry
Ribes bracteosum                Stink currant
Ribes lacustre                    Swamp currant
Rosa gymnocarpa                Bald-hip rose
Rubus parviflorus                Thimbleberry
Rubus spectabilis                Salmonberry
Rubus ursinus                        Trailing blackberry
Sambucus racemosa            Elderberry
Tellima grandiflora                Fringe cup
Thuja plicata                        Western redcedar
Tiarella trifoliatta                Foamflower
Trientalis latifolia                Broad-leafed starflower
Tsuga heterophylla                Western hemlock
Urtica dioica                        Stinging nettles
Vaccinium ovatum                Evergreen huckleberry   
Vaccinium parvifolium            Red huckleberry