8/2/20 Cape Disappointment – Interesting tidbit from the Park’s display: “English Captain John Meares, who approached the cape in 1788, but could not locate the river’s entrance. Meares, therefore, named the headland Cape Disappointment.” Not a very nice name for such a beautiful park.
8/3 We took our Ubco bikes to tour the two light houses to generally explore the park. It was a very pleasant day with mild temperatures. I’m getting more comfortable and confident in riding the bike based on the little tip that Ethan from Ubco showed me. What a difference it makes. Later on in the early evening, we walked to Waikiki beach, yeah, not the one in Oahu, this one is in the Cape Disappointment park. Although it is not exotic like Hawaii, it is charming in its own way with drift wood stacking on the beach. A bunch of kids gathered these drift woods and built a shelter like a little teepee hut with a moat around it, really cute. Another interesting fact: this Cape iand the entrance to the Columbia river was known as most onerous for sailors in the 1800’s as the strong current claimed many lives.
Waikiki Beach
8/4/20 Olympic National Park
We underestimated the size of this park, and didn’t do any research before we got there. I made 2 reservations to camp there for 4 nights. Unfortunately, upon arrival at the Hoh Rainforest campground, we found out that our reservations were permits to camp in the wilderness! Not that I’m clueless when it comes to making camping reservations, but this website was the most un-user friendly by far. Luckily, the camp host allowed us to park in the overflow section of the campsite. So we get to pay a second fee to dry camp in this park. Oh well, we will consider this a donation to the national parks!
8/5/20 We did a hike in the Hall of Mosses forest, Spruce Trail where trees trunk and branches are covered in moss , drooping down like hair. If you have any wild imagination like me, you’d start to see figurines from these trees that looks like living creatures with their arms hanging out like a ghost. I supposed this forest would be really creepy at night, especially in a foggy night. Goosebumps!
We got back to the campsite in the afternoon and relaxed with wine, cheese & crackers. I might add this is the Tillamook Habanero cheese, very tasty and spicy hot. Yummmm.
8/6/20 It rained over night and throughout the day, so we had to cancel our planned hike and were stuck indoor the entire day. It was actually really nice to have a down day to just relax and do nothing, while listening to the rain trickling on the roof. Looking through the windows with the misty pines painted such a calming ambiance being in the woods. It’s like one of those nature sound apps or YouTube’s sceneries.
8/7 Sekiu & Clallam Bay
So here we are, right across from the Canadian border, separated by the Clallam Bay, we can stand on this side of the bay and take a picture of Vancouver island, but can’t cross it. A bridge too far….
We drove to Ozette but were not able to get a camping spot so we drove back to Sekiu, a small fishing village, and camped in the Olson’s RV park, right in the middle of the Halibut season. It was super crowded and full of action with all the fishing boats being put into or pull out of the water. Quite amazing just how many people enjoy fishing!. It was cold and rainy, but you could definitely smell the bay.
8/8 Port Angeles was a much bigger town than I thought. This is where you can take the ferry over to Vancouver island, Canada. I think the last time we were here must have been almost 40 years ago when my sister was still living in Portland. We had a nice meal at Pho New Saigon — it was quite authentic and met the Californian standard for pho. Sooth my aching appetite for VN food!
We walked around the wharf and the ferry station. Here you can clearly see Vancouver island. It’s sad that covid 19 really killed the businesses in this area. All the ferries are docked, whale watching boats are docked. Very few tourists wandered about the dock and the wharf.
After restocking at our favorite Walmart wonderland, we found a rest area nearby to camp for the night. While it was free, the incoming and outgoing traffic throughout the night woke me up several times, so it was quite restless for me.
8/9/20 We made our way to the Heart O’ The Hills campground near Hurricane Ridge, one of the biggest attractions in Olympic national park. And of course because this attraction is so popular, there was a long queue to get in as the park was being metered to limit the number of visitors. I think we were parked in the queue for almost 2 hours. Some people got frustrated and turned around to leave the park.
We finally got to our campsite, had a nice gourmet cheese and crackers lunch, and headed out for a hike in the “Heart of the Forest ” trail, a 4+ miles round trip. The name of the trail truly captured the essence of this trail as it is heavily wooded. I can imagine a scene in the Little Red Riding Hood story as she wandered into the woods and saw the big bad wolf …. It was a long hike with no other hikers on this trail, which made it a little bit eerie …
8/10/20 Hurricane Ridge at Olympic National Park spans a spectacular panorama of snow cap mountains and valleys of evergreens and meadows. Beautiful blooms of various colorful wild flowers on both sides of the road greet visitors along the way. As we ascended into the park, reaching over 5000 ft in elevation, via winding uphill climb, we can see dramatic views of the ridge with low clouds hovering the mountain tops, it reminds me of the “Paramount” Motion Picture with their signature opening scene of the mountain range, although this is much more epic to see it in real life and just be present in the grandeur of this park.
Tidbit from Hurricane Ridge website: “Life on the Edge: Life at Hurricane Ridge is shaped by wind and snow. Winds gusting over 75 miles an hour buffet the ridge, lending the name “Hurricane.”
We did three hikes in the area ranging from easy to moderate with some challenging sections of steep hills. It always feel so good when you can finish a hike and feel a sense of achievement as though you have conquered another mountain top! Another victorious day. Yay!
8/11/20 Purple Haze Organic Lavender Farm
You can smell the lavender scent from the parking lot. It’s a beautiful farm where you can pick your own bundle of lavender. They have chairs placed throughout the garden so you can sit, relax and breathe in the lavender aroma. After a walk around the garden, we opted for a scoop of lavender white chocolate ice cream. A bit disappointed that it tasted more like vanilla ice cream, and no hint of lavender at all.
Edit from Paul…. with all this girly stuff going on, BAT and I were a little embarrassed. In fact I think BAT was attempting to hide in the picture below… what do you think?
I bought a small bottle of lavender organic essential oil for souvenir. One can never have enough lavender oil.
Camped at KOA Tacoma/Seattle
8/12/20 We spent most of the day doing maintenance work on the Bliss box fixing the BW dump, and discovered a series of other problems in the garage, i.e. boiler strap busted, leaking ultraviolet filter, exposed electrical wires ,etc. Finally finished around 5 pm and decided to head downtown Seattle for sushi and a little tour of pike market.
Pike Market is really sad in the evening. All the shops are closed, the people walking the streets are mostly homeless. The bay next to Pike market now looks like a homeless shelter. ☹ My sisters and i were here a few years ago during spring break. We absolutely love the Pike market with the lively vendors and crowd of shoppers combing through the area browsing and bargaining for flowers, food, souvenirs. The vibe creates such a fun atmosphere that definitely put you in the mood to buy . How I miss those fun and good times. The ravaged economy and the civil unrest have marred this beautiful city, physically and emotionally.
Space Needle is beautiful at night but no tourists. The glowing golden lights that lit up the Space Needle remind me of the Eiffel tower in Paris, except this one is deserted during Covid19 season. The downtown once bustle with shops & restaurants now close early or boarded up. Still some scars from BLM left behind. Even the sushi restaurant that we dined in tonight still has a broken glass window, probably from a thrown rock or something like that. I hope to return to Seattle when it regains its vibrancy and thrive again as I’ve left my heart in Seattle…
8/13/20 Mt Rainier – While the Cougar Rock campground is marked first come first served, and the entrance has a signed that said “Full.” We drove around the various loops hoping to get lucky. They shut down more than half the camp sites due to covid 19, but the sign said, closed due to hazardous trees? After several rounds, we finally found one small site that was still available and forced our way into it. Better than having to go outside the park and look for another campsite. We spoke to the park ranger to get some tips of things to do/see in the park and got some maps of the various hiking trails.
8/14/20 The next morning, we set out to hike at Paradise park, Alta Vista trail, Skyline Trail, Glacier Vista reaching 6336′ in elevation. As the name suggests, we saw plenty of glaciers at the vista. We literally hiked through creeks — runoffs from the snow, waterfalls, snow patches to get to the Glacier Vista. My everything ached after this trail, the quads, the knees, the feet, but the sights were spectacular that I was willing to endure the pain to get to the top.
And this my most favorite part of this entire trip… When we reached Glacier Vista, we met a very lovely volunteer, Ana Marie, who is 83, and hike this trail to skyline 5 times a week to observe visitors and report to base camp if there’s any incidents. She started to tell us her stories how she hiked the Swiss alps, Italy, etc and met her husband then moved to the US. When she and her husband visited Mt Rainier, they decided that this is home and this is where they will retire, which they did. I asked to take a picture if Ana Marie as she is such an inspiration, and a wonderful amazon that we luckily have had the privilege to meet on this trail.
I huffed and puffed for almost three hours to get to the top, and stopped several times to catch a breath in between, yet she hikes this mountain five times a week. I expressed that to Ana Marie, and she smiled and remarked “you’re just not used to it.” Upon parting, she said if you ever come back this way, look me up on this trail. I hope we will have another opportunity to see Ana Marie again.
8/15/20 Given that we are aching from the Paradise hikes, we thought we’ll just do the drive by for the second most popular attraction in this park named Sunrise.
We drove several miles to get to Sunrise, however, the line was ridiculously long. After a long wait with no end in sight, we decided to leave the park for the next destination, Wenatchee national forest.
On the way out of the park, we saw a sign that said “Reflection Lake” which was one of the site that we wanted to visit but didn’t have time, and here it is, caught us by surprise. The name is a perfect description of the lake!
We didn’t realize there was a heat wave hitting the western states so a lot of people tried to escape the heat by going to the mountains, hence, there was no campsite available. We made our way to Yakima, but no campsite avail there either, bummer! On our way out of town, we found a rest area and decided to chance it for the night as we both were getting tired and exhausted. We parked next to the big rigs, and they were quite noisy rolling in and out of the rest area with their generators running so we decided to move over to the other side of the parking lot. Since it was just a short drive, I decided to stay inside the living unit while Paul roll the BAT to the other side. Holy moly!!!! It felt like an earthquake inside as everything was rocking and rolling. I didn’t lock the shower door since it was supposed to be a short drive so the shower door swung open slamming towards the kitchen. I had to run over and lock it in place. Woe, I’m never doing that again!
8/16/20 We arrived in Spokane in the late afternoon and had Chinese food lunch. While waiting, I decided to look up Carolyn & Frank’s address/location to see how close they are to us. (Carolyn & Frank were our sponsors when my family came to the USA as refugees in 1975). We were literally about 12 miles away from their resident. Throughout this whole trip, I knew I’d be crossing Seattle and Spokane where two of our sponsors’ families reside, and I’ve been contemplating whether I should contact them for a visit. Due to covid 19 , I didn’t want to put them at risk , and I didn’t want to put them in a difficult position if they had to turn us down due to their health conditions. The thought of it keep tugging at my heart since I really wanted to visit them, but at the same time, I didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable either way. As we left the restaurant going towards our campsite, I still had the GPS on navigating to Carolyn’s house showing we are driving pass the exit to her house. Within a few minutes, my phone rang, and Carolyn’s picture appeared on my phone’s screen. I was puzzled thinking “how could this be?!!!” Did my sisters tell her that we are in town? I answered the phone by saying “hello, how did you know?” Carolyn had no idea what I was talking about. She said “Hello Maggie, I haven’t heard from you in a while and was wondering how your family is doing surviving Covid19?
I’m still dumbfounded as it was too much of a coincidence because Paul and I were debating what to do during lunch, and I’ve decided that I will give Carolyn a call when I arrive at the campsite that afternoon. And it was divine intervention that she called me to put me out of my misery.
I said, You’d never guess where we are!
Carolyn: Where are you?
Maggie: We are in Spokane. We are about 10 miles from your house
Carolyn: You are kidding?!
Maggie: seriously, we just arrived in Spokane. I thought you called because you knew I was coming to Spokane since once of my sisters informed you.
Carolyn: No, I didn’t know
So I explained the whole situation and my dilemma to her, and we just couldn’t believe how this event transpired, and perhaps my constant struggle had manifested itself into this phone call. We both cracked up with joy and set up a time to meet the next day.
I was so excited that when I got to the campsite, I called all of my sisters to tell them what happened, and no one could believe how it can happen as it did. Paul insisted that it was divine intervention. Thank God for that! Amen.
8/17/20 We arrived at Carolyn and Frank’s house around 1:15 that afternoon via Uber ride. They were already at the porch waiting for us. Carolyn was frustrated that we couldn’t give each other a hug because of Covid19. We practiced social distancing, sitting on the patio with the fan running and had so much fun catching up. She said it would have been so sad knowing that we were here but can’t visit with them…
Carolyn showed us some pictures that we sent from the reunion in 2016 and a few others. We had a tour of the house and Frank’s workshop. Frank designed and built the house himself, and it is so well thought out. Frank loves carpentry; he built over 50 pieces of furniture throughout the house, desk, chairs, coffee table, end table , trash bin, wine rack, artist table & drawers, etc. All done with great details and beautiful finishes. He showed me a very unique three legged end table and asked “do you like this one?” I said of course, it’s lovely and so unique. Frank said “then it’s yours!” I was overjoyed!
Frank turned the table upside down to show me the construct and his signature, and date built “June 2020.” Surely it wasn’t built for me or with me in mind, but I was lucky enough to be the recipient of this special item and words can’t describe the feelings that i had at that moment. I shall treasure this gift for ever. It’s one of those things that money can never buy. Then Frank said did you notice this little piece, pointing to a pentagon shape wood piece that sits on top of the wooden dining table. He said you should take one of these too! I was being modest saying I can’t take them, and Carolyn quickly said what size do you want? And she pulled out a few pieces in the room, so I chose a small cherry wood color one. I’m so grateful for their love !
Unfortunately Spokane was having a heatwave at 99 – 102 degree that day. After a couple of hours, Ii realized they’ve been sitting in the heat chatting with us, So I wrapped up our conversation and called uber for pickup. It was so hard to say goodbye. I thought I saw Carolyn’s eyes turning red, and once again she was frustrated that we couldn’t have a goodbye hug . I put my mask on and gave her a hug from the back. Frank jumped in and said “here, I’ll hug her good bye for you” and hugged his wife for me. I gave Frank a hug from the back too. We drove off and waved good bye, blowing kisses in the wind… It felt like leaving my parents behind, and it will be a long time before we get to see them again. Later on that week, Carolyn & I exchanged email and I officially call them Mom & Dad… It felt really good to be able to say “Mom & Dad” again having lost both of my parents in 2005 & 2006 – a tragic time in my family.
We came back to our campsite and did laundry. Then we went out to a nearby Mexican restaurant to have a glass of margarita to beat the heat. It was great food and great service as recommended by our uber driver that morning. Vaqueros and Taqueria Mexican Restaurant, very yummy and reasonably priced. Two thumbs up!
Endless Trail Expeditions 