RUN Tovah! RUN!….Nope, didn’t make it.

Okay and…what are we focused on?

And…apparently we are focused on the rocks in the foreground. Ugh, forget it.

Later we got this one using the timer. It wasn’t quite what I pictured in my head but it was nice to get a different perspective than we usually do.

We headed into the forest instead to hike to see the Sol Duc falls and while they weren’t as large as I was expecting they were still beautiful, as were the woods surrounding them.

Hmm, somebody got in front of my camera when I was trying to take pictures…

But then he lifted his head and now I can share this with you (not the actual falls, but along the trail to them.)

Another neat waterfall, sweet and peaceful.

The long arm shots are really hard with the clunky and big SLR camera but Clark did it!

And here are the falls! This is the view from the bridge.

And another view of the falls (from the top.)

And Clark didn’t want to leave without making a mark so he built this little stone sculpture. Apparently he would have been happy to stay there all day fiddling with it but he could tell I was bored. It was pretty cute how excited he was about it though. After this we hiked back to the car and as we drove away it started raining. We were pretty lucky that it had held off for our couple days at the various parts of the park that we visited.

But of course I had to try so these are a selection of photos without people, just of the Hoh rainforest. It was beautiful, peaceful and I’m so glad that Clark and I took the time to go see it.

Morning dew

The grove of maples on the hall of moss trail

Every shade of green

I just loved the different patterns of bark.

Fallen trees are an important part of the forest life cycle.

So cute mushrooms!

I kind of feel like I am taking away Clark’s thunder by telling you this but here is a great example of a nurse log.  A log falls and little trees take up residence on the fallen log (it has all kinds of nutrients in it.) As they mature their roots grow over the log down to the ground, leaving a distinct shape and growth pattern to the trees. Here you can see the trees all lined up along what used to be a nurse log. Clark was fascinated by this, never having heard about it before, and kept pointing them out to me along the trail. And now you know too.

Along the path I spotted this heart shaped mold growing on a tree. Ah, romantic mold…

No cell phone reception but if you’re desperate here is the sole pay phone in the parking lot. I love that the forest has tried to take over the phone cover.

]]> http://clarkandtovah.com/?feed=rss2&p=1695 1 http://clarkandtovah.com/?p=1691 http://clarkandtovah.com/?p=1691#comments Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:00:53 +0000 Tovah http://clarkandtovah.com/?p=1691 Since I don’t plan on going to South America anytime soon I was excited to get to see a rainforest right here in Washington. Of course, it is a bit different from a tropical rainforest but it still gets a lot of rain. Like 147 inches a year. Compared to Seattle at 35 inches and it is definitely a RAINforest. We didn’t really know what to expect but we knew it would be a good day when on the way in we saw these guys:

A whole herd of elk! It was pretty neat to see them in their natural environment and naturally my souvenir for the trip needed to be an elk charm for my charm bracelet.

Clark feeling young and small against a very old Spruce tree. 550 years old and very tall!

Clark got to feel small against a lot of the old growth trees.

He of course wanted to go exploring off the trail…

But not too far because the trail was really pretty.

Although we did stray a few times–this is the root system Clark climbed up on, the tree blew over and the forest just took over and plants started growing on the upturned roots.

There was beauty everywhere–I thought this bark looked like water.

This was the hall of moss–some very mossy trees and every shade of green.

We hiked two different loops, both were well kept and had interesting facts on plaques at various points.

We lunched by the river and it was so peaceful.

We were glad to bring our own food as there were no shops or restaurants near the park. We would have been very sad if we’d only had our water bottles.

And on the way back to the car we found the trail bordered by these two trees and someone just had to climb up them. He will say I egged him on but it didn’t take much arm twisting to get him scrambling up there.

I practiced my photography skills with my camera and will do a separate post of my nature shots. More tomorrow!

First off we were driving toward this (that is a snow capped mountain in the distance):

And along the way we stopped at Crescent lake, which was gorgeous:

We were getting hungry and drove into Forks for dinner. Twilight mania has hit Forks, and they have embraced this unexpected money maker. They are still a small logging town–and not anything like the movie, fyi–but the travelers have brought enough revenue to the town to support building a new high school, three gas stations and one grocery store.

After several hours in the car we were happy to continue on to our cabin by the Sol Duc river. Since we don’t have television at home it is always a treat to stay at a hotel and watch it. So we didn’t rent one of those “get away from technology” cabins. Ha! Yeah, right, we had Wifi and Direct TV and we enjoyed the heck out of them. However we also made sure to enjoy this amazing river view:

How cute are the shingles on the main house? Love them!

And this is the loft over the garage that we stayed in. Full kitchen, bathroom and television hide-away.

The next day we were excited to wake up and go explore the Hoh rainforest. That’s right, a rainforest in Washington. Stay tuned!

Brianne was excited to stop in Las Vegas, whereas I admit to being bewildered that for the second time in six months I had ended up in Vegas even though I had no desire to see it. We did have an awesome dinner there though. The next day though, is where our story picks up again.

Turns out Nevada is a desert of the barren, dry and sometimes salty variety. The towns along the way are poor, small and trailer-riffic. Not that I’m judging, but I’m sure glad that I don’t live in a town of 30. Thirty people. Total. We know because the nice lady at the gas station/local market/antique store told us. She was saying it was really hard to meet a man. Uh, no kidding.

By about three o’clock I was itching to get out of the car for awhile. The cramped car, unchanging landscape and the back seat squawking of Mr. B would have made any road side attraction look good. So I was really excited to see the ghost town listed on the map. It was “just a short detour” of seven miles (there’s that sarcasm again) and I’d never seen a ghost town before. Brianne was not as excited but game to try it out and so we got a picture of the informative sign and turned onto the paved road.

We drove and drove and drove and finally came to two burned out and collapsed buildings.

“Surely there is more” Brianne commented and we continued up the hill. You know what happens next right? There wasn’t anything else out there. Well, lots of rusty cans…

Brianne searches for something…anything…

This building must have been something cool in its day.

I had a good time walking around and taking pictures but Brianne was unimpressed. Plus the sun was going down and it was no doubt going to be creepy up in the canyon when night fell. Instead of just turning around and going out the way we had come in we decided to continue on in the loop that was drawn on the map. Maybe we’d still see something more interesting.

So we continued on the paved road. Which turned into a gravel road. Which turned into a dirt road. A dirt road with huge rocks that were very sharp looking. We crawled along at ten miles an hour. I watched as Brianne got more and more tense, worrying about getting a flat tire out here in the middle of nowhere. Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel as her loaded down Honda scraped the road in parts.

I started feeling really bad that I had been so eager to see the alleged ghost town. We were losing time and daylight. We didn’t see anything else. Maybe a couple of broken down stone walls but no other buildings, nothing worth going so far out of our way.  I couldn’t believe it was displayed on the map so prominently. There was nothing to see! Why had we gone so far out of our way? The car thudded and slowly rolled along the poorly kept road. We crested a hill and found….a washed out road.

Brianne exclaimed “This is like the freaking waterfall at the end of the river that you didn’t know was there!” It was so true that I laughed until I cried. It was a horrible road. Luckily we were still able to cross and eventually we made it back to the paved road. We considered stopping to put our own addendum to the sign to the “ghost town” but upon reaching the sign found it to be all shot up. So apparently the locals already knew it sucked. And that is my story of the ghost town that wasn’t.

We finally reach the California border crossing. As far as I know California is the only state that has check point stations all along its border, not just along Mexico but also where it borders other states. I’m not sure what all the things they check for but usually they just ask if you have any foreign fruit and either confiscate it or give it back to you after looking at it.

So the border guard asks us if we have any fruit (no) and then is peeking in Brianne’s packed to the brim with all her worldly possessions car and asks casually “Is that a Quaker parrot?” She says yes and suddenly we are barred from entering the state of California. As in, turn your car around and don’t come back–for the ENTIRE length of California. Turns out Mr. B is illegal because if he gets loose he is an invasive species that is a danger to fruit crops.

Now honestly I think this rule is kind of dumb. Birds can fly–it is not outside the realm of possibility that they could just fly over the border and damage the fruit crops. Secondly, Mr. B is a pet who has been raised by humans since he was an egg. Or a chick. Whatever. He has a little number band on his leg, knows tricks and Brianne is not just going to get tired of him and turn him loose. And lastly, we are only visiting California, not staying there.

But none of that mattered. They took all of Brianne’s license numbers so that even if we drove to a different border entry her car would be immediately flagged. So then we had to call our friends and family in San Diego. Brianne’s feisty grandma said “I tell you what I’d do–I’d get rid of that dang bird!” I may or may not have been thinking the same thing…

A zoo keeper friend of Brianne’s started sending us information about the ferret underground railroad (I’m totally not making this up) because apparently smuggling ferrets into California is a lucrative business. The website had maps of places to cross the border and everything! But it wasn’t in either of our natures to try it–plus both of us are the type of people who get “caught” whenever we are doing something we shouldn’t be doing. And so that is how two nice, sweet, rule following girls got kicked out of California.

I haven’t posted much about my road trip from Ohio to Washington with my friend Brianne. I think I’m just processing it all (and the things that came after.) In thinking about it I realize that this road trip was an unacknowledged test of my ability to leave the safety of my happy home to travel.

Mmm, St. Louis. I may need to go back just for this molten chocolate cake swimming in vanilla cream sauce.

Although maybe it sounds like part of the care free, jet-set life, just flying off and driving back, it was actually hard for me. I hadn’t flown since all of the emotional trauma of last summer. Some of those feelings of fear are linked to flying, just because of time and place and the flying that I had to do at the time.

But more than that I like the safe cocoon of my home. It is hard to leave the place where I feel safe and happy. I like my routines and my quiet life and if I didn’t feel like people were judging me for being useless (i.e. not working) I’d probably wouldn’t have any desire to work.

So it was hard for me fly out and know that I’d be driving through parts (mostly) unknown for the next week as we made out way back to Washington. I thought I’d be a help with the driving and a comfort to Brianne as she took such a big step to leave her known and comfortable life in a place where she wasn’t happy for a chance at a new job in a place that she loves.

However, I don’t know how much of a help I was. Brianne is pretty self sufficient. I didn’t do that much driving and I seemed to spend a lot of time reflecting on the past and how I had ended up where I was. It was not the super-fun-whamadime-road trip I had hoped it would be.  While on the road I heard that my dad had had emergency surgery (but is doing fine now) and one night Remmy got really sick. It just made me wish I was home and able to take care of the ones I love.

This was Nevada. A whole days worth of driving of this.

Growing older and going through the ups and downs of Navy life has somehow turned me into a homebody. I used to want to travel all over and was even lucky enough to visit Europe twice. It no longer holds the same draw that it once had–and I certainly wouldn’t want my old dream of going by myself. I know Clark really wants to visit Europe and I think with him by my side it would be fun. For now I don’t want to become a hermit but I’d like to do my exploring a little closer to home. Camping trips this summer or visits to my family in Oregon and California.

Oregon you are right over this hill, right? RIGHT? Please?

At least this road trip showed me that I can still go out and travel on my own. Hopefully future plane trips won’t be such a cause of anxiety. And though I’m not looking forward to a long car trip anytime soon I know I can do that too. So I’ve worked through some of my personal issues and I do have a couple of funny stories I’ll have to share soon; like getting kicked out of California and going to the worst ghost town ever. After all, when you drive cross country in seven days you ought to pick up some good stories along the way.

Here Mr. B fulfills his duties as co-pilot and reads the map to see the daily route. Course he doesn’t have a very large vocabulary….maybe that is why we never know where we are….”Peek a BOO! *chirp*”

We found a dairy queen though. Here Brianne makes fun of my “mini” blizzard….

…and taunts me with her small blizzard.

However later she only got her gourmet hot chocolate plain….

…and I had some awesome whipped cream on mine.

Back in the car Mr. B keeps an eye on me and makes sure I don’t distract the driver…

…because he is already enough of a distraction to the driver. Stay tuned for pictures of me holding a (baby) alligator and pictures of Brianne and I at Jesse James’ hideout in the hills of Missouri. And other awesomeness.