Memories from Family Adventures in the Mountain Forests
*This is an unfinished work in progress. Enjoy anyway!*
Long ago memories: Talia before a downed tree in Sol Duc Campground, Olympic National Park. Kate is on the distant left. The boy on foto right is one of their new “campground buddies.” Summer of 2005. Foto by Morgan Bass.
Our blended family enjoyed many adventures into the wilds of Washington State. We spent more time in Olympic National Park than in any other national park or wilderness area. Memories of these trips, while wonderful, flitter like ghosts in a sad happy kind of way. Most of this is due to the disruption caused by the March 2010 housefire in particular. We lost about 90% or more of our print fotos, slide transparencies, and digital pictures from the time before the Fire. We had many hundreds, almost 2,000 pictures from family trips to the Olympics after the Fire such as from the Summers of 2010 and 2011. Only a small few images remain from some of our adventures before then. In some cases, however, nothing survived the Fire.
These losses led to a blurry fragmentation of memories as we all struggle to recall what happened when. These pictures, for example, stem from two family camping trips to the Olympics, including both Salt Creek Park – Clallam County Recreation Area and the national park as well as visits to other local gems in the area. One set of fotos is from our August 2004 trip there and the other from 2005, possibly August as well, altho the those pictures stamped February 2006. They clearly were taken in the summertime thus placing them back in 2005. These digital images have been copied and shared several times. Often the time dates reflect the time copies of the now-lost original images was shared, saved, recopied, reshared, and saved again. My family’s story here is as much about our relationships to our memories of places, times, and people as well as the road trips and camping adventures we found ourselves upon. Sometimes all this feels as if we’re chasing ghosts thru the forests. Continue reading