Day Seven

I rode my first century today- did 105 miles from Lake Quinalt to the train station in Olympia. I rode through Hoquiam, tires for sale in a front lawn, Aberdeen with it's agro drivers, through Olympia past state capital building, and finally to the train station outside town. There were half a dozen retired folks in the train station who seem to hang out there as a hobby, talking about which signal lights are the most beautiful, discussing different types of trains, tracks, and movies about trains, and getting totally pumped up when trains go by. I wanted to stay and hang out with them.

Wildlife list for the trip: banana slugs, black banana slugs, roosevelt elk, barred owl, woodpecker, loons, deer, rabbits, red tailed hawk.

More pics from the trip

Day Six

Took another walk in the rain forest, then biked West and South for the coast. Manu Chao sang:

Infinita tristeza
Tu sombra en la pared
Infinita tristeza
Viento de Washington

Stopped to check out a big cedar tree that had probably about 6 dozen different trees growing on top of its roots, branches, and off its trunk. Forests seem tranquil and serene, but the truth is that they're the site of massive and epic battles, with each plant trying to obliterate the others and achieve domination of the land. Trees grow right off each others fallen bodies, seed is blanketed across the forest floor in an attempt to grow a horde of offspring, and canopies are spread wide to try to block foes from seeing the sun. I wonder if we'll ever splice plant genes with ours to make people with chorophyll in their skin who can photosynthesize as a supplement to eating.

Later, I spooked a bunch of elk off the side of the road who ran into the forest. I stopped and saw a beach, another big cedar, and the Quinault rain forest before setting up an impromptu campsite on the South shore of Lake Quinault. Except for some loons, I had a bay on the lake completely to myself, . Bathing in the cold water felt good after the 80 mile day.

Day Five

Worked, making good progress on a new UI for our automated OS installation feature. Then I left Forks to head to the Hoh Rain Forest. Clearcut, purple bell flowers, green signs, then brown signs, Wolf Parade singing:

You know our hearts beat time out very slowly.
You know our hearts beat time, they're waiting for something that'll never arrive

and before I knew it, I was in the rain forest. Hung out with a few folks in the campsite next to mine, they had an engineer with them who had built a camping oven out of cardboard, tin foil, and a coat hanger. So I had hot beans and good company for dinner.

Day Four

Worked. Then around 5 I headed South 5 miles to Bogachiel St. Park, following a lead from a reliable source that the hiking trails there are just like Dagobah. I got there, but there were no vines, no swamp, no sagely green imps, and not even any hiking trails. So I walked down the middle of the Bogachiel river listening to the Great Lake Swimmers and savored a swimming hole I found. Oh, I forgot to mention that today was my first portable-MP3 player experience, and it was pretty awesome. I hammered to Audioslave on the way to Bogachiel, it was the perfect decompression from work. I think I have to formally give up my resistance to portable MP3 players, though I still think iPods are lame.

Day Three

Bob headed back East to get his boat and sail to Bellingham, Colin the fiddler stuck around Elwha to rest, and I biked West toward the rain forests on the West side of the Peninsula. I did about 50 sunny miles to the town of Forks, where I got a hotel room so I could work for the next couple days. Forks has about 3 or 4 thousand residents, and its entire economy seems to be based on the fact that the Twilight series is set there. Every business in town sells something Twilight themed. On the walls of the Mexican restaurant, instead of paintings of pastoral Mexican scenes, they have glam shots of the actors in Twilight. The Thriftway in town has no less than half a dozen racks of Twilight-branded clothing. The town is over-run with female teenage tourists taking pictures of everything. The locals seem much larger than average and mostly drive trucks the size of Kansas City. I hid in my hotel room.

Day Two

We awoke to a beautiful and bright day on the mooring ball we had roped to, took a couple trips ashore rowing our bikes and gear in Bob's dinghy, and began biking. We were going to bike to Hurricane Ridge, but we met a bike camper with a violin on his back who was headed to the Elwha hot springs, so we went with him there. It was about 60 miles to camp, most of them hilly and beating into the wind. Entering the national park felt like a breath of fresh air though.

We set up at Altair camp ground about 8, then biked a steep 5 up to the hot springs, hiked in a couple miles, and soaked ourselves in a couple-foot-deep pool of sulfurous spring water. It felt amazing after the day of biking.

getting started

my bed at Altair

Peninsula Bike Tour Day One

Back Story:
A week or two ago, I asked my friend Bob Hall if he wanted to sail from Seattle to the Olypmic Peninsula, then ride our bikes around. The plan went through a few variations, but eventually we decided to sail to Port Townsend and bike for a couple days before he sailed back and I continued on a 3/4 bike loop around the peninsula ending in Olympia.

Day One:
We sailed out of Shilshole marina on his motorless 30-ft sailboat (which is also his house) We were headed through the Puget Sound North and a bit West to eventually land at Port Townsend, on the northeastern most corner of the Olypmic Penninsula. The wind was Northerly, so we had to tack NE and NW throughout the day to make progress. It got pretty choppy towards nightfall, and after the sun went down, it became more like whitewater rafting than sailing. I put on every layer of clothing I had with me plus about 3 more from Bob, including a full orange rubber suit. Cold splash came from the front and side and over us, the boat dove up and down over big waves, and the gimbled kerosene lamp inside swayed furiously. The only other light came from the half moon, a few occasional lights on the shore that crawled slowly by, and freight ships going by. I only started fearing for my life when I began wondering if the mast was supposed to be as horizontal as it was, and whether I was supposed to be able to stand flat on surfaces that were normally vertical. Bob picked that choice moment to me remind me of the woman who flipped her kayak a week ago and died of hypothermia in 30 minutes. He also mentioned that "this would be a really shit time to fall in. If you think I could see your head bobbing out there between the dark waves, you're totally wrong." Thanks Bob.