Trip Out Category
I like to go places. Sometimes far (annual expat experience in France) and sometimes near (I bounce up and down the Left Coast several times a year). This is where you can read stories about my travels.
10:30pm in Paris
20
May
2002
In: Trip Out
I’m getting ready to head home: bags are packed, alarms are set, and I’m doing the best I can with logistica upon my arrival in Seattle. (Note to self: next time do not assume boyfriend will be home from his travels on time. Keep house keys and cell phone with you. Even if you’re traveling out of the country.)
Please allow me a moment of indulgent self-pity, and let me say that I’m agitatedly unhappy to be heading back to an empty home. A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, and DAMN IT, this fish needs to go pedaling! I miss my boyfriend, and his return from GoTT in Los Angeles (where’s he’s had adventures of his own…if he had a blog, I’m sure you’d all be titillated) is out of his hands. Maybe he’ll be back Wednesday? Even he doesn’t know, since he’s at the mercy of someone else’s car. Sniffle. I’ve been known to be a bit of a princess at times, and I want that pea in my bed! Shit. Commence with stamping of feet and pouting of royal lip. Bang scepter on floor. Whine in the third person.
If you want to read a great account of T. and my weekend in Bandol, she’s taken the time to write it out. I haven’t. Throw tiara on floor.
Thank God for Jane and Kim in Seattle, or else We would be much more pouty…unable to get home from the airport or into Our Royal apartment. Pea or no pea, We’re looking forward to Our own lumpy futon.
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- Tags: france
Know this about Andreas and my roadtrips: they always fail. For example, Valentine’s Day last year: we had plans to drive out to the Olympic Mountains, then bike up to some hot springs. First the car died, then Dre’s bike got a flat tire, then I brought the wrong hiking boots and got a blister. Oh, and what about my birthday last year? We headed to Mount Rainier to go hiking, and Andreas got the car stuck in a patch of spring snow only 30 feet in diameter. Four wheel drive doesn’t help much when none of the four wheels are touching the ground, and several hours of my 25th birthday were spent laying on my stomach in the snow, digging out the axel.
I mention these horror stories only so that you will appreciate, as much as we did, the fact that our trip to the Redwoods was a complete success! We only had one slow down (Andreas locking the keys in the car minutes before we were leaving), and that was remedied by half an hour with some string and a stick.
So, after our brief lock-out incident, we headed southward at about 3:00 Sunday afternoon. We had been planning to spend the night camped in the Oregon Dunes, but by the time we hit Florence it was raining heavily and, as Andreas said “We can either camp in the rain, or else look for a dumpy motel.” And so Sunday night was spent in bed at a dumpy motel, watching the Oscars as VH1’s Behind The Music: Bon Jovi.
Monday morning found the rain gone and hazy skies in its place, and we were up early and headed south on Highway 101, something that neither Dre or I remember having done before. I’m sure I was on 101 at some point, since I know my parents took me to Sea Lion Caves, but I don’t think I’ve ever just driven down the highway. Despite a few stretches of white trash glory, the drive was beautiful, and the winding ocean vistas and dinosaurs made the three extra hours of driving a pleasure.
We arrived at the Redwoods around 3pm, shouldered our backpacks and hit the Miner’s Ridge trail. The hike was phenomenal. The forests of Olympia are beautiful, but they’ve been logged twice, most recently about 50 years ago. The largest trees you see are maybe four feet in diameter. The old growth forest we trekked through was filled with trees over 20 feet in diameter, many growing in clusters of two or three, making enormous hulks of ancient bark 50 foot across. Some of these trees were around before Jesus. He’s dead, but they’re still here.
I wanted nothing more than to spend all my time looking up at the amazing life towering 300 feet above us, but since I was carrying a third of my weight on my back, looking up tended to make me fall over. Fooey.
We arrived at the beach only to find that our 4 1/2 mile hike had led us to a campground we could have reached by car (and that many, in fact, had driven to), but we were rewarded by special “hiker only” campsites up on the bluff overlooking the beach. Nice. We set up camp and ran down to the beach to enjoy the sunset. After a wee little campfire, we were asleep by 9:30 (this is what you do when you camp, folks).
Tuesday we hiked down the beach to Fern Canyon, which was the high point of the trip. Imagine hiking up a narrow stream bed, the walls of which are covered with ferns. Imagine it winding through the forest for a quarter mile. Imagine an elk mellowing by the stream chewing its cud. Imagine your feet wet from your notorious balance getting the better of you when crossing the stream on a log. Imagine how the air feels in your lungs. (If you’re sick of imagining, someone has put a nice panorama online.)
It started raining Tuesday afternoon, but Andreas worked his magic with our extra tarp and a lot of string to keep us dry. We read Terry Pratchet outloud to eachother and snuggled under the sound of rain all night.
We decided to cheat on the hike out: we hiked out sans our gear, and then drove back around to pick it up. Clever. Without my 40 pound backpack, I was able to enjoy the stunning redwoods much better, and was simultaneously enraptured and horridly depressed. Much of the west coast, from Washington to California used to look like this, and it’s only taken us a quick 250 years to replace most of it with strip malls and parking lots. I don’t consider myself a rabid environmentalist, but seeing that forest and thinking about how quickly we (aka white-ass honkies) have hacked it down got under my skin a bit.
And made me very glad my blog is on a screen, and not on paper.
This concludes my illustrated description of my trip to the Redwoods. I highly recommend that all of you on the west coast make the trek. Those of you not on this coast, think about making it happen. I’m still in awe.
10:30pm in Paris
20 May 2002 In: Trip OutI’m getting ready to head home: bags are packed, alarms are set, and I’m doing the best I can with logistica upon my arrival in Seattle. (Note to self: next time do not assume boyfriend will be home from his travels on time. Keep house keys and cell phone with you. Even if you’re traveling out of the country.)
Please allow me a moment of indulgent self-pity, and let me say that I’m agitatedly unhappy to be heading back to an empty home. A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, and DAMN IT, this fish needs to go pedaling! I miss my boyfriend, and his return from GoTT in Los Angeles (where’s he’s had adventures of his own…if he had a blog, I’m sure you’d all be titillated) is out of his hands. Maybe he’ll be back Wednesday? Even he doesn’t know, since he’s at the mercy of someone else’s car. Sniffle. I’ve been known to be a bit of a princess at times, and I want that pea in my bed! Shit. Commence with stamping of feet and pouting of royal lip. Bang scepter on floor. Whine in the third person.
If you want to read a great account of T. and my weekend in Bandol, she’s taken the time to write it out. I haven’t. Throw tiara on floor.
Thank God for Jane and Kim in Seattle, or else We would be much more pouty…unable to get home from the airport or into Our Royal apartment. Pea or no pea, We’re looking forward to Our own lumpy futon.
- 0 Comments
- Tags: france
Know this about Andreas and my roadtrips: they always fail. For example, Valentine’s Day last year: we had plans to drive out to the Olympic Mountains, then bike up to some hot springs. First the car died, then Dre’s bike got a flat tire, then I brought the wrong hiking boots and got a blister. Oh, and what about my birthday last year? We headed to Mount Rainier to go hiking, and Andreas got the car stuck in a patch of spring snow only 30 feet in diameter. Four wheel drive doesn’t help much when none of the four wheels are touching the ground, and several hours of my 25th birthday were spent laying on my stomach in the snow, digging out the axel.
I mention these horror stories only so that you will appreciate, as much as we did, the fact that our trip to the Redwoods was a complete success! We only had one slow down (Andreas locking the keys in the car minutes before we were leaving), and that was remedied by half an hour with some string and a stick.
So, after our brief lock-out incident, we headed southward at about 3:00 Sunday afternoon. We had been planning to spend the night camped in the Oregon Dunes, but by the time we hit Florence it was raining heavily and, as Andreas said “We can either camp in the rain, or else look for a dumpy motel.” And so Sunday night was spent in bed at a dumpy motel, watching the Oscars as VH1’s Behind The Music: Bon Jovi.
Monday morning found the rain gone and hazy skies in its place, and we were up early and headed south on Highway 101, something that neither Dre or I remember having done before. I’m sure I was on 101 at some point, since I know my parents took me to Sea Lion Caves, but I don’t think I’ve ever just driven down the highway. Despite a few stretches of white trash glory, the drive was beautiful, and the winding ocean vistas and dinosaurs made the three extra hours of driving a pleasure.
We arrived at the Redwoods around 3pm, shouldered our backpacks and hit the Miner’s Ridge trail. The hike was phenomenal. The forests of Olympia are beautiful, but they’ve been logged twice, most recently about 50 years ago. The largest trees you see are maybe four feet in diameter. The old growth forest we trekked through was filled with trees over 20 feet in diameter, many growing in clusters of two or three, making enormous hulks of ancient bark 50 foot across. Some of these trees were around before Jesus. He’s dead, but they’re still here.
I wanted nothing more than to spend all my time looking up at the amazing life towering 300 feet above us, but since I was carrying a third of my weight on my back, looking up tended to make me fall over. Fooey.
We arrived at the beach only to find that our 4 1/2 mile hike had led us to a campground we could have reached by car (and that many, in fact, had driven to), but we were rewarded by special “hiker only” campsites up on the bluff overlooking the beach. Nice. We set up camp and ran down to the beach to enjoy the sunset. After a wee little campfire, we were asleep by 9:30 (this is what you do when you camp, folks).
Tuesday we hiked down the beach to Fern Canyon, which was the high point of the trip. Imagine hiking up a narrow stream bed, the walls of which are covered with ferns. Imagine it winding through the forest for a quarter mile. Imagine an elk mellowing by the stream chewing its cud. Imagine your feet wet from your notorious balance getting the better of you when crossing the stream on a log. Imagine how the air feels in your lungs. (If you’re sick of imagining, someone has put a nice panorama online.)
It started raining Tuesday afternoon, but Andreas worked his magic with our extra tarp and a lot of string to keep us dry. We read Terry Pratchet outloud to eachother and snuggled under the sound of rain all night.
We decided to cheat on the hike out: we hiked out sans our gear, and then drove back around to pick it up. Clever. Without my 40 pound backpack, I was able to enjoy the stunning redwoods much better, and was simultaneously enraptured and horridly depressed. Much of the west coast, from Washington to California used to look like this, and it’s only taken us a quick 250 years to replace most of it with strip malls and parking lots. I don’t consider myself a rabid environmentalist, but seeing that forest and thinking about how quickly we (aka white-ass honkies) have hacked it down got under my skin a bit.
And made me very glad my blog is on a screen, and not on paper.
This concludes my illustrated description of my trip to the Redwoods. I highly recommend that all of you on the west coast make the trek. Those of you not on this coast, think about making it happen. I’m still in awe.
Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, was published last year.
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