State Count #2 - Washington

Nickname		Evergreen State
Capital		Olympia
Did we go there?		Drove through it
Sales tax		6.5%
Famous for		Coffee, Grey's Anatomy, Twilight, apples, wine, rain, grunge rock, volcanoes
State vegetable		Walla Walla sweet onion
The truck smells like		Coffee
Favorite meal		Dinner in Hoh Rainforest: crackers with peaches and goat cheese for appetizer, panang curry with basmanti rice for the main dish, with a shiraz white wine
Oops moment		Stolen wallet
Highlights		Being at the top of the Olympic Range, finishing the Jungle, Seeing the Forks Twilight Tour bus, games with friends, travelling through the universe
Best drive		Hurricane Ridge to Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park
Conversations		Sleeping-in, socialism, grandparents, marital communication round #57, fears, Calvinism at Biola
Adjectives		Water, diverse, trafficy, sunny (it was!)
Friend Count		6

Mile 2159 - Hoh Rainforest, WA

One hike that Aaron had been looking forward to was the Hoh Rainforest.  The pacific north-west is home to a number of temperate rainforests that are the most densely populated ecosystems in the world.  The average rainfall for the Hoh Rainforest is 150 inches of rain a year. For those of you in the Bay Area, Oakland gets 23 inches a year.  Portland, for all your claims of gloom, you only get 37 inches a year.  Seattle, which is a little closer to the park gets about 38.  You're probably wondering what the highest average is - Mt. Waialeale, Hawaii gets 450 inches annually.  So it rains alot in a rainforest, go figure. 

The Hoh was big, green, and dense.  What a different experience from the mountain top experience of Hurricane Ridge.  We camped the night at the trailhead and started the day walking through the Hall of Mosses, where supposedly the most spectacular species could be found.  It's worth seeing, but we were much more impressed by the Hoh River Trail, 17.5 miles along the river.  We hiked five of it and then turned around to keep from hiking at night = ten amazing miles!  

The amazing part of being in such a dense ecosystem is how plants use every square inch of growing opportunity.  Most of the trees have roots that look like octopus legs that hold them up off the ground.  As young trees (seedlings) they took root on top of a fallen tree, and as they grow, their roots wrap around these trees on their way to the soil.  Eventually they grow to be thick and strong and by that time the fallen tree decomposes and leaves a distinct tree-trunk shaped space between the other trees legs.  There's also ferns, moss, lichen, and fungi fighting for a space of their own.   So of course - NUMEROUS pictures.  Aaron eventually ran out of room on his memory card.

Mile 2050 - Hurricane Ridge, WA

A few days of Seattle city life gave us the urge to head back into the wilderness. One of our mandatory destinations was Olympic National Forest in the most north-western corner of the continental U.S. It's known for its temperate rain forests (which are worth the drive), but Danny and Cindy made sure that we didn't miss Hurricane Ridge on our way through. 

To get over to Olympic we took a ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and hopped right back on the 101. We're becoming quite fond of the 101. It winds you along the northern coast of our fair country through fun rural coastal towns and into the park. We highly recommend this drive.
We headed straight up to Hurricane Ridge for our hike of the day. There are a number of great hikes that leave from the visitor center, but thanks to Aaron’s research, we knew that we wanted to do a hike from Obstruction Point. It's the highest elevation in the park, but it mean driving along a narrow, steep, windy road along the top of the Olympic Range to the trailhead. Add some zero visibility fog and anxious deer and you have yourself a very exciting ride! The hike starts just about at the top of the mountain, which makes it a little bit of a cheater hike. Basically we walked 5 miles along Elk Mountain's ridge with amazing views in every direction and didn’t have to climb to the top of the mountain in the first place. Clouds would roll in and roll out, which led to a continuously changing, beautiful landscape! And as a bonus, there were wildflowers still in bloom. Amazing hike! This was easily Sarah's favorite hike thus far.

We headed toward Badger Valley

The fog hides the sheer cliff to the left

The view of the mountains. R.I.P. Grey Hat

Fog rolls in 

Fog rolls out

Mile 1932 - Wingnut and Big Dog, WA

When Aaron thinks of Seattle, he remembers his ever first cup of coffee at the Pike’s Place Starbucks.  And he thinks about Wingnut. Wingnut is actually Jake, who is a long-time friend from camp, who is married to Fraggle, but that’s too many camp names already.

Jake is a computational astrophysicist who specializes in soft lensing. Yeah…he’s legit.  Prior to learning everything there is to know about space and time, Jake was an integral part of many epic Aaron adventures. There was seatbelt scavaging, saving the world with duct tape, and who could forget peddling for money in downtown Santa Cruz with a garage sale accordion and gorilla suit. We’re talking some seriously good adventures. There was even a recent attempt to calculate the distance to the moon by triangulating it from Chico and Seattle using a sextant.

Unfortunately, space and time has a stronger impact on friendships than it does on galaxies, but it was so fun to be together again. Our highlight was a tour of the universe in Jake's Planetarium (technically it belongs to University of Washington, but Jake runs it). Jake is so good explaining the complicated dynamics of our universe, and his passion for learning is contagious.

There are some people that you feel fortunate to know, because knowing them gives you a glimpse into their passion. It could be an instrument, art, reading, cooking, a certain language, or in Jake's case, the dynamics of the universe. There's something about witnessing a person doing something they love. Before we left, we were lucky enough to be invited to a friend's senior violin recital. In the 60 or so minutes that it took to hear all four pieces, we witnessed the product of a lifetime of her work. This is not her account, but you can imagine she's had moments of intense aggravation, moments when she had to push on to keep trying, days of disinterest, as well as the rush of accomplishment, excitement for the next piece, peers that became allies, and a deep understanding that develops. Her love of music has grown deep, and the music she makes is not just a product for an audience's approval, but it's a fascination that excites something deep within her.

Jake is a person who is driven by fascination, and its made him fascinating to talk to. After our tour of the Universe and the Deep Space Field, we grabbed some spicy Thai food and had more prosaic conversation about careers and road trips and life. It wasn't enough time to catch up completely, but it was enough to really miss those epic adventures, deep conversations about God and love, and late nights at Redwood Camp perfect for just staring up at the stars. Well, at least Aaron was just staring.

  

Mile 1901 Paddle Boarding - Seattle, WA

Paddle boarding and Green Lake: Who knew you can Paddle board in Seattle? So apparently Seattle has a few bodies of water around it, I guess it’s some sort of port.  North of downtown and within walking distance of our Seattle home, Green Lake became our favorite hangout spot.  It was great to walk around it while having amazing conversation, stop off for a bite at the local taco truck, or read a chapter or two and the lake-front Starbucks. But if you really want to experience the lake, you gotta get in it…or on it!  Green Lake Boat Rentals rents out paddle boards for $10/hour before noon!  That gives you an hour of paddle boarding, which is enough time to circumnavigate the entire lake, while your wife stalks from the shore with the camera, awaiting the big splash.

Smiling because the water is suprisingly not cold

 There's even people to meet on the lake

Aaron heads out for the island across the lake

Gotta go for a flip off the diving board

Local kid says, "Whoa, you made like a Tsunami"

Mile 1897 - Seattle, WA

Let the games begin!  An intense match of Settler’s of Catan was long overdue.  As was a visit to Seattle to see Kimberly (aka Kimbo) and Josh.  They were married 2 years ago, 1 week after Saaron, and their wedding gift was this addictive game.  We both knew what this visit was about, so we hunkered down at The Pub at Third Place for the long awaited match. The basement level of “the Hobbit hole” is filled with long, wooden tables, which seemed like an appropriate location to do battle.  It was a grueling and close match, many resources were exchanged, roads became longer and longer, but in the end, Josh was the winner with a last minute bonus point from a resource card!  Besides the game, much time was spent enjoying catching up between Kimbo and Sarah, who have been friends since the awkward 7^th grade era.  As well as each getting to know each other’s spouses as the one and only time they’ve met was at each other’s weddings.  If you're familiar with the Seattle area, you may know Josh and Kimbo as the people who live in the famous "Giraffe House".

For those of you concerned about the nerdy level of the group because our love for Settlers, you’re probably not too far off.  But the next day we balanced it out by playing a very high-class game called Hampton Horseshoes.  It’s an east coast lawn game for the highly distinguished.  The point is to knock the opposing team’s bottle off the stick with a Frisbee, as well as prevent them from getting points by catching your own bottle before it hits the ground.  The classy part is that every player must hold a bottle of beer in one hand at all times (or lemonade if your Kimbo and Sarah…beer is gross).  The boys taught their girls how to throw Frisbees straight as they both pretty much sucked and fun times were had by all!  In fact, we can’t even remember who won.

We didn’t just spend our whole time sitting around playing games, Josh and Kimbo also took us out to see some of Seattle’s best treasures.  Any trip to Seattle requires a mandatory visit to the Fremont Troll.  It’s always fun to see, but this time, Aaron searched high and low and found some special treasures.  As the sun was going down, we went up to Queen Ann, which had an amazing view of downtown.  All of Seattle’s photographers came out of the woodwork to get a sunset shot of the Space Needle with Rainer as the backdrop.  We were told that clear days are a rarity in this region, but we’ve yet to see a single rainy day in the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks Epperson’s for an amazing visit!  We look forward to a re-match in the near future.

Josh's pre-game warm-up