Into the Wild

When we visited Seattle in 2016, our biggest regret was that we didn’t actually make it into the rain forest. It was on our list, and we drove out there and everything, but the rain was pouring down which slowed our travel, Google maps isn’t infallible, and we were not familiar enough with the area to realize it until it was far too late, and we honestly just ran out of time. So, the secondary purpose of this year’s trip (the primary purpose being getting Daniel back to Oregon) was to visit the rainforest. As such, anticipation was running high this morning as we left the tiny hub of civilization that is Forks, WA and headed into the wild.

Sometimes reality can be a letdown when preceded by long years of anticipation. But today was not one of those days. The rain forest was magnificent, an awe-inspiring display of some of the wonders this world holds. I won’t try to describe it, because honestly, I can’t. Even the many pictures taken by my crew pale in comparison. Let me just say that it was awe inspiring and well worth our time. One of the fun moments was spotting tiny baby salmon sheltering in the streams we encountered. Due to our visit to the hatchery yesterday, we knew exactly what kind of fish we were seeing and while they were far fewer in number than the mighty ponds of salmon at the hatchery, it was pretty cool to see them in the wild.

We are not hard-core hikers or backpackers or anything, so we didn’t plan on spending an entire day wandering around the forest. Instead, after enjoying a picnic lunch, we headed to Rialto Beach. We visited Rialto Beach on our previous trip to the area so that at least we could let the kids see the ocean, but the cold, driving rain made it a fairly unpleasant stop. On the upside, the beach was pretty much deserted, probably because everyone else was smarter than we were and decided to stay hunkered down indoors, so we had it mostly to ourselves. The weather today was much more cooperative, and we were able to enjoy the scenery despite having a lot more folks around. Rialto Beach is a rock beach rather than a sandy one like all the others we have visited on this trip, so that was one more cool thing the kids get to add to their “been there, done that” lists.

We expected rain today since we were headed into the rainforest, but about ten minutes of respectable precipitation as we drove and a slow drizzle as we were headed back to the car after our hike was all we got. We were woefully unprepared last time and got pretty wet, but this time our preparedness was in vain as our brand-new rain ponchos languished in the back of the car because we didn’t need them. But I’m ok with that. We were blessed with a perfect day to explore yet more of this beautiful world.