I awoke early today hoping to spot something interesting on the banks of the Quinault River. I’m not sure what I was expecting. Mist clung to the lush trees and hovered above the silently swirling glacial waters. If I drank coffee...it would be the perfect spot to have a cup-o-joe. I just drank the ambiance and packed up the car...today I would experience my second rain forest in as many days.
Lake Quinault was formed thousands of years ago by a receding glacier. It was surrounded to the north by Quinault Rain Forest. I headed back to Highway 101, turning onto North Shore Drive. This winding strip took me into the rain forest. It was almost cliché the manner in which the trees grew tighter, blocking out the sky. Cold rain fell at the same time the sun plied its trade. It was pretty cool…
Winding and twisting as we drove further into the the coniferous rain forest were Spruce, Hemlock, Douglas Fir, and Western Red Cedar. I kept a watch out for elusive black bears and cougars. My last sighting of a cougar was in Montana at the prison/auto museum. Prior to that was the 1969 Cougar XR-7 I used to drive. Actually, it was my dad’s but I still drove it; up until the day it got stolen. Hopefully I’d have more luck with the four-legged variety.Something I have learned from scuba diving can be applied to all wild-life adventures: Learn to appreciate the small wonders. I no longer plunge into the deep blue hoping to see sharks. I get excited about coral formations, little critters, and the fact that I’m scuba diving. It seems once I’m satisfied with the small stuff something big usually swims along. Actually, that advice can apply to all of life, not just the wild variety.
I took in the gnarling limbs of the moss-covered trees. The saturated earth gave birth to hundreds of impromptu waterfalls. White rivulets coursed from the snow covered caps down to where I stood by the lake. Quietly observing, I began to sense a pattern in the sounds. Silence is a sound...breaking the waters of silence was a bald eagle circling above me...wow. Wings spread, each flap caused ripples in the silence before it. Spectacular.
Waterfalls, moss-covered trees, and lush ferns everywhere. I should not have been surprised, this region receives, on average, 12 feet of rain annually. The rain forest was not just a visual delight. My nose filled with the smell of deciduous trees and their contributions to the forest floor.
Crossing a bridge signaled the transition from the North Shore Drive to the South Shore Drive.
As I continued along the 31 mile loop I rolled upon a grazing herd of Roosevelt Elk. I was frozen just watching them. The male of the herd looked at me and chewed something at the side of the road. Similar to the shoreline providing dramatic contrast of ocean/forest, the same was true here. The lake’s edge blended into forest; at this one, particular gap where I saw the elk. A snapping twig, the call of a loon...and the elk were gone.
When I completed the loop, I was back on Highway 101. I headed south. It was beach time!
En route to the shoreline, I stopped at the Quinault National Fish Hatchery, appropriately located at 3 Sockeye Road. I watched the film and took the self guided tour through the hatching pools. Man, is there anything we haven’t totally fucked up? Years of overzealous lumber clearing have allowed silt to contaminate and clog rivers. The salmon, as we all know, are born in fresh water streams and make their way to the open ocean where they live for years. Spurred by biological changes and seasonality, adult salmon make their way back to the waters where they were hatched for their contribution to the circle of life. Mature salmon, after swimming upstream, spawn in the same waters where they were conceived...only to die shortly after hatching or fertilizing eggs. That’s it. Man-made obstacles such as dams, clogged rivers, and pollution, in addition to historical over-fishing, have depleted stocks of Pacific Salmon: Chinook, Pink, Sockeye, Chum, and Coho.
The QNFH not only replenishes fish stocks, they were actively researching the salmon to document survival rates and migration routes. Fish are marked with coded wire tags prior to being released into the wild. The data collected will assist the Quinault in their efforts to preserve the Pacific Salmon. The irony of a people almost driven to extinction attempting to prevent the same from happening to fish did not escape me.Time to hit another beach.
I made my way to the mouth of the Quinault River, to the town of Taholah. Taholah, like many tribal areas, was run down. However, there were some cool tribal paintings on buildings and I was able to check out a traditional canoe alongside someone’s house. That was about it...so I headed south toward Pacific Beach.
So far, all of the beaches I have seen in Washington have been rocky and chock full of driftwood. This expectation made Pacific Beach all the more surprising. It was strictly sand...no rocks, no driftwood. The sand was so fine and tightly packed I was able to drive the VW right up to the surf...Oh, and the surf just dribbled in whereas other beaches were witnesses to violent surf crashing on shore. Frito got to run all up and down this beach. No worries about the surge or surf. Oddly, we were the only ones there, enjoying the sounds and smells of the ocean.
I meandered along State Road 109, driving on beaches all the way to Ocean City. The Pacific Sands Motel seemed like the right place to stay...maybe it was the sad seagull on the sign.
In the morning, I made my way back to Highway 101 and passed through Hoquiam. After indulging in a small town hair cut, I grabbed lunch at the 7th Street Deli & Wine Bar [www.westernwashingtonwine.com]. The guy offered me a job. I just wanted a bowl of chili. I continued along Gray’s Harbor on 105, keeping the Pacific in constant view. I weedled in and out of all the small towns along the coast. I found a glass studio in the inappropriately named town of Cosmopolis (Cosmopolis literally means City of the World). I have been to a few “Cities of the World.” Cosmopolis...you are no city of the world. Anyway, the studio was called Opal Art Glass [www.opalartglass.com] but nobody was there...Eventually, I made my way back to Highway 101 and Willapa Bay.
On my way, I passed through the town of Raymond. All along the section of Highway 101 in Raymond were steel sculptures in the shapes of deer, elk, and other local wild life. A true New Englander’s delight...not because of the charming seaport or steel sculptures, but there were two museums side-by-side. A real TFNE Two-fer treat! So, I checked out the Willapa Seaport Museum, imagine Fred Sanford meets Moby Dick; and the Northwest Carriage Museum [www.nwcarriagemuseum.org]. The NCM was pretty cool...with 24 magnificently restored horse-drawn carriages. Willapa Bay was interesting, dotted with little port towns. I checked out the Pacific County Courthouse to see its famous glass windows...but, they were covered with plywood, which has less translucent properties.
I headed further south and before I knew it I was crossing the mighty Columbia River.
Twenty-four hours ago I was in a rain forest and now I was in Oregon. When I crossed the state line, I could finally say that I have been to every state in the lower 48. I’m a poet and didn’t know it! Maybe I’ll hit Alaska in the Spring and make it 50 out of 50, since I once had the pleasure of visiting Hawaii. I ended the day in, what else, a rain storm and motel, at the Sunset Surf Motel [www.sunsetsurfocean.com] in Manzanita, Oregon. 
February 23 - 24, 2007
