2 April 2023

This week we continued our spring break adventure to Washington State. On Sunday we drove to the Dungeness Spit in Sequim. It's the largest natural spit in the world and curves out into the Juan de Luca Strait for 5 miles. The spit is growing longer by 15 feet a year.

 

We celebrated Gib's 16th birthday with cake and candles on the roof of our hotel. And chocolate ship cookies since Gibson doesn't like cake. We had to light the candles several times because the wind kept blowing them out. We love celebrating Gibson. He's understated, efficient, hard working, inventive, curious and kind.

On Monday we drove to the Hoh Rain Forest, a temperate old growth rain forest that is part of the Olympic National Park.

The air in the forest felt extraordinarily clean and healthy to breathe. The water in the creeks was crystal clear.

The tree trunks dripped with moss, life upon life upon life.

Becky counted the tree rings in a newly toppled tree. She counted to 210 before the rings became indistinguishable from the tree bark. 

We had to drive through Forks to get to the Hoh Rain Forest. Before 2005, the biggest thing to happen in Forks was the spotted owl controversy. After 2005, Forks became famous as the location for Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series.

La Push, another tiny village near Forks, is also famous because of the books. An enterprising restaurant set up a wolf/vampire treaty line in their parking lot.

This is the other side of the sign.

Becky's mom and Uncle Mike used to go deep sea fishing out of La Push. As far as we could tell, fishing is literally the only thing that happens in La Push. Fishing and Twilight fan photos.

The beach at La Push is beautiful.

The region contains the ancestral and current homes of a group of indigenous people called the Salish tribes. There are dozens of different tribes that share related languages. Some Salish languages have gone extinct and others are only spoken by a few dozen people. We saw several signs with a distinctive Salish alphabet. This sign from a gas station is written in Klallum, the traditional language of the Elwha tribe.

On Tuesday we left the Olympic Peninsula and drove to Seattle. Helen applied to and was accepted at the University of Washington. We toured their beautiful campus. This is the reading room in the main library.

UWs world famous cherry blossom trees were blooming during our visit. Besides a beautiful campus, UW offers a world class education and made a very favorable impression on Helen.

We headed east from Seattle, stopping at Snoqalmie Falls for a short hike and a few photos.

Here's a view of the falls from the bottom. We then drove to Wenatchee, Washington, famous for being home to Nate's family. Brandan and Becky met Robb and Debbie last year, but this was our first time to meet his brothers and sisters and for them to meet Helen and Gibson. They are a delightful family, but, sadly, we took no photos.

On Wednesday we explored Leavenworth, a charming German town near Wenatchee.

The mountain setting is stunning and the buildings are adorable.

We stopped at a Danish bakery in the middle of all the German-ness.

Brandan and Becky left Helen and Gibson in town while we hiked the Tumwater Pipeline Trail recommended by Robb and Debbie.

Melting snow had flooded the bridge across the Wenatchee River. We used stepping stones and chunks of ice co cross and stay mostly dry.

The trail was covered in packed snow. Most of the time the snow was hard enough to walk on top. Breaking through the snow crust unexpectedly added a little adventure to our hike. We can see why Nate's family chose to live in such a beautiful spot.

We explored a little around downtown Wenatchee.

Sofi recommended a burger stop to us that looked like a dive, but served excellent burgers for Helen and Gibson and beet falafel for Brandan and Becky. We drove home on Thursday and Gibson met the requirement for 100 hours practice driving, a goal he has been working on for 10 months. We had a fantastic trip, met up with great people, and enjoyed each other's company along the way.