Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being written years after the experience was had. Sadly, there were no notes taken so whatever is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us. Fortunately, there was an itinerary still in my directory of travel plans, so that will help with some details. As to why this wasn’t noted or blogged about, I was in the throes of writing/editing my book Stay In The Magic and felt that any other deep writing would derail that fragile effort.

Can you believe it? This is Junior Ranger Caroline with Alice Cullen, who is played by Ashley Greene from the hit movie Twilight. We are up here in Forks, Washington, for Twilight Fanfest 2011 and ran into Ashley, who had shapeshifted into a two-legged horse.

And, of course, this is Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, who was in character trying to avoid the crowds by being inconspicuous. Damn, we sure loved these movies and wish they’d return. There’s not a day that goes by we don’t dream about Midnight Sun coming out someday.

Is this the path to Transylvania, or am I remembering the wrong vampire film?

Whoever’s playing the joke with the sign pointing us to this moss-covered credenza had me fooled, thinking I was about to find a “Moss Covered Three-Handled Gradunza.” Silly me for confusing things.

You probably haven’t figured it out yet, but we are in the Hoh Rain Forest, which is part of the Olympic National Park and the beginning of the serious part of this blog post that I have very little to say about.

Shoot, I don’t know what I can seriously say about this close-up shot of spore plants and other things I know little of.

Is it enough to share that I like wood tones surrounded by various hues of green?

Then there are these trees straddling a dead tree in a kind of necromantic multi-year ritual that we witnessed on our first visit to this coastal forest.

Come on, Caroline, I needed a scowl as whoever heard of a story featuring a friendly smiling tree troll?

Here we are, standing in front of the only moss-covered pay-phone in the entirety of the United States, which probably no longer exists. Did we miss our golden opportunity to call people using quarters to access a landline? Hmm, a smartphone that uses quarters, now there’s a great idea. I know what you are thinking, a smartphone doesn’t have space to store many quarters? I got that figured out, too: a Kevlar pouch attached to the phone to accept the coins, which would also stop people from breaking into said phone.

There was no way on a day with bright blue skies and our proximity to the coast that we wouldn’t allocate at least some small amount of time to visit. We’ll skip the Quinault Rain Forest, which is also part of the Olympic National Park, as we do have a flight later tonight that will bring us back to Phoenix.

There was a large root ball nearby with possibly 100s of cairns stacked upon its old sun-dried roots, but my photographs didn’t offer even one that was worth sharing. That’s a good thing, though, as there always needs to be another mystery for others to find, or what hope of finding your own magic is there?

Caroline is searching for that mystery.

This is the reason Washington beaches are not known for sunbathing; how would anyone get comfortable laying on logs?

Sometimes, when searching for something to say about a photo, I learn far more than I could have imagined. My first question here was, “How long do barnacles live?” The answer is 5 to 10 years. Well then, how long might these barnacles have been attached to this mussel so I can figure out how old the barnacles are? The answer didn’t really give me the answer I wanted, as it turns out that mussels can live to be 60 to 70 years old. That means a typical mussel can host 6 to 14 generations of barnacles on its shell. Now I have to reevaluate if I’m willing to eat a bivalve that could be older than me.

Why is exploring nature better than visiting Versailles in Paris, France? At the Palace of Versailles, you are only allowed to look at what’s decreed by others who restrict your access, while in nature, you can look in the cracks, corners, and under the rocks of what nobody may have ever looked at before.

Writing the above, I realized that at this moment in Caroline’s life, I was the only person to see her. So, in a sense, she embodies all the treasure found in Versailles and all the potential found in nature, and lucky me has the opportunity to continue my exploration of her potential; love is that grand. By the way, we have stopped at the Kalaloch Lodge for some lunch; Caroline’s beer is from Fish Tale Ale, and the glass reads, “Reel Fish Swim Naked.”

From our lunchtime overview, we had about 4 hours without stops to reach the Sea-Tac airport. Obviously, we did make stops, but for the sake of this blog journey into the Pacific Northwest, this is the end of the road.

Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being written years after the experience was had. Sadly, there were no notes taken so whatever is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us. Fortunately, there was an itinerary still in my directory of travel plans, so that will help with some details. As to why this wasn’t noted or blogged about, I was in the throes of writing/editing my book Stay In The Magic and felt that any other deep writing would derail that fragile effort.

There were other ways we could have gone; we could have stayed over on the mainland and just driven south, but the opportunity to catch an early morning ferry couldn’t be passed up. While maybe just a utility to locals, ferries for both Caroline and I are part of an adventure that takes us and our car over the sea, magic.

Trying to take a selfie looking into the sun is never a good idea and I hate that big old shadow it creates there on my chest, which isn’t too bad as typically it’s on our face.

Kirk recommended that when we hit Seattle we had to go to Beth’s Cafe on Aurora Avenue and hope we were arriving early enough to beat the crowds to this popular eatery. We only had minutes to wait.

I’m not sure if it’s the food or the art on the wall that makes this place so popular, but if more restaurants featured hand drawings of people asking to see my chocolate starfish, I know I’d be a regular customer of that establishment.

While a cute snail can hardly compete with demons with meat horns and murder shakes, we’ll know that for at least part of a morning, the art of Caroline graced the walls of Beth’s.

Our mountain of breakfast was wheeled to our table and then three men of a muscular stature lifted the plate that would feed the four of us with food left over for at least three others. You will not find a larger breakfast. Seriously, that’s a 12-egg omelet.

Well, it turns out that Archie McPhee’s toy store can be a great distraction. I should say that Caroline and I were lucky we flew in as if we’d had our car with us; we might have left with a bunch of things we never really needed, but that didn’t stop Rainy and Kirk from leaving with a few choice items.

Since this was Rainy’s first time in Seattle, Washington, an obligatory trip to the Pike Place Market was in order, especially for her to visit the world’s first Starbucks, a.k.a. the Mothership for baristas of that brand.

Caroline and I had a different location that was our pilgrimage, it was the Seattle location of Kinokuniya. We’d been to the Los Angeles location many a time but this was our first time here. Japanese books, magazines, videos, and assorted gifts are the specialty, and while we could forego toys, we’ll never be able to leave one of these stores empty-handed.

Did I tell you that we’d visited Archie McPhee’s?

That was enough of Seattle, and we are now back on a ferry.

The dangers of Archie McPhee’s. We laughed pretty hysterically for a good 30 minutes out here.

I don’t know about you, but that big ass mountain hiding a big ass volcano inside the friendly snow-covered peak sure doesn’t look like it’s over 75 miles away from where we are on Puget Sound.

The look of celebrating horses on a ferry to Bainbridge Island.

Caroline has been suffering from “Yarn Fever” for a long time now; here we are at the Churchmouse Yarns & Teas on Bainbridge Island.

Because somehow there are men out there who don’t understand this idea yet.

I don’t know where the time went, but somehow, all the goofing off and shenanigans ate up our day. We are heading to Sequim for our night at the Great House Motel, which was $80 then and only $99 here in 2021.

Update: just two years later, in late 2023, the price is down to $55. I have the sense that there’s something wrong with our economy and the state of health regarding small companies. 

Don’t ask; I’m just the photographer.

I insist that I’ve never kissed this person, ever.

Disclaimer: This post is one of those that ended up being written years after the experience was had. Sadly, there were no notes taken so whatever is shared here must be extracted from the images and what memories they may have lent us. Fortunately, there was an itinerary still in my directory of travel plans, so that will help with some details. As to why this wasn’t noted or blogged about, I was in the throes of writing/editing my book Stay In The Magic and felt that any other deep writing would derail that fragile effort.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that we were staying in Arlington to position ourselves for a big adventure. We needed to be in Anacortes by 9:00 a.m. sharp and so with the four of us needing to coordinate showers and breakfast, I wanted to be close enough to our destination that we wouldn’t be late.

Today’s kayak trip was taking across a bay over to Burrows Island.

There were no photos of us crossing the bay as my camera was in a waterproof bag, but as soon as we were sitting in a shadow on very calm water, I was able to bring it out and snap a couple of under-exposed images.

While we are accustomed to seeing jellyfish in aquariums and dead on the shore, it’s not very often we see them alive in their natural habitat. Had this been a Portuguese man o’ war, I would have been worried as that would mean we had somehow arrived in the Atlantic Ocean, and well, that would have been pretty strange.

From snowshoes, Seadoos, bicycles, rafts, ferries, and kayaks, Caroline and I are having the times of our lives as we get to travel through our environments by all manner of craft and by foot as we invest in these experiences. All it has taken is a strong commitment and the occasional taking on some debt for these important explorations of pushing ourselves further than we might have imagined.

Writing this part of my recollections, I can’t help but be critical and wish that we’d been doing this kayaking thing far more often than we have. It had been just two years prior to this trip that Caroline and I first ventured out on the water in a kayak on the Atlantic coast, and then the very next day, we were over on the warm Gulf waters in the Florida Keys kayaking for our second time. Just one year prior had been our first encounter with the whitewater of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, and now here we are, hoping we just might see orcas. Living in the desert doesn’t make finding this practice time any easier.

I can go ahead and tell you right now that we did not see a single orca today, but our guide spotted this skeleton shrimp in a clump of seaweed floating at the surface, and well, that was good enough for us, exciting even. It’s not every day that one finds themselves kayaking a stretch of the Pacific Ocean next to an island and just spots such a tiny creature. But why was this so “exciting?” This creature had just been discovered in the past year and here’s our guide just finding one like that! This makes us some of the first humans to see this species in the wild; I got my money’s worth.

I don’t know how we were gifted with perfect weather at Mt. Rainier yesterday, nor can I explain that we had a wonderfully calm ocean for our kayaking trip.

Out of Burrow Bay and onto Burrow Island for lunch.

A fourth-order Fresnel lens once sat in here, but in 1972 it was replaced with an automated system seen here.

The lighthouse went into operation in 1905.

Lucky for us, we’re not in a hurry to get back on the water and can just linger a while enjoying the sea…

… the nice weather and the view of my beautiful wife, it’s all so lovely out here.

It’s a rare day that we travel with others and while there can be issues of bumping us out of our isolation and needing to accommodate these fellow travelers, we’d like to believe it does us good to not always have everything our way.

On the southwest corner of the island, we got into some current that made us work hard to escape it. This very idea that the water could push and pull us where it wanted to take our kayak was unnerving for me as I started entertaining ideas that as we paddled against the flow, we’d roll out of the kayak, and I’d be in the water I didn’t want to encounter.

But here we are, back on land when this happened. As Kirk worked to get out of his kayak, a long, solid ripping sound was heard that left little to the imagination of what had occurred. Caroline ran to Kirk’s car to grab his overnight bag so he could change and repair the dignity that remained in his boat.

At over one hundred miles away, I’m struck that we can see Mt. Rainier in the distance. Or, is the earth really flat, and this 14,411-foot (2.7 miles / 4.4 kilometer) tall mountain is only visible because of the flatness? I quickly do the geometry in my puny head and realize that if that mountain were on that shore and stood almost 3 miles high, it would be a lot higher than what I’m seeing, so if it’s that short, it must be sitting on a curve that slopes out of view! Nah, the earth is flat.

Dinner was at a Thai restaurant, as we’d not learned yet that ethnic food in small towns never failed to let us down. Lodging was at the Acorn Motor Inn for $79, and upon checking their prices ten years later, it would only cost us $89 a night to stay again.