The Beginning of the World

It had been too long since I'd returned to the Pacific Northwest, a place I called home for five years.  And how quickly it came flooding back why it is one of my favorite places in the world.  It is beautiful.  It is green.  You are near the mountains and the ocean.  The food is great, the beer is greater.  The people warm and kind.  

Add to it that I spent 48 hours with one of my favorite humans, and yeah, it was damn near a perfect weekend.

When we stopped on the reservation to get our permit, a Makah tribal member told us they call this spot 'the beginning of the world'.  She said, "People come here and say "this is the end of the world!" because it is in the middle of nowhere, and we say "no, this is the beginning of the world"."

I get it.

My partner in crime, the ever-delightful Annie.

I suppose I should start at the beginning.  My flight left Minneapolis at 6:30, and I slept the whole way to Seattle.  Which means I got more sleep than I do on an average night, and arrived in Washington at 8 a.m.  I was wearing my hiking gear and had a backpack with me, the lightest I've traveled in years.  Annie picked me up, and after a quick stop for coffee and an octopus cookie (because 'why not'), we were off.  It was a 4 hour drive up the peninsula to reach the Olympic National Park.

We pit stopped in Port Angeles to check in with the forest rangers (who warned us of over-friendly raccoons, which made me very excited) and grab lunch.  While enjoying Mexican lagers and fish tacos (happy Cinco de Mayo!) we scoped out our map and our path.

The drive to our destination was gorgeous.

It was a 6 mile hike through rain forest and mud to get to Shi Shi Beach... lots of squishy noises and banana slug sightings.

We think sequoia?  Anyone want to argue it's a redwood?

Some slightly challenging terrain (the rope is for you hold on to while you navigate the trail).

There was another way down to our campsite, that teeny tiny person in the photo was doing an essentially vertical ascent.  No thanks, not with packs!

We made it down right at low tide.  

Set up our tent, opened the bag of wine, and commenced tide pooling.

100% mussels.

Cooking :)

Indian food on the beach.

Dinner with a view...

Who knows.

This question was asked several times: "What could possibly go wrong?"

A bald eagle flew over our camp for about ten minutes, while a seal played peek-a-boo in the cove.  We were in animal friend heaven.

The view from our tent at dusk.

Just doing some leisurely reading before bed.  Illumianted by a glow stick.

When we woke up the next morning, we decided to go for a walk down the stretch of beach towards the Arches.  We climbed up out of our cove and it started sprinkling as soon as we made our way down to the other side.  While it rained, the most beautiful double rainbow stretched across the horizon.  It was one of the times where you just stop and take it in.  It was beautiful.

We waited out the rain and then packed up to hike out.  Two sea otters were playing in the cove that morning, it was very hard to say goodbye.

Especially hard when there are banana slugs everywhere.  So happy.  Slugs make me SO happy.