One of my goals for this summer is to go on as many hiking/camping/Anderson Island trips as I can. I feel like even after living in the Northwest for nearly three years, I haven't taken advantage of the many outdoorsy opportunities available. I love hiking, I just never seem to have/make time. But anyway, in the spirit of that, Chloe and I headed out to Wallace Falls today, piloted by the dubiously trusty Rufus, who mercifully handled the journey very well.
It was a pretty drive, and not that long, although we did add on a little extra time when we decided to assume we knew better than the Mapquest directions, and also did not stop to consider that "First Street" is actually one of the most common street names in America, and there might in fact be more than one. Yeah, that was cool. But what was even cooler was when we were passing through the thriving metropolis of Startup, Washington, and we saw a sign for a garage sale advertising "Free Knife With Purchase." We were laughing too hard and driving too fast to stop and take a photo, but personally it was my favorite part of the trip.
We had another adventure finding parking . . . Wallace Falls is a popular spot and we got there past noon, so the parking lot was full, but a cheerful park ranger informed me that I could park on the side of the road past a certain point. But because there is no justice in the world, all the nice, flat possible parking spaces were marked with giant "No Parking" signs, and once I got to the okay-to-park zone, the theme seemed to be "enjoy parking here in this ditch!" We ended up with the car tilted at what felt like a 90-degree angle (but probably wasn't, since, you know, that's not physically possible) and with me having to actively climb out of the car, but Chloe basically falling out.
Anyway, after our driving and parking adventures, we had a really nice hike. I learned about a lot of Northwesty animals that I didn't know about before: corn snakes, almond bugs, banana slugs. And the waterfalls were beautiful! It was definitely a reminder to me of how not burly I am; we hiked a total of 2.1 miles each way, and it was rated as "moderate difficulty" in my hiking book, but I was definitely red and sweaty and totally worn out by the time we reached the waterfall. Well, it's just a good reason to go on more hikes and increase my burliness level!
No comments:
Post a Comment