Olympic Peninsula, Part 3

Nobody says anything about the hair. Nobody.

I had decided that it was time to push on and, after taking advantage of the Port Townsend hostel's free breakfast, I was off again, setting my sights on the rain forest where I had also visited nineteen years ago. Oddly enough, I couldn't recall just how long it actually had taken to get there on my last trip, but everything, including time, seems intensified on a motorcycle, so what I easily could have believed to have taken an hour ended up, in the end, taking closer to three.

The view from the road.

After riding through an incredible lake-side twist and turn, I pulled into the town of Forks. Yes, that Forks, made famous as the setting for Stephenie Myer's Twilight series. What little I know of them (sorry, Twilight fans, I haven't bitten the bullet and read them yet), I do know that part of the premise is that the vampires in the books chose that area because of the constant cloud cover, protecting them from the sun. I had to laugh to myself, because that is exactly the weather I had been experiencing almost the entire time on the peninsula; constant, heavy clouds that blanketed the sky. It was a good thing, because otherwise I may have started to glitter a little myself (OK, maybe I know a little more about all this then I should, but I do work with teenagers, you know...).

Eat your heart out, Twilight fans!



Alright, I guess there would be a business in town that references the movie.

OK, really?

After being inundated by all things Twilight (and a quick stop in the Forks Motel parking lot to pick up some free wi-fi on my netbook), I drove the remaining 25 miles to the Rainforest Hostel, ultimately my destination for this leg of the trip.

As I pulled up to the hostel, it was not at all what I expected. Tucked into a small clearing in what would otherwise have been forest, a tiny house stood, not well kept and haphazardly decorated with flags from every conceivable nation, and a half-worn, hand-written sign calling for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan tacked to the entrance. Fifteen rusted out old Subaru station wagons were arranged throughout the property, and for a moment I thought I had the wrong address.

The owner, Jim, whom I had had a brief conversation with the day before to confirm that there was room for me, stood out front, talking with a German family that had just arrived. Immediately, without even a hello, he looked at me and said, "You don't look anything like I imagined you on the phone." The observation seemed odd for a first meeting, but I smiled and laughed it off, allowing him to show me around.

The house was cluttered, with piles of books, maps, papers, fishing equipment, firewood, and things I had yet to recognize covering most all of the living room and dining room. It had a somewhat musty smell, not surprising for an area that gets so much rain, but the 70s decor revealed that updates, or even general repairs, for that matter, had not been done for some time. I was confused, as it looked like we were sitting in the midst of Jim's own home, and since I didn't see any other buildings on the property, I didn't understand where I was going to be staying. After paying him his twenty dollars (I had told him on the phone that I was staying for two nights), I was ushered through a door that led to the garage, but instead of finding a vehicle, I found that there were several bunks that had been pushed up against the walls of what was clearly a makeshift dorm room. And when he showed me the bathroom in the house, it was then very clear; we were staying in Jim's own home.

Garage... dorm room... what's the dif?

I have certainly stayed in far worse places in my travels over the years (perhaps not more unusual, but certainly not worse), and for ten dollars a night, it would suit my needs. My host, though, was still a bit of a mystery. He displayed none of the graciousness a hostel owner usually projects, instead finding every opportunity to engage us in serious discussions of how our government, the "military-industrial complex" is trying to control us and restrict our freedom - not the freedom we usually associate with discussions of government, but what Jim considered real freedom; the freedom of the mind.

Interesting thoughts, to be sure, and I was more than willing to engage him in discussion about it, but I was far more interested in him as a person; not just the ideas that clearly sat permanently at the forefront of his thoughts. I was finally able to ask him questions about how he found himself in this place, and when he divulged a relationship that had ended years ago, I saw a completely different side to him. Talking about government domination gave him his bearings, his center; but speaking about losing love made him just as vulnerable as the rest of us, and suddenly he didn't seem like some sort of crackpot holed up in a compound deep in the woods; he seemed human.

He was deeply involved with the native cultures of the area; fascinated by there stories, their myths, their relationship to the land. In many ways it seemed that his being there had as much to do with getting in touch with that as it did with getting away from a society that he neither approved of or needed. He enjoyed fishing, and I glanced several times at a picture of him on the wall as a younger man, fully decked out in fishing attire at the edge of a river, smiling with his prize catch in his hands. In some ways, though, it looked nothing like the man before me, and I wondered when that change had taken place; I don't remember seeing him smile once the entire time I was there.

I enjoyed my stay that evening, having the opportunity to talk with another group staying at the hostel; a father and son from Oregon who were bicycling from Vancouver, British Columbia all the way to San Francisco, California. When we all finally retired for the night I slept well, and after the bicycling duo headed out the next morning, I had every intention of taking it easy that day, leisurely exploring the rain forest for pictures and video. But a discussion with Jim about Native American rituals forced me to reconsider my plans. There was a Native American ceremony taking place on the other side of the peninsula, close to where I had originally gotten off the ferry, linked to an annual series of boat rides that bring together almost 150 traditionally made canoes from all over the islands and mainlands of both Washington State and British Columbia. Almost 50 of the boats were converging in Suquamish, right on the banks of the Pugent Sound, and Jim thought it was important for me to be there.

I did, too.

With little hesitation I made up my mind, switching from packing for the day to packing for good. I said my goodbyes to Jim, and after a handshake and a hug, he pulled out two five dollar bills, returning the money that would have gone towards the second night's stay. I thanked him, somewhat embarrassed at taking back such a small amount of money. When he asked me if I knew where I was going, I said "No, but I'm going to get there." He nodded his head, and perhaps borrowing from some of the native wisdom he had collected over the years, responded, " Then you're where you should be."

As I pulled out on the bike, he stood outside of the front entrance, waving to me as I drove off.

Olympic Peninsula, Part 2

My blogging view from the hostel in Port Townsend.

This great tree that overlooks the water close to the hostel.

I decided to take it easy the next day, so instead of pushing forward to the western side of the peninsula, I took a day trip to Hurricane Ridge, a mountain pass that is part of the Olympic National Park. The drive west, about an hour, takes you to Port Angeles, another former (and present, I suppose) seafaring community, and then, with one turn off of the main drag, making my way up the 17 mile road to the ridge, the only stop being the entrance gate to the park. The ride up is inspiring and the views at the top are spectacular, as you get a nearly unfettered look at some of the highest peaks in the Olympic park, and there are several spectacular hikes that take you even further into the mountains.

I had been there for the first time nineteen years ago, when my friend Martin and I decided one summer in college to take advantage of Greyhound Bus's "78 dollars anywhere Greyhound goes" special, taking the bus from Reading, Pennsylvania to Seattle and back for a grand total of 158 dollars each (plus tax, of course). For me, it was the first time I had ever really traveled anywhere beyond a 200 mile radius of my home (I went to Disney World when I was six, but I don't really count that). And for Martin, who had already traveled out west with his family, it was the first time that he was embarking on such an adventure on his own. For two 21 year olds, it was the trip of a lifetime.

The entire visit to the park was a rush of memories streaming back continuously throughout the ride. As I turned on to the access road towards the park, I passed the spot where Martin and I, at that point traveling with a gutsy and brilliant Australian girl we had met on the bus coming out to the peninsula, pitched our tents in the woods for the night. The ride up the mountain pass brought back the memory of being picked up by a young German couple in a rented RV, blasting ABBA's greatest hits on the stereo (which seemed rather dated even in the early 90s). And arriving at the top, the breathtaking view aside, brought back the recollection of a fellow named Jeff, then in his early 30s, in Seattle for business, who ended up giving us a ride in his rented car all the way to the other end of the Peninsula to camp in our country's only temperate rain forest. Time stood still up there, and I felt no distance at all from those events.

It was overcast driving up, but the views were still amazing.

At the top. Need I say more?

Ditto.

Double ditto.

The deer have grown pretty used to human visitors, and graze the fields close to the visitor's center without much fear. The video below shows how gutsy they are.

Was it a coincidence that I was wearing the deer t-shirt my superstar art student Lucy made for me before I left? I think not! Yeah, this one is for you, Lucy-Goosey!!!!

More spectacular cloud cover on the way back down.

I took my time riding back to the hostel, relishing my memories and the time I had been given to recount them. I enjoyed the company of those staying at the hostel that night, swapping travel stories with people who were making their way to destinations in all directions, many of whom were old enough to be my parents. It gave me solace to think that I had many more years of traveling ahead of me, and it would be nice, I thought to myself that night before bed, if I could return here in another twenty years, recounting the memories of this trip with just as much delight.

The Olympic Peninsula, Part 1

The drive across the eastern portion of Washington state is surprisingly open and flat, with vast, dry grasslands interrupted by small outcrops of rock that create random patterns across the landscape, reminding me of circuits on a motherboard inside a computer. The weather was favorable, and I took advantage of that, as I was making good time.

The gift card that keeps on giving - thanks, Al!!!

Eastern Washington - weird, right?

More cool clouds...

       

This was part of an amazing lake that I had to cross. The giant bridge is out of the picture to my left.

 


As I drove on, the landscape began to change; not because of the effects of millions of years of seismic activity, but instead through the will of man. What would have been more open areas of grassland had been stripped and cultivated for food production, and the undulating hills combined with the near perfect rows of plowed earth, geometric swatches that alternated between greens, browns and golds, made for a beautiful, if not somewhat surreal, scene.

Then came the mountains.

At first just a small band of faded blue-green that took up the entire horizon line in the distance, they began to come into focus as the miles between us diminished. After an hour or so I was in the thick of them, riding through dense collections of pine covered peaks that finally began to look like the Washington state that I knew. When I reached a huge outcrop of rock just past Snoqualmie ski resort (the first place I learned to snowboard well over a decade ago), I pulled over to take some pictures. The massive rock face seemed to be welcoming me, and with less than an hour to go to reach Seattle, I pulled back onto the highway, accepting its call.

The mountain that beckoned. A little different than the last picture, eh?

I had never entered Seattle other than on I-5 by car, so to suddenly find myself dropped into the downtown via Route 90 came as a bit of a shock. It took a moment to orientate myself, but after a moment, all the familiar landmarks came into focus - the Quest Field stadium, the waterfront, first avenue with its collection of storefronts - I knew exactly where I was and where I needed to go to catch the ferry to the Olympic Peninsula, having done it almost twenty years before. My luck was with me; the ferry was leaving in five minutes and I was right on time. This was the first time I was putting the bike on a ferry, and I thought that it would make a nice trial for my experience to Alaska. I got her on with no problems, admiring the view of the city as it faded into the distance.

Her first ride on a ferry...

Me getting artsy on the deck of the ship. Can you say "shadows project", photo students?

By the time I reached the town of Bremerton on the other side of the sound, it was beginning to get late. I called ahead to the hostel in Port Townsend, a small town on the uppermost eastern corner of the peninsula, but even though they had beds available, the front desk would be closing at ten. It was a little past 9. I hustled back on the bike, stopping only to confirm directions from a young guy working the counter of a Spanish-speaking convenience store.

I rolled in right before ten, and, after unpacking and settling up with the man behind the front desk, I made straight for my room. There was only one other person sleeping in the men's dorm that night, an interesting fellow about my age who was taking a writing workshop in the area. We exchanged stories for a while, as he had done some traveling in a few of the areas I plan to visit this coming year, but after being reprimanded by a man sleeping in the next room for being too loud, we called it quits for the night and turned the lights out. Tomorrow, I would be exploring more of the Peninsula, and the excitement of returning to places from my past put a smile on my face as I drifted off to sleep.

Back On The Road

I spent another day in Nelson, taking advantage of the break from the road. I caught up on emails, blogging and laundry. But I knew that it was time to move on, so I set my sights on Seattle, and the next morning I was off.

I decided not to take the same route back into Washington state, as I had seen on the map that some of the areas of British Columbia just north of Idaho looked to have some spectacular mountains, so I set out on Route 3 east. It seemed intuitively wrong to do so, since all of my trip to this point was about pushing west and north as fast as I could. But again, the lack of a pressing agenda freed me up to take liberties with my plan, and I had a feeling I was in for some spectacular scenery.

A lot of old, rusted out Rabbit diesels I saw on the way out of Nelson. Ah, childhood memories...

I could not have been more right about my suspicions of the area. The highway began with mountain views as the road followed the edge of the Kootenay River, but as I entered Stagleap Provincial Park near Salmo, it quickly opened up into a winding climb that reached 5819 feet at its peak; the highest all weather highway pass in British Columbia, and one of the highest paved roads in all of Canada! I stopped several times to take pictures and video, realizing that neither could do justice to what I was seeing in person. (I had actually come to that conclusion pretty early on in the trip.)

Nope, this doesn't even come close to showing you how amazing this was.

At least my ride looks good...

Apparently in Canada, they put up signs along the road to let people know where artists' studios are so people can actually stop and buy stuff. Here's a little hint, U.S.A. - start doing this now!

Welcome to Idaho, part 2.

Saw this just as I passed the border. I don't know what they were trying to grow, but it looked cool.

The crossing back into Idaho was uneventful (again, this border guard was also amused by my straw bale workshop story), and I linked back up with route 90, feeling a certain amount of deja vu as I drove through the same leg of highway that I had been on over a week ago. Once I reached Spokane, I decided to call it quits for the day, being that Seattle was most of a days drive from there, and it would serve nothing to show up in the city late at night. I settled into a motel, preparing myself for more highway miles the next morning.

DEER!

With the workshop finished on the 14th, suddenly I found myself in a position I had not been in since the start of the trip; I had nowhere to be. The ferry to Alaska out of Bellingham, Washington wouldn't leave until the 22nd, and with a little over a week until then, my agenda was wide open.

The coffee shop in Castlegar where I did all my blogging. I think they though I had moved in.

Some cool clouds that had rolled into Castlegar, grazing the top of the mountains. Of course, I'm not showing you that there's a Dairy Queen right below all this...

One of the workshop participants had mentioned the town of Nelson, a half hour drive northeast from Castlegar. As he recounted, the town, first established in the late 1800s, reestablished itself in the 1970's when anti-war draft dodgers from the states made their way to Nelson during the Vietnam war, many of them never returning even after the conflict was over. As the decades progressed, ordinances were put in place to preserve the historical integrity of the town, but the progressive vibe would remain. I was told that I shouldn't miss it.

With that recommendation I made my way north, settling in a wonderful hostel on the edge of the main drag through town. The description was accurate. As I walked through town, I was struck simultaneously by the meticulous preservation inside and out of hotels, storefronts and public buildings; but also by the high percentage of tattooed hipsters strolling about with dreadlocks and guitars strapped to their backs.

Downtown Sunday morning in Nelson. Pretty quiet.

Some pretty cool architecture.

I should know what building this is, but I completely forget. It's important, though...

One of the side attractions to Nelson is a series of hot springs that begins about 40 minutes north of town. Anyone can take the drive along the Kootenay River, a massive body of water that further entices visitors to the area, and for eleven dollars, soak in mineral water that comes out of the ground at 115 degrees. After the week of labor I had just participated in, I could think of no better idea, so I packed the bike for the day trip and set out.

The ride along the river was spectacular, with twists and turns that were a welcome change from the endless highway miles I had endured on the ride across the states. The speed limit never exceeded 45 mph, and there was traffic both in front of me and behind; presumably tourists as well, also making there way to points of interest in the region.

Without warning, a deer appeared in my peripheral vision to my left. It made absolutely no sense for it to be there, as it wasn't a particularly rural area, and with roadside stores, gas stations and residences all around, it wasn't a logical area for a deer to appear. Logical or not, though, I could see in those few milliseconds that it was already in the road and spooked, and with cars coming in the other direction, it had made the decision to bolt. Those few milliseconds also allowed me to realize that with the path that it had chosen, it was going to ram right into me.

I was running on instinct now, with just a fraction of a second to respond. I had told myself a thousand times that if I were in such a situation, my best choice would be to brake as best I could, but never swerve. I took my own advice, hunkering down in the seat, keeping the front tire straight, and bracing for the impact. I could feel the deer bearing down on me, just a few feet from my left shoulder.

I felt the impact, but it was nothing like I expected. Instead of 200 pounds of deer colliding with my bike and body, all I felt was a sharp whack to my helmet, knocking my head to the right. I drove on for a few moments, otherwise unharmed, processing what had just happened. When my mind cleared, I figured it out. The deer had jumped over me! I pulled over, the shock of my realization just sinking in.

The car behind me, a red Jetta driven by a youngish couple with three boys in the back seat, pulled over next to me, everyone in the car wide-eyed with disbelief. I asked them if what I thought had happened was true, and with heads shaking in disbelief, they said yes. Making sure that I was alright, they drove on, surely as stunned by what they had seen as I was for having experienced it. I finally pulled away, as ready as ever to reach the hot springs.

The experience would stay with me the rest of the day. Even in the relaxing warmth of the hot spring waters, I kept replaying the scenario in my mind, wondering how I could have been so lucky. The day; this entire trip; could have turned out much different with just a slight change in events. I drove back to the hostel, thankful for whatever had made it possible for me to ride another day.

The Workshop

Seeing as I am now two weeks behind in my blogging (today is the 25th and I am recounting the events starting on the 7th of this month), I've decided to represent my entire week of the workshop in one post. Not, of course, because I have little to say about it, but simply because I would have little chance of catching up if I didn't. Hopefully the pictures will have as much, or more, to say about my experience, as I know that many I have talked to about this workshop have been both intrigued and confused by the idea of building a "straw house".

I arrived on Thursday morning with only one glitch; a holdup at the border crossing because they didn't open until 8 AM. After my 45 minute wait, I was ushered through without any problems (although the border guard was also amused by the notion that I was going to be building a house out of straw), and with only one slight mishap in directions, I made it to the site only an hour late. As I walked up to the top of the hill where the house sat, overlooking an impressive mountain range, I marveled at the empty wooden structure, imagining how it was going to change.

This is what the house looked like the day I arrived.

The first day consisted mostly of lecture from our instructor, Andrew, a straw-bale builder turned workshop organizer from Oregon with a quick wit and a true passion for what he teaches, going over the principles of straw bale design; everything from the choice of materials to building codes being covered. Having gotten there later than everyone else, though, I didn't even have a pen and paper to jot down notes, and I was already feeling overwhelmed.

The days that followed more than made up for my first day apprehension, as Andrew had us diving headfirst into the hands-on aspects of construction. We learned how to prepare the floor to accept the bales in a way that would allow for drainage should moisture get into the walls, and then, before we knew it, we were learning the intricacies of "notching" bales with a chainsaw in order to create a proper fit within the wooden structure. By the third day, only the second full day of work, the majority of the walls were up, and we would then be looking at how to finish the walls and prepare them for outlets, cabinet mounts and stucco.

Hauling the bales off of the truck we had just loaded them on at the bottom of the hill. No fun.

Creating the "rubble trench" that the bales would eventually be stacked on.

"Notching" the bales with a chain saw to make them fit within the wooden structure.

Our fearless leader, Andrew, doing a demo on how to make custom sized bales.

Yup, that was the view from the site.

The end of day two.

The nineteen other people taking the workshop were not what many would have imagined. Yes, there was the common bond of an interest in alternative building and sustainable living, but instead of a collective of hemp-wearing, patchouli soaked hippies chanting "right on" after every new technique was revealed, it was an amazingly diverse group in both background and ages. Architects, artists, designers, computer techies, farmers; this was just a handful of the cross-section that was represented, and it was enjoyable to begin to get to know people whom, in other circumstances, I would never have had the opportunity. We all worked well together, and we were excited to see the project come to fruition.

The morning of day three.

If the bale doesn't fit, use some persuasion...

Finally finished with the bale walls...

Using a weed whacker to sculpt the walls into a uniform thickness. Now can you see why I dig this so much?

Cutting out a space for light switches.

Weather sealing to prepare for the windows.

Beginning the wire meshing on the outside.

Breaking for lunch.

The end of day five - ready for stucco!

Despite our enthusiasm, though, we faced constant setbacks. Our host, a woman in her early 50s who was having the house built to accommodate her home hospice care business, was feeling increasingly overwhelmed by all that needed to be done. Equipment that should have been there wasn't, and every so often our pace was stymied by a lack of a certain tool or material that invariably would take hours, if not a day or more, to arrive. The group took it in stride, and eventually it simply became the running joke of the workshop, neither making us think less of our host nor breaking our resolve to complete as much of the work as we could in the time given. If anything, it served to motivate us more, and on the last few days, we resolved to wake up and begin even earlier (6 AM instead of 8) to ensure that we would reach our goals.

Mixin' the mud.

Andrew showing us how a real mason does it. Nice shirt, dude.

Going at it!

Unfortunately, this is all we were able to finish...

Our last day together, always a bittersweet experience in situations like this, was probably the most disappointing of all, as we had been so set back by holdups in materials that we had gotten only a small fraction of the plastering done by four in the afternoon, the official end time of the workshop. Resigned to the fact that this was going to be as far as we could go, people began packing their tents and belongings, preparing for long car drives home in all different directions. Hugs and email addresses were exchanged, and one by one people disappeared to return to their lives, until there were only a handful of us left on the sight. I and a few others were going to stay one last night, in my case because I was simply too exhausted to pack up my things and move on that quickly.

It would take a while to digest all that I had experienced. I came to realize just how much work goes into a project like this; the planning, the preparation, the materials, the labor. At first it made me skeptical as to whether it was even possible for me to one day take on such a project myself. But after experiencing the workshop in full, it made me realize that such an endeavour is not something that you take on alone. Yes, the benefits of building a home with an ecologically sound material that is far superior to conventional materials makes sense, but it was the experience of working together with others that made my 3000 mile journey to Castlegar the most satisfying. If - no, when I take on a project like this, designing, building and living in the home will only be part of the satisfaction. In the end, it will be sharing the experience with friends, family and perhaps people I haven't even met yet that, in the end, will make it worth all the effort.