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| Bull Elk in Hoh Rain Forest, 2016 |
Forests are my happy place. And a rain forest is the absolute premium experience for greenies like me. That's why in 2016 while thinking of a great vacation, I suggested the Pacific Northwest to my husband.
"It's the only rain forest in North America!" I really wanted to go to Iguazu Falls on the Argentine-Brazil border, but I was afraid. Afraid of international situations that might arise involving corrupt officials, kidnapped Americans, and other risks that world travelers shrug off. Why am -- was I so terrified of international travel? In my twenties I worked with an insurance advisor and saw policies protecting companies who employ Americans in foreign countries against kidnap/ransom situations. I never forgot that. It probably isn't as high a risk as I feel it to be, but obviously that made a hard impression on me.
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| Oliver at Lake Quinault Lodge |
The internet makes it so easy to plan the perfect trip! I searched for rain forests and discovered Hoh in what is known by modern European-Americans as the Olympic Peninsula. To the indigenous people who lived in the region thousands of years before Columbus got lost on his way to India, there are many names for the areas: Hoh, Makah, Quileute, and Quinault. I booked a room in a cottage at Lake Quinault Lodge for a week in early October 2016. I wanted rain.
In general, I prefer traveling during off-peak seasons to avoid the clutter of tourists and kids who need a nap.
We took an Amtrak bus from Santa Rosa to the Stockton train station and went north from there via train, passing through parts of northern California I had never seen before...Sacramento, Oroville, Redding, Mount Shasta. I love trains.
I love that you get to see the landscape up close and in sumptuous detail. There were still plenty of gold leaves on broadleaf trees in early October.
Oregon has been my favorite place in the world since I lived there briefly at age seventeen. I spent three months in Dexter and Eugene, and just prior to that a month in Malott, Washington, picking apples. It was unforgettable, the peace and quiet of walking in a misty forest. The ground soft with damp pine needles. The scent! I have always wanted to go back there, to live there, but I don't know anyone, and I guess I was afraid to move to Oregon on my own and make a go of it. I didn't know where to begin at that age. The internet makes migration and exploration so deliciously accessible!
I had visited Seattle in 2012 as part of a work-related trip and had fun exploring the downtown area for a day with a colleague. Her name was Jill. She and I had a fantastic day at the Chihuly Glass Garden, and I wanted to see it again and show it to my husband. It was that exquisite.
We picked up a rental car near the Olympia train station and spent a night in a motel near Aberdeen, arriving at Lake Quinault the following afternoon.
The cottage room was cozy and quaint. I have very simple needs. A clean bed, a good shower, a mini fridge, coffee maker and microwave. It's the natural scenery that makes a vacation everything I need it to be: a serene break from city life.
The Hall of Mosses in the Hoh Rain Forest beckoned and I aimed to gaze upon it. To feel the silence of a sacred place. Some people sit in old cathedrals, and I've done that, too, but it's not the same. It's not the magnitude of feeling that I get from standing in the midst of ancient giants draped in green velvet shushing my city mind. There's nothing else on Earth quite like a rain forest.
And then there are these magical, unexpected, unforgettable moments. You take photos, but really they live in your heart much stronger than the images we share with the unfortunate souls who do not have the luxury of experiencing such places.
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| It was really big and something big took a big bite! |
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| Woolly Bear Caterpillar in the forest surrounding the Lodge |
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| Museums can be interesting, too:) |
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| Fun junk art sculptures in a lot adjacent to Peninsula Foods Store in Quilcene |
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| Last day at Lake Quinault Lodge |
Finally you have to say goodbye to this glorious preserved wilderness and sit on the train tracks for hours staring at the industrial grime of a city, and you tell yourself you'll never take the train again. But eventually you forget that and years later you're on a train, loving the scenery of an exotic place. Vacations are like that.
❤
