We woke up at the crack of nine o’clock, rolled over, and reveled in just the knowing that we did not have a rigid schedule. My stomach, though, had other plans. As the day pulled itself closer to ten AM my stomach decided to make me cranky enough to get my family motivated enough to go out and get breakfast. That wasn’t too hard to do since their stomachs had somehow agreed with mine and provided enough drive to get everyone into the car.
The Forks’ Cafe is a typical breakfast joint that one enters through a sliding glass door, seat yourselves, and are greeted by a rough and thick waitress calling you ‘hon’ and sporting a lace tattoo around her left arm. The coffee is bottomless and only limited by your tolerance and the breakfast is as deliciously greasy as those eaten with hangovers during the college days. We grazed casually trying to answer Bella trivia printed on the back of the local newsletter.
The drive to the Hoh rainforest was a brief 30 minutes away through a patchwork countryside quilted together from plots of clearcut land in varying stages of regrowth. The taller pieces hinted at the majesty of the soon to come national park. I was captivated by the tunnel of trees closed off the gray sky overhead, obscuring, yet not protecting from the mist-like drizzle condensing from the the air. Everything was wet. I suppose that is the best way to see a rain forest.
The ‘Hall of Moss’ trail within the Hoh rainforest is a short loop with many small spurs. Each spur uncovers yet another fascinating aspect of the rainforest. One led to an array of trees long since outgrown their nurse log, but still linearly arrayed in memorandum. Another led to a hollowed out remnant of an evergreen giant. The stump was large enough to make my kids look like small fledgling birds in an oversized nest. The most astounding spur took us to the Maple Grove at the far end of the ‘Hall of Moss’ trail. There, an entanglement of large Maple trees with soaring arms stretching over the ground holding long and shaggy coats of epiphytic moss. Though all the colors in a this rain forest were confined to browns and greens and yellows, the deciduous sentinels made excellent use of the available color spectrum and gracefully held a static pose conveying both patience and strength.
Of all the parks I have been to, the Hoh is probably the one you have to see for yourself. All others I have seen excellent images of, and while not truly portraying the essence of the park, come remarkably close at times. The hall of mosses is not like these. Of the many images I have seen both prior and after my experience there, none come close. Perhaps the reason for this is that the rain forest is an experience of all dimensions and one that necessarily fills out all three dimensions. Simply closing one eye while viewing the Maple Grove shuts out more than 90% of the experience. Another 9% is lost when the camera flash dulls the subtle pallet of natures composition.
Though breathtaking, our vacation moved on, and down the road to Kalaloch beach and resort. The rain still came in the misting sigh that is common to the northwest and so we opted to postpone our site seeing to a more compatible indoor activity. Besides our tummies were growling again, and so we ate a late lunch at the Lodge. The clam chowder was great, but the service and rest of the food lacked any fine polish more resembling typical bar fare. Lunch was nothing really special except for the extraordinary view that lay just out the window at the end of our table. Our view was to the west across the glass sculpted Kalaloch bay and storm ravaged Pacific Ocean to the iron gray and silver lined storm clouds. Yepper: gas $4.48/gallon; lunch: $32.48; eating lunch overlooking the amazing view of the Pacific coast with my wife and kids; truly priceless.
After lunch we wandered down to the beach and gathered shells and small pretty stones. We chased seagulls, examined beached jellyfish, and poked the ravaged remains of a Manta Ray. Somewhere between the crashing waves and the miles of driftwood graveyard at the high-tide line, we came across a tall stack of purposefully stacked logs.
The stack consisted of four layers. Each layer had four to six logs lying in parallel. Each layer was perpendicular to the last making a cross-hatch with each succesive layer. After four layers were stacked, sand was used to fill the gaps, and the construct made for an inpervious refuge from the occasional surge of ocean water that would race up the sand and destroy lesser constructs. We adopted the abandoned structure and once again dodged waves using the construct as a bastion against the larger waves.
Wave after wave raced up the beach, and time and time again we escaped onto our fortress of solitude. Only when inattention closed its fist around our senses did the wave catch us. But even then, we jumped quickly to our fortress and grudgingly gave only a partial victory to the eager sea. High tide was approaching and the number of attempts from the sea increased in both frequency and magnitude. Many surges now would surround our construct, assult it from all sides, and make an island temporarily isolated from the rest of the North American continent. Each attempt would again drain away to the sea and in doing so grab another handful of sand from the base.
As late afternoon transitioned into evening and the sun began to color the horizon, we tallied our score with the ocean and decided that we had won. We took our shells, our shoes, and our leave looking wistfully back to the construct as it was assulted again and again by the sea. We knew it would not last until high tide for few things can resist the periodic surge, but as we left the beach the construct remained strong, and even now there is a chance that it still remains.
That night we ate a late night pizza from Pacific Pizza in Forks (I resisted the Bellasagne with EdBread) and settled down for the second night of our trip.