Rolling Out the Redwood Carpet

We had two days of winning weather with which to enjoy the redwoods of northern California (NorCal). The morning in Crescent City broke sunny, but not completely cloudless. There was haze on the horizon and a few cirrus clouds above to take on the pink of sunrise. Two lines of pelicans glided past the Battery lighthouse (very picturesque). Then, as the light grew, gulls arrived in numbers and a squadron of cormorants took up post on a rock. A number of bulbous objects were scattered on the water near the shore -- a look through the binoculars revealed that they were harbor seals bobbing in the water, only their heads above the surface. From time to time, a couple seals would thrash about in some kind of game or dispute, but mostly the seals just hung in the water (or, I suppose it's possible the water was shallow and they were standing on their back fins). We stayed until the noon checkout time to milk full value from the balcony view. By then the sky had cleared nearly completely, and did completely clear that afternoon.

Heading south we soon entered the Redwoods National and State Parks. Sure enough, there were lots of redwoods, being everything redwoods should be -- tall, stately, arranged in cathedrals of hushed air and mottled light, with soft, fern-covered floors. Redwoods are the tallest trees -- nay, tallest living things -- in the world, reaching heights of 370 feet. (Their cousins, the sequoias, are the largest trees in terms of total volume, but don't grow quite as tall.) And they live for hundreds, even thousands, of years. It is humbling, in a comforting way, to walk or drive among them.

We pulled into the first of the state parks (Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park) to check out the visitor center. It was everything a visitor center should be: log construction; interior low and dark; fireplace; light reflecting soft and golden off the pine paneling; display cases of stuffed animals; exhibits on the trees and Native American culture; small gift shop/bookstore; a place to which you would love to be assigned as a park ranger.

We next detoured from 101 to go past the historic Requa Inn, driving steeply up to an overlook high above the mouth of the Klamath River. Those of you who pay attention to environmental/natural resource issues will recognize that name -- there have been huge disputes in dry years over whether the water in the Klamath should be taken out for irrigation or left in for salmon. And then there have been fights about whether the Klamath salmon themselves should be left in or fished out. The mouth of the river was nearly completely dammed by a sand bar, and in the still water behind it a number of rowboats held fishermen. Looking one direction was the vast blue Pacific, looking the other direction was the Klamath River Valley, with redwoods and other pines recessing back and up to mountain peaks.

Back on 101 we crossed the Klamath on a bridge guarded at both ends by golden bears. The bears originally were gray. The citizens of Klamath decided they needed to spruce up things and painted the bears gold. The State painted them gray again, thinking vandals had assaulted the bears. The citizens and state traded paint jobs a few more times until the State realized it was honest citizens and not vandals that wanted the bears golden, and put away its gray paint pots.

On the other side of the river we started up a coastal drive and went as far as an overlook on the other side of the Klamath River mouth. But then the road turned into bumpy dirt and I put my tail between my wheels and turned around. Several miles further south on 101 I saw another sign for a coastal drive; it too soon turned to dirt and I realized it was the other end of the same bumpy road. So back to 101 for more redwoods and less coast. A few miles along, the road turning left to the parking lot for Lady Bird Johnson Grove was fully paved, so we confidently followed it. From the parking lot, you cross a handsome redwood footbridge to a nature trail loop. There were redwoods with little caves at their bases; a redwood hollowed, split partly opened, and painted black inside by a fire; some immense redwood logs; trees that weren't redwoods; and lots of tall, tall redwoods. A Stellar jay flirted on the path and in nearby branches. I went as far as the small clearing where a ceremony was held in 1969, dedicating this primeval forest grove to Lady Bird Johnson in honor of her Beautify America program, then returned to the car where Mary Lou had retreated from the mosquitoes (she'd had a banana for breakfast, a good mosquito attractant).

Back on 101, we stopped for lunch at the "world famous" Palm Cafe in Orick and admired the town's zip code -- 95555. Soon after starting up our drive again we pulled into the Redwood National Park Information Center, a handsome building of the modern height-and-light architectural style, whose back door opened on to the beach. Its exhibits focused on the native Yurok culture. Further down 101 we pulled into Patricks Point State Park. When we saw there was a fee for entering we planned to turn around, but the ranger very nicely gave us a pass good for 40 minutes -- enough time to view the stunning Agate Beach spreading a few hundred feet below the camping area, and the waves crashing on Wedding Rock on the rocky cliff segment of the shore. With that, we were out of official Redwood Park for the moment, and in from the coast, all the way to Eureka, our resting place for the night.

The next morning was again beautifully sunny. Having now read the tourist brochures, I see that we gave Eureka short shrift, but I was anxious about making Fort Bragg by nightfall -- we had made reservations there, assuming reservations would be required for a beach town on Friday night of Labor Day weekend. So we buzzed right out of Eureka and down 101, but then soon took the exit to Ferndale. Beginning in southern Oregon, there had been beautiful pink pampas grass growing along the road, always in places where stopping for a picture would be hazardous. Right at Fernbridge (where a long historic bridge crosses the Eel River), I saw photo-accessible pampas grass. In making the turn to them, we discovered a roadside produce stand, where I bought a crenshaw melon, some plumcots (hybrid of plums and apricots), and a square of honeycomb from a friendly but imperative saleswoman. Then we drove into Ferndale, a dairy town with a number of Victorian buildings, many of them sporting impressive picked-out paint jobs.

The next stop off 101 was Scotia, an honest-to-God company town right here in the 21st century, owned by the Pacific Lumber Company. However, it will not be a company town for long, as PALCO is working on selling the infrastructure to neighboring Rio Dell and the houses to the residents. Mary Lou went into the museum which is housed in a former bank. It has typical impressive bank architecture -- columns and pediments -- but all made of redwood. I took pictures of the train engine and logging equipment on the museum lawn, and of a duck-crossing sign that had silhouettes of a momma duck and 4 ducklings, one of whom had fallen on its face. Aww.

Back in the car we drove past the immense PALCO sawmill to 101 and then soon exited again onto the Avenue of the Giants. This is a scenic alternate route that runs close to the 101 freeway but provides a much more intimate experience of the redwoods. The maximum comfortable speed on the road is 35 or 40, and often the asphalt comes right up to the trunk of a living redwood. There are a number of groves named after a patron civic group, and there are a variety of kitschy stops with redwood wonders and shops selling burl furniture and boxes, bowls, plaques, etc. made of redwood. We pulled in to view the Immortal Tree, aged 950-1000 years, with a height of 248 feet. It had made it to 298 feet, but a lightening bolt lopped off 50 feet -- Thor must have felt threatened. Next stop was lunch at the Eternal Tree cafe in Redcrest. We ate at a picnic table with a Stellar jay flitting nearby (I saw lots of Stellar jays throughout the redwoods. If you recall all the way back from the Green River raft trip, they have black crowns similar to a cardinal, and are very dignified-beautiful.) The Eternal Tree spot made me think of the '50's: cafe serving hamburgers, hotdogs, and homemade blackberry cobbler; low profile gift shop with red and green neon signs ("gifts", "burls", "open"); and the Eternal Tree House -- a 20 ft space hewn from the base of a redwood, complete with a door and windows. The tree was 2500 years old when its trunk was felled in the early 1900's to make, among other things, ties for the railroad. (Yes, 2500-year-old redwood used for railroad ties!!!!) But the loss of its trunk and the hollowing of its base did not kill the tree -- healthy offspring grow from its roots and from the burl on top of the stump.

We drove into the Women's Clubs Grove, which has an even more narrow, tree-hugging road than the Avenue, and then made a stop at the Humboldt Redwoods State Park visitor center. It has a log from a tree that began growing in 1148 and fell over in 1987 after achieving 300 feet of height. Plates on the 9-ft cross section identify rings associated with major historical events. Near the center of the cross section is a plate showing the tree ring from 1215, when the Magna Carta was signed. About half-way from the center is the ring corresponding to Columbus landing in America (1492).

We passed up the drive-through trees, the one-log house, and other woodland marvels, and left 101 at Leggett to head over the hills to the coast on Route 1. Noticing the "Last Service for 28 Miles" sign and the flashing dot on my gas tank meter, I stopped in Leggett for $3.69/gallon gas. Ouch. The road was about the most twisty highway I've ever been on. Some of the hairpin turns just kept turning and turning -- speeds above 10 mph not advisable. We twisted our way into fog and had high fog all along the coast to Fort Bragg. As we drove I saw and smelled my first eucalyptus trees on this trip. I think of eucalyptus as quintessential NorCal, although it is in fact an import from Australia and, apparently, doesn't go further north than Mendocino County.

We passed a number of "vacancy signs" before reaching our high-priced sure-fire reservation. But upon walking into the room, it clearly was worth the premium -- our sliding doors provided a beautiful ocean view. A number of gulls were on the sidewalk just beyond our little patio and, upon seeing me, edged closer in hopes of hand outs. I never saw anyone feeding the gulls, but they were nice and plump. On a walk on the bluff above the breakers, I saw ice plant for the first time this trip. This is a succulent ground cover that I also think of as quintessential California, although it apparently also doesn't like to go above Mendocino.

It was still foggy in the morning. Going out to the car, I saw two black horses joyfully running together through a foggy field across the road -- nature imitates art. We drove to Mendocino and looked for consumer opportunities in some of the shops. Even in the fog-muted light, the flower colors in the gardens were bright and vivid. We saw several stands of "pink ladies" -- a bright pink, lily-like flower that grows about a foot high, with no foliage (thus, their other name -- naked ladies). By Albion, it was after noon and still quite foggy. Since I was not feeling at all deprived of ocean views, and had seen the coast south of that point, we decided to turn inland at route 128 to find some sun. It indeed appeared within a very few miles. This route afforded us another redwood experience -- the Navarro River Redwoods State Park. After that we were in the beautiful golden hills: the roly-poly hills in this part of the world are covered by tall grass that turns golden brown in the dry summer (and emerald green in the rainy winter). Contrasting against the golden grass are the dark green live oaks; the effect is lovely, especially on a clear, sunny day like we had. We had an outdoor barbeque lunch at the Navarro General Store, wound down the road through the golden hills, and then entered wine country, where some of the gold is replaced by green vines in neat rows. We turned onto a narrow, winding road through vineyards, stole two ripe grapes off a vine dripping with purple clusters, and purchased some wine for my parents at the Quivira tasting room. I then proceeded to get us somewhat lost in wine country, but we eventually made it to my parents' home in Santa Rosa.

On Sunday my parents took us to Jack London State Park for a picnic and tour. Turns out London was more interested in innovative farming than in writing (but had to write to fund his failed farming experiments). The site of his farm in the Valley of the Moon is now a state park. You can tour the modest clapboard farm house, the stone buildings for various farm functions, the "pig palace", the elegant stone home built by London's wife after his death -- now a museum holding artifacts from their world travels, and the charred ruins of Wolf House -- a stone mansion the Londons built but never lived in, as it burned down before they moved in. (Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Eccles. 1:2) On Monday we had barbeque and abstained from labor.

On Tuesday I drove Mary Lou up to Lake Tahoe. We stopped at a produce store in the hot Sacramento valley. It had exotic items such as prickly pears (4 for a dollar), dried fruit of every ilk, and nuts with wondrous flavors, such as jalapeno lemon almonds. At Sacramento, we left I-80 for Route 50, and then took Alt 50 to 88. This was a gorgeous drive through US Forest land in the Sierra Nevadas, with practically no commercial development of any kind. The route took us past several pretty mountain lakes, surrounded by pine and light gray granite. At the tops of ridges, bleached pine carcasses were dramatic atop granite boulders against the azure sky. Small chamisa bushes were in yellow bloom along the road.

We reached the Tahoma home of Mary Lou's friends Earl and Louise at dinner time, so turned right around and went to South Tahoe for Chinese food. On the trip back, we got to see the full moon above Emerald Bay. At another opening to a lake view, I saw a shooting star fall next to the moon's trail on the water. The next morning, after an excellent breakfast from Earl and Louise, I said good-bye to Mary Lou and drove around the lake. This took me into Nevada, bringing to 25 the number of states I have touched on this trip (AR, CA, CO, ID, IL, IN, IA, KY, MD, MN, MO, MT, NV, NM, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, SD, TN, TX, WA, WI, WY), not to mention the District of Columbia and the Province of Manitoba (when I visited the International Peace Park at the border of North Dakota). It was the perfect kind of September day, making the blue of the lake and the blue of the sky and the blue of the far shore mountains a symphony of blue, with green pine counterpoint. It engendered many requirements for photo stops. Then I returned to Santa Rosa for a couple more days of parental visiting.

Friday my parents and I separately drove to the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco to see the Monet in Normandy exhibit (you've seen many of the exhibit's paintings on posters, calendars and coasters). I also enjoyed the Rodin sculptures inside the museum, the statute of a zealous Jean D'Arc on the lawn, and the many blackbirds huddled on the marigolds next to the entrance walk. Then I said goodbye to my parents and drove to my brother's home in Redwood City.

And here I am. The not-so-young woman has gone west. This annventure is done, and another kind of annventure now begins.

So this is my last Annventurer blog entry, unless I decide to do an epiblog. It has been grand. Thank you for joining me.

--Ann

California, Here I Come!

In the morning, Mary Lou shopped at the Birkenstock outlet while I sent out the previous blog entry at the state-of-the-art Lincoln City public library. On our way out of town we passed the "D" River. The sign said it was the shortest river in the world, but they will have to duke it out with the Roe River near Great Falls, MT, which claims it is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the shortest. The Roe is definitely shorter than the D, but we probably could have a lively debate about what qualifies as a river.

The day, although cloudy, was another parade of stunning ocean scenery. It seems each county claims to have one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in Oregon. And, actually, they all do. Our first major stop was a viewpoint at the outskirts of Depoe Bay. A state park employee showed us where we could spot gray whales blowing water spouts. He said whales had been seen close in, right in Depoe Bay. We went there and a fluke was disappearing into the water as I got out of the car. We saw a number of blows and gray backs, many quite near to shore. Then we moved on down 101 to the Devil's Punch Bowl, formed when the ceiling of two adjoining caves collapsed. You can look down into the bowl and watch the waves pour in through a former cave door. At an espresso kiosk there, the barista told me it had been her busiest summer ever. I asked, "The gas prices haven't kept people away?" She said there had been lots of Canadians taking advantage of the favorable exchange rate, and lots of Germans.

The next stop was the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. It was picturesque (aren't all lighthouses?). Just south of Waldorf, we stopped at the Governor Patterson Memorial State Park and took in a strong dose of wave mesmerization. Then we pulled into the Landmark restaurant on the estuary in Yachats for a late lunch/early supper (lupper?). We had a splendid view of the estuary, thickly strewn with seagulls floating in the still water, and the waves breaking at the mouth of the river. I had a delicious cioppino (Italian seafood soup). Right outside the window by our table, a substantially-sized Western gull stood on one leg throughout our meal. It twice stretched the free leg behind it, and once set that leg down for about 5 seconds, but otherwise spent the better part of an hour standing on the same single leg and giving us a gimlet eye, never showing the slightest bit of imbalance. The waitresses said they thought the gull had figured out that such a show would produce French fries from the diners, which is why it was so fat. It indeed got a French fry from me upon our departure.

We turned in at the sign to the Hecate lighthouse -- the most photographed light house in Oregon, possibly in the world! (As Mary Lou said, How do they know that?) From the parking lot, the lighthouse was hiding behind trees, and neither of us had the inclination to take the trail up to it. But 101 soon had a turnout that gave one a perfect view back to the lighthouse. I went up to the wall of the turnout to take a picture, but first looked down and gasped. A man standing nearby chuckled, knowing I had just seen that the rock below was carpeted with sea lions lying in the sun (which had finally come out). He said there were sea lions on all the rocks going around the corner of the point, and sure enough there were. There was also a gray whale spouting out in the ocean. The sea lions took to grunting as a few argued over rock real estate.

Not long after this, a turnout gave a view of the start of the sand dunes. We continued on, passing numerous signs to beaches. At Coos Bay we got a little lost, ending on a road that dead ended at Cape Arago State Park. But it was worth it, because at Sunset Beach there were a zillion seals barking a hallelujah chorus with the sun low behind them, and at the terminus of the road we saw a black-tail deer and her adorable fawn feeding at her teat, then looking up at us ever so cutely. We turned around and retraced our steps, then turned where a sign pointed to Bandon, our agreed-upon stopping point. The road was labeled Discovery Drive and followed a ridge through forest, with absolutely no development -- beautiful and nerve-wracking as the sun set and painted the sky fuchsia and gold. We finally made it to Bandon in the dark. The motel directions said Highway 42, 2 blocks from 101. The only highway intersecting 101 in Bandon was 425. Turns out they are the same thing. 42 equals 425, give or take a 5.

Wednesday morning brought the lovely surprise of not being cloudy/foggy, but bright and clear. Mary Lou, who lived in San Francisco 30 years, says this is the pattern -- about three days of morning fog, then a clear day. I sat on the Coquille jetty, listening to the fog horn and watching the waves take on light as the sun rose. We had breakfast at the Station in Bandon, did laundry, washed the car, and, sparkling as the day, continued south.

The sun made the beautiful Oregon coast impossibly ravishing. At the south end of Bandon, we walked a loop of trail above the beach and its ocean-set rocks. We saw a whale at the overlook at Port Orford, near the "Port of Port Orford" (honest, that's what the sign said). We ate lunch at a table with an ocean view at a Gold Beach restaurant. We had a tire repaired in Brookings (no flat tire hassle, but I'd noticed a slow leak which turned out to be due to a screw). And otherwise we simply drove through miles of an eye-candy feast of a blue ocean with a white lace collar of foam, set against dramatic cliffs and sculpted rocks.

And then we reached the California state line. I'm home! To celebrate, I splurged on a room at a resort right on the ocean in Crescent City (at the northwest corner of California). Our balcony looks right at a picturesque (of course) lighthouse, and a garden of rocks in the ocean. It must be a fertile area, because in the late afternoon light scads of gulls and pelicans wheeled over the water, and harbor seals frolicked and dove between the rocks. I've watched both the sun and the moon set into the black sea. It doesn't get much better than this.

Just a few more days of this adventure. Next stop: Redwoods.

Coasting in Oregon

In Portland, Mary Lou and I were graciously treated to a home cooked meal and comfortable beds by her friends Joan and John. On Saturday I visited with my friend Matt. Matt bought me lunch which we ate sitting outside at a cafe in the Alphabet District -- the weather was exactly the right temperature for being comfortable outside in shorts. Then I picked up Mary Lou and we joined my friend Trena for coffee. Thus, it was relatively late before we left the city, going up to Route 4 in Washington so I could have the leisurely drive along the Columbia River I hadn't had time for the previous day. It was a Saturday in August; it was not clever to have headed toward the ocean without reservations somewhere. We found no rooms at the inns along Route 4, so went across the wide Columbia at the Astoria bridge -- actually two bridges and a causeway strung together. The bridge on the Oregon side is a dizzying high arch so that ships can pass through to go up the river. In Astoria we got the last room at a motel on the main drag -- several other people were turned away as I registered. Phew! After putting on warm clothes (it was much colder in Astoria than in Portland), we had a delicious dinner of ribeye steak and halibut fish & chips. As we left the restaurant, I noticed a table of a dozen people wearing t-shirts that said "The Adventure of a Lifetime" and asked them about it. They had run from the top of Mt. Hood to the Pacific in 36 hours, as a relay team. Hmmm. I think I like my adventure better.

In the morning, upon awaking, I left in search of coffee. Having immediately spotted a Burger King and a McDonalds, and seeing the river only a block away, I went toward the river first. The Sunday morning was quiet, cloaked with high fog. Apart from an occasional car on the main street, the only sound was an intermittent foghorn. By the river I watched a pilot boat race downstream. A few moments later, the fog horn grew very loud and then a huge container ship appeared going upstream. It was very close -- the channel is near the Oregon shore, as is the arch in the bridge. The pilot boat I had seen a minute before was a midget escort at the side of the ship, which was labeled China Shipping Lines. Many of the containers also said China Shipping. I've noticed that a large number of the containers on trains throughout Washington and Montana have had Chinese names -- concrete evidence of the rise of the Chinese economy we hear so much about. I walked long the river a little and found a "riverfront park" -- rather a pocket park, consisting of a small board plaza and an observation tower right next to water. Next to it was the Cannery Cafe that looked cozy and inviting. I went back to the motel and collected Mary Lou and we returned to the cafe. We ate at a table next to the water and watched the Columbia roll on and roll on.

After packing up and checking out, we drove onto some side streets of Astoria with the fog lifting. I was looking for the library, but we first found the visitor center for the historic Flavel House. About half the gifts were tea cups or tea paraphernalia; the attendant said the Flavels drank a lot of tea. Understandable with this foggy weather. The public library was down the street and was closed. But further down the street, very open and very lively, was the Astoria Sunday market. After a taste test, I bought what were possibly the best peaches and blackberries I've had in my life.

We left Astoria and drove just a few miles south before turning a bit inland to the Fort Clatsop National Memorial. This is at the site of Lewis & Clark's encampment for the winter of 1805-1806. As at Fort Mandan in North Dakota, there is a replica of the small log fort the Corps of Discovery built -- awfully close quarters. There also was a path to the spring they probably used -- dry right now -- and a path through the forest to the canoe landing on the Netul River, now the Lewis & Clark River, with replicas of dugout canoes. The view across the sluggish channel of water and yellow fields to the green hills was lovely.

This was my last intersection with the Lewis & Clark trail (although I still have a long way to go with the "Undaunted Courage" CDs). Having bid adieu to those intrepid explorers, these explorers headed down 101, which provides a rapid-fire succession of spectacular viewpoints and beaches. Many stops for pictures and for detours into cute little beach resorts were required. Lunch was clam chowder in Seaside and watching bored teenagers trying to act cool on their beach vacation. Cannon Beach provided views of the famous "haystack" rocks. The Nehalem turnout provided an awesome view of a sharp curve in the shore line, with waves brushing a steep cliff at one end. The pullout had a sign that said "Rock Work", and there indeed was an impressive rock wall propping up the road, but there was no information on how, who, why, when. [I've since learned it was done under the New Deal Works Administration Program, along with 5 of the impressive bridges along the Oregon Coast road.] There was information on Oswald West, the far-sighted governor who set aside Oregon's coast for the public during his term of 1911-1915. Thank you Oswald!

We stopped for the night at Rockaway Beach and watched until the sun was low and golden on the ocean and dunes. The next day again broke foggy. I went down to the beach and had it all to myself. After an attempt to find a better way to pack the car, we continued south. Despite the high fog, there still were beautiful beach vistas. We stopped in Tillamook (as in cheese) to check email at the public library and eat seafood (halibut sandwich, oyster burger, clam chowder) at a restaurant recommended by the librarian. Then a crawl down to Pacific City where I blogged some at their library, and then to our resting place in Lincoln City. We made 111 miles in only two days! At this rate, I should be to California by Christmas. Hmmm. Maybe need to pick up the pace. Sure is hard to resist stopping for this dramatic coastal scenery.

Olympic Glory

I have failed in the previous entry or two to rhapsodize about the pines of coastal Washington, and correct that now. They are fantastic -- very tall, stately, rich dark green, with full symmetric boughs. Just about every acre of land that isn't covered by water, pavement, or crops is rich pine forest. Within a grove of those pines, it is hushed, soul-lifting, peaceful.

From Jamestown, 101 went northwest up to Sequim, where I took the scenic loop through Dungeness, right next to the Dungeness Bay and the long spits of land hooking into it. Then another few miles to Port Angeles for a dinner of delicious halibut fish and chips at a restaurant right on the blue water. The road then turned more inland and wound through pine clad hills and around the edge of Crescent Lake, as fog returned and hurried the darkening of the evening. With night nigh, I found a room in Forks, in the heart of logging country. The desk clerk told me they had seen no sun that day, and the next morning was still completely overcast. The forecast gave no hope for anything else, but as I left Forks late morning, the clouds lifted and the day became beautifully sunny and bright. The landscape now was a mixture of denuded polygons of hillside, short regrowth pine groves, and tall pine forest in areas long undisturbed. Periodically, a sign near the road would provide a chronology of when an area had been harvested, replanted, harvested again, etc.

At the Hoh River, I turned east and followed the river up the mountain and into the Hoh Rainforest National Park. This area receives more than 150 inches of rain per year. It is a pine rainforest -- enormous Sitka spruce, Western hemlock, Douglas fir and redwood cedar, trunks velvety green with moss, branches draped with epiphytes (plants that can live just on air -- they don't hurt the trees, but use them as platforms). Soon after entering the park, there was a turnout labeled Large Spruce. This Sitka spruce was 275+ feet tall, 12.5+ feet wide at breast height, and 500-550 years of age. Up at the Visitor Center, there were trails through the lush forest, with tiers of greens from ferns on the ground to needles at the tree tops. Obviously, I was very fortunate to be there on a rainless day. It was a sight to look straight up and see the spiky tops of pines 100+ feet up, green against the clear blue sky.

Shortly after regaining Route 101, I turned at the Ruby Beach sign, and there was the blue Pacific below me. My heart took a thump to see it after all these days of driving across the Continent. (I can only imagine how Lewis & Clark felt at their first sight of the Pacific.) The road went downslope to a parking lot, and from there one had a spectacular window through the pines to the beach below, thickly littered with bleached pine logs, and with a handful of enormous rocks scattered into the ocean at one side. A foot trail descended to the beach, which was coated with gray, wave-polished pebbles ranging from gravel to palm-of-hand size, all relatively flat, like a round potato knish. Since there was not sufficient sand for traditional sand castles, inventive engineers had created frame sculptures of driftwood logs and towers of pebbles stacked in descending size. Towering over the beach was a high bluff dense with flowers, shrubs and pines. The waves were small -- nothing you could surf, but they made plenty of pleasant crashing as I walked the length of the beach.

Next was 4th Beach, with a new set of driftwood on the pebbles and rocks amongst the waves. As I walked down the path, a girl was coming up holding a net in one hand and a bucket in the other. The bucket was filled with skinny silver fish, about 6 inches long; the girl said they were smelt. On the beach, the tide was out, so that one could look in pools of stranded water in the rocks and see gardens of sea anemones. As I did so, low clouds swiftly blew in and covered the sky, turning all the color to gray and silver and giving the beach an eerie feeling. About 10 minutes later the clouds just as swiftly blew away, brushing the pines as they departed inland, and it was again sunny with the blues of sea and sky, the intense white of foam, and the greens of pine and ground cover.

Filled with sunshine, surf sound, and ocean breeze, I continued southward. The road soon turned inland across the Quinalt Indian Reservation and went past Lake Quinalt. At Hoquiam, with one small flag of cloud turning pink, I stopped for the night. In the late morning, with the fog lifting, I continued south through the forested hills. At Raymond on the Willapa, I took a quick look at the Public Market on the Willapa, basically a tiny version of Pike Place Market, and purchased a yummy banana nut muffin. The road then followed the Willapa River to Willapa Bay, went around the bay, and then went west to Cape Disappointment, the tippiest tip of the north side of Columbia River. It was so named by Captain John Meares who in 1788 interpreted the sand bars at the mouth of the Columbia to mean there was no huge river as rumored and no Northwest Passage. He was wrong about the former, right about the latter. At the Cape I toured the North Head Lighthouse, shrouded in fog, and then the very well done Lewis & Clark Interpretative Center. It had several hands-on exhibits that gave one a concrete feel for how difficult their journey was, such as trying to load a model dugout canoe without tipping it over, and sighting a rifle on pictures of game, sized to look as if they were 100 yards away. Thank goodness I have a car and an abundance of restaurants!

From the Interpretative Center, there was a beautiful view of the Cape Disappointment lighthouse. I didn't take time to walk out to it, which was fortunate, as I ended up speeding to get to Portland in time to pick up my friend Mary Lou at the airport. The next entry will tell you about our first couple days on the Oregon Coast!

Sound Adventures

Have had a lovely family reunion time. We lucked out with a streak of clear, sunny days. It would have been a great vacation just staying in the rental home, with its redwood deck and hot tub, fireplaces, large comfy sectionals, big screen TVs, and 3 block walk to the Puget Sound. But we also took the ferry to Kingston and back, strolled through the Edmonds farmer's market filled with fresh peaches and berries, candied nuts, artwork and crafts, smoked salmon, etc., visited Pike Place Market in Seattle, and drove up Whidbey Island. We also ate a lot.

At the farmer's market, I put my little toe into modern fashion and got a henna tattoo on my wrist and hand. Ah, the freedom of unemployment!

The Pike Place Market in Seattle is near the harbor and is a huge covered structure filled with shops of produce, fish, flowers, etc. For those of you who know Eastern Market in DC -- it's like that but much larger. The original Starbucks is there, with the original Starbucks logo in which you can tell it's a mermaid (well, actually, a mesuline, with two tails). There were a number of quite good street musicians, and seas of tourists so that simply walking in a straight line was a challenge. We had lunch at a Bolivian restaurant. Mark and I had the halibut, which, as Mark said, was how fish should taste -- it was the best fish I've eaten since a visit to Boston in the '80's. The harbor was sparkling blue and busy with container ships, ferries, sailboats, motorboats, a parasailer, etc. There were baskets of brightly colored flowers everywhere, and a joyful interplay between hot sun and cool breezes.

I had gone to Edmonds driving down Whidbey Island under clouds, but with the family drove back up the island in sunshine. We stumbled into Coupeville, an adorable historic waterfront town within Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve. We got ice cream cones at Kapow Iskreme (the chocolate mousse ice cream is to die for) and wandered around the boutiques and galleries in the perfect weather. Then we drove on, stopping for a look at the absolutely quaint Captain Whidbey lodge, made of madrona logs, pine paneling, and rustic charm. Another stop at Deception Pass, which separates Whidbey and Fildago Islands and is traversed by an impressive cantilever bridge, and then we joined the heavy traffic on I-5 to return to Edmonds.

Tuesday morning the more typical clouds were back. We drove under them to Tacoma and got a tour of the University of Puget Sound where my niece is tanking up on Knowledge. It is just what a college campus should be -- dignified brick buildings, a large field suitable for frisbee, ivy-covered walls, arches, pine groves, a compact student center with book store, dining hall, pizza cellar, cafe, and cozy lounge, a handsome library with a studious hush, and a collection of theme houses for students who want to try on an identity.

I then joined my parents in a tour of Union Station in Tacoma -- formerly the grand train station and now the grand U.S. courthouse -- and the Museum of Glass. The courthouse and museum are joined by the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, a pedestrian bridge over the freeway that has a pavilion with a Chihuly glass ceiling, a wall of Chihuly vases and sculptures, and two towers of Chihuly blue polyvitro crystals looking somewhat like huge strings of blue rock candy. There also are several Chihuly pieces in the atrium of the courthouse. The museum has a several-story-high steel cone that houses the Hot Shop, where you can spend all day, if you wish, watching glass being blown or sculpted. My favorite exhibit in the museum was Absence Adorned, life-size diaphanous dresses by Karen LaMonte, made of frosted glass and sculpted into the form they would have if someone were wearing them, except there is only air where the body would be.

Then it was time to say good bye and go our separate ways. I had to take I-5 to get to Olympia, then exited for a drive around the state capitol grounds before heading north on 101. I ate dinner at a roadside crabshack, watching the sun on the water as I sipped clam chowder and munched onion rings. Then I stopped for the night in Brinnon, at the Bay View Motel, at which I in fact had a bay view, as well as a huge room from which to watch the sunset light on the pines and water.

The clouds were all back for the morning. I took my time departing, and then, almost immediately after leaving the motel, pulled into Seal Rock campground. It had a boardwalk nature trail through the pine and madrona forest at the edge of the bluff above Dabob Bay (a fjord off of Hood Canal), and then stairs to the rocky beach. The tide was out, and about a 20-foot depth of the beach rocks were coated with oysters. Some rocks had a cluster of oyster shells, with one half of the shell glued to the rock and the other fallen or torn away, revealing the white mother of pearl -- the effect was of a flowering rock. At one point I walked to the water's edge and discovered a colony of large, fat, purplish starfish clinging to the bases of rocks. At another point I came across a jellyfish the size of a dinner plate stranded on the beach, looking as though a ball of red wax or plastic had melted at that spot. Oh, and there were some blackberries hanging down from the bluff. There also had been a wall of blackberry bushes next to the railroad tracks in Edmonds. You could wade in only a little way before you were in danger of slipping and falling into a thorny mess. Dozens of deep purple berries dangled tantalizingly just out of reach. But just one of the reachable berries -- if you picked the ones that essentially fell into your hand when touched -- had more flavor than a Safeway-full of fruit. And to think they are considered a weed here!

I am now a few miles north of Seal Rock, at the attractive campus of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, next to Dungeness Bay. It looks like the sun is about to come out, so I'm ready for more of Route 101 and the Olympic Peninsula.

Cascading to the Sea

Before recounting the latest happenings, a note on "Expresso". The witty wag Dean has asked what that is, a western spelling of espresso? My dictionary shows it to be a variant spelling. It is not the preferred spelling, but given that Meriwether Lewis had 23 ways of spelling mosquito, I will not apologize. Speaking of that beverage, I no longer see espresso signs on all sorts of establishments, as in Montana, but there is an espresso hut on every corner and another one in the middle of the block.

From Kettle Falls, Route 20 went west through more of the Colville National Forest, over Sherman Pass. I stopped to take a picture of a couple lumber trucks that had pulled into a turnout in the midst of the forest road. The drivers told me that, at the logging site, there was a machine that automatically cut the tree trunks into 16 foot lengths and stripped the branches. It was then easy to pick up the pile of logs and put them on the trucks. At the sawmill, another machine can strip the bark and cut the log into boards in two seconds! Those two big truck loads would be cut up in about two minutes. The amount of lumber consumed in this country is hard to fathom. The drivers said it is because 4000 square feet isn't enough any more -- everyone wants a 10,000 square foot house.

Further along the road I stopped at Camp Growden. This had been a camp for the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC was a New Deal program that put 300,000 young men to work, mostly on conservation and infrastructure projects in the national forests. The gate to the camp said "Little America", because there were men from all over the US. That gate is all that is left of the camp now, but interpretative signs provide pictures and a letter home from one of the camp members, lauding the bountiful food at the camp.

The town of Republic had a fun Old West character and information about its mining glory days. After Wauconda, the road dropped out of the pine forest into private land, some farmed, some rangeland. The pines on the hills thinned and then completely gave way to sagebrush and dry prairie grass until dropping into the Okanogan Valley. The sky had been hazy with fire smoke all day, but in Tonasket there was an umbrella of thick yellow smoke. It gave the light at 4 pm the quality of sunset luminescence. Tonasket didn't look particularly old west, but a sign in the gas station market harkened back to another time: "Spitting on sidewalks prohibited. Penalty $5 to $100. Dept. of Health".

Route 20 joined Route 97 in going south through the Okanogan Valley and its apple orchards, then split off again at the town of Okanogan to start up through the Cascades. The smoke grew thicker and, after Loup Loup Pass, columns of smoke from a spot in the mountains revealed the location of the fire. I stopped for a pleasant night at the Winthrop Inn, with dinner a tasty sirloin at The Virginian (Owen Wister, author of The Virginian, lived in Winthrop). As I went into a market to stock up on diet Coke, a group of workers all wearing the same dirty khaki pants and blue t-shirts went in also. I realized they must be firefighters. When I was shoulder to shoulder with them, I saw their t-shirts said "Zuni Hotshots". They are a renown firefighting team from Zuni Pueblo in my native state of New Mexico. Turns out that the North Cascades Smokejumper Base is near Winthrop (as well as a major fire at the moment).

In the morning, the air smelled like a campfire and there was a light dusting of ash on my car. The smoke was much thicker than the previous evening. Between that and a forecast of cloudy, I fussed bout whether to backtrack and go to Leavenworth, a Bavarian theme town, or continue and hope to see something of the Northern Cascades. I finally chose the latter. It was the right choice. Soon after passing through the cute western theme town of Winthrop, the smoke was greatly diminished, and the only clouds all afternoon were the fluffy cumulus that decorate the blue western skies.

The Cascades are right up there with Glacier National Park in splendor and grandeur. However, unlike the lakes in Glacier, the lakes I saw -- Ross and Diablo -- are not natural, but made by dams on the Skagit River. The first dam was built in 1924 and cheap hydropower has been providing Seattle's electricity since. Ross Lake was a deep blue set in the green pines far below the outlook. In the far distance, you could see Desolation Peak, where Jack Kerouac, icon of the 60's counterculture, spent a summer as a fire watcher. I guess it's been clear for some time that Baby Boomers have been running things. Clinton and W are both boomers; the Beatles and Led Zeppelin are standard background music in restaurants. But nothing brought it as home to me as reading the official U.S. Park Service sign discussing and quoting Kerouac and other Beat Generation authors in terms of esteem. Somehow I don't see Park bureaucrats from my parents' generation sanctioning such a sign (although Kerouac actually was born the same year as my parents). Behind Desolation Peak, you could see the Hozomeen Peaks, which are right against the Canadian border.

Diablo Lake was an amazing green-turquoise color, which is due to glacial silt that flows into the lake with the summer melt (the silt is created by rocks grinding against each other under the weight of the glacial snow and ice). There was a large overlook with a number of informative signs high above the lake, and then the road dropped to the level of the lake and followed the Skagit River toward the sea. I went into the North Cascades Visitor Center, which has a huge relief map of the Park and many drawers of rock samples -- a geologist's treasure trove. There is a boardwalk out to a view of the impressive Pickett Range. The walk is lined with signs, each describing a bird; a cardboard picture of the bird was perched in a nearby tree. I had a lot of difficulty spotting the stationary cardboard birds -- no wonder I can't see the real ones. (In my defense, it was a dense, dark forest.)

The night was in Marblemount at the Buffalo Run Inn, in a historic roadhouse building (it and the Winthrop Inn were recommended by my bicyclist friend, Rick), and dinner was buffalo chili at the Buffalo Run Restaurant. Speaking of bicyclists, I saw lots of them the entire width of the Cascades, some in teams, some individually, all intrepidly pressing up the daunting grades.

The next day started overcast, but as I headed out at about 10:30, the clouds had begun to break, and soon there was lots of sunshine to show off the Skagit Valley. At this point, the road was relatively level, and there were farms along the valley floor. Then the ruralness gave way to the town of Sedro-Woolley, and I've not seen undeveloped land since. I passed under I-5 and out to Anacortes and, Pow!, I had made it to the West Coast. From Anacortes I dropped south through Widbey Island. Around Sedro-Woolley, I had driven back under cloud cover, so the views of Puget Sound from Whidbey were of gray water, but were still very beautiful. I picked up most yummy bing cherries, strawberries and blueberries at one of the roadside stands. By the Mukilteo Ferry, the sun was back out, and so it was a lovely ride across the blue Sound to the mainland.

Shunning I-5, I followed boulevards lined with strip malls, car dealerships, big box businesses, and the ever-present espresso huts to Edmonds. My parents, sister and her family, and Cousins Jack and Becky are enjoying a few days in a very nice rental house here, a couple blocks above the Sound. So, it will be a few days until anther blog entry. 'Till then, wishing you fair winds in your sail. --Ann

Wandering in Washington

Sorry for the delay in a new posting. No, the Montana spring water didn't get me; I've just been taking a break from blogging.

I spent the better part of Thursday in Sandpoint, enjoying the window seat in the Ponderay motel, eating a tasty omelette at the Hoot Owl Cafe, hanging out at the Common Knowledge Bookstore and Tea Room (with wireless), and visiting the lovely city park and beach on the edge of the beautiful Lake Pend Oreille. At the end of a pedestrian pier is a small version of the Statue of Liberty. A welcome to immigrants in this radically Right area? Maybe a welcome to New Yorker tourist money. Then I headed west along the Pend Oreille River, with a brief stop at the Albini Falls Dam. Just before Newport, Washington, on a whim, I turned up the county road that hugs the eastern side of the Pend Oreille River. Also on a whim, I turned into the Pioneer Campground, part of the Colville National Forest, and decided to spend the night there. I pitched the tent, then drove back into Newport to pick up a fire log and a wilderness McDonalds dinner. Back at camp in the midst of tall pine trees, I ate my Big Mac and set the log alight in the fire pit. The blaze was sufficient to read by if you sat right by the fire. The temperature was such that sitting outside was comfortable, but sitting next to a fire was also nice. As I read, the moon rose, nearly full and very white behind the screen of pine needles. When the log was consumed, I walked down to the river to see the moon unobstructed. In the dry mountain air, it was a striking, intense platinum. In my years in the hazy humid east, I'd forgotten the moon could look like that, so clean and immediate, making the vast sky seem vaster.

The next day I continued up the county road, enjoying many glimpses of the Pend Oreille River through the pines until an intense thunderstorm reduced visibility. At Ione (eye-own), with the rain abating, I crossed the river and drove into town. Lunch was a delicious chicken fried steak at the Inner Passage Bar and Grill. It is situated on a bend in the river such that its picture windows are filled with a view of the water, almost like a lake, surrounded by the pines and hills. Then south along the west side of the Pend Oreille (Route 31) to the Tiger Market. This is primarily a museum, with a few gift items, an old fashioned cooler of sodas, and a rack of tourism brochures, run by volunteers. It is all that is left of the once thriving town of Tiger. It is at the intersection with Route 20, which I turned onto to go west over the Selkirk Mountains to Colville (CALL-ville). At a stop to view the Crystal Falls, a man with a British accent read my license plate and called to his wife, "Read this. They fought the British and nothing changed." The motto on the DC license plate is "Taxation without Representation". I found the man's ironic remark particularly amusing, because I had just been hearing about the Whiskey Rebellion, in which our Founding Fathers imposed a tax on whiskey produced in the western territories, whose inhabitants had no representation in the matter. (I'm listening to CDs of Undaunted Courage, Steven Ambrose's biography of Meriwether Lewis, focusing on the Lewis & Clark expedition.)

In Colville I viewed the Hixon Castles in a little garden at the Keller Historical Park. These are fantastical structures made of little stones and pebbles. A couple were castles, about 3 feet high, similar to a fancy sand castle creation. Others were fancy pillars and cairns.

After a night in Colville, I decided to take a county road through Aladdin and past Deep Lake to Boundary, a general store just a few hundred yards from the Canadian border, then follow the Columbia River down to Kettle Falls, which is 8 miles west of Colville. This was a very pretty drive, but a cloud hung over it, literally and figuratively. The figurative part was that I hit a deer that leapt into my path shortly after I started up the Aladdin Road. Not wanting to be the cause of death of any sentient being (mosquitoes and cockroaches excepted), I was initially very upset, until the deer staggered upright and then ran up the hill. Thus relieved of that sorrow, I had only to be irked at the dent in my hood -- but at least that was the only damage.

In Kettle Falls, I spent some time at the library. A woman at the other end of the table finished tutoring a boy in common denominators, then came over and asked if those were my DC plates. She had lived in the Washington DC area before moving to this other Washington. After chatting a bit about the local politics, she said good bye and, "Watch out for the deer." Right.

From there, I kept following the Columbia south. Actually, from several miles above Kettle Falls, it was Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir created by the Grand Coulee Dam. The Columbia's valley is steep enough that Lake Roosevelt doesn't have a typical maple leaf outline, but basically just appears as a very wide river. I spent a peaceful hour listening to the lake waters lap at a beach I had all to myself, then continued on to the free ferry at Gifford. This carried me into the Colville Indian Reservation and a windy road westward through the Kettle River Mountains to Route 21. That I followed south to another ferry across Lake Roosevelt (which had made a right turn since Gifford), crossing the water under a blazing red and orange sunset sky. On the other side, the road climbed steeply, with a number of gnarly hair pin curves, up to the plain above the river. This was filled with wheat fields flowing endlessly to the horizon. In one field, 4 or 5 combines, headlights on, were harvesting through the dusk and into the night.

The motel that night was in Wilbur, which sits in the middle of all those wheat fields and provides the only trees for miles around. In the morning I headed southwest on Route 2. It was a bright, clear day. Huge swells of golden wheated land stretched under the enormous blue sky. Hovering not far above the horizon was the gibbous moon, appearing three times its normal size, and ghostly in the daylight. It was near flat-side down, looking like a benediction. In Almira, I saw an honest-to-God working blacksmith shop. In Hartline, a low, conical silo had wheat spilling out from the bottom. I reached Coulee City, which is by Dry Falls Dam at the southern end of Banks Lake, within the Grand Coulee. Coulee is a French word for a deep ravine. The Grand Coulee is an impressive valley created by glacial activity. The Grand Coulee Dam was built not only for hydroelectric power, but also for irrigation of the dust-choked eastern Washington plains. Water from the Columbia is pumped into Banks Lake as an irrigation reservoir. I stopped on the road over the dam for pictures. The cracks of the asphalt shoulder were filled with kernels of wheat; I presume they were the accumulation of a few kernels from each truckload of wheat that passes that way. I followed Route 135 north along Banks Lake, which is clearly named for the wall of vertical rock along the west side of the Grand Coulee, to the Grand Coulee Dam. In the clear day, with the stark walls of rock and the deep blue lake, the views were spectacular.

The Visitor Arrival Center at Grand Coulee Dam is one of the nicest I have ever been in -- great displays that were informative without being either too dumbed down or too overloaded with information, lots of hands-on displays (e.g., a jack hammer you could "operate"), a nice theater for the film about building the dam, and large windows looking at the dam. One of the displays is a simple metal frame showing you how large a cubic yard is, then letting you know the dam that appears immediately out the window contains 12 million cubic yards of concrete. The dam has three power plants -- two original, and a third that has such advanced technology that it alone produces 60% of the power from the dam, enough for the needs of Seattle and Portland. I stopped for a picture under a skyscraper-height transmission line tower and heard the electricity snapping and buzzing far above my head.

Then back to Wilbur via Route 174 (thus making a big circle) and east into Spokane. The land was predominantly wheat fields; closer to Spokane there were stretches of desert grass and sagebrush, sometimes with stands of pines. In Spokane the land was solidly pine covered. In that city I was treated to the warm hospitality of my cousin Jack and his wife Becky. On Sunday, after breakfast of pancakes with home-grown raspberries to die for, they gave a tour of the city. It appears to be a very pleasant place to live. It is in a hilly area with tall lodgepole, spruce and ponderosa pines everywhere. The Spokane River snakes through a deep ravine in the middle of the city. Downtown has a very pretty Riverfront Park, with concrete walks curving through grass and flowers, lots of sculpture, a clock tower left over from railroad days, and a gondola ride over a dramatic, solid rock, falls area of the river. The old main east-west route is very commercial, but, refreshingly, with local businesses instead of the Anywhere America franchise lineup. Interestingly, while there were lots of espresso huts in town (often in what had been gas stations), I saw no Starbucks in the heart of the city -- only on the newer fringes. My sister points out that the espresso culture up here is what would have incubated a Starbucks company, but the established part of the city must have been too saturated too allow an upstart Starbucks franchise. The day was capped with a drive to Coeur d'Alene for a most pleasant dinner on the deck of a floating restaurant, watching dusk fall on the beautiful Coeur d'Alene Lake.

Monday I drove back to Colville via Route 385. The lovely mountainous scenery was hazy from a fresh round of forest fires. I returned to Kettle Falls by simply going west on Route 20 instead of up to international borders patrolled by ferocious deer. From my visit to Grand Coulee Dam, I now know that the Kettle falls and the original town are under the waters of Lake Roosevelt. The town relocated to the site of Myers Falls, which explains why the Myers Falls Interpretative Center is in Kettle Falls. I went to see the historic St. Paul's Mission on a bluff above the river, built in 1847 on the road to the Hudson Bay Company's Fort Colvile, now also under water. The sign for the mission had a picture of Fr. Jean Pierre DeSmet. You may recall that name from South Dakota, near the Minnesota border. That man got around. An interpretative path, from the hewn log mission replica to lake views, went through pine forest, redolent in the 90 degree air, peaceful and hushed with the pine needle cushioning.

After the night in Kettle Falls, I am ready to stop going in circles and to head west to the ocean (well, to the sound). Will let you know all about it.