It's a rainy and overcast morning.  We are definitely in the rain forest, lots of mosses and ferns.  This area gets over 145 inches of rain per year.  In comparison, Seattle only gets 34 inches of rain per year!  We first entered Olympic National Park and went to the North Fork Ranger Station and did a couple of short hikes there in the rain.  One hike was thru an old homestead for the late 1800's describing the difficulties of settling and homesteading in the dense vegetation of the rain forest.

Next we headed out to the another portion of the park known as the Hoh Rain Forest.   We went to another Visitor Center there and hiked the Hall of Mosses Trail and the Spruce Nature Trail.  We saw lots of mosses and ferns and trees covered in mosses and ferns!  We found out that the rain forest floor is very dense and it's difficult for tree seeds to take root.  What will happen is a tree seed will take root on a fallen decaying tree.  These downed logs are called "nurse logs" and the next generation of trees will grow on this nurse log, extending roots over the sides to the ground.  The nurse log continues to decay, leaving the new trees suspended on rooty "stilts".  

Another distinctive feature in the rain forest is the banana slug. We also saw a variety of black slug.  The slug is important in the decomposition of the forest floor leaf litter.  These slugs are about 3 inches long and are everywhere!

After our hike we stopped for dinner at the Hard Rain Cafe, a place that had sandwiches and such.  They had quite a sense of humor and had lots of funny stuff in their store.  It seems like a local stop and the owners know everyone that came in.  Very friendly folks from Germany, even their little boy spoke German, Bavarian.

We found a Washington State Forest Campground that was free and had several sites open and got one for the night.