Last week was my 40th birthday, and I had wanted to do something memorable as consolation. Various ideas and plans fell through until Friday morning, two weeks ago, I spent some determined hours on the internet researching beach camping options in western Washington.
Monday morning, off we went to the Olympic Peninsula, and we ended up staying quite a bit later than planned, until the following Tuesday, although we collectively came home once on Thursday (my birthday) after the first sixteen hours of forty-eight hours of steady, soaking rain. The kids and I also came home one other time for a dentist appointment and two doctor appointments. In true Ballance fashion, it was all rather spontaneous, as it seems we do the things we value with less planning and the things that have to happen (but have no love attached) with more planning.
I wrote and drew my way through the trip in a tiny blank book I kept in my bag, using a black ball-point pen. I would have written and drawn more if there had been less driving. There was too much driving. Did I mention, there was too much driving?
Day 1: Drove out to the coast amidst errands and missing NP pass and packing and unpacking and realizing we needed to take two cars. (Five people plus camping gear and food for a week doesn't seem to fit in a Honda Civic.) Finally found a campsite at Cottonwood, a DNR campground in between Ruby Beach and the Hoh Visitor Center. Spent the late evening at Kalaloch Beach, where we saw a cloudy sunset, followed by a beautifully clear, starry night with a view of the Milky Way.
Day 2: Beach 4 and Kalaloch Beach - most relaxing day with the least driving. Beach 4 at high tide is pretty intense - it is not for the faint of hear. Kalaloch is a large expanse of flat, sandy beach - very relaxing.
Day 3: Hall of Mosses at the Hoh Rainforest Visitor Center and Rialto Beach. First time ever to Rialto - felt so foreign and amazing! Untold number of enormously giant drift logs. Rain started at nightfall.
Day 4: Beach 3 in the rain - we were the crazy people out there at high tide in the pouring rain with three small children. There is a lovely creek that runs through it all. Stopped by the two large (no, enormous!) cedar trees. In the rain. Then packed up our campsite in the rain. And drove home in the rain. Disappointment. It was my birthday. And the end of our first camping trip in three years.
Day 5: Baked a day-late birthday cake and visited Dash Point SP between rainstorms. Dash Point is a large, flat sandy beach where the tide comes in fast and everything is calm. It's on the Sound.
Day 6: Drove back to Port Angeles in one car, having shed non-essentials like the camping mattresses...and finally(!) found a campsite at Heart o' the Hills in the Olympic NP. Walked in the old growth forrest. Unlogged woods are SO unbelievably different from second-growth forests. There is no comparison whatsoever. The kinds and density of trees are different. There are different things in the understory. The old trees are so much bigger. It is so much more mysterious.
Day 7: Hurricaine Ridge with views out to Vancouver Island and in toward Mt. Olympus and friends. Salt Creek County Park on the Strait - rocks plunging straight into the ocean with tide pools and a huge kelp field. A playground. And trails in old-growth forest overlooking the Strait. Then then kids and I drove home, leaving Jared at the campsite.
Day 8: Jared did the best hike of his life, and I am a wee bit jealous. Kids and I went to medical appointments, watched our dumpster get picked up, did a bunch of laundry, cat, and plant care, packed more food, and drove back to Heart o' the Hills. Attempt at campfire was totally unsuccessful. Must learn more about that for our next attempt.
Day 9: Sequim Bay SP (quiet bay on the Strait, much frequented by boats) and Kitsap Memorial SP (must be the most scenic SP in Washington - smooth rock/gravel beach on the east side of the Hood Canal, overlooking the Olympic Range) and then drove home, un-Ballance-ly arriving at a reasonable hour to complete the day.
The philosophical questions... I saw the Milky Way for one of the few times in my life. Thinking about the nuclei of atoms, the solar system, and the galaxy. Wondering about the plane of the solar system relative to the plane of the galaxy. Wild, untamable beaches remind me that this is an ocean planet, not so much a land planet. Thinking of other ocean planets and moons and find myself feeling I am an alien on my own planet, seeing it with unfamiliar eyes. Thinking of the planet as a single organism, which changes over time rather than a collection of individual organisms. Connections between life forms in the food chain. Visible and invisible-to-us creatures. Prayers - and sometimes we are the answer to our own prayers....
Photos, sadly will be only on Facebook due to irritating issues with blogger.
