Our first week in the USA was really good. We drove further on highway 101 along and through Olympic N.P. It is a beautiful drive here. Everything is so green! And calm! Sometimes we are the only ones on the road for a long time. In Forks we stopped to eat a small birthday cake on the first birthday of my little cousin Kyan. Since we couldn’t be there on his first birthday party. I felt a little homesick .. Then took a turn to the N.P. to visit the Hoh rainforest. A special rainforest because one of the few tempered rainforests (instead of tropical). First thirty kilometers along a fantastic winding road before we reached the rainforest and the campsite. The rainforest was really tolkinesk. Full of very large and old trees, some 1000 years old !! Decorated with different types of beard moss and fern. As if you were walking through a fairy tale forest. That day we also had our first cold ride through the rain, yes what do you want in a rainforest huh!
Nice camping on the only, somewhat spooky, camping in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly no phone range anymore. On the camping board were warnings for bears, cougars (mountain lions) and an angry mum elk with calf roaming the campsite. We woke up early the next day and decided to take a second walk. This turned out to be a super good idea because not only was it very quiet, we also saw a whole group of elk walking across the road in front of us. They were in no hurry at all. What a powerful animals! And what luck again!
After the walk we left again. We actually wanted to stay longer but a bit clumsy of us, we didn’t bring enough food for two days. And the first supermarket was again more than 45 km. back in Forks. We need to get used to that now. The distances between the villages and the petrol stations are much larger than in more touristy Vancouver Island. All of a sudden we have to refuel where possible and bring food, preferably for two or more days. But we know that now.
From the rainforest further south. Eaten another cake on Erik’s mother’s birthday and called her via watsapp, how nice that this is possible nowadays. More beautiful roads, but we also have to watch out for wildlife on the road. Erik had a “caramba” moment with a deer. Deer was cheerfully in the middle of the road so we saw him on time. But we apparently still approached just a little too fast for it so that deer started to run across the road in a panic and Erik still had to make a small emergency stop. Both Erik and Mr. Deer remained unharmed, but it was a eh .. learning moment, let’s say. After that we decided to drive behind larger campers and cars a bit more and less than a minute after we had found a car to chug in the back, he hit the brakes because a cougar was shooting along the road. Wow! Very special to see a cougar, only very few people ever see them! What a luck! Anyway, I feel very happy here. As a little girl growing up near the Dutch forest I naturally have something (a lot, ok very much) with forests. And although the Veluwe remains no. 1 for me of course … I am enjoying all the scenery along the way. Occasionally I feel like Pocahontas but then on an iron horse instead of a canoe, and as a result I decorate Binkie (that’s how I named my motorbike) with the most beautiful feathers I come across haha! I have even bought a wildlife book so that I can read in the evening about what I have seen during the day.
Slept another night in another part of the National Park where we saw pelicans by the sea, and then drove to a campsite near the coast. We are staying a few days here, to refuel, do some work, laundry etc.. At camping The Screamin Eagle haha, and you get the most fantastic pen as a welcome gift, pen / screwdriver / spirit level and measuring tape in one, that’s what I sign for. After three campsites without a shower, we really needed a hot shower. The internet is fast enough so that Erik can do some design work. And I finally have time for yoga again. I know how cliché this sounds, but time and time again I find out that yoga is so important to me, it really is my way of connecting with myself again .. And especially when I have driven a long way and then do yoga I just feel in every fiber of my body that that is exactly what it needs … ok enough now.. For the rest, it is a bit boring here. The only store in the area only sells canned food and we accidentally ate Mexican brown bean spread with canned lard yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk! So not our intention !! Didn’t read the label well enough I guess. There is no washing machine here so this morning I did all our laundry by hand and a bar of soap (the only one that was for sale in that store) A positive thing is that you can drive with your motorcycle or car on the beach. So this morning we took the chance of testing our off-road skills. And we both tumbled down for the first time. Nothing serious though. It is legal to drive on the beach here .. but for us Dutchies it still feels wrong, driving on the beach in Holland would be unheard of haha .. but hey, it was fun. I have earned my first money as a street / camping musician today. I was just playing some guitar for myself and suddenly I got 10 dollars from someone who asked me if I wanted to continue playing, nice!
We have been camping non-stop for about three weeks now and it is going super smoothly. The campsites are also very beautiful in the USA, with lots of space and always a fire place and picnic table. We totally found our own routine. Erik sets up the tent, he can do that on his own. In the meantime, I assemble the seats and then start looking for firewood to make a campfire. Now don’t think that I am going into the forest with a saw and ax or something, looking for firewood means that I go to all the deserted camping spots in search of leftover wood hihi, much easier. And I usually find enough for a free fire. When Erik is done with the tent he prepares food and I pump up the mattresses and attach them to each other, zip the sleeping bags together, inflate the pillows and unfold the sheet. Then we are ready for dinner at the same time. So we found out, you don’t have to do everything together, as long as you do both equally amounts of work, haha!
I don’t know what the weather is like in Europe, but it has been getting colder here the last days. Leaves are falling from the trees, I am wearing a fern sweater and we are putting on the fire earlier every day. It already seems autumnal. So tomorrow we go further south, following the summer.
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