I get the feeling I’ve never been here before
Foreigner
Because no one I’ve known’s ever moved me the way
That you do
After two awesome nights of backpacking, Olympic NP has jumped into the top tier of my favorite parks. We had a great introduction to the rain forest and costal parts of the park, but we barely scratched their surface. We didn’t even start exploring the mountains yet!
Every part of both hikes was beautiful. There was a perfectly secluded place for us on the river the first night and although the beach was crowded we had plenty of space to ourselves. Fred even made it through both nights unscathed. We got to see a ton of banana slugs throughout the hike. We crossed paths with a young buck and a (wood)pecker on the Hoh trail and that wasn’t even the night of the peckerfest! We watched the sun set at the beach and enjoyed the glow of the campfires around us. We will be back to Olympic to see more of this awesome place some day.
This morning we made a pretty quick exit. We woke up at seven and were the second group to leave the beach. Somehow the mile and a half hike up and out was even quicker than the hike in. We were back to Fred in about half an hour. I felt stinky, dirty, and a bit sore, but also invigorated by the three days we’d spent in the wilderness. As soon as we had a bit of internet we set a course to the nearest espresso shop where I got a delicious mocha to welcome me back to society.
We had a bit of a drive to get to the ferry that would take us off the peninsula, but realized we had a bit of time to spare. We found a laundromat in Port Angeles where we were able to destinkify our clothes. Sadly our bodies would have to wait until we make it Vancouver. We also stopped to pick up our second burger in two days. Apparently they’re the fuel needed after a night of beef jerky.
After another hour ride we made it to Port Townsend where the ferry that would take us onward docked. After passing through the gate we parked Fred and rolled down the windows to wait for the time to drive on board. Molly noticed music playing and asked if it was Enya or Yanni. I couldn’t quite place is so agreed. After a while I noticed a chorus that was vaguely familiar: “Say you will, say you will, make up your mind tonight”, but I couldn’t quite place it. A few minutes later I heard the same chorus again and commented that someone seemed to have the song on repeat. After a bit of lyric googling I discovered that we were actually listening to Foreigner’s “Say You Will”. Over and over again. The volume seemed to be increasing as well.
We were a captive audience, and the people in the gray pickup were going to subject us, and several dozen other cars full of people, to what was apparently their song of the day. We decided we had no choice but to accept our fate and sing along. For the next 15 minutes. That’s right. 15 straight minutes of Foreigner’s “Say You Will” on repeat. As the cars finally started loading into the ship I decided we’d have the last laugh so I cued up the song on our radio, cranked the volume and drove on past. Zoe claims we got dirty looks from gray pickup people, but I’m going to assume they were just amazed that someone else on the ship loved “Say You Will” as much as them.
The rest of the crusie was fairly uneventful, it was only a 20 minute trip and Molly drove the last 2.5 hours to Vancouver. Other than being caught a bit off guard by the border agent who seemed to think our two night stay in Canada wasn’t long enough the trip was uneventful. The hotel I picked here for tonight is very Kimptonesque. In particular, it is remnisant of The Goodland. We eagerly took showers to wash off three days of sweat and grime and then headed out for dinner. Ellie’s top priority was finding a place and served poutine. We found the perfect spot in The Flying Pig. They not only had great pork poutine, but everything else we had was delicious too.
Molly and I are sitting in the courtyard next to a cute fireplace catching up with blogs and the girls are hopefully sound asleep. Backpacking the last couple nights was fabulous, but there’s also something to be said for a full belly in a cute location.
