July 14, 2001: wild when the waves start to break
At 5:35 AM, I was easing my car out of its parking place.
At 5:45 AM, I hit the highway.
Bumble bee-e, bumble bee-e, bumble bee-e, bumble bee-e,
bumble bee-e, bumble bee-e, bumble bee-e, bumble bee-e, bumble bee-e.
Doing voice warm-ups. The car still silent except for my voice, shivering and cracking as I climb upand down the scale, doing vocalies, getting louder and softer as i warm up my voice.
Because warming up correctly is important when you plan on spending the day in the car alone, and what you do to entertain yourself while driving is sing along to music.
I'd bought a car CD player for my trip, and a combination CD player holder and CD wallet. Inside were twelve of my favorite road music albums. And I drove, and drove, and drove. Stopped for breakfast--I'm not even sure where. Some McDonalds in Olympia, I think. Stopped for gas, too, though I was only down a quarter tank. Gas stations tend to be few and far between on 101.
Paula Cole brought me just past Olympia. Peter Gabriel brought me to Aberdeen. I stopped there and bought a sandwich, juice, and two nectarines. And then Poe took me to Quinault.
I'd planned an ambitious day today--four short hikes, totalling about five miles or so. I got to the Quinault rain forest, got my cute little trail pass, and went for a walk.
There was nobody on the trail but me, my feet thumping hollowly on the packed loam. I wandered and looked and wandered some more. The temperate rain forest is...odd. Some of the same foliage as the redwood forests I grew up visiting, but the trees seemed...strangely puny. ["Strangely puny", in this case, are 150 to 200 foot tall Sitka spruces, hemlocks, and red cedar. Heh.] There's just no impressing someone whose idea of a big tree is a redwood or a sequoia.
Easily one of the best hikes of the day, right there. I started breathing, and swinging my arms and remembering that *this* is what it's like to feel uncramped.
After Quinault, I drove north about 45 miles to the Hoh rain forest. I wanted to go and see if it was worth taking people there, honestly. I wasn't particularly expecting to be impressed.
The visitor center is 18 miles from 101, and that 18 miles is an amazingly pretty drive, which is good, because the scenery distracts you from the fact that the speed limit is 35 mph. [and they *mean* that, kiddos. not in the "pull-you-over" sense, but in the "hi, there's lots of bicyclists and pedestrians and tight turns and oh, look, we're going to throw in some dappled sunlight and nice sun/shade contrast just to make things interesting!" sense.] Once I was there, I paused to eat lunch and look at the map they'd given me at the ranger station, which was a bigger and prettier version of the one I'd printed out online. Then I wandered over to the visitor center and the trails.
I took two trails there: the Hall of Mosses and the Spruce trail. The Hall of Mosses was first, and my reaction was, well, "Eh. Seen this before." The Quinault trail was prettier and less crowded and involved climbing fewer hills, and it was basically the same sort of forest--ancient old-growth temperate rain forest. Pretty. Not *interesting*, but pretty. Lots of informative signs, and a nifty colonnade of spruces where the nurse log had completly rotted away, leaving the spruces, supporting themselves on their toors, looking like they were in the process of pulling themselves out of the ground and walking away.
Next, the Spruce trail. I honestly wasn't expecting that much from it, seeing as i'd been disappointed by the Hall of Mosses. It's a longer trail (1.4 miles as opposed to about .8 miles) and I was hoping that would mean it was less crowded.
Ka-ching! Wish granted. I think I saw maybe four other groups of people, and for the most part, I was by myself. I saw a banana slug, which just about made my day. I kept on thinking that I wish I'd brought Chris along, because there were so many things he would have wanted to take a picture of. Over there, the roots of a blown-down hemlock. Over here, a place where a moss-covered branch arched over the pathway.
The Spruce trail winds through places where the Hoh river used to run--it shifts position every year, and so old streambeds have a younger ecology than the old-growth forests. I strolled along, taking my time. I wasn't out to hurry.
At its farthest-out point, the trail goes quite close to the Hoh river itself, so I took a spur trail and went to visit the river. It's a very typical glacial-melt river--lots of fist-size and smaller round rocks, not a lot of vegetation close to the river, indicating that it runs a lot higher and deeper much of the time.
I crouched at the edge and splashed my hands in the water. I just wanted to touch it and make sure it was real, I think. The water was shockingly cold, still carrying the tinge of the ice it was born from. I splashed a bit, then walked back to the visitor center. At one point, the trail crossed a lovely deep stream--glass-clear, with grey sand and green weeds. I sat and watched the water flow for a while, listening to the gurgle of it as it went over rocks behind me, wishing I could get in and wade. (I regret not bringing my Tevas today.)
It was cool. worth the $10? Only if I have a shutterbug with me, I think.
Back at the vistor center, I lay on the grass for a while, looking at a map and deciding which beach I was going to visit. I decided that Second Beach, in La Push, was going to be just the ticket. The guide I'd printed out said that it was a moderately hilly .8 mile hike through temperate rain forests, leading to a sandy beach with view of sea rocks and tidepools. i was all about that. In the back of my brain, I was wondering, "what does moderately hilly mean?" and assuring myself that i could indeed handle it.
So it was off to La Push. 12 miles up 101 and then another 10 to the trailhead.
"Moderately hilly", evidently, means "well, see the beach is over this *bluff*, and it's approximately a 500 foot drop to the water, but look, we'd so helpfully provided this lovely stair-stepped trail...." Getting down was no problem. I could tell that getting up would be a bitch, however.
The trail itself was beautiful, at least the bit before the descent. More old growth rain forest, with some really stunning examples of blow-down trees and nurse logs and stumps. The underbrush was a bit thinner here, making it look more like a redwood forest, which made me comfortable and happy.
so down the descent to the beach. The trail dumps you out abruptly onto the beach...sort of. Between you and the sand is what looks like a giant's tinkertoy set, thrown in a rage against the boundary of forest and beach.
Logs, escaped from logging operations and then tossed at high tide up to the beach. *big* logs. 50-100 foot long logs, bleached with age and cracked from the sun. [made me think two or three times about the advisability of actually swimming on this beach...at least during winter storms, which is what tosses these logs up here.] There isn't a path through them. You have to climb *over* them. I'm a lot less agile than I used to be, but I made it over the logs all right, and then pulled my sandals off and plopped into deep warm sand. I fastened my shoes to one of my beltloops, rolled up my pant legs, and i was off to the water.
I waded for a bit, looking out at the ocean. This place was, frankly, beautiful. It rivalled some of the best beaches in Oregon--not for expanses of sand, but for the craggy rocks jutting out of the sea. I wandered to the north, where it looked like there was some tidepooling to be done.
I gave a silent blessing to the fact that the bottoms of my feet are so callused as I clambered barefoot over barnacled rocks to get to the tidepools. i'd arrived at about 3 PM--about 45 minutes after the low tide--so though the water was coming in, it wasn't doing so with any speed. [note--tidepooling barefoot is not for the tender of foot. Tevas or other waterproof sandals are strongly reccommended, nine out of ten Krises agree.]
I've been tidepooling at a bunch of different places on the West Coast. Further south, tidepooling is an immediately rewarding activity. Look down and, oh! you can see starfish and anemones and things.
Here in the north, tidepooling is a patient activity. I found a medium-sized tidepool, found a rock near it that would put me in a place I wasn't casting a shadow on the pool, sat, took my sunglasses off, and waited.
It's like watching a hidden-indian picture. You sit, and then something moves. Oh! It's a tiny little hermit crab, scuttling along the bottom of the tidepool. And then, a spot on the bottom of the pool moves, and it's a little fish, exactly the color of the bottom of the pool and specked so cunningly that it was impossible to see until it moved--and you keep losing it when it pauses. You sit, and observe, wait for the tidepool to reveal itself. There's a starfish crouched under the ledge of that rock under there. and those round rocks over there are actually anemones awaiting the tide. And that thing you originally took for a brightly-colored rocks is actually a three-inch-wide crab that has absolutely no fear of you.
And so on, and so on. It was fun. too soon, though, I needed to move on, climb back *up* that damned bluff [good workout, that!], get in my car, and head south. I stopped for food, drinks, gas, and to change CDs, but otherwise it was mostly a straight shot home. I was a little punchy afer I got to Olympia, though. I was siging along, and my voice was doing its usual buzzsaw thing, and I was thinking all sorts of strange thoughts about how instead of the buddha nature, my voice has the buzzsaw nature. Hee. I stopped for dinner just before Tacoma and had a bunch of coffee. I was that tired.
But i made it home, safe and sound. I ran away and then came back again. Like's good.
Wild because the chips are down
Wild because there isn't anybody else around
Wild when the waves start to break
And God knows they're breaking in me now
Wild 'cause it doesn't make sense
For me to cry out in my own defense
Wild 'cause I would do anything
To tear you off your precious fence
So this is what it's like living in limbo
First I'm high then I'm solo
I go wild 'Cause you break me open
Wild
'Cause you left me here
I go wild
'Cause your promises are broken
Wild
When I know you're near
I go wild
I go wild
By the way, things to say in Seattle so that the natives don't laugh at you:
It's Pike Place Market or just The Market.
It is never:
Pike's Place Market (yes, we can hear the s, thank you.)
Pike Market
Pike's Market
Pike Street Market
the farmer's market (there are lots of those around)
We can also tell who the tourists are. They're the ones who attempt to *drive* down Pike Place while the market is open. Yes, we *are* laughing at you. Silly people. It might look like a street on the map, but it's not. Really. Just ask those pedestrians who are casually strolling down the middle of the street.
That insterstate that runs north-south through town is I-5 or just plain 5. It is never "the 5". It's mostly I-90, rarely 90, never "the 90". (The 90 floating bridge is okay, though.) However, it's 520 or the 520 (especially if it's the 520 floating bridge) and never SR-520. It's either the 405 or 405, but never SR-405. and just when you think that this might make *sense*...it's 512 or SR-512, but not the 512. No, this doesn't make sense to me either.
SR-99 runs right through a *bunch* of Seattle and up to the Canada border. It's very exciting. It's also very long and has a bunch of different names:
Aurora (north end of Seattle to downtown), the Alaskan Way viaduct or just "the viaduct" (through downtown), and Martin Luther King Highway and International Way farther south. (I'm not actually too sure of those latter two. i'll look it up tomorrow.)
"The mountain is out" means that it's clear enough to see Mount Rainier.
There are four major shopping centers in the area. Northgate (the north end of Seattle), Westlake (downtown, mostly refers to the area that holds the Westlake and Pacific Place malls and a whole bunch of other stuff. when someone wants to meet you at Weslake, make sure you know *where* you're meeting them), Southcenter (south of Seattle, in Tukwila), and Bellevue Square (in, well, Bellevue, east of Seattle). These aren't all the malls, just the biggest and oldest.
Quick bus primer: the buses are free in downtown Seattle. On trips heading away from downtown, you pay as you leave the bus. On trips heading to downtown or trips that don't go through downtown, you pay as you get on the bus. If you're riding the #7 from, say, Capitol Hill to Rainier Valley, you need to remember to get a transfer if you're paying in cash, as you'll need to pay both getting on and getting off the bus, and the transfer is proof that you paid already. (the #7 runs through downtown.)
The monorail is too useful. Is too, is too, is too! SO THERE.
"geoduck" is a kind of clam, pronounced "gooeyduck". It's big and sexual-looking. It tastes okay, nothing terribly special.
Smoked salmon comes in two major types. One is lox-style, and the other is fillet-style. The fillet-style actually resembles the chunk of fish it was made from, and is often referred to as fresh smoked salmon. The fresh stuff is better than the lox stuff, but you have to refrigerate it.
Contrary to appearance, Seattle does not have a Chinatown. Or a Japantown. It's the International District. We're sorta sensitive about that. Don't ask.
If you want to see people froth at the mouth, ask them how they feel about how Safeco Field was funded. It's fun, and exciting!
The Space Needle isn't in downtown Seattle. It's in the Seattle Center, which is located at the base of Queen Anne Hill, in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood.
And if you have a chance to eat fresh-caught wild river salmon, do so. The wild-caught salmon season is brief and frantic, and even people who have hated salmon all of their lives have melted when faced with a plate of some of the most heavenly fish that nature has to offer. Wild salmon will *always* be labelled as such. If it's not wild, then it's farm-raised, which does have a different flavor. Whether Copper River salmon is the best of the wild salmon is still up for debate, but it's the best-marketed and the first to come in each year.
[just some thoughts are i was coming home tonight. Heh. i'm tired. i'm going to bed.]
