A blended family returns to Olympic National Park and surrounding areas again and yet again in the Year 2008
*This is a work in progress. Enjoy anyway, woo HOO!*
Kate & Talia playing in the stinky seaweed. Makes Morgan retch, so she hangs back outa site. Friday 8 August 2008.
The Olympic Peninsula is almost a separate state from the rest of Washington. Kinda like West Virginia is to my native Virginia. It’s small, compact, remote, and rugged. Unlike West Virginia, however, it’s bordered by the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Salish Sea on the other two. Kristina, born in Seattle, grew up out there. Her dad, a dentist, a loner, and a survivor of US internment camps for Japanese-Americans, took her on numerous fishing trips deep into the river canyons of the Olympics and out into the straits even in stormy weather. We can see the peaks of Olympic National Park and the surrounding national forest wilderness areas from across the water in Seattle. I am always in awe of the everchanging views, even those of rain and clouds, whenever I gaze across the Salish Sea toward yon Olympic Mountains.
The ONP is also where Gwen & I came together as a couple back in the Summer of 1986. The wild combination of mountains, forests, glaciers, whitewater, meadows, and seashore made the ONP my favorite national park to explore. The proximity of the Olympics to Seattle is a primary reason Gwen & I raised our kids out here in Washington State as well as why Kristina & I continue to return there. At the same time, however, the Olympics are so close to Seattle yet so far away. Transportation times are long with the combination of big-city streets, ferry ships, and congested, winding, two-lane roads. Didn’t matter. For years we returned there time and again to nurture our blended families.
This little essay is my recreation of journeys and experiences in which many of the things often used to jog our memories and anchor ourselves across the fabric of timespace were destroyed in a 2010 catastrophic house fire. So many fotos were lost. So many journal entries and kids’ drawings were burned up or blotted out by smoke and water damage. If you see more pictures of some people more than others, well, the ones you see were those salvaged from the watersoaked ashes of the fire, not any judgment or demonstration of preference. The remains of recollection hereby present themselves. Enjoy anyway, and may we all learn even more from the many lessons experienced from living the lives we choose to live.
Rest stop break in Port Angeles, Washington, after leaving Seattle early in the morning to cross Puget Sound & the Hood Canal into the Olympics. Tired and looking forward to camping. Our white 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan was the perfect road trip car for our family of five. L2R: Morgan (who changed their name to Dylan in 2018), aged 14; Kathryn, aged 9 & nearly 10; Talia, aged 6. On Wednesday the 6th of August 2008.
Kristina tired, methodical, & impatiently patient as she juggles business on a smartfone & kids in the backseat. The distant, faraway past was only yesterday, remote as a parallel universe and as close as our minds.
In the now of yesteryear. We camped here at Salt Creek Recreation Area, a local park blessed with stunning views into the Salish Sea’s Strait of Juan de Fuca. L2R: Katie, TaTa, & Kris.
Talia & Kathryn explore the edges of tidal pools. Friday 8 August 2008.
My mate & life partner during this decade and always her very own person. Kristina at Salt Creek Park this August of 2008.
Down out on the spit of Tongue Point. Crescent Bay is to picture left with the mouth of Salt Creek offscreen. The Strait of Juan de Fuca sprawls beyond with both Canada and the Pacific out of camera view. My two youngest with their mom/stepmom.
“Whuhhh…who, me?” Kate on the Stage of Life.
Exploring & giggling in a little cave open at both ends. The entire tunnel is submerged at high tide.
My kids unleash their curiosity at Tongue Point.
Canada’s Vancouver Island, BC, in the distance across the sea.
Out on the Tongue as the tides begin to rise.
Two stepsisters raised together and only about 4 and a half years apart in age. Kate (& Morgan/Dylan, too) were present at Talia’s birth.
A hoofed quadruped ruminant mammal checks out the human wildlife.
A Columbian black-tailed deer, a subspecies of mule deer, is widespread out here in the coast woodland forests and grassy fields of the Pacific Northwest. Odocoileus hemionus columbianus, indeed, and we saw many.
Goodbye to Salt Creek, Tongue Point, and Crescent Bay! Salt Creek, by the way, was the site of Camp Hayden, a World War 2 U.S. military base with underground bunkers and concealed coastal artillery built by the American Army to defend against Axis raids and invasions.
Kate in October sunshine on the way to OPI! Kate’s 9 years old here but will turn 10 in a month. We’re on a BF Day Elementary School Field Trip to the ONP. Foto by me, her proud Dad, a volunteer trip chaperone. Monday 27 October 2008.
Sorting out groups & tasks at OPI, Olympic Park Institute on Lake Crescent near Lake Crescent Lodge. Me, William, is in the middle in the red fleece jacket. Kate is on the right wearing a pink hat & Morgan’s green fleece coat. Foto by father of one of Kate’s school buddies.
We had so much fun on this trip! We hiked up a mountain, took science classes both indoors & outside, learned so many cool things about animals, plants, fungi, & ecological relationships, canoed across the lake (tho I stayed back to keep my hearing aids dry), & ate too much comfort food. Among the highlights was listening to elders from the local Native American Coast Salish tribes share about their traditions, stories, and the benefits of diaper-free tots (tho moss was used when little ones were carried for long distances).
Tuesday night in the dark! Foto by a father of one of Kate’s classmates.
Wednesday night in the dark! With Samhain & Halloween only days away!
What a blast we had! Kate and her school went back to OPI the following year, in October of 2009, but I chose to stay back that time. I’m glad my kids were able to participate in field trips such as this by going to schools in Seattle. Thanks to the father of one of Kate’s classmate, one of a group of men I also shared a bunkhouse with for sharing his fotos with me. I had mistakenly left my digital SLR at home and my cell fone camera wasn’t taking clear pics. And we all had a powerful time in the cool, moist mountain forests and lakeshores of Olympic National Park! Kate’s last trip to OPI, when she was in Hamilton International Middle School, was in early March of 2011. She didn’t really want me going there as a chaperone, and those were hard times for our family, too, as we readjusted to constant challenges we faced at the time. Part of it was the drifting apart as children quickly grow up into and thru their adolescent years. She wanted to be away from prying eyes, spend more time with her friends, and I understood such matters. Even so all of us have far more happy memories of good times together exploring the backcountry and goofing around camp than the unhappy ones of family quarrels and whatnot.
William Dudley Bass
Monday 15 July 2019
Wednesday 6 May 2020
Seattle, Washington
Cascadia
Copyright © 2019, 2020 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons.
Thank you.
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