9/30/12 -- Kalaloch Beach and Heading South

I'm several days behind on blogging, but this time I'll bring you mostly up to date.  The short version is that we have driven the whole west coast of WA and are in the southwest corner of the state.  We're about 1 1/2 hr away from Vancouver but we don't have to be home until Oct 4th, so we're continuing to enjoy our journey until then. 

After we left La Push and Forks, we headed south down Hwy 101, the winding, two-lane highway that runs along the west coast of the Pacific Ocean from Puget Sound in WA all the way to the Mexican border in California.

A note about swimming in the ocean here.  Many of the beaches along WA's coast are dangerous for swimming. Riptides are common as the waves come from different angles and collide on the beach. A riptide can drown a person who is only playing in the waves up to their waists.  The riptide pulls them under and sweep them swiftly out to sea. These poor folks are never seen again. We saw warning signs against ocean swimming our whole coastal trip.  We weren't tempted anyway.  For our bones, it's too cold for swimming!

Ruby Beach

Our first stop was Ruby Beach.  I really wanted to go down to the beach, but the bluff was just too much for me.  The trail is steep and contains many steps. 

These steps were put in in the CCC days of The Great Depression.  They made the steps out of logs but the logs have shifted and the shifting sands have done their part.  Now the steps are of different heights and some quite high. 

We looked down on the beach from the parking lot and soaked in the beauty of this spot.  A short hike up the bluff led to the picnic area and the view from there was spectacular. 


Looking down Ruby Beach. 

The rock at the left is common, similar to many on beaches in WA and OR.  These rocks are known as "haystacks."   Birds -- gulls, cormorants, puffins -- love them
The rocks provide safe places for them to nest and raise their young.  Puffins are so cute and such interesting birds, but I didn't get a picture of a puffin this time.  Maybe someday...

The waves come in like, well, like waves. They tumble over each other and look like steps.   In the two-dimensional world of photography, they look like little bits of water lapping on the sand.   Not true.   Each wave is 6' or higher.  When you stand on the sand watching the waves spread out on the sand at your feet, you are looking up at the level of the larger ocean. 


Waves look like stair-steps
race each other to the beach
gulls swoop like surfers

Looking down on the beach gives a different perspective than when you are on the beach, looking up at the waves bearing down on you.  You can see how the waves swirl and break among the rocks that dot the coast. 


Waves swirl among the rocks, humps of lava, lumps of granite

There wasn't any camping at Ruby Beach, so we moved on, driving among incredible forests of cedar, fir, pine, tamarack, hemlock and alder.  The coastal rain forest lies along Hwy 101, sometimes right on the road.  The road winds in and out of the Olympic National Forest, a real wilderness area.  Ruby Beach is the beginning of half a dozen beaches that lie along the highway.  It's a breath-taking drive.

We stopped to check out the campground at Kalaloch Beach, named for the Kakaloch tribe.  We've camped there in the past, but things change and we didn't know what we'd find there.   

Kalaloch Beach

Kalaloch is crammed with trailers this time of year.  The parking spaces are small, many forest sites that I didn't feel comfortable using.  Then we watched motor homes the size of greyhound buses take the same spaces.  Some of them were towing cars.  I don't know how they did it!

There were still a few sites open.  We were fortunate and got a campsite right on the bluff.  We set our camp chairs by the camp road and savored this view until time for our nightly fire.


View from our campsite - note how very wide the beach is. 

We had only planned to spend one night at Kalaloch. We were so delighted with our campsite (very private and sheltered from the wind), our view and the lure of the beach that we stayed an extra night.  It may not have been our first idea, but this whole trip, we've wandered as the mood has taken us.  What a great way to travel!

That first night, we set up camp and I started the fire.  I was relaxing in our campsite when a visitor showed up.  This little fellow sauntered by, bunny-style (hopping), so close I could have reached down and touched his cinnamon-colored fur.  He joined us both evenings about dusk.  After about 45 minutes of munching his favorite dinner grass, he disappeared into the bushes.  We felt blessed by his presence. 


Our nightly dinner guest

The next day we bundled up and hiked down to the beach.  The trail was very close to our campsite, not too long or too steep.  I had to cope with the usual uneven stairs but there were only about a dozen of them. 

In order to minimize erosion from wind and wave on the steps and the trail, the National Park Service built a windbreak of vertical driftwood.  There is a lot of driftwood on this beach -- quite literally tons of it.



First you see the windbreak, then the bushes crawling up the hill above it, then the trees.
That's when you have an idea of the size of the driftwood used on this windbreak. 
Those trees were huge!

We bundled up because it was cold.  The fog was just lifting and the wind was cutting.  We were thankful to find a windbreak-shelter some kind person had built out of driftwood.  We sat with our backs against it, cradled by the soft sand. 


We spent the whole wonderful day on the beach,
basking in the sunshine, taking walks,
talking to seagulls and visiting with each other

Kalaloch is only a ten miles or so past Ruby Beach.  As you go south along WA coast, beaches get wider and waves get wilder, tumbling over each other.  Like many beaches along this coast, rocks peek above the waves.  When the waves break on them, the spray leaps high into the air.


The rock on the far left is submerged by a cresting wave, but the spray is easy to see. 
There are more rocks on the right.  Waves here too are about 6-7' high.

The Kalaloch River spreads its delta here.  One small branch of it came near our shelter.  Seagulls flocked to this running fresh water.  They ducked their heads and drank from it.  They bathed and splashed in it.  Then, when they were watered and clean, they stood on its banks and preened, cleaning and fluffing their feathers.  They weren't interested in begging for food but were into their own agenda.  As a result, they let me get quite close to them.  


The Seagull Spa

In the past, the only seagulls I've ever noticed were either flying or begging for food.  These seagulls were really different.  We know we aren't supposed to feed wildlife and these guys didn't expect anything.  Seagulls are supposed to gather their own food -- shellfish, crabs and the like.  They are really very intelligent birds. 

I remember one seagull that didn't fit this category.  Many years ago, I was on a beach somewhere on Puget Sound, a combination of rocks and sand.  The seagulls were feeding.  A seagull would grab a clam, fly straight up into the air and then drop the clam on a rock to break it open.  The gull would drop like a stone to get the soft inner meat before another seagull could steal it.  I watched them for a while, and then I noticed one seagull who was different. 

He was having a hard time.  He got the part about grabbing the clam and flying straight up into the air.  The part he didn't get was about where to drop it.  While other gulls dropped their clams on the rocks, this guy dropped his on the sand.  Every time.  He'd drop like a stone and then look at his clam.  He'd turn it over with his beak.  Then he'd pick it up, fly straight up in the air ... and drop it on the sand.  He was persistent, I'll give him that, but he took the prize for Most Stupid Seagull of the Year. 

On our day at Kalaloch Beach (back to the present), one young seagull found us interesting for his own reasons.  He came over to look us over, walking around us about 8" from our feet.  We didn't sit very still but he stuck around anyway.


Our seagull friend struts past Adina's shoes

After a while, our seagull buddy leaned into the wind and tucked one foot up.  We didn't know what that meant.


Why is he standing on one leg like that?

After a minute or so of standing on one leg, our seagull buddy lay down in the sand a couple of feet away from me.  He kept an eye out toward the beach for passing dogs, not all of which were on leash, but he also yawned and dozed.  We were doing the same thing.  We spent an hour or so like that.  We talked to him and we think he talked back.  



Sleepy Seagull Buddy

This was the first time we ever noticed a seagull take a siesta.  Since then, we have seen it several times, although none of the other seagulls chose to share our space like our seagull buddy did.  

As the afternoon waned and the wind got colder, we wandered back down to the Seagull Spa to see what was happening.   A couple of dogs had gone through and they had all left -- for about three minutes.  Every now and then a group would fly off and another group would fly in from another direction.  This was definitely their place.  I caught one group as they took off to make way for the next contingent of seagull bathers.   


A few of the seagulls left to make way for other bathers

In this picture of the seagull flock, the waves were catching the sun and it turned them silver.  It is a gift to spend a whole day (and night) hearing the roar of the waves.  They crest and break, crash and thunder, whether anyone is on the beach to listen to them or not.  Hearing them is the best music of all.

 

Fall is the time between the relatively warm summer and the wild storms of winter.  A lot of people were on the beach wearing shorts and clam-diggers and tee shirts.  We wore several layers, a wool sweater and a jacket.  We wore wool hats and gloves.  We've learned how to live with cold in Wisconsin winters.  The people who live here don't think this is cold.  It's a damp, sometimes dank, cold.  We're going to have to adjust to the difference, but we'll still probably bundle up.  It was 43 degrees in the trailer when we woke up this morning.

 

The wind never stops at the beach, or anyway not often.  As a result, the trees grow funny.  Every cell is bent by the wind.  Just as plants grow toward the sun, beach trees grow away from the wind.
 

Trees at the beach, taken from our campsite at Kalaloch Beach Campground
This picture is not tilted!

We have always enjoyed walking among the trees of the beach, just as we enjoy walking through the sand, climbing on driftwood (okay, maybe not that so much anymore), and watching the waves.
 

Willipa Bay and All the Way South

The next day, we moved on, stopping as our whims led us.   That night we camped on Willipa Bay.  It used to be called Shoalwater Bay after the Shoalwater Indian tribe.  I don't know why they changed it. 

 

Willipa  Bay (Shoalwater Bay) protected from the rush of the crashing waves
The fog hadn't finished lifting when I took this picture, late morning

The following day we continued running south along the WA coast.  We stopped in Raymond WA for a mess of the best fish and chips we've had in years.  We found it at a little trailer along the road in the parking lot of a fish company.  They had the most beautiful bench for us to wait on while they cooked our fish and chips -- now that's fresh!    

 

This beautiful carved salmon bench was even comfortable!


The Alaskan cod pieces were rolled in cornmeal and then fast fried, just the way they're supposed to be and wrapped in newsprint.  We got the smallest size order.  It provided us with 4 pieces of fish each and a mess of fries. 


Half of a small order of fish and chips!

Best of all, they had aged gourmet malt vinegar for me to sprinkle on my fish and fries. I love fish and chips spattered with vinegar and then salted. Adina tried it that way and allowed that it was awfully good. I hope all of you can come and have fish and chips, west coast style (but if you want to skip the vinegar, that's okay)!     



We camped that night at an RV park (with electricity available) in Ocean Park on the Long Beach Peninsula.  It's gotten cold enough that the flowerpot furnace is struggling to keep us warm.  We broke out our ceramic cube furnace and now we are toasty.  

 

We've been here a couple of days, just resting and enjoying the area.  I'll tell you all about that in the next blog!   

 







9/27/12 -- The Hoh Rain Forest

So much has happened on our trip that it is going to take me a couple of blogs to catch up! 

Some of you asked about the differences between Indian tribes in the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. Pacific Northwest Indian tribes are small compared to the huge tribes of the Midwest. Every 20-30 miles down the road, you encounter the area of another tribe.    A commonality with the Midwest tribes is that they all belong to The United Tribes and participate in powwows around the country.   


Tribes of Washington State
Note how many tribes there are on the Olympic Peninsula --
you'll see some of the tribes I've talked about.
The Olympic Peninsula is the northwest corner that looks broken off from the rest of the state.
Portland Oregon is in the lower left part of the map.  That blue line is the Comumbia River
Our new home is just across the river from Portland.
(portion of a public domain map)

Although a couple of Indian language families are common to a few tribes, most tribes speak a unique language. The Quileute language is unrelated to any other language on earth, a very complicated and complex language. A tribe in Oregon, the Chinook, lent their language to all tribes as a trade language.

Most of the tribes have lived in this area for 4-6,000 years.  They have a rich, complex culture.  They have a lot to teach all of us about living with the land and respecting its gifts.  I am content with my own history and traditions but I admire them and respect them.  We both do.  It is a gift any time we can receive the wisdom that they hold. 

Our last day in the La Push/Forks area, we began by picking huckleberries.  These sweet red gems spark up any dish of cereal or make pancakes special.  We took enough for the next day's breakfast and left the rest for the birds and chipmunks.  The other day I saw a chipmunk climb a bush and balance on the slender branches while he filled his cheek-pouches with succulent berries.   


Huckleberries, the forest's treasure

That was the day that we went to the Hoh rain forest. This area bears the name of the Hoh Indian tribe.  A coastal rain forest stretches from the Oregon coast  north, clear up into Alaska.  In some places, it is only a few miles wide.  At other spots it reaches up river valleys 20-30 miles or even farther.  It covers the mountains with the velvet of evergreen trees.

What makes a rain forest?  Clouds form passing over the Pacific Ocean and move from east Asia and Japan and Hawaii, picking up moisture as they go.  When the moist winter winds, the winter storms, hit the coastal mountains, they drop it all that moisture on them, creating a rain forest.

We drove along the winding Hoh River, up to the Ranger Station.  There's a nice campground there but I've never stayed there.  I've always looked for a place with a little less rain.  A little anyway.

There are several lovely hikes up there ranging from 1/4 mi. to many miles.  Our hike was called the Hall of Mosses.  With a short leg we took to get to the trailhead, it came out to about a mile. 

The signs said it "bigins with a slight incline."  Maybe it was a slight incline if you were a teenager who had been working out for a while.  It was a serious hill, folks, but I made it.  We also encountered stairs periodically on the hike.  The scenery was so beautiful that it made hiking it easy.  Besides, we always have fun together.  I was pretty tired afterwards but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

We saw so much beauty in the rain forest, I don't know how I can share it all.  There were huge trees everywhere.  People go to the Redwoods to see big trees.  We've both been there and they are wonderful, but Washington has her share of big trees too.  Sitka spruce love an environment like the rain forest.  They grow much larger than elsewhere, an average of 220' tall.  Douglas fir in the rain forest grow an average of 250' tall.  Many are over 8' in diameter.  


This sitka spruce is really, really wide

The tree top world that we never see is full of a life of its own. Birds live there that never come to the forest floor. People like us walk beneath them but we never see the flying squirrels that live in its branches.

The rain forest was sunny the day we were there.  I've been to the Hoh many times, but that's the first time I ever saw it when it wasn't raining.  The moist air encourages many kinds of moss to grow.  One kind is the club moss.  This moss mounds up and sometimes hangs down on tree trunks and branches.  Although it attaches to the tree, it feeds on light and air.  The moist air of the rain forest provides the club moss with enough nutrients to live on.  This moss is so moist and dense that other plants flourish in it as though it were soil.


Club moss forms clumps as it climbs the trunk of this tree
Note the ferns growing in the moss

In other places, moss hangs down like hair.  When Adina was a child, she came to the Hoh with her family.  She and her brother, Bruce, played with the moss and posed for pictures wearing it like hair.  (They didn't pull any down though.)  We crossed a creek on our hike and saw this moss hanging over the water. 


Moss hanging down over the creek
Other mosses grew on the sides of the creek
and beneath the water
Moss comes in many different colors

The agencies that manage our national and state forests have policies about letting the forest develop on its own, with a bit of help now and then.  If a tree falls, they leave it because it will contribute to the life of the forest in many ways.  Insects help break the wood down.  Small animals find refuge there.  Birds feed on the insects.  The web of life goes on.


This woodpecker has just munched a bug that he dug out of a huge fallen log. 
Note the size of the knot that he is sitting on.

One way a fallen tree contributes to forest life is that they may become a nurse log.  This means that first moss forms on the top of the tree (or the sides).  Seeds lodge in the moss and take hold.  Some seedlings cannot survive on the forest floor but can live on nurse logs.  As the log disintegrates, it provides shelter and food for these new trees.  The seedlings run their roots down the sides of the nurse log and reach the soil below. 
 

A nurse log holding up several large trees.
Actually, this is only about 1/4 of the total length of the tree
You can see by this picture how wild the forest is here

Eventually, the nurse log rots away and all that is left is the twisted roots of the seedlings, now full grown trees. 


Twisted, intertwined roots like this are evidence:
they once embraced the nurse log that gave them life.

These giant trees have massive root systems that spread out near the surface.  However they do not have a deep taproot like many trees have.  The ground water level is always adequate here, even in dry weather.  Why would they need to seek for deep aquifers? 



This root system towers above Adina's head
so high I couldn't get it all on the picture
and that's only half of it
The other half is below the ground level

We found some downed trees and root systems that had interesting shapes.  I'm sure that this tree was a dragon in a former life. 



A Dragon Root -- friendly, don't you think?

Talking about a rain forest is interesting, but do you know how much rain a rain forest really gets? 

The Hoh gets about over 130" of rain each year.  Up on the top of Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in the Olympic Range, they get over 240" in per year, much of it as snow which settles on the glaciers up there. 

Seattle WA and Milwaukee WI both get between 30-35 in of parcipitation per year.  Of course, a lot of Milwaukee's comes in the form of snow.  Looking at the rain forest makes those 30" per year total pretty small. 



Adina is standing in front of the Ranger Station at the Hoh Rain Forest.
The little white sign on the beam above her
shows how deep the water would be if all the rain came at once.
Adina would be swimming!
The sign reads: Average Annual Rainfall: 137.69" per year

Wow!  One thing is for sure, when you visit the rain forest, you see what a whole lot of rain can do.  It is beautiful, eerie, and a vision that stays with you.  Next time it rains in Vancouver, I'll remember the rain forest and I won't complain, not one bit.

The next day we left for Klaloch Beach and what an adventure we had there! 

Watch for the next installment!  We are so pleased to have you along for the ride!





9/23/12 -- Forks and La Push

Kimm is ready to smoke more fish

We left Cape Flattery only because we knew that there were more adventures ahead.  We stopped back at the You Take Home Fish Company in Neah Bay where Kimm was at work on the smoker.  His fish really is wonderful.

He and his assistant Chaz were making salmon jerky so we got some of that.  It keeps a long time.  If you have any questions about smoked salmon, Kimm said you could call him.

We left Neah Bay on the winding, twisty road that limits travelers to about 30 mph.  About three miles out of town on a steep hill (with lots of curves) we heard the ominous sound of metal scraping loudly.  I pulled over as soon as I could to check it out.  I thought maybe we'd picked up a hitchiker, like some fencing wire, or something.

It was worse than that.  Our equalizer hitch has two iron bars that share the job of keeping the sway down.  Without them, the trailer wags the car like a happy dog.  One of them was dragging on the ground.  I thought maybe I'd forgotten one of the clamps or cotter pins.  No.  The steel bar had snapped itself loose from the hitch and it took part of the hitch with it.  I can't see any way it can be mended. 

We were pretty shook.  The nearest town was Forks, and we didn't expect to find Camping World there.  So we kept driving as we considered our options.

We decided that, since we used our old sway bar, a pretty light-weight affair, for years that only held one side of the hitch, we'd probably be okay.  So we're continuing our journey, trusting our fate to the winds.

Our next stop was Mora Campground in the Olympic National Park near Forks.  We made camp among gorgous red cedar and fir trees.  Some of the stumps from the first loggers still stand.  Their bodies have become nurse stumps for other plants.


This old stump birthed several trees. 
All that is left of the original stump is a woodfall of tree-bits.
The younger trees still surround their mother and hug her.

We made camp.  It's colder here and we bundle up and enjoy it.  Our flower pot furnace keeps us moderately toasty and we have campfires at night.  The trees around us are huge and the ferns are taller than my waist.

Carole and old stump in our campsite

There is a fallen tree behind our campsite.  It isn't as big as some of the trees but it will give you an idea of how big the trees are.  The area is lush because, in spite of the drought, it still gets a lot of rain. 


Adina sitting on a fallen log in our campsite

 As soon as we got camp sort of set up, we went the two miles farther to Rialto Beach.  Our campsite is close enought to the sea that we are lulled to sleep at night with the sound of it.  Rialto is one of our favorite beaches along WA's coast where every beach is unique.  Imagine our surprise when we found that the stone sculptors had been here too!



Six stone scultpure people climbing on a giant driftwood tree root

The beach here is made up of pebbles and round, flat rocks.  The drop-off into the sea is sharp, so the waves really crash.  The waves come in, sometimes 3 and 4 waves at a time.  When the wave slides back under the next one incoming, you can hear the pebbles and stones rattle as the sea rolls them beneath the waves. 


Like rolling thunder
The sounds of songs and drumming
Ocean waves crashing

 Rialto Beach has been one of my "quiet places" for years.  When I need solace and renewal, Rialto is one of the places my memory takes me.  In 2011, I was thinking about the beauty here and wrote a poem about this beach.

Grandmother Ocean

she reaches for the shore

her open palm
 slides across the beach
 with a rain of pebbles

like a casino of craps shooters

an all night game
rolling the bones
across her palms clicking them back and forth
as she rubs her palms
on the pebbly beach
stones brought up
from Oceans’ floor
all day and night
she rolls the bones
rains of pebbles
cousins of castenets

gifts of the sea 
warm on my palms
dusty smooth
the tides turn
but the stones
and Grandmother Ocean
remain

Years ago I took a picture of this piece of driftwood.  Adina posed on it for me.  The driftwood is still there, and, now, so are we. 
 

We headed over to La Push, a Quileute (Quill' ee yute) Indian village.  La Push was a haven for us for years.  We loved it in the summer when the sun sometimes shone.   We loved it in the winter when the storms turned the waves wild, the wind pushes you around.  It's as exciting as any ride at the state fair's midway.  There's a resort there where you can rent cabins or rooms and they have camping facilities available.  The ocean at La Push is splended, great waves on a gentle arc of sand and years of piled driftwood.

This time, we went to La Push for a different reason.  To tell you about it, I have to tell you a story from Adina's past.

Around 1981 Adina was very sick and western medicine could not help her.  Our friend, Vicki Sears, who was an east band Cherokee medicine woman, introduced Adina to David Fourlines.  He was able to help her heal and then they condinued their conversations and became friends.

David was connected to four tribes and so got his name of "Fourlines."  At that time, many of the tribes were losing their languages because of European efforts to "civilize" them, an ironic term for people who had a civilization here for 6-8 thousand years.  Many of their traditional tribal treasures lay in the Smithsonian Institute.  It was had for the younger generation to understand and carry on their traditions without these objects. 

David Fourlines made it his mission to re-energize interest in the traditions of the People.  He had the ancient knowledge of how to make the sacred objects and gathered materials in the traditional ways.  He knew how to weave baskets.  He knew how to carve totems, masks and canoes.  He could make bent cedar boxes.  He also made sacred things of copper, an expensive commodity.

He taught his skills to the young people and made replicas of all the traditional objects.  Then he held a Potlatch for his 40th birthday party.  He invited Adina to attend, one of the few non-tribal members.

A word about the Potlatch:  This is a party in which foods are presented in a particular order and then shared.  At this point it looks a little like the potlucks that we grew up with.  Then people sing their songs.  They dance the traditional dances.  Finally, the person giving the Potlatch gives away all his possessions.

That's what David did.  He gave away all the things he had gathered.  He gave away all the things he had made.  Each object was given to a particular person, the person he had made it for.  It was very moving.

Another dream David had was to find a way to bring the canoe back into focus.  He started an event inviting the tribes to bring their traditional canoes and paddle down Puget Sound to Seattle.  Pacific Northwest tribes' canoes have a raised prow as you see in the picture below.   


I don't have a picture of this event -- yet.
This is a boat from Fort Rupert CA, but the basic design is similar.
(public domain picture)

At that first one, back in the 80's, seven canoes participated.  This annual event has endured and grown.  Now many tribes participate.  Last year, over 100 canoes made the paddle. 

David passed in 1991.  He left a powful legacy.  We came to La Push to visit his grave and honor him.  Then we had a problem.

When we asked about going up to the cemetary, we were told that the Tribal Council was restricting access to Tribal members because some Twilight Fans had gone up there, made a video, put it to spooky music and posted it on U-Tube.  This was very disrespectful to the Tribe.

A word about Twilight Fans and Twilight Madness:  Most of you will have heard about the Twilight books and movies.  They are set in Forks and in La Push.  The author, as I understand it, had never visited either place, but chose them because they had a lot of days without sun, a lot of fog, and were close together.  Forks was a relatively depressed logging town.  I always just drove through it.  They have jumped on the Twilight Tourism bandwagon.  If they can make some money from the movies, more power to them.  Last week they had Twilight Madness Days.  At a party, they had a reinactment of "the wedding."  Over 750 people descended on Forks for the event.  Stores sell Twilight memorabilia.  I am sitting in a Pizza joint to blog and it has a Twilight menu and Twilight drinks on request.  The resort store in Mora posted this sign:


This picture needs no explanation

The folks in La Push have not joined this bandwagon.  I started to read the Twilight books but felt so uncomfortable about them that I quit.  Here's the deal:  in the Twilight books, the vampires live in Forks.  Their enemies, the werewolves, live in La Push.  It may be a good story, but placing the werewolves in La Push was pretty disrespectful to the tribe and that's what made me uncomfortable.  You see, the Quileute people who live in La Push hold the wolf as one of their tribal symbols, one of the spirits that watch over them.  There is no love for a set of books that twists that symbol in this way. 
 
So we went to La Push to find David's grave, ignoring the women having their picture taken by a road sign that listed both Forks and La Push.  When we were told we couldn't go there, we went to the Tribal Center, the same place where David held his potlatch over 20 years ago. 


Quileute Tribal Center

Miss Renee came out to help us.  She got permission for us to go up to find David's grave and we were on our way.  When we got up to the cemetary, we found it had changed in 12 years.  David never wanted to be the center nor did he need to be credited with things.  He asked that his grave be unmarked, however, someone did put up a small post with a face on each side -- four faces, Fourlines. 

We couldn't find it.  The cemetary had changed, was larger and we couldn't remember where David's grave was.  We went back to the Tribal Center and told Miss Renee our problem.  She said that even though it was payday Friday, she'd make it her project to find someone who knew where he was buried.

The very next day, she called us and said that we could meet them at the cemetary and she thought they could find his grave.  We drove back to La Push, up the steep, steep hill to the cemetary and met Renee (somehow by this time we were dropping "Miss"), her husband Chaz (a member of the Tribal Council), and Chaz's father, Russell (who served on the Council for 30 years or so).  Russell's father also served on the Tribal Council for 30 years.  Chaz is following a strong family tradition. 

I don't have any pictures from this event because it is disrespectful to take pictures in the cemetary.  I was pastor at a church with the Nooksack tribe for several years.  They taught me how to be a pastor.  I learned so much from them, and will not disrespect them, or any other tribe, now.  Adina had her connections through Vickie and David.  Word pictures will have to suffice.

They were able to find the grave for us and we stood around it.  Russell told how he knew David and about the good things David had done for the Tribe.  Chaz told what he knew.  Then Russell asked Adina how she knew David and she told her story.  Then the men stepped away and Adina knew she had permission to pay her respects.  We invited Renee to stay with us.

Adina spent time in silence, then scattered new tobacco to the four directions honoring the ancestors.  She hung a special medicine bag on the post as a gift, a thank you for David's friendship to her, for his help in her healing and for all he did for the tribe.

Afterwards, we all stood and talked for a long time.  By the time we left, we were good friends.  I mentioned that my camera was dead and Renee said that they would stop by later and pick it and the carger up and charge it for us.  That was great!

Then Russell invited us to stop at his place.  He showed us treasured pictures.  He had a picture of his father, his hero.  One picture showed David, part of the crew in one of the canoes he carved.  Other pictures showed La Push from years ago.  He had so many stories and we finally felt like we had taken up too much of his time so we said we had to leave. 

We went to Rialto for the rest of the day, a bright sunny day.  I missed my camera so looked for alternatives.  I took some great pictures with my Toshiba Thrive tablet but I can't figure out how to transfer them to my pc.  Any ideas out thereof how to move files from an Andriod system to a Windows system?  I suppose that sounds a little like a fish story ... I've got these great pictures but I can't show them to you!

We watched pelicans.  They came in like a squadron of blue angels and skimmed a breaking wake as if they were skating along it, then, just before the wave crested, they'd swoop up in full precision. 


Three pelicans skimming a wave about to break
They look like they are walking on water

Last night as we sat around the fire, we were watching for Renee and Chaz to come by to pick up the battery when a blue pickup drove up.  Russell got out with another fellow. 

This was Jay, a retired professor from University of British Columbia, CA.  He did his first placement in La Push many years ago, working on learning the Quileute language and has returned at least once a year every since.  He knew David Fourlines and had worked with him so he had lots of stories to tell.  He brought a book that he and David had worked on, a book to teach the language to the new generations.  He also brought a book that had some pictures of David. 

Then Renee and Chaz pulled up in their pickup with their daughter and her friend.  We sat around the campfire and visited until late.  They invited us to come back to La Push in late July.  This year the last stop on the Seattle Paddle will be La Push.  We're going to come!  That'll be something to see. 

Chaz said we should come in the winter for the excitement of the winter storms.  We told him we used to come all the time so we have a date for that for January.  We're going to coordinate our visit so that both Chaz and Renee will be there as they both travel for their work.  They took my camera battery/charger with them when they went home, sometime after dark. 

We are so honored and happy to have met them.  A real gift!  They are warm and generous people and they are going to come and visit us in Vancouver!

This morning was laundry and blog day.  Renee met us at the Laundromat with my (charged) camera battery.  Then Haley, their daughter, snapped this picture of the three of us (Chaz had to leave early this morning for work). 

Carole, Renee and Adina
I'm wearing my new Quileute sweatshirt
Two Quileute wolves (not Twilight werewolves) and a bear on it

How fortunate we are!  What a wonderful trip we are having.  It is amazing to wander and discover great friends, like family, along the way.  It's a little like meeting somebody you already knew.  That's good stuff, folks.

8/19/12 -- Leaving Lyre River and Beyond

Lazy at Lyre River

We had thought to take a day trip on Tuesday but decided to spend a quiet day in camp instead.  The river was so beautiful and sang to us so sweetly.

Lyre River - "Singing Waters"

We enjoyed a quiet morning.  I read books on my Tablet and Adina meditated like crazy.  We also spent a couple of hours visiting with each other.  The DNR Rangers brought us a huge pile of wood as you can see in this picture.  Doesn’t it look inviting?  Drichab-Anna, that spot behind the chairs was reserved for your tent, for you and Winston.  Percy really misses him.

Sweet Campsite

That afternoon, Adina baked a pear-upside-down cake.  I’d never had an upside-down cake made with pears before.  Adina said that she hadn’t either, but it sounded interesting and besides, we had the pears on hand.  She put it together in our little cast iron Dutch oven and set it on the stones I’d put in a circle.  She shoveled coals under the cake and on top of the lid. 



Laying hot coals on the lid of the Dutch oven (left foreground)

As it baked, she checked the temperature of the cake.  I still say, that’s pure magic.  She knows when the Dutch oven is at 350 degrees and she keeps it there by regulating the amount of coals on the lid. 



Testing the temperature of the Dutch Oven

When I told the DNR Ranger that she was baking a cake in the fire, both of his bushy eyebrows shot up and he said, “Now there’s a lost art, for sure.”  When it comes to baking campfire cakes, Adina is an artist!

We cooked dinner in the fire, called pocket meals.  This is one of my favorite camping meals.  You take all kinds of vegetables, throw in some ground meat and whatever seasons strike your fancy.  Then you wrap the whole mess in tin foil, lay it on the coals of the campfire and let it cook.  Oh, man!  Then we had the pear-upside-down cake for dinner dessert.  It was delicious!

Interuppted!

We were just settled down for a nice evening by the fire when six teenagers pulled into the adjacent site in a battered pickup.  We were a little concerned at first but they introduced us to their two dogs, Hazel and Pepper, and we talked about dogs. 

They seemed like nice kids.  I think they were.  There were six fellows and a girl.  They set up a couple of dome tents, unloaded and stacked a good amount of firewood and started a campfire.  They laughed and joked and were having a good time.  The kids got along well and were obviously good friends. 

They kept their music pretty low.   It was nice enough music so it wasn’t offensive in that way but we’d rather not hear anybody's music while we are camping.   We were camped by the river that the Native people called “singing waters.”   We felt like that was music enough.

 

Then they brought out their guns and started to fire them. 

We are very nervous about people shooting guns in the campsite adjacent to ours.  Or anyplace else in camp.  They were pretty good about using them, pointing them across the creek or where there were no campsites, only forest.  That didn't help any animals that got in their way. 

And you aren’t supposed to use firearms at all in DNR camps, state or national parks. 

We were worried.

About dark, they broke out a couple of cases of beer.  They stayed quiet at first but got louder and louder as the evening progressed.  By the time they settled down at midnight, a couple of the guys who had been best buddies earlier were shouting, swearing and fighting.  The other kids were shouting and swearing at them because they were fighting. 

I don't have anything against a social drink for those who can handle it but not when it gets out of hand like that. 

It was not a restful night.  We have been fortunate that this is the first time the whole trip that we have encountered something like this.  The kids got up at 7 am and drove off by 8, taking one of their two tents with them.  We wondered if they had gone to school.

During breakfast we agreed that we didn’t want another night like that.  Adina organized the inside of the trailer for travel and I loaded the wood and outside gear, then hitched up the trailer.  During this process, the DNR Ranger stopped by.  He was surprised that we were leaving since we’d signed up for several more days.

When we told him what had happened, he was very angry.  He could see that they had trashed the site and left a target on one of the trees.  It was evident where one of the guys had thrown up repeatedly. 

The Rangers found ammunition from the guns on the ground, even right next to our car.  We were relieved that no damage came to our car or trailer. 

According to the Ranger, that this would never have happened if they still had a campground host there.  Probably true.  They had just lost the campground host who had been there all summer.  The guy left early to accept a job in California.  Good for him, sad for the rest of us. 

The Ranger wrote out an “Order to Vacate” and left it for the kids, assuring us that Rangers would be back to check on things.  Then he gave us more wood, even loaded it into our car.  We gave him a description of the pickup and he headed off to check the high school parking lot to see if he could find it.

It’s really too bad.  Last night, every site in camp was full.  This morning when we left, every other camper had left too.  Those kids spoiled a beautiful camp for a lot of campers.  People just don't realize.

So this morning, we decided to head west – all the way west.  We drove along the north edge of the Olympic Peninsula on a winding, twisting road that followed the line of the coast.  The speed limit was 50 mph, however most of the time, the signs said, “Curves ahead for the next 2 miles, 30 mph.”  Sometimes the speed for these curves was 20 mph and a few times it was 15 mph. 

We took these signs very seriously, remembering the lessons we learned when we lived here before.  It took several hours to drive through Pysht (pronounced “pisht”), Seiku (“see’kew”) to Neah Bay (“Nee’ah”). 

Neah Bay

Neah Bay is on the Makah Indian reservation (Ma kaa').  An archeological dig at Ozette has yielded a treasure-house of Makah history, now housed at the Makah Indian Museum here in Neah Bay.  

Totem at the Entrance to the Makah Indian Museum

Walking through those displays this afternoon was a moving experience. 

This tribe has found artifacts that show that they have lived in this area for 4000 years.  They were part of a trading network that stretched from Alaska to southern California and as far inland as the east side of the Rocky Mountains. 

 

Their story is a common one.  Europeans wanted the tribal lands and so they took them, making and breaking treaties as they went.  They believed that it was their destiny to bring civilization to the Native people so they forced the the people to bring their children to be educated (in English) in schools that would "fit them for society." 

 

They forbade the people to practice their traditional cultural ceremonies, forbade potlatches since they believed that they undermined capitalism, forbade any of them to speak their Makah language.  Now the people are re-learning these elements of their heritage, a heritage that is respected. 

Traditional Makah carved mask
(public domain picture)

Their artisans were and are master carvers. They made folded cedar boxes, beautiful baskets and elaborate masks like the one on the left.  They wore these mask/hats for their ceremonies and dances. 

 

So back in the late 1800's and early 1900's, the government tried to civilize the Makah. 

 

At first, the US government brought an agricultural specialist in to teach them how to be farmers.  That plan had to be scrapped when the agriculturalist discovered that the climate was too cold for farming.  Besides, the soil was poor and they didn't have enough sunny days to produce any crop but a poor grade of potatoes.

 

They the government decided that the Makah should become a fisher people.  This was really silly since the Makah had been harvesting the Pacific Ocean waters for centuries.  They were fishing with gill nets long before Europeans introduced them.  They were expert navigators and took their canoes as far as 40 miles into the ocean to hunt for whales.  That’s right, whales.  

 

Their 20 ft. cedar canoes held 8 men, each of whom went through rigorous physical and spiritual training to do one of the whaling tasks.  For example, only a member of the chieftain’s family could throw the harpoon.

 

The Makah never took whales unless the people needed them.  When a whale was brought to shore, the elders led the people in prayers, thanking the whale for giving itself up to their needs.  They used every part of the whale.  The bones held up their houses and provided a sophisticated system of drainage ditches.  The blubber made important oils.  People ate the meat. 



Photo of the Makah with a whale they took (public domain photo, 1910)

Then the whales began to disappear.  The primary offenders were European whalers who over-fished the Pacific Ocean, not only in taking whales but in taking sea life of all kinds.  The US government had a treaty with the Makah that allowed them to take the whales the people needed.  When the government put a moratorium on all whaling, they insisted that the Makah people be included. 

The Makah spent huge amounts of money to hire lawyers and take the US government to court.  In 1999 they won the right to take a whale.  One whale. 

The commercial fishing industry had a powerful lobby and aroused much protest to this event.  As a result, the government allowed a restraining order on the Makah while the issue was studied. 

The issue is still aparently being studied.  The Makah are still waiting for the right to take one more whale. 

It seems to me that there is something wrong with this picture when some countries are sending out floating factories to kill and process whales and the Makah are not allowed to take one whale a year.  Or ever.  My opinion, folks.

Today, according to the fellow at the Museum, the Makah who fish the seas are limited by government regulations in all fishing, limiting them to a few hours each year instead of many months.  Many of the elders have died.  Middle aged Makah have moved away.  Many young people have left to find work.  Fewer than half the Makah people live on traditional tribal lands. 

Still, there is life here.  People are working to teach their children about their heritage.  The Museum is trying to educate tourists about their culture.  Some men have learned the ancient arts of carving.  Some women are learning to weave baskets in the traditional way.  Children and adults are learning their ancestral language. 

We visited Neah Bay twenty years ago and it was a pretty depressed area then.  Now we both thought the town was more lively. 

Beyond Neah Bay

We picked up some supplies in Neah Bay including a stop at The Take Home Fish Company, a little hole-in-the-wall where the owners smoke their own fish.  One light bulb gave the room poor light.  We watched them process the day’s catch, we bought some smoked salmon about as fresh as it comes, smoked by people who really know how to do it. 



The Take Home Fish Company in Neah Bay (from an unnamed website, public domain)

We Have Reached the Pacific Ocean!

About 3 miles beyond Neah Bay, we found the Ho-Buk RV park and campground where we are camped tonight.  As we rolled into camp, the fog began to roll over us.  We have truly reached the West Coast at last. 
 


The fog rolls towards us

We bundled up and took a walk on the beach even before we got the trailer set up.  It was so exciting to be by the Pacific Ocean again. 

One fellow was out surfing, wearing a wet-suit against the biting cold of the water.  The waves were at least 6-footers today.  He wasn't very skillful at surfing but least he was out there trying.



Surfer in wet suit breasting the waves of the Pacific Ocean
If that wave looks like a wall of water, it was.

On our walk, we could see Cape Flattery, the most northern, most western point in the contiguous United States.  The next land to the west is Japan.  The next land to the north is Canada.

It was pretty foggy all the way here, and the fog only lifted for a couple of hours.  In this picture, you can see the bottom of Cape Flattery in the distance, crashing waves and a sea of sea gulls.



Cape Flattery (the top is lost in fog), wild waves and a sea of sea gulls

I couldn't believe how close the sea gulls let us come.  As I approached, most of them sauntered off, not very concerned at all.  One gull took off and I caught him in mid-air!  We may have to frame this one!



Sea gull in flight

We love the ocean, its beauty and its power.  Tonight, in honor of our ocean home-coming, I wrote this poem.

Ocean

some say that humans
came from the sea
Native people call the sea
Grandmother Ocean

That feels right
Her power is challenging
enticing, enchanting
welcoming

I feel that power
pounding
through my feet
into my bones

halts me mid-stride
like an electric current
energizes me
like a wind-up bunny

fascinates me like a candle
beckoning a moth
my heart beats the rhythm
of her waves

After our walk, we set up our folding chairs and little table in the lee of the trailer and feasted on left-over yams and the smoked salmon we bought today.  We love smoked salmon anyway, and tonight, it never tasted so good.  We topped our meal off with pear-upside-down cake.  

Wild waves in the fog - 4 pm in the afternoon
Does it look cold?  It is, but what a great feeling!
This is the view from our campsite!

We have always thought that it was romantic to sit by the ocean, bundled up against the damp cold, sharing a simple meal, listening to the waves.  Tonight we discovered that it still is.  Uh-huh!

Now as I write, I hear the surf pounding the shore.  We are cozy in our trailer, listening to the thundering waves of the Pacific Ocean. Aah!  After all the beauty and wonder we have seen on our trip, we get this too?  How fortunate we are!

Tomorrow we will begin following the coast south.  We’ll go along the Olympic National Park and – well, that’s for the next blog. 

Stay tuned!