Our Olympic Peninsula Trip

I generally put in a lot of effort in meticulously planning a trip and take great pride when our tours go according to the plan. (I blame Avi when they do not go according to the plan. By virtue of being a wife, I suppose it is my prerogative to blame the husband for anything that goes wrong.)

Bambi proved herself equally adept in planning a lovely road-trip of the Olympic Peninsula. In our first visit to her after her wedding, she wanted to show us the Real America. (As though what we had seen earlier of USA was False America!!)

Real America in her books, was the National Parks, not the cities.

After visiting the Olympic National Park, I agreed with her.

Every National Park of USA is unique and has a different charm, whereas, practically every American city looks like any other American city. There is a monotonousness about them all.

We started out trip in Seattle. My son-in-law was the designated driver, but Bambi and Pratibha, her sister-in-law, could drive the car whenever needed.

We loaded the car in the Bainbridge Ferry and crossed over to the BainbridgeIsland.

This Bainbridge Ferry is huge. There are people who regularly commute to Seattle downtown by this ferry. It has the capacity to carry 300 cars.

We had not been on a cruise till then and to my untutored eyes, this ferry looked like the Titanic.

Vishnu, Bambi and Pratibha went to get some refreshments while we strolled to the head of the ferry. As we stood at the very nose of the ferry, I said to Avi in Marathi, Tumhala Titanic aathavatoy? aapla tasa ek photo hava. (Do you remember the Titanic? We should have a photo like that.)

One man, obviously non-Indian, who was nearby, heard me, laughed aloud and said to us, Go ahead, stand there and I will take a photo of both of you in the Titanic pose.

I felt the blush rising up my neck and flooding my cheeks. I did not know which way to look.

Avi was ready, but I felt so shy that I refused to pose for the picture.

That man was smart. He could piece together and understand my remark in Marathi just by two words Titanic and photo.

That is deductive logic for you!

We retrieved our car from the hold on the BainbridgeIsland and were on out way to the Olympic National Park and the Hoh rainforest.

Whole of the Washington state is scenic. It has wild beaches with off-shore islands and stacks, which are basically rocks carved in weird shapes by the action of the ocean and wind and it has tall, snowy mountains with lush temperate rainforests.

We, in India are used to tropical rainforests, which look altogether different from the temperate rainforest.

The views of the MountOlympus from the Hurricane ridge arebreathtaking.

As we were eating at the open-air picnic tables set on the Hurricane Ridge, we spotted a doe.

All of us went in raptures over the sighting of this wildlife. We talked in hushed whispers lest she ran away. I tried to entice the doe with biscuits.

She promptly came over and we had the pleasure of feeding her with umpteen numbers of biscuits.

She was insatiable and wanted to eat the WHOLE of our picnic lunch of five persons.

We tried to shoo her away, but she simply wouldnt go.

That was one wild doe!!

My own favorite is the Hoh rainforest. It has an eerie, alien atmosphere. The huge trees, draped with moss and the ground carpeted with ferns, give you a primeval, fearful feeling of being spied upon.

One particular spot reminded Bambi so strongly of The Glade of Iguanodons from the book The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, that we promptly renamed it, The Glade. (The Lost World by Michael Crichton is also a good book, but we still prefer the one by Arthur Conan Doyle.)

The late afternoon sun filtering through the trees adds to the fearful beauty of the forest. You KNOW that the trees are alive. You can feel it.