Phew! I didn't think I'd ever stay in Colorado for longer than 2 days, at the rate I've been moving lately!
After I got back from that fire late on a Monday evening, I had Tuesday and Wednesday last week to get my whole LIFE back in order and try to get ready to leave for Seattle at 4:30 am on Thursday. Cheap flights = insanely early drive to the airport sometimes! Of course, the timing belt on my truck decided to finally take a poop in my driveway on Wednesday morning, and Tim was still in the backcountry... so I wound up driving to Fort Collins and running errands/going to chiropracter/going to the SPA/getting cheese and wine with the girls on my motorcycle. Tim got back Wednesday night for our first little reunion in almost a month, and then we were awake at 4 am, packing our tents and sleeping bags in with our wedding outfits. Flew out at 8 am, and was soon at the rental car counter in Seattle by 9:30 am local time. I had reserved a "midsize" car. The receptionist asks, "Is a Chevy HHR ok? It's like a PT cruiser." I say ok. We head to our assigned spot... Q3... what the heck... no way... HA HA HA HA! If you don't know what an HHR is, you have to look at my photos. It was like a modern hip version of a gangster getaway car or something, with black tinted windows... But it was roomy and ok by us!
Just drove to Seattle without any real map/destination/idea of what we were doing, found a place for lunch and internet, and figured out where to take the ferry across Puget Sound, where we would then drive to Port Angeles and then... come up with another plan as to where we would camp in Olympic National Park. It was midday on Thursday before labor day, but there wasn't really a wait for the ferry and it was a beautiful sunny day for the 30 minute ride. Once on Bainbridge Island, we drove to Port Angeles (passing through the "lavender capital of the country") and found the ranger station. We appeased the ranger by admitting we, too, were Parkies and we wanted to camp on the ocean, far from tourists. He was quite nice and we decided to spend our first night on Third Beach, a 1.4 mile hike to the Pacific Ocean. Our second night, we would continue south along the beach another 5 miles and stay at Toleak - which we would have to time our hike according to the high and low tides. Some headland areas are impassable during high tide, where you would get trapped at the bottom of the cliff. We also rented our huge bear-proof food cylinder that we had to hike around with - it wasn't so much for bears, as for mischievous raccoons. With everything all set, we made haste to find...SUSHI! It was the only sushi place in Port Angeles, and from the outside it didn't look all that great. But on the inside, it was a nice place with good prices and good fish. We had been looking forward to eating sushi in Washington almost as much as we were excited for the wedding and camping on the ocean. ;)
Our campsite at Third Beach
After our big dinner, we made the long drive to the trailhead for Third Beach; by the time we reached it, the sun had set. We pulled out our headlamps and got our backpacks squared away and hiked in the humid, oppressive darkness through the temperate rainforest, completely oblivious to what it looked like during the day... but we were certain that it was thick, with HUGE trees, and so incredibly dark, considering we were just past the full moon. It was a quick hike and mostly flat, but we didn't even hear the ocean until we were just upon it. The trail pops out at a small stream that feeds into the ocean, and soon we were looking at sea stack rocks under the moonlit sky, the ocean rumbling loudly as it washed in and out. We did a quick exploration and only found one tent along our whole section of beach, despite it was Labor Day weekend; we found a nice little area next to a boulder and surrounded by big driftwood logs to set up the tent. We stayed up late and sat on the rock, drinking a bottle of wine and just enjoying the sound of the ocean. It was exactly what I had hoped for. :)
I slept pretty well, except the sound of the ocean was so loud that in the middle of the night, when high tide came in and was merely 20 feet or so from the tent, I had a half-awake dream that the tide was going to wash up into the tent because it was so close! But of course things were fine. Maybe should've taken it easy on the wine that night. ;)
The next morning, we both woke up early; Tim took photos of pelicans and sea birds, I sat on the rock and watched the sun rise (though I couldn't see the sun, the clouds were still beatiful and the ocean was misty and cool). Soon however, we retreated to the tent where the incessant pitter patter of raindrops made us reconsiderour plans. It didn't seem like it would let up any time soon, and we really didn't feel like packing up our wet tent, hiking in the rain (timed to the tides, don't forget!) and setting back up in the rain, and then doing our day hiking all wet... So we decided to stay at Third Beach another night and hit the road to do some sight seeing. We hiked out and went to the Hoh Rainforest Visitor Center and hiked around the denser areas of temperate rainforest - the Hall of Moss and Spruce Trails were excellent short hikes, showing off the biggest Douglas-fir and Sitka Spruce, and maples draped in vines and moss... BIG trees indeed! Everything had something else growing on it, just so many shades of green in one place! We also walked along the Hoh River, which was a cold, glacial-fed, eerie blue-green river that came down from the mountains. I think I remember reading that the Park has over 70 active glaciers, which is more than Rocky has. I would love to go back and hike more interior next time, to see all these glaciers, tarns, and mountains!
Hall of Mosses
Big freaking tree!
The photo-stitched big tree
We also wanted to see the furthest Northwest Point in the lower 48, so we drove up to the indian reservation and boarded the shuttle van. It was a quick hike along some boardwalks to a spectacular ocean view, with cliffs, caves and islands; bright orange starfish and even a big group of seals on an island! Tim went nuts with his camera, as did I. It had rained all day until we got up there, so we had blue sky but unfortunately couldn't stay for the sunset because the shuttle was leaving. It was a great day!
Lighthouse at the NW point
Seals!
We decided to finally eat some of the food we brought for backpacking, so we set up Tim's little single burner stove in a parking lot... and the stupid sig bottle lit on fire! Guess it was leaking white gas. We did put it out, but Tim was upset his stove was broken. We ended up eating mexican in Two Forks, which was a bummer we ended up wasting some food we bought but oh well, these things happen! Once again, we found ourselves hiking to Third Beach in the dark. We never did get to see the sunset! The moon was bright and we could see a couple tents further down the beach, but considering it was Friday of Labor Day weekend, we still had plenty of seclusion. Another nice night falling asleep to the sound of the ocean.
The next morning, we both were feeling lazy and reluctantly decided we didn't feel like hiking further down the beach like we had planned. Packed up camp and headed out of Olympic, feeling fulfilled with what we had seen and done. Of course, I forgot to drop off the bear canister so I had to UPS it back to them, an hour outside of town. Grrrr. We went back aboard the ferry at Bainbridge and 30 minutes later, we were looking for sushi in Seattle. We ended up eating at a place at University and Western, the food was great but the service... Never eat at a place that says "Now Hiring Servers" and only has 2 people working - one making sushi, the other doing everything else! We walked by the Pike Market but that's really not Tim's or my kind of thing, so we didn't stop and gaggle at stuff we didn't need to buy.
Afterwards, we drove up to Lynnwood and found a hotel, took a nap (since we had been on the go non-stop) and got ready for Tim to meet my friends for the first time. Yay! We went to Egg Cetera's Blue Cafe (a bar) in Wellington, and I was soooo happy to see everybody! The regular crowd - Kevin, Beth, Jeff, Brian and Melissa of course, and all those other folks. Since the bride and groom were getting married the next day, we didn't stay out very late, but it was still good to see them. Then back to the hotel, where we could sleep until the 4 pm wedding, about 30 minutes away in Snohomish.
Wedding day sunday! Tim looked really handsome and I love the fact that he doesn't own a suit. ;) We drove out to Craven Farm and it was beautiful, corn fields and beautiful gardens, with a view of the Cascades in the background. I think there were only 120 people or so at the wedding, but I got to see Hot Donna, Brian's parents and jeeez so many people I haven't seen in forever! The ceremony was short and nice - not preachy - and even a little bit humorous. :) After the ceremony, there was a cocktail hour (of course, Jeff, myself, and Tim headed straight for it!) and got to introduce Tim to so many people. We sat at a table with Donna, Jason, Chris, Ted, Steve T and his wife Anne, and we had so much fun being goofy. The food was "family style", gourmet Asian food - breaded "claw", some fish head soup or something??, I wish I would have saved the menu it was so delicious. Tim impressed everybody with his ability to eat EVERYTHING. ;)
And what else can I say? Danced a little, talked a lot, Tim and my friends all got along great, Tim and I had a blast! Alas, everything was over by 11:30; early by my standards, but we had to leave for the airport by 4:30 am again so it was better off that way. So sad to leave everybody, but they are coming out to CO to ski after X-mas so it won't be too long!
So we flew home on a 6 am flight, and were back in bed taking an all-day nap by noon on Labor Day. Finally, some rest!
