Girl Blew West Diary: Ashford and Mount Rainier National Park

There's something about the open road, and what you find along the way. Things that just tug at the soul, are so simple and feel so satisfying. Like...

Farm stands, selling nature's seasonal bounty.

I'm not sure if it was partly psychological, but when I purchased Rainier cherries back in New Jersey, they didn't taste nearly as good as these ones in Washington state in June.

Post offices, like this one in La Grande, Washington. I hope these stand proudly and strongly in the age of internet communication.

Little independent roadside restaurants. Defying a world of chain restaurants, these establishments offer in their own little corners of the world what corporate ones lack: individuality and character. At a wine tasting on Bainbridge Island, we were told about Scaleburgers in Elbe on the way to Ashford.

Unfortunately, they didn't have any veggie burgers, so I ordered a burger with the works - hold the burger, and a blackberry shake.

Places of worship. The Elbe Church, constructed in 1906.

Little cabin in the woods. This we booked in advance: the Almost Paradise Lodging in Ashford. This is for couples only. We stayed in the Rainier Cabin, our splurge place at $150 a night but our favorite of the stay.

 

 

We picked the smallest cabin but had plenty of room. I like a more snug feel, anyway. This had a private hot tub, thankfully covered as it rained much of our time here.

Breakfast baskets are ready in the room. The apple cider mix and hot cocoa came in handy for the campfire. There were pastries in the fridge which we packed with a thermos of coffee for a coffee klatch in the woods for our hikes.

 

Guests leave trinkets behind. One of my favorites was a saying from a fortune cookie, "Forget the lottery. You are lucky in love."

 

 

There was an old wagon behind our cabin and when I asked the owner about it, she said she picked it up from someone and didn't know its history. Everything has a story. So many stories are lost.

 

 

There are gas fireplaces in the room. I understand safety issues why establishments have them, but I don't care for them at all. There's nothing like a real wood fire like the one built behind our cabin. 

 

 

We lost an old oak tree during Superstorm Sandy at our home in New Jersey. My husband Steve bought a log splitter on Craig's List and it's one of our most favorite activities to have a fire outside in a fire pit he got at an estate sale.       

 

"I must say this now about that first fire. It was magic. Out of dead tinder and grass and sticks came a live warm light. It cracked and snapped and smoked and filled the woods with brightness. It lighted the trees and made them warm and friendly. It stood tall and bright and held back the night." - Jean Craighead George, My Side of the Mountain.

 

Small happiness as a child, and as an adult: toasting marshmallows over a fire.

 

 

Our reason for being in Ashford: visiting Mount Rainier National Park. Sipping on mint tea, I took a photo of this portrait of campfire stories, and made me long for a story. Could you tell a story about the old wagon? I don't have the calling of original storytelling, and think it's a true gift for those who do.

 

 

In her diary of her trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri in1894 that was published in "On the Way Home," Laura Ingalls Wilder, one of my favorite storytellers, said observing the beauty of the surroundings she was leaving behind, "We all stopped and looked back at the scene and I wished for an artist's hand or a poet's brain or even to be able to tell in good plain prose how beautiful it was." I feel at a loss for words too describing the landscapes on my journeys. Photographs help, but don't fully capture it. We didn't have views of Rainier itself, but were satiated with others.

  

 

Laura wrote, "What is it about water that always affects a person? I never see a great river or lake but I think how I would like to see a world made and watch it through all its changes." Of another landscape she wrote, "It is a drowsy country that makes you feel wide awake and alive but somehow contended."

 

Like Laura, I would love to see a world made, and feel wide awake and alive seeing these images. I capture them here to share with others but for my own memory too. These travel diaries I do, and this blog, keeps my story alive for me so it doesn't get lost like the forgotten wagon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eddie Vedder's haunting Into the Wild soundtrack was a storyteller on the journey, from the wonderful film that was made of the John Krakauer book about Chris McCandless' journey into the wilds of Alaska.  There's much I can't relate to in his tragic story, but I can understand his need to follow a different path instead of the one of material gain - keeping up with the Joneses so to speak - and his connection with the natural world. I love the quote by Lord Byron the film starts with,

 

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more."

In the film, his sister Carine says, "He risked what could have been a relentlessly lonely path but found company in the characters of the books he loved from writers like Tolstoy, Jack London and Thoreau. He could summon their words to suit any occasion." I too love to carry my storytellers with me. Their words give me comfort.

 

Reminders to not just look around, but look up. Life is everywhere, thriving. 

 

 

The giving tree. 

 

 

 

 Wild Berry. A Nepalese restaurant feels so fitting for this area.

 

 

Sherpa tea (like a chai) with a vegetarian feast. Chickpeas are a hearty, inexpensive protein substitute for meat. So many can't picture a life without meat. I can't picture a life for me with it.

 

One of their specialties, the comforting huckleberry pie a la mode.

Copper Creek restaurant provided a cozy environment on another rain soaked night.

 

 

Love the wood burning stove and the zen artwork in the background with the woman holding the tree in the forest. Life has been very chaotic and unexpected this year in a number of ways (more about this later, and why these travel diaries are so far behind), but plans are to still get a wood burning stove for our home like this one.

 



 

Blackberry wine and linguine with pesto sauce, and garlic bread. Even the butter is blackberry!

 

 

Blackberry pie a la mode.

 

 

I picked up some cards by local artists at Ashford Creek Pottery.

 

 

I often looked abroad for adventure in my twenties, but in my thirties realized I'd overlooked the United States. I can't wait for more adventures in this life, both domestic and international. There may be more armchair traveling at certain points, or we may have to be more frugal camping instead of cabins, but I'm so grateful for my memory banks of roads traveled. 

 

 

"The core of man's spirit comes from new experiences." - Chris McCandless, Into the Wild, the film.

 

I've loved many places I've traveled. For some reason I always think of the Southwest journey to those haunting New Mexico desert landscapes, the mountain overpasses in Colorado, and the stunning parks of Utah. But I'm grateful to keep finding new landscapes to carve out places in my heart, like those along the Carbon River.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cycle of life in the rainforest.

 

 

 

 

A favorite road trip storyteller is always Scarlet's Walk from Tori Amos. Here in "Carbon" she seems to be figuring out a mystery, consulting real life writer friend Neil Gaiman asking him to read his short story Snow Glass Apples where nothing is what it seems. Stories help me figure out my journey too, as do friends, family, and travel. I love this quote from the actress Lillian Rodriguez from her travels to Carmel, California, "The more people you meet, things you touch and places you go, the more ideas you have for what you want your life to be and the larger it becomes." 

 

Girl Blew West Diary: Bainbridge Island

When my two doggies see their leashes being taken out, their tails don't just wag in excitement. They burst out into full play for several minutes, so eagerly and joyously anticipating their walk. Anticipation really is so much of the journey. I read that a study showed the effect of vacation anticipation boosts happiness for eight weeks.

 

Bainbridge Island was on my list to visit in Washington state and boosted my happiness before, during and after my visit. When I saw two kayakers paddling by our lunch spot, I felt a little regret we didn't stay overnight on the island to explore more, but so much adventure was to come I can't complain.

 

We didn't think to bring our car on the ferry, and stopped to inquire about renting bikes, but the guide told us the island is very hilly and suggested just walking since we were here a short time.

 

 

A charming gift shop, with cheery flowers.  

 

  

Just browsing today.

 

There were so many inviting looking place to eat. We chose the Harbour Public House with its sweeping water front views and took advantage of the beautiful skies and ate outdoors.  A locally produced Bob's Pecan Patty veggie burger and salad (which I prefer to fries), which I had with a Washington state hard cider.

Sharing an apple blackberry cobbler a la mode. I agree with the sentiments I read once, life was simpler when apples and blackberries were just fruits.

Breathing in the perfume of roses by the restaurant, and taking in their vibrant color.

Yes, I ate dessert twice within an hour. Can you blame me? Lavender ice cream from Mora Iced Creamery. We'll be visiting lavender fields a little later.

 

Even the artwork was in a zen mode. 

 



 

Our ferry ride pointed us back to the city...

 

 

but my heart was looking longingly at the water, trees and mountains in the distant.

 

 

Before going to Ashford for our journey to Rainier National Park, we visited Chateau St. Michelle in Woodinville, about 30 minutes outside of Seattle. My husband Steve is more the wine connoisseur, and he loved the wines here, some even more than in the California wine country. While we had the national parks at the top of agenda for our visit to Washington state, we were pleasantly surprised at what a foodie trip this ended up being. Cheers to that.

 

 

 

Girl Blew West Diary: Blake Island, Tapping into Native American Wisdom

"The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst, they carry our canoes and feed our children. You must give to the rivers the kindness you would give to any brother. Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." - Chief Seattle, in a reply to Washington about selling the remaining Salish lands.

 

Gathering my thoughts about my visit to Blake Island in Washington state, the birthplace of Chief Seattle which gives the Emerald city its name, I keep crossing back the coast to West Virginia, where in Charleston 300,000 people were left without clean water to drink, bath in, or even do their laundry in, after a chemical spill found its way into the water supply.

 

Remember how John Denver sang of West Virginia in Country Road,

 

"Almost heaven West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah river
Life is old there older than the trees
Younger than the mountains blowin' like a breeze."

 

What a mess has been made of this almost heaven. Somehow, it's supposed to be reassuring that the spill isn't tied to the coal mines themselves, but the chemical company processing the coal, one article noted. For some citizens, jobs - at any cost - seem to trump basic human needs of clean water to sustain life.

 

Says Bonnie Wireman, "I hope this doesn't hurt coal. Too many West Virginians depend on coal and chemicals. We need those jobs."

 

Steve Brown, 56, unemployed, who has worked in the industry says,

 

"You made enough to support your family.  But you also see what it's done to the environment. People stay away from fishing in rivers and streams near chemical plants. You have fish advisories. You know better. You just know." 

 

We need to hear the whispers of those who were the caretakers.

"He remembers what the visionary...Black Elk, a Lakota said – man's scratching of the earth causes disease like cancer. He meant the mining and drilling for coal, gas, oil and uranium. The scratching brings up the things deep in the earth that should have stayed down there. Henry shudders."- J.J. Brown, Brindle 24.

 

If we do not, Chief Seattle's fear may come true, "It will be the end of living, and the beginning of survival." 

I found Alice Hoffman's The Red Garden through lucky chance browsing at a thrift shop. The novel, about a fictitious Massachusetts town Bearsville which later becomes Blackwell, takes readers through two centuries starting from the town's founding in the 1700's. A running thread is how local legends shape their way into the townspeople's lives, but I think of how little sense of history most of have about where we live. How much do you know of the history of your town or city and state? Do you know who the founders were? I don't. 

Seattle pioneer Doc Maynard, a good friend of the peacemaker Chief Seattle, persuaded settlers to change the town's name from Duwamps to Seattle in 1852, a year after it was settled. I hope his legacy lives on.

More than going to the top of the Space Needle or visiting Pike Place Market, when going through a library guide book on Seattle, I knew I wanted to visit Tillicum Village on Blake Island for a Native American show and feast.

Steamed clams are given when you exit the boat. Throwing the clam shells on the path to stomp on for natural gravel is encouraged. No waste here.

Giving pause on this passage from an informational area about the tribe's ways, remembering our nation's founding ideals on freedom of religion, but not for those whose lands were taken, and the reverence for the spirit of the life-sustaining food when we are so wasteful with food today.

 "Many fishing methods still used today - such as the weir and the reef net - were designed and perfected by the Coast Salish. But their ability to catch salmon was seen as an act of generosity by the salmon, as much as an act of skill by the fisherman.

The Coast Salish see all spirits as "people" with feelings and moods. So an important aspect of Coast Salish custom is to show appreciation for the spirits' sacrifice. One important part of this is the First Salmon Feast.

The first salmon caught each season is treated with special care and placed on a bed of cedar boughs. The tribal elder greets the salmon and speaks words of thanks for its sacrifice. The salmon is then shared among the elders and the rest of the tribe before its head, tail and bones are returned to the water.

By treating the first salmon with such reverence, they hope that he will tell the other Salmon People that this tribe is worthy of their sacrifice, thus ensuring they will have plenty to eat. Native American ceremony and customs, including the First Salmon Feast, were officially outlawed by the U.S. government as a way to help the Native American people better "assimilate." However, some tribes still practiced in secret."

Thankful for my salad with ground rosemary dressing, wild rice, a bean salad, wild salmon and bread made with molasses. I follow a vegetarian diet 99 percent of the time (eating fish at most a handful of times a year). I wanted to partake in the wild salmon here. There was an unmemorable apple dessert after.

I never thought of salmon as "seasonal" until I read David Tanis' article, "Wild Salmon is Worth the Price" in the New York Times. He notes the season is May through October and that, "Wild salmon swims long distances, its color a result of a natural diet of krill, plankton and algae. Farmed salmon languishes in pens, and its pink color comes artificially."

 

A performer from the show displaying the mask he wore onstage. 

 

Roger Fernandes, (Kawasa) a Native American storyteller, educator and artist from the Lower Elwha band of the Klallam tribe, appears in a video as part of the show. From the informational plaques,

"As an art form that predates writing, storytelling has been used by the Coast Salish for thousands of years, and remains an important means to pass down the traditional values and lessons. Indeed, for centuries it was the only was for tribes to pass down language. While many people think of stories as entertainment, the Coast Salish use stories to teach. In their telling, native American stories convey lessons ranging from how to behave, to how to stay safe, even the proper way to treat the environment. And according to Mr. Fernandes, stories are a far more powerful teaching tool than books.'

 

"Reading and writing live in the head," he liked to says. "Stories take that message and move it to the heart." The strength of the Native American stories lies in their layers. On the surface a story may appear to be about a bear or a blue jay. Each listening then might reveal something new: how the starts were formed or why the salmon swim upstream. Soon the listener moves past these layers and reaches the heart of the message. This may be the importance of helping one another or why to be kind to animals or another key tribal value. And such lessons can then never become forgotten, because they become part of you."

 

The iconic Totem poles of the tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Animal spirits are carved lovingly here.

"Charlie Wind once told me we must keep animals on Earth, for they know everything: how to keep warm, predict the storms, live in darkness or blazing sun, how to navigate the skies, to organize societies, how to make chemicals and fireproof skins. The animals know Earth as we do not." - The Talking Earth, by Jean Craighead George, about a Seminole girl who goes into the wilderness and finds its wisdom after doubting the old ways.

 

A sign here talks about the knowledge passed down for centuries.

 

What plants are safe to eat, and what are useful as medicines. I think of how much of this information is available at our fingertips, yet how disconnected we are too from natural remedies.

An NPR article reported on the death at age 93 of Emily Johnson Dickerson, part of the Chickasaw Nation, a tribe in the southern part of central Oklahoma with 55,000 members.

"The people who still speak Chickasaw — now in their 60s and 70s — started learning English when they were forced to go to boarding schools for Indians or local public schools. Dickerson didn't learn another language because, Joshua Hinson [director of the Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program] says, she didn't need English. She was from a traditional community, Kali-Homma', and didn't work in a wage economy.

She lived like our ancestors did a long time ago," Hinson says. "What's important in Chickasaw is quite different than [what's important] in English. ... For her, she saw a world from a Chickasaw worldview, without the interference of English at all."

Can we be less dependent on the wage economy, living more frugally, being kinder to the earth and its inhabitants, and not having an economy based so heavily on industries like gambling and poor paying retail jobs selling cheap imported goods, far too many carelessly discarded in landfills? That is all part of my American dream.

Closing with a passage from one of my favorite storytellers, Louise Erdrich, from her novel, The Round House,

"During the old days, when Indians could not practice their religion - well, actually not such old days: pre-1978 - the round house had been used for ceremonies. People pretended it was a social dance hall or brought their Bibles for gatherings. In those days the headlights of the priest's car coming down the long road glared in the southern window. By the time the priest or the BIA superintendent arrived, the water drums and eagle feathers and the medicine bags and the birchbark scrolls and sacred pipes were in a couple of motorboats halfway across the lake. The Bible was out and people were reading aloud from Ecclesiastes. Why that part of the Bible? I'd once asked Mooshum. Chapter 1, verse 4, he said. One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever. We think that way too."

Girl Blew West Diary: Seattle

There's images that remain imprinted in your memory and endure in your heart. Flying into Seattle in the late evening on a June night, I looked out the airplane window and witnessed the mountain ranges with a bird's eye view. It felt like a dream. Sometimes I almost wonder, was it a dream?  This land is a sacred place. We landed and saw the Alaska Airlines planes on the runway. I confessed to my husband Steve later that I had this almost magnetic pull to want to board one and keep going further into the wilderness. He had the same feeling.

There's an obscure Tori Amos song, Mountain, from her Scarlet's Walk era. I wish she had included it on the record, one of my favorites, which is a sonic road trip across America, the land a character as much as the people Scarlet meets on her journey.

"So the city spits you out, rejected.
Kiss the brave men that you thought had you protected.
She'll be down when the mountain lets her go."



The draw of the mountain, and away from the city. Here I was landing in a big city, when I work in one, New York, that I feel so overwhelmed in. But I found pieces, maybe even themes, that find me wherever I am. Seattle would be our base city before venturing to Rainier and Olympic National Parks.

When considering vacation plans, we again looked West. I want to go West again, Oregon. Montana. Alaska. I feel like what I read was once written about Johnny Appleseed, "A boy. Blew West." I feel like the girl who blew west.

Here in the Western city of Seattle is what I loved.

Indie coffee shops.

In New Jersey, Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks are king. Not here.

We stayed in the Maple Leaf neighborhood and visited different shops for breakfast each day. The Blue Saucer. So many happy things out front: the dog, flowers, a bike.

A soy latte and bagel with tomato, spinach and homemade onion jam. This wasn't on the menu but they suggested it when I asked for a non-dairy breakfast sandwich. I love all of the milk alternatives widely available for coffee drinks, too.

I went back again for their "mojito" with white peach iced tea, lime juice and mint leaves.

A white mocha with rice milk and a lingonberry crepe at Café Javasti.

At Cloud City Coffee, a vegan cherry almond muffin and an almond milk medici, a mocha with orange zest.

 

Not just the food and drinks, but the community spirit. I loved everything on this poster about community at Cloud City Coffee. The first thing listed "Turn off your tv."

 

As an editorial "Apple Bites into (Our) Holiday Humanity" in my local paper noted,

 

"The average American apparently now spends more than five hours a day on a digital device and 4 1/2 hours with the TV on. If you work or study eight hours a day, sleep eight hours a night, and commute at all, what time is left actually living life?"

 





Keeping money in the communities.

This was our first trip using Airbnb for a number of nights. For the first leg we stayed with Jess and Joey. Three nights here were $218 ($65 per night and a $23 fee), which we thought sounded reasonable for a major city. This was actually our most expensive Airbnb place. We didn't meet our hosts, but were happy for our very comfortable bed, clean room, shower, and chair with a leg massager after a long flight and days sightseeing. Their rooms are above Joey's hair salon, and their house is beautiful.

 

Books, and communities for them (libraries, small books shops, swaps).

I love these little book exchanges. Someone started one in our office too.

Down the road from Cloud City Coffee, so excited to spot a "Little Free Library," started by Todd Bol of Wisconsin who built one as a tribute to his mother, a former schoolteacher who loved reading. You can buy or make one. Watch a short video here.

One of my favorite authors was here: Louise Erdrich, and her best selling The Round House. I had already read this from my library.

We did some things from the tourist checklist too. The futuristic Space Needle.

A Washington state white wine at the top. I've lived in New Jersey my entire life, not far from New York City (where I currently work) and have never been to the top of the Empire State Building. I always say I should play tourist in my own backyard, but seldom do.

We rode the Ferris Wheel. I regretted not doing so in Paris and felt the urge to do it here.

A vegetarian hot dog with sauerkraut, sea salt and vinegar potato chips and a fresh squeezed strawberry lemonade at "The Frankfurter" on the waterfront.

At Pike Place Market, we picked up some Rainier cherries (so lucky we were there for the season) and an "Oh My God" peach. These are nature's candy to me.

Huckleberry ice cream on the pier.

Learning about history.

I know more now about the California gold rush, but I didn't know anything about the Alaskan gold rush until visiting the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park. Sharing some quotes from signs in the museum.

"In August 1896, an event occurred that was to change the region and its Native inhabitants forever. On Bonanza Creek, a small branch of the Klondike River, three prospectors discovered what would prove to be the largest concentration of gold ever found. News spread quickly to the loose network of white prospectors moving throughout the Yukon. Winter soon set in closing all routes to the Klondike. News of the strike would not reach the rest of the world until the following summer."

Consider the state of the economy today. Are times as desperate now?

"The spectacle of men looking for work...My God!! This is terrible! Battling for the privilege of working all day for enough to eat - and the next day go at it again; and the next day go at it again; and so on until the earth rattles on their pine boxes." - Igantius Donnelly, "The Representative," August 29, 1894.

In 1897, Ethel Anderson was a young child. Later in life she wrote about her life in Bellingham, Washington before the gold rush.

"They called the hard times a "panic" but why it came, no one knows...Money began to disappear and no one had any work. For a while our papa cut firewood for the railway for a dollar a day - a fourteen-hour day...When our food supply began to run low we would strike out, gun in hand...No need to carry a lunch for every homesteader along the way would say, 'Put your feet under the table and tell us the news.' Every traveler was a walking newspaper, and in hard times the farmer alone is well fed."

A sign here talks about the displacement of the Native people who were outraged by the sale of Alaska by Russia in 1867. Who can sell the land? We'll visit this more in my next diary entry.

"Sourdough, a form of yeast, was used to make bread or pancakes rise during the gold rush. A person who spent at least one full winter in Alaska was called a 'Sourdough.'"

"Do not worry about any danger, for there is no more here than in Detroit except what comes with hard work...Plenty of that will be at hand...I fully expect hard work and lots of it and I shall not be disappointed." - Mac McMichael, 1898

 



Awaiting mail in the Yukon Territory. Mail and news traveled so slowly, and now we have information at our fingertips. When viewing what dominates the headlines in the media, I often think, "This is the age when so much information is available to us, and this is the information that's being pushed upon us?"

Nature. Always seeking out moments in nature.

Before we got on the trail I came upon this stunning Native American mural. Remembering and respecting the animal spirits.

A sailing race was going on that day.

The Discovery Park lighthouse was our destination. Everyone around here seemed to be enjoying the moment.

 

I'll be exploring constants in my life - gardens and farms - as themes in my Seattle stay, but even more adventure awaits before.

 

There was a book at the Space Needle gift shop, "I Can Learn Something New." So much of traveling is about learning something new, but I'm trying to approach daily life this way too. The airwaves are flooded in January with advertisements from the weight loss industry that makes in particular women feel insecure about their bodies. Forget those ads, and embrace what's beautiful about you, and the world around you. Let's focus on learning something new.