We didn't really sleep that well at the strange hostel. The bed was lopsided, shaky, and soft and hard in all the wrong places. Oh well, we're out $10 and the owner, Jim, probably judges us because we obviously could have given him more but didn't exceed his "suggested donation". He also gave us 'chores' to do in the morning. This was part of the deal, but we expected we'd do something productive like chop firewood, weed the garden, clean one of the rooms, etc. Instead, I scrubbed his plate drying rack while Molly and Todd cleaned his stove top. In other words, we did some routine cleaning in his kitchen that he wasn't willing to do. As we left, Todd said "I'd hate to think what this place would look like when the first Spring guest shows up and he hasn't cleaned a damn thing all winter."
But the Pacific Northwest does not disappoint. We drove a few miles down to the shore, and this was the view from up on the cliff. Mind you, except for going to Hawaii, which is a completely different beast, this is only the second time I've seen the Pacific Ocean proper.
There was a little trail down to a rocky pond that fed directly into the surf. And I tried taking arty photos some more:
That's some great lichen, eh?
But what an ocean! Molly said this is the Northwest version of Acadia, which she had just visited in October.
This rocky outcropping was pretty cool. Originally it probably was connected to a ridge line, but the surf dug out everything around it.
The beach was rocky, but it made us look like we were posing for either a U2 album cover or that one South Park episode when Cartman starts a Christian rock band.
What was even cooler about that rock from earlier? Windows!
And this pretty bad-ass log washed up against it.
Molly is a born climber, and squeezed through a window to watch the sea.
I'm still getting the hang of video on blogger. Sometimes it seems to work, and other times not. This is a freshwater spring right on the beach. It's probably coming from the rocky pond a few steps away, seeping through the sand.
Reflections upon rocks. And the sky was pretty cool, too.
I'm getting good at this, no?
We loaded into the car, and drove a bit further. At the edge of Quinnalt, we hiked up a short trail called "Big Cedar Trail". Bet you can't guess what we found there.
Massive. Many of the older cedars you could simply walk into, and not feel too cramped.
For example, that crack is about 15 feet high, and wide enough to walk into.
Different tree, but same idea. You could have fit a dozen people inside this one, and in a pouring rain the only guy who would get wet would be the one right in the middle where it was dripping.
Todd again. You'll note he takes photos with a real camera.
That look on Molly's face was how we felt for most of the day. Jaw droppingly in awe.
It's hard to capture the scale sometimes, but also it was cool that the tree we just walked through was STILL ALIVE. It had a few branches right at the top still with leaves on. Not only that, but other trees had just started growing in every nook and mossy cranny along its trunk. Temperate Rainforests are so cool.
And in small ways, too. There were ferns everywhere.
I try to sneak up on people from behind ferns. Unsuccessfully, of course.
Actually, just trying to get a picture of the spores on the bottom. And reprising my role as Harpoon's hand model. Seriously, everytime you go to the Harpoon brewery and see a picture of hands holding some sort of brewing ingredient, they're probably mine.
I also discovered that our phones have a pretty good magnifier for taking photos, as these last two pictures show. Not a good zoom lens that I can find, but close ups it does pretty well.
The regular size versions of those last two pictures.
Constant rain means, of course, constant fungus. And moss. I really really need to start studying my mushrooms. If even 10% of what we saw was edible, we would have been feasting for days.
The cedars around Quinnalt. Different trail, but still really really big.
Mind you, both Molly and Todd are tall. If they have to point up at something, it means it's REALLY tall.
This one had a "Tower in Mordor" sort of look. But in a friendly, just another massive tree in a rainforest kind of way.
We were pretty lucky that day. It was actually sunny and pleasant the entire time we hiked around taking photos.
So many stream crossings.
Another tree you could just climb into.
Todd is a neverending font of random facts, sort of like me. He said that cedars, even in such a wet climate, don't rot very quickly because of the tannic acids in their bark and wood. So this root ball that was pulled out when the tree fell over will probably host this bank of ferns for dozens, if not hundreds of years.
Again, I wish I knew if these were edible. There were probably 4 or 5 pounds worth just growing among the clover and fern.
Finally, the clouds start rolling in. Time to get moving back to the car.
I hope this video comes out. Just a slug, chowing down on a mushroom. At some point I could have sworn the guy stops and stares at me, as if to say, "Do you mind? I'm trying to eat here."
Lastly, before we start our drive back to Todd's place in Snoqualmie Pass, a visit to the world's largest Spruce.
The perspective gets screwy, but that's Molly down at the bottom. The base was at least 20 ft across, if not more.
As we walked back to the car, it began to rain. A pretty consistent, only in the Northwest kind of rain. And that continued pretty much for the next 2 hours of driving. Finally, after night fall, we made it east of Seattle, up in the forests above Snoqualmie Pass in Todd's 192 sq. ft. home. We turned on the heater, bundled up, and went to bed. Todd, ever the overly generous host, let us use his bed (again), and he set up shop on the loft above us. Always cosy there.
No comments:
Post a Comment