After all the unfettered beauty we have witnessed in our time on the road, I didn’t think I could continue to be blown away by the natural world. My experience of the raw wildness of the Olympic Peninsula is in a different category of its own. First, there is the remoteness and the overwhelming feeling of being a visitor to an ancient and hallowed place. The size of the trees alone make you feel tiny and insignificant. It felt a little like being a character in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie or that favorite book from my childhood, The Borrowers. The giant Sitka Spruces and Western Red Cedars are Champion Trees(superstars of their species) and have been rooted in soil here for hundreds of years. It made me wonder who else has touched the bark of these trees, and what the world looked like then. These awesome specimens gave me a continuity to the past that seemed to defy the construct of time. Here in the rain forest, where the sky is blotted from view and the oppressive darkness is lit from within by mosses and ferns of every color and shape, silence gains a new meaning. There is always the sound of water, dripping softly from branches, gurgling trailside in hidden streams, crystalizing in droplets of fog creating eerie shadows and muffling conversation. Amazingly, in our week here, we only had a single day of full out rain. We threw our rain pants and jackets on and hiked deep into the forest to find hidden waterfalls, flowing rivers, and mystical meadows. 
The beaches on the Pacific are vast and scattered with enormous logs, to enter any of the them involves a scramble over massive jumbles of bleached logs. It’s a beach walkers dream world of exploration. Fantastical sculptural driftwood lies everywhere and if you time your amble right(and its crucially important to pay attention to the tide tables here, or else you can get stranded easily between headlands) the tide pools are watery treasure chests of beautiful creatures. I was amazed by the candy cotton pinks and neon lime greens of the anemone colonies. The slimy slug-like sea cucumbers with their dark green mouths that puckered shut if touched, fascinated and repulsed me. My favorites are the sea stars, hard to find but when you do, it’s like you hit the jackpot. It’s with childlike wonder that I run my hands over its spiny back and marvel. The giant sea stacks make the beach ramble a photographer’s dream. Sea birds, cormorants and herons nest on the tops of these two- story craggy rocks and pine trees grow from their rocky sides at odd angles. At one point in our walk, we heard a high pitched scream from behind a stack of boulders followed by another strange yelping sound. We see a young girl come running down the beach, she had been jumping from rock to rock and apparently scared a sea lion, who merrily chased her off and reclaimed his territory before lazily collapsing onto the sand. 
Some of the beaches are easily accessible, others require miles of hiking through rainforest to get there. I prefer the hike-ins, the juxtaposition of the crowded and claustrophobic riot of trees and ferns with the sudden wide open vista of the Pacific causes me to hitch my breath and get emotional every time. I feel my body respond unconsciously to both environments, like the sea creature to the ebb and flow of tides. The rain forest makes me withdraw my body into itself, I feel small and step softly and quietly, trying to become a part of the surroundings. I get pensive and reflective, my brain slows and my mood is meditative. The sound of the wind in the upper treetops reminds me of an approaching train. Then, the canopy begins to allow a little light in and the sound of waves crashing begin to make themselves heard. My pace quickens and I feel myself yearning for the light and the water. That first step onto sand feels like a birth. I am a flower opening its petals, like one of those time-release videos. My eyes drink in the scene and I’m ravenous. I breathe deep, my heart opens, joy inhabits me. And the funny thing is, this happens again and again. Every time, a cycle of unfolding. it is addictive and wholly desired.
