Olympic National Park, WA to Lake Oswego, OR

My 15 minutes of morning chores at the hostel were spent filling in sign post holes with Dave. It was a great 15 minutes of conversation about his experiences hiking all over the United States.

Headed to the Hoh Rainforest. If you have to have a ton of rain - getting to wander through a rain forest is the best way to enjoy it. I walked the "Hall of Mosses" which is a short trail though trees just laden with spongy brown-green moss. Like the mountain stream water I could not accurately describe, the colors in the rain forest are almost impossible to capture in anything other than your senses, in that very moment you are experiencing them. The best I can do will not help most people - the colors are the colors of my sister's eyes. Greens of all shades. A little bit of brown and some golden light flickering through. And, it goes without saying, gorgeous. I couldn't get enough of walking through that place. So I went on the Ranger led hike down the "Spruce Trail." (Shout out to Adam B: "OH, RANGER!") Ranger Mike explained everything about the progression from river bed to rainforest and back again. It is amazing how nature just works itself out in the most organized fashion... each animal or plant plays its part. Even the destruction is ultimately just leading back to growth (or vice versa, I guess... chicken, egg... whatever...).

Eventually, I was able to pull myself from that magical seclusion of moss and green filtered light... and forty five minutes down the road I was able to pull myself back into reality by remembering that my sleeping bag was still cozily curled up in the hostel. In situations like those there is really nothing more to do but turn around and laugh. So laugh and turn around I did. At least it was a gorgeous stretch of road... I don't know if it was gorgeous enough to drive three times in a row but... such is life. Drove the rest of the way without any major mishaps and was greeted by another night city-scape. This time - Portland! My destination for the evening was however, the next little town Lake Oswego with good childhood friends.