Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

We left as soon as we could.

That was Saturday afternoon, around noon. The drive was hot, but thankfully not as long as the trip back.

We arrived in the Eugene/Springfield area (and, yes, we strongly believe that Springfield, OR is the true Springfield where the Simpsons are from: it doesn't matter what a silly online poll says) late Saturday evening to spend the night at Faith's mother's house. She just recently had hip surgery and so Faith needed to be near to the hospital. Thankfully the drive to Oregon wasn't overwhelming. It was a nice start to the week. The cool shadows of the evening made the drive less painful in our very un-airconditioned car. But Faith's mom lives out in the sticks, where no street has a real name, or at least none which we were told: everything is identified by landmarks and the forest is all around the house. We woke Sunday morning and went to church, visited Faith's mom in the hospital and had a nice breakfast for dinner (with real bacon from a pig named Lucy...bacon tastes better when you know the animal's name).

But we didn't really take this trip to spend time with friends in the Northwest -- although that was a definite side plan for the trip. We drove further out into the country to Amity and spent the night with Sara and Jarem. Sara was terribly cute about having us as guests. She left chocolates and homemade chapstick on our pillows. Although we got there late and left early Monday morning, we had to stop by because we were borrowing Jarem's cooking stove for the week and we intended on spending more time with them at the end of the week. Without that cooking stove we probably would have been sunk. Although we did get a fire going every night, it was never easy and we couldn't cook much on each fire. The rain forest is wet. How's that for an obvious statement?

But we ran into a couple of early problems with the cooking stove. First of which, it had no fuel and only REI carries the right fuel, which we learned after we checked at Target and Wal-Mart stores. But things worked out in our favor because we had already planned a lunch visit in Seattle with Rebecca's sisters and we were able to pick up some cheap fuel before we left civilization. While in Seattle, we took Amy (who was in town visiting Suzie) and Suzie to our old haunt, Mr. Villa's. And it was just as good as I remembered. Sort of. The food is a different kind of Mexican cuisine, a little more exotic than normal taco shops. But the service and the price and the comfort of the restaurant is unparalleled. At least in our experience, it still measures up to a great restaurant.

Monday turned out to be a bit of a call back to 2 years ago in Seattle because we also spent the night at Collins campground on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula, where we were introduced to the area by Rob and Camille. Collins campground is one of the best we've seen. It is cheaper than most places, right alongside a beautiful river, in the heart of the forest and if you manage to get campsite 13 like we have both times you will find that it is completely isolated. We've tried to make careful notes so that anyone who wants to recreate the trip we made will be able to, but for the passing visitor, Collins campgrounds are top notch.

So we woke early Tuesday morning (the only morning we actually woke early) and found the one small flaw in Collins campgrounds: the only water pump is a rusted hand crank pump from a well over a mile from the campsites. So we filled our 2 gallon tank with brown water (from rust or dirt, we knoweth not), and drove around the bend to Murhut waterfalls.

Our vacation was guided by the waterfalls in the area. Rebecca was too pregnant to do any serious non-day hikes, not to mention our lack of equipment to make an extended stay up on the glaciers. So, instead of hiking the hundreds of miles of trails through the ONP, we made treks to most of the major waterfalls in the area, getting a taste for the rainforest. Murhut is one of our most treasured spots. We had been there two years ago, but never braved going up to the upper waterfalls. Which we did this time. And then promptly dropped our camera case over the edge of the waterfall. I scrambled back down the cliff to catch it before it was swiftly carried down the miles of rocky stream. Thankfully, neither us nor the camera fell as well. But we climbed all over the Murhut falls and even behind the falls. It is a magical place of old growth forest. Although, if I was to advise someone about doing the trip right, I would recommend going to the falls in the morning, not in mid-day. The lighting is better at that time of day.

After Murhut, we began our trek north to find the ONP information center. Along the way, we stopped off at a few other short hike waterfalls. Of special mention is the Rocky Brook waterfalls -- it even has a special pool for swimming, if you can stand the cold.

Eventually we decided to camp at Sol Duc, which wasn't an ideal campground because it was more commercial than the primitive campgrounds we are used to. The ground was covered in gravel and most sites were barely large enough to accommodate the size tent we use. This is because the "campsites" are meant for RV campers to pull their car into the parking spot and only use the picnic table on the ground. But the funniest part about camping at Sol Duc were the crows. At sun up, we had a murder of crows screeching at each other at the top of their lungs right above our heads. That is, by far, the most efficient alarm clock I have ever heard.

Wednesday morning we hiked down to the Sol Duc waterfalls: the wettest, loudest and by far the strongest of the waterfalls in the ONP. Their 20 feet of downpour has etched a straight narrow ravine in the rock which looks artificial. The jet spray got us both fairly wet and we sat at the top of the falls and watched the magnificence of the falls. After visiting a few more waterfalls and driving to the western side (the "official" rainforest side), we camped at a small primitive campsite just outside the Hoh rainforest. The mosquitoes were so bad along the Hoh river, we spent the evening running back and forth from our car to the tent and back again. It was an adventure to stay un-bit [made us giggle anyway :)].

Most of Thursday was spent hiking through the Hoh rainforest. However, what designates the Hoh as a rainforest is no more than a political designation. The rest of the peninsula was just as lush and almost just as wet. Hoh, however, was much more tourist-oriented. It was nice to hike through the moss covered trails and the bearded forests. After a full day of hikes, we began to turn towards home and head south along 101, stopping along the beach and flying our kite for an hour. The winds were up and the sport kite did tricks we've never seen [and we laughed and laughed our heads off! -beck]. I attempted the dangerous "glide through the water" and failed, but at least the kite kept on ticking. 12 miles down from the Quinault Lake, we found our last campground at Graves Creek. This is the other spot we can't recommend enough to people who would like to visit the area. Graves Creek is a great campground and truly isolated from civilization, but has more amenities than Collins did. The campsite host even came over and chopped dry wood for us, gave us some firestarter candles he had made and dumped a bottle of imitation vanilla extract on us to keep the mosquitoes off. The poor old man was bored and wanted to tell us stories about his life so Rebecca patiently listened.

After all these miles of hikes, we woke up sore Friday morning, drove down the upper north shore road, stopped in the middle of nowhere in the forest, and listened to the quiet. We made it to the last few quiet places in the country, a place where the sounds and seismic pollutions of cities hasn't reached. It was magical to say the least.

With the rest of our day, we reflected on what we had seen and calmly drove down 101 through coastal land of Washington and Oregon. A few hours before dinner we realized we could attempt to get to the Whiskey Creek Cafe in Tillamook for the best fish in the area, however, when we got there, the place had been sold to some people who made it into a mediocre Italian restaurant. But after a day of driving, we crashed at Sara and Jarem's house and hopped into the hot tub to get the stink of campfire out of the skin.

Saturday was a nice lazy day spent with Sara and Jarem. There is a wonderful breakfast/lunch diner in McMinnville, not to mention the Brigittine Monastery where we picked up some truffles (how they support themselves) and chatted with one of the monks outside the cloister. We spent the afternoon looking at fun booths at the Portland Saturday Market with Rebecca's old roommate Amy. Then we saw Ratatouille in the evening with Jon and Faith and drove home in the hot sun all day Sunday. A 9 1/2 hour drive turned to a 12 1/2 hour nightmare in the sun. But it was a good way to remind ourselves of the wonderful trip which just ended.