Olympic National Park

Days 21 and 22 (Wednesday, July 7 and Thursday, July 8)

I’m writing this while sitting in my camp chair on the beach facing the ocean. Actually, I’ve had to turn my chair around so as to see the computer screen given the glare of the sun as it creeps towards the horizon.

We’ve reached the end of the continent. Technically, we had done this upon reaching Seattle when we arrived on Alki Beach and looked out at Elliot Bay. That, however, wasn’t quite the same as this. Here we have the unfettered view of the Pacific Ocean, the roar of the surf, the smell of the tide. It’s magnificent. There’s something wholly satisfying about this. Having reached land’s end the hard way by driving across the country; across the plains, the farmlands, the badlands, the foothills, the mountains, the rivers, the towns and cities, etc. I recommend it heartily to everyone. While it can be done in either direction, there is something especially fulfilling about heading west to do it (and accomplishing it by driving and not flying). It’s something that is hard wired into the soul of an American-the feeling of having gone as far west as one can. Wow.

The ocean is roaring behind me. It’s so loud and violent. There’s a fog in the air as well that is somewhat shrouding the water. I’m very content.

We left Seattle yesterday around 10:00. The drive out here was uneventful. (We drove down I-5 through Tacoma and Olympia. Then out on Highway 101 through Aberdeen and up the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula.) We saw the Washington State Capitol. It was nice. Each state capitol that I’ve been to (and I’ve been to quite a few) brings something to the table-some sort of noble purpose and majesty. The highlight of the Washington Capitol for me (besides all that noble purpose and majesty stuff) was that it has a legislative gift shop that sells wine from Washington! Come on, how cool is that? I can imagine getting bored at work one afternoon and heading done the hall to the gift shop to load up on some wine. I noticed that the judicial center across from the capitol is called the Temple of Justice. Wow, very high-minded and not at all pretentious, huh? I wonder if the Temple serves up local beer?

We stopped for lunch (fish and chips) at Aberdeen, WA on the western edge of the Olympic Peninsula. It’s a run down little harbor town. Kurt Cobain was born there. I’m not sure of this but if I properly understand the Kurt Cobain story, he probably wasn’t very happy there. The sign on the road on the way into town welcomed us to Aberdeen and below that said, “Come as you are.” I’m glad they acknowledged the link but somehow the phrasing of the acknowledgement made me sad and reeked of irony.

We camped for the night not long afterward. Having learned that we care little for traditional camp food, I cooked us up some cheese tortellini in chicken broth for dinner. After dinner, we continued our tradition of visiting whatever national park lodge is nearby. This time there was one only a mile away. Thus, we extended our post card writing/game playing; get dad a beer before his shaking gets uncontrollable habit. After spending an hour at the lodge, we headed to the beach to watch the sunset. It was pretty wonderful. We then went back to the campground and roasted a few marshmallows before going to bed.

We’re camping in Kalaloch campground, which is right on the ocean in Olympic National Park. The park itself is very interesting. It has ocean front portions (think massive rolling surf, expansive sand beaches, sea stacks of rocks off the coast), mountainous areas (with snow capped mountains), and deep-forested segments, including a massive temperate rain forest. All in all, pretty wonderful. These national parks are amazing. They each merit a week or so of exploring. Again, we’re barely scratching the surface of the surface here. The park is very remote. I read somewhere that there are portions of it that have barely been explored. For the most part, it sits in the interior portion of the Olympic Peninsula. Highway 101 basically circumnavigates it. There are no interior roads crisscrossing the park. So you drive around the park on 101, then take roads leading into whatever portion you decide to explore. It’s pretty difficult to really see much of the park in a short period. We (as in I) were mostly interested in the rain forest and beach portions. (We’ve already seen a few mountains on the trip and forests are common in MN.) The rain forest was a little disappointing. The guidebooks had built it up so much I was really expecting to have my socks blown off. I liked the fact that the temperature climbed so much on the drive into the rain forest area. By the time we climbed out of the van and started the two short hikes I had selected, the air was dense with moisture. The trails were interesting. We saw some cool things, trees growing out of other trees, lush ferns, etc.). But again, overall it was just a tad underwhelming. I believe this specific area (the Ho Rain Forest section of the park) gets the most precipitation of any other place in the US. Today was a sunny one though.

The highlight of the day was our stop in Forks, WA (home of the Twilight series). Before Twilight, Forks was known for being the logging and meth capitol of Washington. Now it is the logging and meth capitol AND ground zero for every Twilight nut. What an odd place. It’s pretty ugly and charmless. I would guess that it has the highest ratio of female tourists between the ages of 12 and 26 to skittery local, meth-addled loggers in the world. While none of the movies were actually filmed there, that hasn’t stopped Forks from trying to capitalize on the series. There’s a visitor’s guide to Twilight and Forks that they hand out at the visitor’s center that purports to show the Twilight related highlights (i.e., the police station where Charlie works, the high school where Bella and Edward go, the Cullen house, etc.). However, none of these places look remotely like their counterparts in the films. It was pretty sorry. We stopped at a couple of the local shops (oddly the locals seemed to have figured out a way to exploit this Twilight thing) and contributed to the locals fleecing tourists thing that Forks has going. I managed to profoundly embarrass the girls, as each time we stopped in the town, I attempted to remove my shirt. (For those who have never seen the movie, the male characters are shirtless an alarming percentage of the movie.) This attempt to go shirtless drove the girls crazy for some reason that they had trouble articulating. This despite my Tom Cruise-ish physique. With the temperature hovering at 90 and the secrets of Forks mostly discovered, we decided to depart. I will miss you Forks. I will miss your drab buildings and your tacky Twilight pretend attractions. I will miss your life size cardboard cutouts of Edward, Bella, and Jacob. I will miss your fine capitalistic spirit. I came for your meth but left with much more.

With Forks a distant memory, we drove back to the campsite. We were pleased to see the outside temperature plummet from 90 to 61 as we drove. Once back at the campsite, we decided to go down to the beach and set up shop. There, we whiled away the next two hours. Carson read the entire time while I dozed and tried to read a book. Addie designed a colony of cities with moats and hills in the sand. While at the beach we introduced our new travelling companion/mascot to Benedict and Poopie. Our new mascot is an eight-inch tall action figure of Jacob, the werewolf, from Twilight. He is musclely and a real dreamboat. He was also marked down to $9.95 from $22.95, which, from my perspective, is the sole reason for his presence here. Completely out of character, he is wearing his shirt. To confuse everyone we named him Edward. We thought this would be another way to make peace between the vampires and the werewolves. Benedict has been strangely welcoming to him. I think His Holiness admires the Twilight series and is intrigued by the hocus pocus of the vampires and werewolves. The pope is nothing if not a fan of hocus-pocus. He also likes the marketing aspect of the series and hopes he can learn something about turning a quick buck. Poopy thinks Edward is dreamy and is happy for there to be someone else to take the brunt of Benedict’s rantings concerning the latest abuse scandal and Germany’s World Cup semifinal loss.

Following our beach interlude, we had a dinner of acini di pepe (tiny pasta beads) with a little butter and cheese. Then we built a huge fire and sat by it for an hour or two. The fire was great. We had stopped at a roadside stand where there was a self serve system set up to buy wood. I put enough money in for two packs of wood before I saw how big they were. Since I had already paid, I figured I might as well take them both. Since this was our last night of camping for a while and the van is packed so tight, we had to burn it all. The girls got a bit nervous when they saw how high the flames were jumping as I added more and more wood. It was just roaring there for a while. Thank goodness this area gets so much rain. The wildfire danger was practically non-existent; otherwise the entire campground may have gone ablaze. We finally ran out of wood about 11:00 or so and went reluctantly to bed.