Speaking of hospital, my violin had returned from hospital in way north Seattle just the day before for a cracked top - surprisingly, my own fault. I dropped a metronome in a lesson. Rafael Carrabba and our instrument insurance took care of it beautifully. While he was at it, this magician of a Luthier did some other long-needed adjustments to the instrument, and it sounds and feels distinctly different.
We had our last camping trip of the season (unless we can squeeze in one more?) scheduled for the Friday. As my eldest was feeling strongly demand avoidant of the idea, I tentatively asked Jeff and Linda if they wanted to join us, since I knew that would change the narrative for her. They thought they might come, which made what seemed an impossible endeavor seem more tenable.
Thursday evening, as Jared was teaching another hour and a half after I had finished with my students, I cleaned out the car (it was bad!) and even vacuumed a bit with our new, functional machine, then piled all our camping gear and luggage up. I planned to let Jared do the loading, as his Tetris skills are far superior.
I had wanted to visit the Ginko Petrified Forest east of Ellensburg, but the camping was all reserved, so we headed out to another new-to-us spot: Staircase at Olympic NP, which has a first-come first-serve campground with running water during the non-winter months, and happens to be the closest ONP spot to our house.
Friday morning I had Anne up early for her annual doctor's appointment while Jared loaded the car. We managed to leave home well before noon. Poor Anne was off kilter for the rest of the day on account of reduced sleep and having taken her flu shot, but I am happy to report that despite all the difficulties that caused for her, we all made it to bedtime in the national park without any major injuries or property damage.
To get there, we mercifully exited I-5 in Tacoma and headed west on various smaller highways, skirting around the south end of the Hood Canal, and approaching Staircase on a 25 mph dirt road in the Olympic National Forest. That road follows the edge of Lake Cushman, a section of the wild Skokomish River dammed by Tacoma Power. At the NP boundary the lake stops and the river runs freely through a wide, twisted rocky bed at the bottom of a valley. Also, the road narrows to a lane-and-a-half and is paved again, with a 15 mph limit.
When we reached this section, there was a lot of continued unhappiness in the back seat which required continued adult aural and emotional presence. And the road was much smoother. And I sort of missed the 15 mph sign. And I had a park ranger following me. And he pulled me over. I apologized for speeding. He asked for the usual license, registration, and proof of insurance. License was easy. Then we opened the glove box, which was a riot or random papers... We managed to find a decade's worth of expired annual registrations, as well as a current registration paper for the wrong vehicle. We also found most of a decade's worth of twice-a-year insurance cards, but weirdly nothing recent. We know that we have recently payed our insurance, and kept our registrations up to date. The ranger gave us his cell phone number and said if we could text him the current papers by that night, he'd let me off with a warning. Jared, mercifully spoke up saying that we were not expecting to have any cell phone coverage until Monday. Fellow said he'd give me until Tuesday morning to send him the documents.
Anyway, we found a lovely campsite with an old-growth tree and just enough flat space for our tent.
After setting up, we spent the rest of the daylight hours variously hiking some of the nearby trails and playing by the river, while fielding myriad questions from Anne about when Jeff and Linda would be arriving.
After cooking and eating dinner, washing dishes, brushing teeth, and searching the campground for Jeff and Linda's car, all in the dark, we mercifully all fell asleep early in our sleeping bags. (Except I forgot Lazarus' sleeping bag at home, as he uses it in his bed and was still asleep when Jared was loading the car. So Laurel slept in a pile of our winter coats and Lazarus took Laurel's bag. Fortunately this was decided upon without much of a fight at all.)
Lazarus was up and down several times in the night, keeping his night-guardian (Jared) quite busy. And when he woke up in the morning, he said he didn't feel well and kept himself curled up in a ball at the picnic table for several hours. Anne popped up and asked where Jeff and Linda were, and we spent quite a bit of time rehearsing all the reasons they may not have been able to come (cat sick? flat tire? forgot they had to play music for church? too tired? couldn't get a cat sitter?) but we did a thorough search of the campground in case they had arrived late at night. Late morning, she came close to accepting they were not there. Lazarus stayed at the table, as previously mentioned, and the others of us took turns hiking/running/wandering.
By the late 1:00's he was stabilized, so, despite Anne's sudden desire to spend all day at the campsite, we headed off just around 2:00 to nearby Mt. Ellinor, which I had seen in the guidebook and really wanted to summit. Although it was quite close as the crow flies, we spent a long time driving on the gravel road, aforementioned, plus another, and another, to reach the upper trail head from the completely opposite cardinal direction.
{Unbeknownst to us Jeff and Linda arrived at our campsite maybe 20 minutes after we left it.}
When we arrived at the trail head, we had cell reception, and I had a message from Jeff saying they thought they would drive over after church and wanted to meet up. I couldn't say for sure, but estimated that this text had been sent seven hours prior. So we talked out loud with Anne about how it was likely they were not coming, due to the fact that they had not heard back from us. Or maybe they had set up at the campsite and we would see them when we returned. Without much hope, I texted them our location and the details of our activities between then and dark.
Jared hung out with the kids while I hike the 3.4 mile round trip. There were naps, snacks, audio books, short hikes, art projects near the car for all of them. The trail was only 3.4 miles round trip, yes, but it also advertised intense elevation gain. It took me around three hours, and I could still feel my calves five days later. The hiking guide rated it a 4 out of 5 for difficulty. Without a doubt, it was one of the most scenic hikes of my life, and I can't wait to do it again. My photos do not begin to do it justice. It went through forest and out onto a boulder field.
I saw four of Washington's active stratovolcanoes plus one or two in British Columbia, the Hood Canal, Seattle and Tacoma, the Skokomish River (sadly not Mt. Hood, due to haze in that direction), and over the back side, the entire crenellated Olympic mountain range marching off toward the sinking sun, with rocky peaks and glaciers, and forested hills.
Mt. Rainier, elev. 14,411
Mt
Hazy... on the left Mt. Adams, elev. 12,281... on the right Mt. St. Helens, elev. 8363
There was, right below me, an inaccessible high valley with a small lake untouched by humans, and snow fields still standing in the late September shadows.
When I got back down to the car, it was only an hour til sunset, but I encouraged Jared to go up anyway, and he did probably the lower third or half, which was still plenty for incredible views. I assisted with more snacks, and we listened to more of the current audiobook, which is the biography of Quaker Elizabeth Friedman, one of the pioneering codebreakers for the FBI, etc. She and her Jewish husband were a team, and got their start during WW I.
Afterward we careened through the gravel roads in the dark to our campsite to cook dinner, etc. There was more talk of finding Jeff and Linda there. And when we arrived, they had left a clue. There were a couple of Anne's possessions, left at their house, newly stowed in our tent. Anne's name, spelled in pinecones, lay three-dimensional, on the table. While Jared cooked dinner, the kids and I eagerly scoured every bit of the campground with a flashlight looking for their car. It was not there. They had come and gone. Great disappointment again.
{But they escaped being exposed to the crud!}
The night was rough. Both Lazarus and Laurel were up and down with fevers, and the coat pile Laurel was sleeping in got *mysteriously* soaked from the inside, rendering it unusable. I changed her in the dark and stuffed her into my sleeping back on top of me. We had two sick little kids, and their designated night guardians got less sleep than ideal. In the morning we wandered around more on nearby trails (Laurel rode on my back, stating "I don't feel very good today." Lazarus walked slowly and rested on logs - not his usual high energy self.)
We packed up as the rain started, and stopped for a picnic by Lake Cushman as the rain really started.
....And headed home.
Once arrived, I attempted a small nap (Jared had attempted one in the car) and tried to track down the possibility of rapid covid testing for Lazarus, as he was slated for his well child check the following morning. Nothing was available on a Sunday. I did mount another irksome project as well. I cleaned out the glove compartments of both cars, tossing years worth of car registrations and insurance cards and fliers from meetings we'd been to in Ohio and a hotel receipt from Wyoming dating to 2012... I found that the Honda registration was in the Chevy, and the Chevy registration was in the Honda - an easy switch. But NO recent insurance cards. I went online to print some off, and discovered that I had never changed our address with the insurance company when we moved close to four years ago. When I updated our information, it turns out our rate went down noticeably, and I wished I would have done that a long time ago! I got the documents texted off to the park ranger who let me off the hook for a ticket - hallelujah! The cars became legal again. AND I processed a year's worth of junk/business mail that were still unopened. I really have trouble keeping up with that stuff.
Monday morning I tried several times to call the doctor's office from both my phone and Jared's phone to find out if they wanted Lazarus to come in or stay home, and for some reason I could not dial out on either line. So we drove over and I left him in the parking spot right outside the lobby while I went in, masked, past the large signs asking you NOT to enter if you had any symptoms. I asked the receptionist whether I should bring Lazarus in or if we should reschedule. She was very grateful I had not brought him in and said she would go back to talk with the medical assistant. I walked back out to Lazarus. In the four minutes I had been inside, someone had already reported an unattended child to the office, and someone was coming to reprimand me for leaving him and saying that they had to report all unattended children to management, yada yada... Fortunately, they let me stay in the car with him and came out to me as they went back and forth talking to various people until they decided that they would like to see him for his appointment as his symptoms were indicative of a cold, not covid.
We moved all our teaching online for the day (which eventually became the whole week). And late in the day, Jared and I came down with sore throats.
Tuesday morning we got the kids up for their dentist appointments, but then thought better of it and they rescheduled us for two weeks out. The anticipation followed by the reschedule was very stressful for Anne, and she needed some adult ears for long chunks of time to help her process the frustration of her schedule being changed without her input on multiple occasions throughout the day. As part of that, she decided she absolutely would not be going to Tae Kwon Do. Jared was quite poorly on Tuesday, such that he actually took a nap before he taught. (My illness has been quite mild, only a minor irritation. Laurel has been feeling quite fragile and weepy, but Lazarus is pretty much back to normal.)
Wednesday Anne, who thus far had been quite fine, woke up the sickest of the whole crew. Poor, poor girl.
