No rain dance required: three soggy days on the Olympic Peninsula

According to the middle-aged waitress in Hoquiam, Washington’s only coffee shop, it had already been raining on the Olympic Peninsula for two days straight when we drove through en route to nearby Lake Quinault Lodge. And the forecast was not promising to get any better.

“Can’t imagine why you’re visiting in March,” she observed, pouring my coffee into a brown ceramic mug.

“It’ll still be raining in July,” I shrugged.

Her answering ‘humph’ came with a nod of agreement, though I’m sure she still thought we were crazy to be here. The truth was, not one of us cared an iota about the rain. We had our rain jackets. We had gloves. We had wool hats and waterproof hiking boots. We weren’t here for a sun tan.

One might argue that no three days can be perfect while traveling with kids, but while on the Olympic Peninsula, you simply have to find something other than storm clouds to blame. Unruly children, perhaps. Traffic out of the city. The near-constant drizzle is as much a part of the package as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, or red rock is to the Grand Canyon. You can’t have the lush beauty of this temperate rain forest without the rain.

Lake Quinault

Lake Quinault Lodge certainly doesn’t take notice of the weather. It sits stoically no matter the season, quietly waiting it out. When we arrived, it was with a mad dash into the sanctuary of the wood-beamed lobby, where a fire crackled and thick rugs graced the floor. The kids began a game of chess by the fireplace while we checked in, then ran to the back porch, where they had to crane their necks upward to check the rain-guage. Already 52 inches this year. In our lake-view room, we donned swim suits (yes, really!) over which we zipped rain jackets. With hoods drawn, we dashed across the wide lawn to the pool house, where we pushed open the door to a wall of steam and the smell of cedar.

It’s hard to tell where Lake Quinault Lodge’s indoor pool ends and its spacious sauna begins. All you really know is that you’re warm, the high interior windows are fogged over, and the sound of your children’s laugher is echoing back at you from everywhere at once.

We dined on cedar-planked salmon and lake trout that night in the lodge’s historic Roosevelt Dining Room, where the kids sipped from their water glasses with pinkies out, cloth napkins safely on laps. They dared each other to try the ‘banana slug ice cream’ for dessert, laughing with relief to find it to be banana-flavored.

The next morning, we hiked under the rain forest canopy of national forest trails with the feeling of cotton balls in our ears: the steady pattering of the rain falling on the leaves muted the kids’ cries of delight, the occasional dog bark, and the hellos of passing hikers. As the kids ducked under ferns and climbed moss-covered nurse logs, the raincoats came off. Under the trees, we were sheltered completely as our tread found footing on the pliant forest floor.

cascade falls lake Quinault

Lunch was an impromptu picnic in our room, after which we looked up, startled, at the slant of sunlight cast across our floor. Yes, the clouds do part at Lake Quinault, if only temporarily. And when they did for us, we had to catch our breath. From the spacious deck of the lodge, the lake spanned wide and blue, each white cap winking in the rare sunlight as if amused to reveal herself to us. We wasted no time piling into the car for the short into Olympic National Park for an afternoon of beach combing. As we navigated windy Highway 101, signage for ocean beaches sported native Quileute and Hoh names that tangled on the tongue. We taught them to the kids as we drove, but their eyes were out the window, waiting to catch a glimpse of sand and sea.

We stopped at Kalaloch, where the root systems of giant trees clung, exposed, against sandy bluffs, the wind whipped, and driftwood sat piled, begging to be pressed into service as walls of beach forts. If Lake Quinault Lodge looks tranquil in the face of the rain, the lodge at Kalaloch appears hunkered down, battered and brutalized by direct exposure of salt and sea. We note the location for future ocean storm watching.

Olympic National Park

That night, we fell asleep to the pounding of rain on the Lake Quinault Lodge roof, and woke to brief dazzling sunshine which was replaced by long shadows across the dining room floor before we’d finished our granola and berries. We hit the forest trails under dark cloud, and back under the canopy, it was hard to say then they burst open. The forest floor absorbed moisture like a sponge. The rain fell steadily for two days more, as promised, and by the time we checked out, our room smelled of dank cotton and nylon from the clothing we’d spread out near the heater to dry. On our way back through town, we waved to our friendly waitress in tribute as we passed the diner, the last of our wet clothing piled in a ball in the back of the van.

Seeking ohana in Kauai’s quiet spaces

This post is sponsored by The Hawaiian Islands, where you could be Living in the Moment on the Island of Kauai.

Miles past the smattering of resorts, tourist destinations, and restaurants dotting Kauai’s scenic coastline, a rusted pick-up truck sits at the end of a dirt drive, waiting to be loaded with the week’s mango crop. My three-year-old nephew, barefooted and shirtless, hefts one in, grinning as it rolls loudly across the dented truck bed. His mother snaps a photo, catching the blur of his hibiscus-patterned swim trucks against the backdrop of the truck’s rainbow-tinted plates. 

north-country-farms

It’s their second day of vacation on Kauai’s North Shore, during which they’re staying at North Country Farms in Kilauea, just one of many tucked-away places in which families can slow down and find peace in the Garden Isle. A family-owned and operated organic farm, North Country Farms offers more than just a place to lay one’s head: it’s a quiet respite for adults that simultaneously provides endless entertainment for children. Their two guest cottages include dining areas and kitchenettes, and throughout their stay, kids and adults alike are encouraged to pick all the fruit desired from the surrounding orchards.

Down nearby (and ridiculously scenic) Kuhio Highway, additional genuinely Hawaiian experiences await (though I’ve heard there’s a killer shaved ice stand en route). Kids will appreciate the short commute to the sanctuary of the Kilauea National Wildlife Refuge, where the slopes of an extinct volcano provide able space to run and play and spot green turtles, monk seals, and even humpback whales.

north-shore-kauai

Up the shore, the Na Aina Kai botanical gardens include playgrounds for little ones amid 240 acres of gardens, forests, and beaches. Bring a picnic meal to enjoy at a North Shore beach afterward; Anini and Ke’e are rarely crowded. (Ke’e is perhaps the calmest we’ve seen, making it perfect for babies and toddlers.)

Of course, the most hidden-away spots on Kauai can’t be reached by car. For a moderate hike even the youngest island visitors can manage (while still yielding big rewards), leave Ke’e beach to join the adjacent Kalalau Trail. Two miles in, families will be treated with Hanakapi’ai Beach, where shallow creeks and caves demand exploration.

Evening meals can be had back in the town of Kilauea, where the local fish market promises the freshest catch. Afterward, the sunset over the volcanic rock of the coastline beckons. Kids go to bed tired and get up with the sun on the Garden Isle, but that’s ok: back at North Shore Farms, the roosters will be crowing, anyway, and the organic coffee’s perking.

Why I travel with kids

With fair regularity, I get asked why I travel so much with my kids. Isn’t it exhausting? Will they even remember it? How do you make the time to get away? I could give the stock answers, and I sometimes do: I travel with my kids because I want them to have first-hand knowledge of their country and world. I travel with them because I hope that in so doing, I will create life-long learners of them. I travel with them because I enjoy it, and yes, I travel with them because I can.

But the more I journey with my children, the more I realize that travel isn’t just about the big picture. (Ironic, no?) For us, it’s about those singular moments that shine in the spaces between the major stops on the itinerary: the surprise glimpse of a sailboat from the window of the train, the unexpected enjoyment of the emptiness of a cathedral on the historical tour, the temporary camaraderie between the siblings stuck together in the back seat. It’s the anecdotes that become family lore: the missed turn on the interstate that leads to the missed flight (and longest stint in an airport ever), the rodeo that turns Toby into a hero when he announces he’s ‘an American’ to a crowd of cheering cowboys, the subway conductor who delays his train to give us directions to Penn Station. (Most of our anecdotes include navigational error.)

subway-nyc

The secret (which isn’t a secret at all) is that these moments can’t happen without the big events that frame them. Had we not planned a trip to New York City and put everyone on a cross-continental plane, I’d never have seen Calvin enter Central Park on a muggy June evening and confidently join a pick-up game of soccer, or Toby volunteer as a sidekick in a street performer’s act in the Battery. Had we not mapped out a five-state road trip to four national parks, I’d have missed Nate’s sheer joy upon zip-lining through Montana’s Big Sky wilderness and Toby’s scream of delight upon seeing a bear with her cub. (He scared them both.)

Bousquets-adventure-course

These moments are captured and surrendered in the space of minutes and hours, and some will be remembered and some will not. But as a traveling parent, I have to believe that the lasting impression created by these moments will be much more wide-sweeping. I have to believe that the confidence born of knowing their place in the world (which is everywhere, anywhere, and anything in-between) will enable them to always say I am capable. I am compassionate. I have as much to learn and as many experiences to have as there are places in this world, and I know not one definition of beauty, of history, and of humanity, but many.

 

Our top ten national park travel moments

Posing on the brink of the Angel’s Landing knife edge.

The Pit Stops for Kids family does our best to do more than ‘talk the talk’ of family travel: we pack up the kids and walk the walk…through rainforests and woods, deserts and beaches, striving to take our kids beyond the boundaries of what they know of our corner of the natural world. I suppose it’s no surprise that our top travel moments have occurred on just such ‘foreign’ soil as our own national parks, a land which, despite many visits, remains largely undiscovered:

10. Watching Toby canoe across Grand Teton’s Jackson Lake under a mid-morning sun.

9. Feeling swallowed whole in the cold and eerie gloom of the Oregon Caves’ Passageway of the Whale.

8. Nate’s absolute joy upon dipping his bread into Many Glacier Hotel’s famous Swiss fondue.

7. Toby’s deep breath before disappearing into an ancient kiva within Mesa Verde’s Puebloan ruins.

6. Coming to a ‘black bear traffic stop’ on Glacier’s Going to the Sun Road.

5. Sweating in the rock solid desert heat under Arches National Park’s Double Arch.

4. Spending a lazy afternoon escaping Yellowstone’s crowds in the Firehole River.

3. Attempting to traverse the ‘knife edge’ on Zion National Park’s Angel’s Landing (and failing to find the nerve).

2. Standing amid the utter isolation of Death Valley’s empty landscape.

1. Watching my kids sworn into 12 junior ranger programs in two years.

This post has been entered in the Grandtourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition in conjunction with HomeAwayUK.

 

Standing Alone

Inspired by our travels to Arches National Park.

The only downfall of Moab, Utah? In summer, it tops 100 degrees by 11 am.

But during our visit, we got a fairly early start and hit Arches National Park before ten. I’d never been here before, and I can say with solemn reverence that it was nothing short of stunning. I’m not usually the type to ohh and aww over geological wonders (I’d much rather learn about the people of a place, for instance, than how old its rocks are), but Arches certainly accommodated me in keeping with my recent travel theme of perspective and scope.

Walking through its canyons (or scrambling up them, as the case may have been as I chased after errant children), I was once again made painfully aware of my insignificance. Just as I had felt inside the vast caverns of Great Basin a week prior, staring at stalagmites millions of years in the making (quick, are those the ones hanging down or the ones pointing up?) Moab’s arches reminded me that the universe does not care that I, a random human being, chose the 23rd of July, 2009 to tread upon these particular coordinates of earth. Or any other, for that matter. The arches were there countless years before me, and will likely be there countless after me.

I think, if only for my own benefit, that I need to repeat that: does not care. That’s hard for us to grasp, isn’t it? I think this may be why time as a concept feels so elusive to us, and distance, for that matter: earlier in this road trip, I could barely wrap my mind around The Loneliest Highway in America, let alone the distance between a single star above my tent’s canvas and the path of its light to our planet. Our entire perspective is limited to such a tiny pin drop of experience.

We’re so self involved, the human race.

So in keeping with that theme as well, I can only offer these words. Of mine. And these photos. Of my family. On this date. In this place. Where, for the briefest of moments (brief to the universe, anyway…long as only a car trip with a four-year-old can be to me), my microscopic blink of an existence made contact with the impossibly long span of earth’s history, touching ground upon the smooth desert sandstone of dusty Moab.

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Hidden

(Inspired by our travels to Death Valley National Park.)


The first thing anyone notices (or at least the first thing I always notice) about Death Valley is its unapologetic inhospitality. You drive over the rise of the highway from Beatty, Nevada and a vast, cracked valley of barren land stretches out before you, and you cannot help but think of empty hands extended. Of cupped palms dry of water. Of stark denial.

If you’ve read up on the valley, you next think of the doomed Manley wagon train who gave the valley its name in 1849, and you can imagine the depth of their despair at this first glimpse of everything they did not want to find.

But then you look again.

And as you explore the park, you find creases in the cracked land. You find hot springs, and sand dunes, and washes twisting up canyon walls. You stand looking out over the desolate valley, and suddenly, you can see the way the sun sets the Paramint Mountains to shades of amber, then rose. You notice the ribbons of color in the boulders framing your hikes. You listen to the silence.

These gifts of the park are subtle, and–I won’t lie–subtle isn’t usually my ‘thing’. But I think that’s why I like Death Valley so much (well, that and the weather). It isn’t like Yosemite, with its Half Dome that universally impresses. It’s not like Yellowstone, with its gushing parlor games. There’s not one feature of the huge park (biggest in size in the continental U.S.) which I can honestly say draws a consistent ‘wow’. To appreciate Death Valley, you have to be observant. You have to be still. You have to look closely.

Last spring, we began our first full day in the national park hiking up Golden Canyon and continuing on past Manley Peak to Zabriskie Point. The three mile trek includes some pretty arduous climbs, but the first mile is a gentle affair twisting up a washed out road through the canyon. It’s shaded, and pretty, and if you time your hike right, the morning sun casts the canyon walls to striking shades of gold (hence its name).

Every few yards, a cracked chasm in the rock framing the road leads up the canyon side, and the boys followed each of these paths like dogs on a scent, zig-zagging their way up the wash. Some chasms they could walk into, but others required some scrambling as they climbed up, pulling themselves into the crevice by their arms. Then they could follow its winding path (formed in the soft rock bed by infrequent flash floods) up and up and up, until one of us called them back. They looked like little ants traversing an ant farm.

Higher up, the trail got tough, and the sun blazed down, and Toby struggled with the terrain. I walked with him steadily, holding his hand, until we were directly under the huge rock fortress that is Manley Peak. For a brief moment as we were passing under, its shadow fell over us, and he stopped, staring up. Even he knew that for anything at all to block out the sun in Death Valley–even a massive stone ediface–is rare.

Over the top, there were more hills, up and down and up and down through the rippling borax and salt deposits that make up the land here. I transferred Toby to Charlie’s shoulders. The sun was back in full force.

The morning lengthened. Toby found a lizard and stopped to study it for ten minutes. Nate found the entrance to an old opal mine, intrigued as only a ten-year-old boy (and his thirty-something father and uncle) could be by the extensive danger signs planted all around it.

Zabriskie Point was hot and windy, but the view was spectacular. We could see all the way to the Badlands to the left and kne that our home for the week–Furnace Creek Ranch–lay somewhere straight out ahead. The sky was a rich blue above us.

“Awesome,” someone said, and then we all stared out over the desert anew, and I was so, so grateful that my family and I, mountain and tree lovers from the pacific northwest, could take this in, uncover all there is on offer, and adjust our definition of beauty to include it.

(Then we tried to take a family photo, and mostly failed, but that happens no matter where you go.)

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