(Cape) Flattery Will Get You: A Loop Around Our Olympic-(Peninsula)-Sized Backyard

Posted on December 17, 2024 by gretchenwing

As Staycations go, this one would’ve had a hard time failing.

A few months ago we paid for two nights at a rental house at Lake Quinault, only to have our travel companions cancel due to illness.

The renter allowed us to change our dates, so we invited intrepid friends: Ben & Lynn from Asheville, whom we’ve known for decades. They said YES!

Walking in W. Seattle’s Lincoln Park while we waited for their flight, we discovered this altar to LOVE. Seemed a good omen–Brussels sprouts & all.

Since our friends were coming clear across the country, the least we could do was take them all the way around the Olympic Peninsula—a.k.a. part of our Big Backyard, across the Strait from our island.

Ben & Lynn–helping give some scale to the Lincoln Park madrona trees

Starting with the rainforests, at Quinault and the Hoh River, we all re-introduced ourselves to some big friends.

Ben & Gretchen agree, things are looking up.

In those wondrous, drippy forests, the enormous conifers–fir, spruce, cedar & hemlock–get most of the attention…

…whether alive or helping younger trees to be alive…

…but shoutout to the hardwoods, okay? The mosses seem to love the maples best.

One of the nice thing about traveling with another couple is…

…couple photos! We tried not to take TOO much advantage.

Moving up the Olympic coastline from Quinault, one has an embarrassing pick of beaches. Beach Three’s our favorite, for its tidepools, but the tide was too high this time of year. So we got to focus on other wonders–like this natural water feature.

Isn’t that the coolest little pool? We needed a 4 year-old to play in it.

Rialto Beach might be the most in-your-face breathtaking, if ya like that kinda thing

I have another photo of Lynn doing pretty much the same thing!

It was hard to leave the serenity of Lake Quinault. The northern shore of the lake was 95% deserted–all those empty vacation homes, what’s up, people?

But after our two nights, it was on to the furthest northwestern point on the Lower 48: the Makah Reservation at Neah Bay.

Along the way we stopped in Forks for groceries [not pictured: amazing apple fritters] and a hike to Third Beach (not to be confused with Beach 3).

Third Beach is the jumping-off point for a magnificent hike, out toward a garden of seastacks, up & down some rope ladders.

We just stayed put and admired ’em from afar.

Somehow, we did just fine.

Never any shortage of seats on these driftlog-piled beaches!

Up at Neah Bay, more choices: Cape Flattery, the very tippy-tip of the Rez, involving a 1.5 mile round trip walk, or Shi Shi Beach…which would’ve required a 2-mile slog through mud just to get to the start of the pretty stuff.

Cape Flattery is difficult to describe without gothic-novel purple prose: surf crashing upon crags, mist and spray and boiling, roiling, heaving, breathing seas…

…or you could just look at the pictures.

After we’d been there an hour, taking every conceivable photo, the sun came out. So what else could we do but start over?

The best photos from Cape Flattery are videos, which capture all that roiling/boiling/heaving stuff I mentioned. But those are harder to embed into this blog, so I’ll just leave you with this one Lynn took:

Is it just me, or do you also see a whale in that rock? Right?

After our dalliance with the Cape and a lengthy visit to the Makah Museum (which was hosting a holiday craft fair), our crew was ready for a rest. But with the sun making such an unexpected appearance, I simply couldn’t resist one more beach visit, this one a simple drive & stroll on my own, to Tsoo-Yess Beach.

See what I mean about that sun? Tsoo-YESSSSS!

I couldn’t stop taking photos of the least little beachy items, which the sun rendered…let’s go ahead & use the term “glorious.”

gargantuan log, turned into yet another water feature/sandbox (oh, where is that 4 year-old?)

Sand arrows? Maybe kind of appropriate, on the Rez

Once more, it was hard leaving Neah Bay, especially with the sun out, and the thought of un-visited Shi Shi Beach. So we’ll have to come back one day…with better mudboots.

Meanwhile, it was on to a midday walk at Dungeness Spit, in Sequim (pronounced “Squim”):

It’s FIVE MILES long! No mud to slog through, but also not the most changeable scenery, eh? So we mostly stayed put.

Our final overnight stop was the ridiculously pretty town of Pt. Townsend.

The upper half of town, where the “proper” folks lived (as opposed to the rough & tumble crowd on the waterfront) is famous for its Victorians.

This was NOT our inn…at least not on this trip. I did stay here once with my HS Besties, years ago.

Oh, and did I mention the deer? I counted fifteen on a ten-minute walk through the leafy part of town.

Our weather stayed amazingly clear, gifting us both a Mt. Rainier-silhoutted sunrise…

…and a Mt. Baker mid-morning, looking north from Ft. Worden State Park.

And if you moved the camera a little to the left, you’d be looking at Lopez Island!

Back in Seattle, we had one last hurrah of a meal w/ our adventure buddies, then left them at their airport hotel while we spent the night with Son Two. Our great fortune: he was dogsitting!

Back home next day, after a week away, The Mate & I marveled at the deeply exotic beauty so close to our home. Then we looked around our little village and saw these community-crafted, recycled-bottle luminaries everywhere…and thought,

I’ll say it again: (Cape) Flattery will get you. So will Tsoo-Yess, and Beach 3, and Third Beach. That whole peninsula is magical –and we didn’t even visit Lake Crescent, or the Elwha River, or the Sol Duc hot springs. We didn’t even drive up to see snowy Hurricane Ridge (road closed).

There’s just SO MUCH.

So if you go? Bring your camera. But try & bring a 4 year-old too.

Road Trip X, Days 1-5, Lopez Island to Oakland, CA: Front-loading the Greenery

Posted on February 18, 2020 by gretchenwing

Welcome back to Wing’s World’s annual morph into travelogue! This will be the TENTH cross-country the Mate and I have made together, from our wee island home in the northwest to visit our previous lives back in my home state of North Carolina.

Featuring me, Red Rover!

Yes, we do realize we really couldn’t make it a longer trip unless we lived in Alaska and journeyed back to Florida. Yes, we are deeply uncomfortable with our carbon footprint. But we are also deeply in love with Brown Sign Nation—all those national and state and regional parks which belong to us all—and deeply committed to friends and family scattered across the continent. This pilgrimage keeps us close to all of them.

Then there are our beloved Tarheels, and our beloved Tarheel Tribe that assembles in the second week of March to cheer our team on and eat greasy southern food. The way the Heels have been playing this season, we’re more likely to be weeping over our BBQ than cheering. But I’ll save my bitterness for another post (since I doubt another Dukie will break his shoe this year).

Photo credit–and cake credit!–to my friend and fellow Tarheel fan, Cynny Scott

Let’s get to it!

We left Lopez on a windy Valentine’s Day. I took one farewell walk out to the ocean, where the foam was flying through the air like cottonwood fluff.

Flying foam: courtesy Salish Sea

In a departure from tradition, we turned north from the ferry and spent the night with dear friends in Bellingham. This didn’t really feel like part of our road trip, though, so I didn’t take pictures. And next morning, driving to Eugene, the weather was so atrocious I spent the whole drive being an extra pair of eyes on the road for the Mate, who does 90% of our driving.

But Day 2 in Eugene dawned gorgeously. With our friends, we went for a walk in the reserve of Mt. Pisgah, just outside of town. The default ecosystem there is oak savannah. Now, since oaks are among the top five things I miss about the south (my parents, the Tarheels, BBQ and Mama Dip’s chicken being the other four), I was immediately in heaven.

Ohhhhhk treeeees….

Ever notice how much lichen and fronds sound like liking and friends? I don’t think that’s an accident.

This ones called lung lichen! Breathe easy.

And this is …. lichen.

After two nights with two separate sets of very dear, long-standing friends (cuz I don’t want to call them “old”), we headed out for another set of dear friends…California’s coastal redwoods.

It wanted to hug me back, but it was too tall.

The most amazing thing about this visit? It WASN’T RAINING.

You see trees. I see sunlight!

Day 5, we said goodbye to Humboldt County and headed for our cousins’ home in Oakland. In the little hamlet of Legget we stopped for gas and chatted with the young man at the pumps. As I enthused about the beautiful sunny day, he looked around at the surrounding redwoods and informed me that it hadn’t rained for almost a month. During rainy season. “Take a good look at these trees,” he said. “Might not be here this time next year, if it keeps up this way.”

I immediately felt bad for my cheer about the sun, and offered to send him some rain from my home state. And I thought: green. Yes please. More of that! And that’s exactly what we got when we stopped for a bike ride on a rail-trail path in Santa Rosa a couple hours later.

Greeeeen. Even the prickly pear is green!

Green is what saves us. Green is what keeps us from catching on fire. And green is what we’ll soon be missing as we take that big left turn and head out across the Mojave. So we’re filling our eyes as full as we can of green….just as we fill our hearts with frondship. I mean friendship. To our lichen!

Do Bosom Buddies Require Bosoms?

Posted on April 25, 2013 by gretchenwing

Lopez ferry dock

It took me a few months to meet folks when we first moved to Lopez Island, but a year later I looked around and found myself part of several groups. I have people to write with, people to meditate with, people to sing with, and people to hike & bike & paddle kayaks with. And that’s just here on this little isle. When I go back to visit my old life in “America” (what we Lopezians call the mainland), I have my old book group to catch up with, old neighbors to potluck with, old colleagues to meet for walks or tea.

And then there’s facebook and email. And my annual get-together with my three besties from high school.

Source: shanalogic.com via Gretchen on Pinterest

Interesting fact: 85% of these interactions are with other women. Yes, I make music with men, and share food and thoughtful silence with them. But when I make dates that involve TALKING? It’s all gals.

See, this is the kind of thing we gals need each other to discuss, right? (courtesy someecards.com, Pinterest)

This got me thinking of the importance of friends in my life, vs. my husband’s. He has a handful of very close friends from as far back as college (which for him is pretty far back, since he’s a Boomer). None of them even live in Washington State. He stays in touch through sporadic email. Phonecalls? Maybe once a year. Visits? Hey, if we’re passing through…But, encouraging as he is of my annual Girlfriend Pilgrimage, he has no counterpart to that, and doesn’t seem to need one.

Source: someecards.com via Ashley on Pinterest

How typical is this? Are we women conditioned to need each other’s company, or do we condition ourselves? Perhaps we’re hard-wired that way? I’m sure there are tons of sociological studies on this, but I’m more interested in anecdotal responses.

Guys have buddies. Women have friends. Guys fish or hunt or play poker or build stuff together. Women talk. Is this a complete stereotype, or is there something to it?

Gals–does this hold true for you? Guys–what say you?

(I know–men don’t read blogs, so I’ll probably never know what you think. So, women–ask your guy friends/spouses/whatevers. Then get back to me.)