In this corner…. Weighing in at 50 billion pounds of sand, sea and wilderness….! Undefeated….! Unstoppable…! Ladies and gentlemen, Mother Nature’s reigning heavyweight champiiiooooonnnn…. WASHINGTON!!!
And in this corner……….. ……. …. Wait. Sorry, there is no contender in this corner. I know, I know, what about all that “Cali’s so dreamy… and Oregon’s the Fonz” talk…? Well, call me Crosby Stills Nash n Toby, because I am LOVIN’ the ONE I’M WITH! Oh yeah, I am having a big, gushing, feels-like-the-first-time love affair with Washington state– the Olympic Peninsula, in particular. And John’s not even jealous, because he’s in on it, too. Yep, we’re having an old-fashioned ménage-a-tree with the Olympics….. Get it? Lots of trees…?…?
See, love makes you silly, don’t it? That’s what Week 4 has done to us– it’s made us giddy and glad and happy,too. But before I bore you (or beat you) to death with my Oh Joy! schtick, you should know that this week had its fair dose of horror and mortality,too. Oh yes, indeed…
But first, the week in a flash!
Seattle was a fleeting bit of fun, as John took us around his old college town. We saw Univ. of WA’s pretty campus — I enjoy imagining John as a religion major, with that young hot bod, sitting in his furniture-less pod, ruminating over the meaning of God… (Ahem, I digress…) We went to cool Fremont and colorful Pike Market, where I confess I smugly smiled at the rockfish gazing out from its bed of ice. (see week 2) And we visited some friends (John Moore from DC ; and Lars, John’s college room mate and partner in crime, and his sweet family).
Next, we hit the Olympic Peninsula, a place I’ve been aching to see. And like I said, it has really hit the spot. I mean, everywhere we go it scratches a new itch… Oh yeah, that’s right… Just a little to the left… Ah yes… Now over a bit… Ahhhh, you’re the best, Olympics– Thanks….
(Perhaps this is a good moment to talk about a married couple’s sex life while living in an RV with their TWO CHILDREN….!!! Two very precocious children…!!! In the SAME SPACE as their parents…!!! ….. Oh never mind.)
Ok. The first place we stayed was in the wonderful tiny coastal town of Pacific Beach. We loved this place so much, we kept adding on days there, never quite ready to leave its sleepy, friendly ways. The RV park is perched along an eye-stabbing display of coastal grandeur: waves break in rolling tiers of white water from at least a quarter of a mile out into the Pacific, and the beach is another 1/4 mile of flat mocha-fudge crusted sand. The girls can ride their bikes on it, while above kites and seagulls fight over who’s more ecstatic…. Every morning we would walk to town (the girls always bike) to deplete the local bakery of its mini croissants. Sometimes we’d return in the afternoon and stick around to play Scrabble and share a whole triple chocolate cream pie. One local asked if we were the “gypsies” — I nearly melted at the reference as my heart answered “yes, yes we are zee gypsies…!”
This week found us feeling better (John was over the flu; Lulu fInally kicked that poison oak to the curb, but not before breaking out in an all-over rash from the medicine she was on for her sinus infection, poor kid), so we really took the time this week to just…chill. At this risk of sounding cheesy, self-righteous or downright dull, this week was one big ball of happy…..
…..Until Zelda’a hamster, Big Jr, King of balls, met with a sad ending. I like to think these guys have a good life, as far as pet hamsters go, because they get lots of fresh air and exercise… But this sweet guy had an unfortunate habit of hanging out under feet. And while they were getting some exercise on the beach, well…. RIP, Big Jr. We buried him with some flowers and Lucky Charms. It was pretty sad, and Zelda took it hard.
And then the day turned all National Geographic on us! One minute we were playing soccer on the beach, and the next this bald eagle sets its sights on a seagull and… well, good night, Irene! It was wild: the gull made one last effort to escape by diving into the water, but the eagle was waiting there for it to surface and immediately grabbed the gull in its talons and flew off with it to the sand. With a look of disdain it started plucking feathers off, while the gull’s brethren circled and shrieked above in a sad sort of death dance. Then the eagle grabbed the carcass and flew to the top of an old pylon for more private chowing; then finally high up to a tree.
When we got back to our site, it was dark, and something wasn’t right. The hamster cage, which was still outside, had been knocked down and torn apart– and where was Lulu’s hamster, Jesus? Gone! We searched with dread for the small dark hamster– not an easy task when you’re blinded by the night– and John yells. “I got him!” And just in the nick of time –a big black cat was seconds away from pouncing on Jesus! Jesus’ heart was racing, but he was ok. John is a hamster hero!! And Nature is a brute. Zelda cried, “So much death… I can’t take it!”
So we moved, somewhat hesitantly, beyond Pacific Beach, only to be pleasantly surprised by the plush, posh stillness of Lake Quinault. We stopped for lunch at the lovely old Lodge there, and it didn’t take more than an ant-size arm twist for the kids to convince us to stay the night. This place is stunning; the bright green backyard slopes down to the lake like a slice of Merchant Ivory prettiness. Folks sit silently there, sipping wine and drinking in the blurs of lake and mountain views…. As we walked by, Lulu says, “They’re all sitting there drinking wine and… all that Beethoven stuff…” (I wonder what WE are…? The Monkees?)
We took our first hike into the Olympic rainforest here. Mmmmm…. Gorgeous, magical, blah blah blah…!
Kalaloch: another insanely beautiful, primitive camp spot dangling above the ocean. We are still here, after 2 days enjoying this beach (easily saw 60 starfish) and Second Beach near La Push. I don’t even know how to describe La Push without sounding like the biggest braggart/jerky girl in the world. It’s simply… high inducing.
Nearby Forks is where the Twilight stories take place, and that presence is heavy there. The girls go gaga for this, but for John and me, it’s all about the succulent, fern-covered forests with their mossy evergreens (like a bayou’s brother), the rivers spilling onto low-lying splayed beaches (some with chunks of tree-covered mountain coughed out into the ocean), and the overall awe-filled Ohmmm of the place.
They get an average of 15ft of rain a year here. Meanwhile, pockets of the Olympic land belong to various local tribes (Quileute, Quinault, Hoh, Orvette, Makah….), who are good-looking, mysterious-to-me people. I wanna hold my breath while we drive by in Harvey, as if that would lighten my step. I want to explode in thanks for being here.
Lulu and I are sleeping in the tent tonight. She’s not stealing the covers, which is good: it’s cold. She smells like a campfire. The sound shooting up from the ocean is loud as a lion, and never stops roaring. Sometimes i can hear the crash of what must be whole trees en route to becoming the giant pale boney driftwood that lines these beaches. When I go outside the tent to take a hope-it-gets-me-through-the-night pee, I’ll look up at the stars and see shapes of constellations I can actually outline. John and Z are asleep in the RV. We’ve been on the road for 29 days. Soon, we’ll have to really delve into the meat of the moviemaking. But this week, we fell in love……