The past week has been a whirlwind of lots of driving in Washington and Oregon. The end of last week I went to the Olympic Peninsula to cover a story for Boating Life magazine. We stayed at a beautiful, quiet lake in the rainforest called Lake Quinault. They get an average of 12 feet (144 inches!) of rain per year, and last year they got nearly 14 feet. Fortunately, July is the driest month, so we had blue skies and moderate temps. My parents, my brother Joe and his girlfriend Sam joined me there and we had some really cool hikes through some big old-growth forests. We saw the world's largest red cedar (310 feet high, 20-feet wide, 63-foot circumference, and hollow in the middle), and the largest spruce (160 feet tall and 15 feet wide). It was truly a profound spiritual experience, one that left all of us in awe of the beauty and majesty of our creator-God and the works of His hands.

The lake we covered for the story is called Wynoochee, and as beautiful as it is, it's very remote and quite an adventure to get there. We went down a single-lane windy gravel logging road and between dust kicked up from the trucks that reduced visibility to nearly zero and pot-holes that could swallow a bus, it was crazy driving (kind of fun, actually). But once we got to the lake, it was totally worth it.

We're in Eugene, Oregon, this week, for another Boating Life story, and also to spend some more time with Joe. More updates to come soon....

Lake Quinault

Me and the hidden jewel of the Olympics, Lake Wynoochee

Lake Wynoochee

My mother in her element (bright clothes, bright flowers)

Our crew hiking in the "sunny" rainforest

Rainforest creek waterfall

Looking small in front of world's largest red cedar tree

Looking up into the cavity of a 1,000-year-old living giant

Kid's paradise - playing at base of world's largest spruce

Small kid, Big tree

"Let the fields be jubilant and everything in them. Then all of the trees of the forest will sing for joy..." Psalm 96:12