Canoe trip around the Nisqually National Wildlife Preserve.

The southern tip of Puget Sound is only a 25 minute drive from our house. So we decided to explore the Nisqually River and McCalister Creek deltas which are part a WA State Wildlife preserve and a national one. My daughter's great grandmother passed away on Thur so she needed to do something fun for a distraction.

Leaving the boat launch on luhr Beach.
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We went up the McCalister Creek delta 1/4 mile and went ashore for lunch at a salt water marsh with some tidal pools.

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There were Blue Herons every where we looked.
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Lunch time at low tide.
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Eel sushi.
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Tip of Mt Rainier above the Nisqually River Delta. You can see where the water starts as a glacier and ends in the salt water bay.
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Either Arctic or Common Terns.
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Jessica on a solo run while dad waits for some sensation to come back into his arms.
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Olympic Mountains to the west.
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Heading back to the boat launch. The white building is the research and visitor center with all sorts of aquariums and great educational info.
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We have been waiting three weeks for nice weather and it finally came. It was 65 deg and the water was mostly flat and calm but got a bit choppy as we crossed Hogum Bay into the wind and incoming tide.

I envy you Brent. We have nothing like this around here.
Your Herons are really big. Ours are much smaller.

P

My wife and I spent over a year looking for just the right area to have our house built. We are one hour from Mt Rainier National Park where we can play in the snow in mid august. And we only have to drive less then a half hour to get to salt water. The Pacific Ocean is a ninety minute drive west.

But the ugly downside is the endless gray, cold rainy days. Almost any outdoor activity is not very fun in that weather. So when summer eventually rolls around here we crawl out of our hibernation caves and go crazy in the outdoors. We do a lot of hiking in the national park but it still has eleven feet of snow on the ground.

We also found out the research center has 3 day summer camps. The kids get to learn hands on and take part in actual research studies for the WA State Dept of Ecology. And since my daughter wants to be a marine biologist I got ambushed into that one. Dad's wallet has a trap door on the bottom of it. Money goes in and disappears out the bottom.

What a beautiful day in such a lovely place.

You always post such lovely nature pictures, Brent! When I think of you, I always think of the nature that you bring to us!

thanks! I joined a kayaking and canoe club so I should have many more great excursions to go on. That's a great way to find some of the secret lesser known and less crowded trips.

The state and fed gov restricted a lot of the foot trails around the delta. But by canoe/kayak you can still see all the area and much more from the water. And even paddling a canoe it's less energy then the five mile hike would be.

Next weekend the weather is also supposed to be great so we will head to the mountains. There is a remote wilderness lake that I used to fish a lot. But that was from my big boat and there are many places I still have not seen yet. It's a huge lake.

Such beautiful pictures! You're very luck to be able to experince such beauty first hand! Thank you for sharing with us.