Kalaloch [a good place to land]

[Joke from five-and-a-half-year-old Carter]
What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup? Anyone can roast beef but no one can pea soup.

Me: Dinosaurs lived a long time ago.
Carter: Like in the 80s?

Spring is coming...possibly. We had mist instead of snow for a few weeks, but then the snow came back. Now it is still cool, in the 30s and 40s - I feel betrayed by nature. It seems when seasons are scheduled to change, I've already been lined up and waiting.
At the end of February, we had rain - real rain that can reach your skin. I would even give it the hype of being called a storm because of the thunder and lightening. I noted this occasion because my last six months here have yielded no rain, only mist without thunder or lightening. I miss Georgia storms. That night was special and comforting; I was content stalling my sleep for the sounds.

I went camping at the Washington coast in Olympic National Park!! The ocean there is cold year-round, and the air temperature was below freezing, too. It was in the 20s overnight and that was another new experience for my life's book. No complaints, just lessons learned like extra blankets would've been great. It was car camping after all and the SUV could have handled a little more fleece weight. And from all of this, I didn't learn anything new about building a campfire because I left that duty to my friend. Anyway, here are some photos of the campsite and beaches in the area.

we walked underneath this treecampsite view of sunset

sea stacks we made cairns

The beaches were edged in most places with cliffs and dimpled with rocks that looked like the buttons on decorative pillows. Waves crashed around sea stacks, but unfortunately we were only at that particular beach during high tide so neither could we climb on the rocks nor view any tide pools. At high tide some beaches were impassable due to the narrowed pass between ocean and driftwood, leaving a risky path if a large wave loosened the logs from the sand. But at low tide, the storm beaten driftwood, with sunny skies, emanated a warm, worn and welcoming energy. Beach access points from the cliffs and wood trails were made from the driftwood, nature's own recycling.. well, with some human labor.
Walking around and over the driftwood was fun for balance practice, except the morning that they were covered in frost. That particular morning was so cold and my hands very quickly ached in the cold air as I went exploring my first day at the ocean.
During the day we drove 20 miles inland to hike the temperate rain forests in the park. One of my favorite things was the varying hues of green that created shadows and depth in the forests and the complimentary red undertones of the wood, especially the red alder. The cedars and spruces were giants that really only demonstrated their size to ground dwellers when fallen. I hugged 400- and 500-year-old trees and climbed inside dead ones with toadstool-like fungus for storybook inhabitants to climb. Here are some photos of the forests.Our 10-hour drive back to Spokane took a different route through the Northern section of the Olympic Peninsula, as well as the Puget Sound. After the ferry across the sound and then the mountain pass, we were back in the land of wheat fields. With all of our exploring days before and little rest, it was exhausting.


So the update on graduate school is that I've been wait-listed at both of my prospects. This really means nothing more than a big series of I don't know, We'll see, or Let's see if all these other people are going to go or not, first. So, I don't know what's next yet. Yikes! but okay I can deal with that. ...considering massage therapy...