Rain Rain Go Away

The first thing that we noticed about being back in civilization... traffic! We couldn't have planned our drive through the Seattle area at a worse time; a friday at 3p.m. After updating the blog at trusty ole Starbucks, we drove for a bit, did some maintenance work such as fill up on gas and snacks for the road, then proceeded to do my favorite thing in the world; sit in traffic. We new that since it was still a little early, the traffic would only get worse, so we decided that we would stick it out, get through it, and make our way to the Olympic Peninsula. However, after about 3 hours of bumper to bumper and traveling less 100 miles, my nerves were at their end, so we decided to pull off the road for some dinner, hopefully waiting out a little of the traffic. You would think that with all my driving through Chicago traffic I would be immune to such rush hour annoyances, but for some reason this was even worse than normal. In Chicago, I knew what I was in for, but here I had no clue. Also, after traveling through the Yukon and Alaska where you could drive for hours and not pass a single car, this seemed a particularly cruel evil. Anyway, we proceeded instantly to get lost in the back roads of the Olympia / Lacey area as soon as we left the highway. To make our situation picture perfect, it began to downpour. We drove around for about an hour, following lines of cars and just keeping our fingers crossed that they would take us back to a big enough road so that we could find ourselves on the atlas. The only redeeming quality of the trip is that we found a post office to mail all of the postcards that we collected since Chicken. Eventually we made it back near the interstate and stopped off for a well deserved meal at RAM. Over dinner, we decided not to proceed on to the Peninsula because we could not justify paying for a night of camping when all we would be doing is setting up a tent in the rain and sleeping in it. We decided instead to blow twice as much money on a night at the movies and sleep at a rest area nearby instead. We ended up seeing Resident Evil 3D since this was the only movie that either of us remotely recognized. We have not seen any form of advertisements for so long that all of the other movie titles were indiscernible to us. We were about 40 minutes early for the show, so we decided to waste our time at the arcade playing (you guessed it) Big Buck Hunter!!! Pam, Colin or Adam, if you are reading this, eat your hearts out! :) We did a whole trek and Katie did really good for her first time, but most of all, she loved it! (Thats right Mike and Erin, we're coming! And we've begun to listen to Harry Potter on audiobook as well, so watch out!) Sorry for the digression. After the movie we drove to a rest area and slept the night away, hoping for a brighter tomorrow. Much to our joy, we woke to discover that brighter day! We quickly packed up CJ and headed off to make the most our Saturday. We headed north up the eastern edge of the Olympic Peninsula not knowing where we would end up for the night. We tried to clear that up at the National Forest Info Center, only to receive the information that they are closed on weekends. We did manage to find some small packets of info about camping and trails that would be enough to get us through this first day until we headed into the National Park. Katie found a great campsite that was called Seal Rock right along the edge of the Puget Sound. The camp had beach access and boasted seal viewing, a nature trail, and oyster harvesting, so naturally, we knew it would be full on a Saturday morning, but we figured we would stop by anyway in hopes that some people were deterred by the rain. When we got to the campsite, it was completely empty! Not questioning the reasons, Katie and I quickly scooped up a prime location right next to the beach, and set up camp. It was low tide, so we couldn't help but walk around and explore the coast. We found all sorts of awesome things: crabs both dead and alive, numerous jellyfish washed ashore, and literally thousands of oysters, clams and muscles, most of them already shucked, we did find a few small ones alive. Basically, it was awesome! A huge, ever-changing playground right outside of our campsite. However, I left my camera in the car,

not knowing what was in store for us at the beach, so there are no pictures of this location... yet! After a while, the tide began to come in and we decided that we would leave the ocean life for later in the day and head to higher ground, specifically Mt. Walker. We drove the mountain road to the top of Mt. Walker which offered panoramic views of Puget Sound and the city of Seattle. Apparently on a clear day you could see Mt. Rainier as well, but our cloudy day did not permit that. While at the top, we also scavenged some of the fallen branches for kindling since down below, all of the wood was still wet from last nights showers. Next we decided to do a

hike at the Falls View Campground, our backup campground in case Seal Rock had been full. This hike was intended to be a .6 mile hike to the bottom of a canyon and then back up, but once Katie and I reached the bottom we noticed a trail that followed the river and got curious. We kept walking further and further down the path, not knowing where it lead, and constantly wondering whether or not we should turn around. But, in all honesty, there was no way we were going to turn around. Down in the river valley we found ourselves in a rainforest for the first time. In the valley we were surrounded by giant ferns, towering trees, and moss growing everywhere! Not to mention all

the snakes, spiders, and banana slugs that we encountered. And, as if to add icing onto the cake, a rushing river following our path the entire hike. After about a mile from the end of the "beaten" path, we came across the assumed end of our extended hike. The trail lead back up the canyon and apparently away from

the river. Also at this point, there was a beautiful little pool formed by the river in between 2 small waterfalls. To me, the whole thing seemed out of place. It reminded me of a tropical setting somewhere in southeast Asia, not that I have ever been, but it looked just as I had always imagined it. The forest was completely still, nothing moving on the valley floor though you could hear the

wind blowing in the trees up top. The air was humid and stuffy in the forest but the falls created a slight mist and cooling breeze. We stayed in this zen-like location for about 20 minutes just soaking it all in before deciding it was time to head back. It was a perfect hike to introduce us into the

area. Little did we know that in few days time, we would see scenery that would all but erase this hike from our minds, but for the present, it was awe-inspiring. We planned on doing another hike but seeing as we couldn't find the trailhead and it began to rain, we decided to head back to camp. I quickly started a fire with some of our dry wood and we proceeded to cook our dinner of hot dogs and pizza puffs, getting everything put away right as it began to really come down. We spent the evening in the tent, playing cards and reading books, again hoping that the next day the rain would stop.