The Olympic Peninsula

So it begins.

We are in nature.

It is raining.

Nature is wet. Wet and cold.

We are wet and cold.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The day started clear and sunny, a fine day to head into nature. We checked out of the hotel, and while we waited for our car to come out, the doorman told us all that Boston was really flat. It had no mountains. He had an uncle who lived in Boston and never left the city. This doorman didn't understand why someone would never want to leave the city and go hike on a mountain.

I wanted to tell him to stick his mountain up his butt. Instead I smiled and said, "I don't think of Boston as flat, and how about those Red Sox? They really plastered the Mariners last week, huh?"

Thankfully, the car arrived before it got ugly.

We drove up to Edmonds and took the Kingston ferry across to the Olympic peninsula. Those guys on the ferry are amazing. We were out on the water before Elizabeth and I were organized enough to leave the car.


It was cold and breezy up on deck, but they had some sheltered benches that were perfectly comfortable and out of the wind. Before we knew it we were on the Olympic Peninsula.

We start heading across the northern section where it's still sunny and temperate. We stop in Sequim, WA and head to Purple Haze Lavender Farm. Yes, a lavender farm where they grow pretty purple flowers to make soap that smells like your grandmother.

Elizabeth loved it.



She could've stayed there taking pictures for hours. /////

--I am now typing this in the bathroom of the Bed and Breakfast where we're staying. Every night Elizabeth has bitched that my typing this keeps her awake. It's a battle. There's no desk in this place (I would be nuts if there was no wifi) and I started out typing this on the bed, but apparently this was too much vibration, then I moved to the floor, but the sound of it was too much, so now I'm sitting on the toilet typing.

I love my wife.

Back to the story-- I have lots of pictures of this lavender farm because really the only thing to do there is take pictures. It's smelly. They sell lavender soap, lavender salad dressing, and lavender ice cream. We had a choice of lavender peppermint, lavender lemon, or lavender white chocolate ice cream. We went for the lavender white chocolate ice cream.

It tasted like vanilla with pieces of white chocolate in it.

I tried the lavender salad dressing. It tasted like Italian.

The shop has lavender drying all over the ceiling, and on the way back we're probably going to stop again and pick some of our own to take home.


I did drink the kool-aid a bit and got edible lavender (seeds? buds?) for cooking. There was another mix there with basil, oregano, fennel, and thyme, but I figure I can add those things myself later. I'm not sure lavender will taste like anything unless you steam whatever food you're cooking with it (since it's so aromatic). The place said it went well with citrus flavors. I'll experiment with it.

And onward to Forks, WA, which is currently famous because some author set her young-adult vampire novels there. These novels are currently being turned into a movie called Twilight, and this year's San Diego Comic Con was overwhelmed with teenage girls desperate to find out about it and its hunky, male, vampire stars. That's just wrong. Teenage girls don't go to Comic Con, it's for overweight geeks and other social misfits. But I digress.

Forks is pretty much a hole in the wall (actually some buildings in the middle of a forest), but that's were our rustic B&B is.

This is the view out our window:

We're told we'll see elk down there among the trees, but nothing so far.

As soon as we got on this side of the peninsula, the rain really started. When they say rain forest, that's not just about what kind of trees are there. It's pouring. It's raining in the picture above-- see how wet the banister is?

There's really nothing to do here unless you want to get wet. People apparently hike in the rain. I've done this, but usually when you start hiking it's not raining, and then it starts to rain so in order to get back to civilization you have to hike in the rain. I'm told that people start hiking in the rain around here, because if you don't, there are only about two days of the year that you'd go hiking.

We went to La Push, WA for dinner. This is a Native American community, and the restaurant is run by the tribe, apparently. Good fish, but the salad bar was a nightmare. The restaurant was called River's End, because, you guessed it, it's where the river meets the sea.

The beaches there are full of nasty wood, that comes down from Alaska. The sea just sweeps this stuff in.



It's a desolate place. If I ever meet a kid from La Push, I will congratulate him for being able to get out of there.

There's no nightlife to speak of around here. We came back to the B&B where there are amazing homemade desserts. The price of the desserts is sitting and listening to the innkeeper go on and on about her kids, how college athletes make the best workers (HA!), the trials of running a B&B, maverick ranchers she has known, zoning problems, reforestation, strange guests she's had in the past, and horrible diseases I might have. Again, Elizabeth loved it.

I just wanted to go back to the room and type this up. Elizabeth should have stayed out there, at least then I wouldn't have to sit in the bathroom while I type.

Tomorrow: more nature, and finally arriving at Alex and Beth's.