Where to this morning? The rainforest or the hot springs?
I write now from Seattle, as it is the first place of internet and cell phones (as well as traffic, mass transit, and expansive population) that we have seen in a while. It has been a bit of culture shock to get used to. As we drove off our last ferry from Bainbridge Island into Downtown Seattle, Hanna had to reassure me that the tunnels were just like mountains and the traffic was just like a river. It helped stave off a nervous tick that was coming on in the midst of it all and alas, all is well. We are now staying with Hanna's Aunt Debbie and cousin NIcole (Uncle Brad and other cousin Nathan are out of town) in a lovely house complete with all of the amenities of a house like drinking water, showers, a soft warm bed, and laundry that we have otherwise learned to deal with while out of its immidiate reach. The comforts are welcome, as well as the lovely hospitality and company. Now, where have we been you might ask?
We spent a night at one of the prettiest beaches that we had seen on Vancouver Island when we found a Provincial Park (Rathtrevor Beach) where we watched the sunset while dining on pork chops and applesauce that tasted so so good. But (un)fortunately we were pushing ourselves to get off the island and back to the homeland in Washington and didn't get to enjoy the island more (guess we'll just have to come back). We then took a ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles and immediately headed west to Olympic National Park. As we pushed on we drove along the Strait of Jaun de Fuca that seperates the Olympic Penninsula from Canada and delivered some spectacular views on a motorcyclist's dream of a road with deep bends cresting over bluffs and the sun setting in front us as evening settled in.
We made it that night after a couple of hours of beautiful, if slow, driving to Lake Ozette, which would give us access to the beach the next day. We got in at dark and quickly made a dinner at a friendly, small campground and tried to get to bed a bit early to prepare for next day's adventure. Lake Ozette serves as the trailhead for two beaches that are only accessable by a three mile hike. Hanna remembered this area as a formidable and wonderful childhood vacation with her family and wanted to return to this park's coastline and share it with moi. And lucky I am.
Hiking the trail from the lake to the beach (Cape Alava) was a unique three miles on a well maintained boardwalk that the park service has built to protect as much vegetation as possible while maintaining access to the beaches. You hike through what vaguely feels like a rainforest with shoulder-high ferns and old-growth pines shooting above. This landscape lends itself to unique light shining through, barely illuminating the details of what lies beyond the trail, leaving much to the imagination. At the end of the trail the woods end at the beach's border as a hill steeply drops to the ocean. We stopped, as if we had seen a bear, and both broke into a smile as we gazed out at the amazing vista of ocean giving way to rocks poking through the water like forgotten bottles standing on an abandoned shelf. After we got over our initial amazement, we hiked down and scouted out a campsite just off the sand under a giant pinetree (great for climbing) with exposed roots big enough to serve as benches and tables.
Here we called home for the next three days as we adventured north and south along the shoreline, sat in the sand, found "smoothies" (rocks worn smooth by the sea), hopped along the rocks exposed in low tides, and explored the tidal pools. It is again hard to give words to this beauty but imagine if you can a beach that is part of a 40 mile stretch of protected shoreline that native people's have called home for centuries and have practiced whalehunting from longboats (and continue the practice), where fresh water streams run out of rainforested hills, where a colony of seals never leaves you lonely (even though there are a dozen campsites in the area) as they bark throughout the day from a nearby island, where deer wandered through our campsite while we made meals without a worry or care, where petroglyphs are the only graffiti one will see and the sun sets deeply out in the pacific and leaves its light for an hour after it is gone.
After our two nights' of reservation ran out, we had to peel ourselves away and got excited about moving back towards civilization. We decided to make the trip to Seattle last two days, thus the title of this post. As our backs turned on the beach, we began to figure out our direction of the day and we had to stave off stress as we had to decide: should we go into the rainforest proper of the Olympic National Park? or should we head on the northside of the park to Sol Duc Hot Springs? Oh decisions can be so stressful, don't you agree? We decided to give into the idea of showers and relaxation and headed for the sulpher warm waters of Sol Duc. Great decision. We soaked for nearly two hours in a series of pools where the waters were kept at 101-104 degrees and a lap pool that served as the cooldown pool at 78 degrees. While we felt the soreness of the hiking leave our muscles and sink into the waters, we had a lovely conversation with three other parties of people doing similar trips with us. The sharing and swapping of tales from our seperate but collective adventures was affirming and probably helped to break us into civilization again.
The next day when we could finally tear ourselves out of our tent after 12 or 13 hours of rest, we continued on to Seattle and here we are. Updates in Brief: we are happy and healthy. The truck is doing much better as we have given Brinkman an oil change and some much needed love. Our tire with a rock lodged in it has been replaced by Sears. We got to hang out in the city yesterday and meet up with my brother's father in-law who took us out to lunch at the Marina before we went to Pike's Place Market to watch the fish be thrown. Hanna's family is great and we leave Seattle today to go out to a cabin they own near Leavenworth Washington and then we are more or less on our way to Spokane for more of the Hanna's family tour. Pictures will come soon. We promise we are working on it.
We spent a night at one of the prettiest beaches that we had seen on Vancouver Island when we found a Provincial Park (Rathtrevor Beach) where we watched the sunset while dining on pork chops and applesauce that tasted so so good. But (un)fortunately we were pushing ourselves to get off the island and back to the homeland in Washington and didn't get to enjoy the island more (guess we'll just have to come back). We then took a ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles and immediately headed west to Olympic National Park. As we pushed on we drove along the Strait of Jaun de Fuca that seperates the Olympic Penninsula from Canada and delivered some spectacular views on a motorcyclist's dream of a road with deep bends cresting over bluffs and the sun setting in front us as evening settled in.
We made it that night after a couple of hours of beautiful, if slow, driving to Lake Ozette, which would give us access to the beach the next day. We got in at dark and quickly made a dinner at a friendly, small campground and tried to get to bed a bit early to prepare for next day's adventure. Lake Ozette serves as the trailhead for two beaches that are only accessable by a three mile hike. Hanna remembered this area as a formidable and wonderful childhood vacation with her family and wanted to return to this park's coastline and share it with moi. And lucky I am.
Hiking the trail from the lake to the beach (Cape Alava) was a unique three miles on a well maintained boardwalk that the park service has built to protect as much vegetation as possible while maintaining access to the beaches. You hike through what vaguely feels like a rainforest with shoulder-high ferns and old-growth pines shooting above. This landscape lends itself to unique light shining through, barely illuminating the details of what lies beyond the trail, leaving much to the imagination. At the end of the trail the woods end at the beach's border as a hill steeply drops to the ocean. We stopped, as if we had seen a bear, and both broke into a smile as we gazed out at the amazing vista of ocean giving way to rocks poking through the water like forgotten bottles standing on an abandoned shelf. After we got over our initial amazement, we hiked down and scouted out a campsite just off the sand under a giant pinetree (great for climbing) with exposed roots big enough to serve as benches and tables.
Here we called home for the next three days as we adventured north and south along the shoreline, sat in the sand, found "smoothies" (rocks worn smooth by the sea), hopped along the rocks exposed in low tides, and explored the tidal pools. It is again hard to give words to this beauty but imagine if you can a beach that is part of a 40 mile stretch of protected shoreline that native people's have called home for centuries and have practiced whalehunting from longboats (and continue the practice), where fresh water streams run out of rainforested hills, where a colony of seals never leaves you lonely (even though there are a dozen campsites in the area) as they bark throughout the day from a nearby island, where deer wandered through our campsite while we made meals without a worry or care, where petroglyphs are the only graffiti one will see and the sun sets deeply out in the pacific and leaves its light for an hour after it is gone.
After our two nights' of reservation ran out, we had to peel ourselves away and got excited about moving back towards civilization. We decided to make the trip to Seattle last two days, thus the title of this post. As our backs turned on the beach, we began to figure out our direction of the day and we had to stave off stress as we had to decide: should we go into the rainforest proper of the Olympic National Park? or should we head on the northside of the park to Sol Duc Hot Springs? Oh decisions can be so stressful, don't you agree? We decided to give into the idea of showers and relaxation and headed for the sulpher warm waters of Sol Duc. Great decision. We soaked for nearly two hours in a series of pools where the waters were kept at 101-104 degrees and a lap pool that served as the cooldown pool at 78 degrees. While we felt the soreness of the hiking leave our muscles and sink into the waters, we had a lovely conversation with three other parties of people doing similar trips with us. The sharing and swapping of tales from our seperate but collective adventures was affirming and probably helped to break us into civilization again.
The next day when we could finally tear ourselves out of our tent after 12 or 13 hours of rest, we continued on to Seattle and here we are. Updates in Brief: we are happy and healthy. The truck is doing much better as we have given Brinkman an oil change and some much needed love. Our tire with a rock lodged in it has been replaced by Sears. We got to hang out in the city yesterday and meet up with my brother's father in-law who took us out to lunch at the Marina before we went to Pike's Place Market to watch the fish be thrown. Hanna's family is great and we leave Seattle today to go out to a cabin they own near Leavenworth Washington and then we are more or less on our way to Spokane for more of the Hanna's family tour. Pictures will come soon. We promise we are working on it.
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