Beach Walk & Logging Tour In Forks

Tuesday 9/4/2012

We got a new neighbor at Forks 101 RV Park.

I loved that they had this scripture put on their rig. Joe told me after we left they had another one on the other side and on their door. I asked why he didn't tell me. He said I need to get out more. Men! I have always wanted to put some saying on our motor home that promotes life and against abortion, but there are so many nuts out there, I would worry they would key our unit or worse. Our new neighbors are braver than me. I should have asked them where they got the work done, or if they just bought letters and did it themselves. They give me courage to do it now!

We decided to take Mallery back to Rialto Beach. At less than a mile to the beach I took this picture. You can see the band of fog that sits from the coast to about a 1/4 of a mile in.

It was much more windy that day and much colder.

Mallery didn't like the rocks. It was at almost high tide, so there was no sandy area for her to walk.

The walk to the point didn't happen either, because the point was under water from high tide. We didn't do our checking of the tides, like we should have.

Mallery would jump onto the logs and walk on them instead of the beach.

Then she would get to the end and sit there trying to figure out what to do next.

You can see how windy it was that day by how Mallery's hair is blowing.

Sorry if I take too many pictures of my little girl, but in people years she is about 80, and I know our time together is getting short. I want lots of pictures of her, to remember her sweet but shy personality.

We meet people all the time who have Yorkies or had them. They tell me how hard it was to put them down when suffering got to be too much. I have never had to do that, and I can imagine just how hard that would be.

Recently a guy came up to us and told me that his wife has had to put down two of their Yorkie, and just can not have another Yorkie and go through that again.

Looking over the logs into the bay/river area. All the sea birds have taken shelter there, away from the wind.

At 1/4 of a mile from the beach, the sun is out and it is a totally different day.

                                         Wednesday 9/5/2012

We were told by our campground owner on the day we arrived in Forks, that the chamber of commerce offered a free tour of a lumber mill operation on Wednesday mornings.  We were scheduled to leave Wednesday morning. She said it would be OK with her to leave past checkout time if we wanted to take the tour. So we got up bright and early (for us) at 7:30am. We arrived at the visitors center at 8:45am. There is a small museum at the visitors center. I forgot to mention that this is Joe writing this blog.

Statue dedicated to lumbermen throughout the years.

It was time to start the tour. This gentleman is our guide. He loaded all of us into a small van and drove us to the lumber mill. He is a retired logger from the area and does these tours as an unpaid volunteer.

Here are the trees that have arrived from the forest.

The crane that picks them up and puts them on the conveyor to go into the mill.

Logs that have been cut to a specified length, now going to be cut into boards.

Being loaded into the saw.

Being sliced by the saw. I was surprised how close they let us get to all the machinery.

Here we go down into a pit and walk under the machinery.

Diane watching the finished boards being stacked. I was amazed how much work and machinery went into a 6 foot 2x4 that sells at Home Depot for a couple of dollars.

Off to the right you see the building where the lumber is dried.

There is a lot of moisture in the fresh wood that has to be heated and evaporated out of the wood before it can be shipped.

This building is where special cuts of wood are made.

More finished product stacked in warehouses and loaded for transport.

This lumber mill doesn't waste anything, all the scraps are ground into saw dust and shipped for sale.

Truck being loaded with saw dust.

After our tour of the mill, we all got back in the van and taken to an area on a hill where they were harvesting the trees that go to the mill. To get up to the tree site, we drove up a very rough windy dusty road. This is the view from the top of the hill looking toward the ocean. You can see the fog line along the coast.



Here, we were told we would have to wear helmets and a vest. My cute wife in her working man's outfit.



We walked up the road past a truck that had just finished being loaded.



As soon as one truck is loaded, another one is waiting to take it's place. This is the crane that loads the logs. The operator is very fast and delicate at his job. He carefully loads the logs so they sit just right on the truck. The machine to the left is a crane type machine that lifts the freshly cut trees up the hill to the loading area.

They can load a truck in just a few minutes.

A picture of myself and our group. I just need a pair of jeans and steel toed shoes to fit right in.

Unfortunately for us, it was time to move the crane that drags the trees up the hill, so we didn't get to see how it operated. Our guide told us that when it is set up; it extends it's boom way up high and then runs a pulley system and cable to the cut trees and lifts them off the ground and then runs them up to the loading area. Wish we could have seen it operate.

It crawls along very slowly and takes about an hour to get it set up.

This is the view of Forks, WA below from the operation site.

A close up of Forks, WA..

This is another view looking toward the ocean. The Quillayute River is also visable below in the picture. This is a great tour, especially when it is free. Hat's off to the town of Forks for offering it. Oh, and if you take this tour, be sure to use the bathroom at the mill before you head up the hill to the harvest fields, or don't drink anything. Diane got to the top of the hill and wanted to know where the bathroom was. I had to hold her coat up to make a privacy wall so she could use natures bathroom. It is quite a distance from the mill to the tree harvest site.