This week I managed to avoid killer logs and tsunamis,
fire and rain, and bears and cougars. For someone who
can get herself into trouble without even trying, that’s
a highly successful week!
The killer logs and tsunamis became a consideration
as I followed the Oregon coast north. Apparently killer
logs—timber that somehow finds its way to the
ocean or beach and gets tossed around like twigs in
the Pacific’s powerful surf—are a fairly
common phenomenon, and they’re often deadly. Tsunamis,
which are walls of water generated far out at sea by
seismic events, are much rarer but vastly more devastating:
They can wipe out coastal communities for hundreds upon
hundreds of miles. When I started seeing tsunami escape-route
signs pointing inland, I made a mental note of each
route that I passed. Not that it really would be necessary
if a tsunami materialized; like hurricane escape routes
on other U.S. shores, those routes would be rendered
obvious by gridlock in the event of any threat.
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Designer Joe
Of course all of the coastal campgrounds were full,
so I spent my last night in Oregon in a predictably
overpriced hotel. I was glad I did, though, because
the daytime view of the mighty Columbia River was something
I wouldn’t have wanted to miss. Even tamed as
it is by the gargantuan Bonneville Dam, the river is
truly a sight to behold. And the bridge that spans it
at Astoria is a wonder in and of itself; the southern
portion arches high into the sky to accommodate sea
traffic, then flattens out for a long stretch before
landing in Washington State.
I was clinging to the coast because it would take me
to the Olympic Peninsula, one of my favorite parts of
the country, and because it would be my last dance with
an ocean for a long time to come. For similar reasons
I stopped in South Bend to patronize the Boondocks Retail
Seafood Outlet & Espresso; I had resolved to eat
as much seafood as I wanted before heading inland. (Being
a tea junkie rather than a coffee fiend, I hadn’t
taken advantage of the ubiquitous drive-through coffee/espresso
shacks that dot the Pacific Northwest. In one town where
two women were genuinely surprised, I swear, to hear
that there exist copiers that can staple as well as
collate, I could have gotten a cuppa designer joe on
just about every block.)
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Speed Limits
The Boondocks was staffed by a friendly woman with
a Scandinavian-sounding accent. She knew a mark when
she saw one, and pointed out numerous tasty morsels
that would separate me from my money. I left with a
chunk of smoked salmon, a smoked tuna steak, a container
of homemade smoked-tuna dip, and some locally canned
smoked oysters. Apparently I spent enough for her to
share a bit of useful information: As I left, she told
me (cheerfully and pointedly) to be sure to obey the
speed limit. Heat Moon noted that everything that happens
along the coast either happens on the water or on route
101, and he was right; I guess the local jurisdictions
harvest the bounty of the blue highway as efficiently
as their citizens trawl the seas.
That night I camped in Twin Harbors State Park, which
is, I am very sorry to say, representative of most public
campgrounds in the Pacific Northwest: I paid $16—a
comparatively high price—for the privilege of
being right on top of my neighbors, listening to traffic
noise, and heating water to take a bird bath (no showers).
I don’t understand why it apparently never occurred
to Northwestern planners that most people camp in order
to get away from high population densities
and heavy traffic. (I also don’t understand why
the otherwise independent-minded, privacy-loving citizens
of these states seem to meekly accept such circumstances
as normal. But I am sure that some offended Northwestern
reader will enlighten me.)
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Road Sisters
The next day I wandered around Westport a bit before
moving up into the peninsula. In a small seafood-and-subs
shop I enjoyed a delicious smoked-salmon chowder and
planted a seed in the minds of the two young women working
the counter, who were amazed by what I was doing. The
one, in particular, was clearly captivated—if
frightened—by the prospect of traveling solo;
I could practically see the light bulb going on over
her head. (Now, it is truly not my intention to raise
up armies of road sisters; but if I inspire a few similarly
inclined women to head out on their own, so be it. I’ll
gladly endure the curses of parents and menfolk if my
odyssey helps another woman do something she thought
she couldn’t do by herself.)
A few miles east of Westport, the odometer hit 10,000,
a satisfyingly big, round number that signified nothing
in particular but still felt worthy of celebration.
(In truth, the odometer hit zero; apparently the mileage
geeks at VW don’t think many people take trips
of more than 2,000 miles, because that’s the point
at which the trip odometer automatically resets itself.
I could even understand it if they didn’t want
to spring for the extra digit and made it reset itself
after 9,999.9 miles, but 2,000? It seems to be a fairly
low bar for a “Drivers Wanted” car company.)
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Mountains Marry the Sea
So with five digits behind me, I headed into the wonderful,
mystical Olympic Peninsula, home to the only true rain
forest in the continental United States. The mountains
married the sea here, and big trees are their offspring.
There’s nothing in the world like rounding a curve
and seeing the ocean through swirling, ghostly mists
and towering, lichen-festooned conifers. Eugene Semple,
governor of the Washington Territory, described the
Olympic Range thusly in an 1888 report to the secretary
of the interior: “The mountains seem to rise from
the edge of the water, on both sides, in steep ascent
to the line of perpetual snow, as though nature had
designed to shut up this spot for her safe retreat forever.”
Underwater volcanoes and glaciers fashioned this fabulous
landscape; the Olympics are quite young in geological
terms and are, in fact, still rising. The peninsula
encompasses a variety of ecosystems, from the underwater
kelp forests off the coast, to the rain forests (parts
of which receive over 160 inches of rain annually),
to the subalpine mountain heights, to the northeastern
prairie savannahs (which get only one-tenth of the rain
forest’s annual rainfall).
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The
Asbestos Forest
The generally wet environment explains why I escaped
fire—this is truly the asbestos forest, as Leah
Rosin characterized the coastal forests of northwestern
Oregon—and temperatures are fairly cool; it never
rose above 70 while I was there, and the nights were
downright cold. Nothing other than an act of God, however,
would account for the fact that I camped on the peninsula
for five days and nights and it didn’t rain so
much as a drop. It was, as one local put it, Chamber
of Commerce weather: It bore little resemblance to everyday
reality.
I spent one night in the Olympic National Forest’s
Klahowya Campground, where I was happy to do without
a shower when I had a spacious, $12 site surrounded
by rain forest and an icy, babbling stream. I would
have stayed another night if a delightful, college-aged
couple hadn’t virtually insisted that I move on
to the Olympic National Park’s Heart O’
the Hills Campground a few miles south of Port Angeles.
Here, for $10 per night, I had another spacious, secluded
site surrounded by big trees and a gurgling rivulet,
plus stunning mountain vistas and great hiking.
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Walk Softly and Carry . . .
Heart O’ the Hills was the setting for my last
triumph of avoidance. This was wild mountain land, and
the rules were strict: All food, utensils, and scented
products of any kind had to be stored in a hard-sided
vehicle—Jeeps wouldn’t qualify, there were
no bear boxes, and caching food in trees was not allowed—at
all times except when one was in the process of cooking
or eating or, say, applying antiperspirant. I knew that
despite a few well-publicized, disastrous encounters
between bears and humans, the fact is that the former
usually stay far clear of the latter; I was probably
tempting fate, though, by feasting on salmon and blackberries,
two of the bruins’ favorite foods. But I was in
salmon country and I loved salmon as much as any bear
did. And I had picked three more bags of wild blackberries
on my way out of Oregon and wasn’t about to let
the last of them languish because there might be a theoretical
bear within smelling distance. So I ate quickly and
kept a scrupulously clean camp and lived to tell the
tale.
(Insofar as cougars were concerned, I knew that the
big cats are even more shy of humans than are bears;
I counted on that when I broke two cougar rules by hiking
alone without a walking stick. But I kept to short trails
that didn’t get near the backcountry and figured
it was a chance worth taking.)
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Colors Of the Rainbow
Today I attended the Clallam County Fair just west
of Port Angeles. Fairs are a big deal where I grew up,
so I jumped at the chance to check out a Northwestern
one. In many ways it was the same: Children screamed
on the rides, people who obviously hadn’t seen
each other in a while caught up on each other’s
lives, and everybody ate too much. But in a lot of ways
it was different: The must-get food was scones, the
rodeo was great fun, and the llamas balked at being
put through their paces. In Pennsylvania, we eat funnel
cakes and watch harness races or tractor pulls; there
are no llamas to entertain us.
Another striking difference was the diverse crowd.
At the Clallam County Fair, the sea of white was dotted
with black, brown, and red; a Rodriguez girl competed
in the barrel race, and a brother took his turn crooning
country ballads on the main stage. Dark skin was still
definitely the minority, but it was a noticeable minority.
And the rainbow appeared at a booth operated by the
Clallam County Chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and
Friends of Lesbians and Gays).
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Swimming In Sin . . .
As usual, the brotherhood of man was in question. While
one brother crooned, another stopped behind me and loudly
ranted—to his two white friends—about the
indignity of a black man acting like a redneck. And
a saucy queen manning the PFLAG booth enjoyed telling
me about a woman who challenged the Gideons by saying
that she’d take the New Testament they were handing
out if they would take the PFLAG pamphlet entitled “Is
Homosexuality a Sin?”
But when I later asked the crooner if the heckler bothered
him at all, he laughed and indicated that he had a job
to do and would sing whatever he wanted. And the queen
really was devoted to building bridges and was pleased
that both sides at least had accepted the other’s
reading material. He and his partner were, on the whole,
optimistic despite the challenges of swimming upstream
in a rural community. Swimming upstream works for salmon,
and Gary Ash and Earl Wilson will celebrate
their 25th anniversary this year, so maybe there’s
hope.
I guess I’ll finally start swimming east this
week.
Stay tuned for next week’s installment. . . .
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