The LONG Gray Post

We woke up to find that it had rained during the night and the raindrops were lovely on the Shasta Daisies.

The restaurant we used to eat in whenever we were in Forks is now a Chinese restaurant! So we had breakfast at The In Place. The In Place is out! Bad service. Bad food. Long wait (over half an hour). After we had ordered we remembered that this is the place that Shelley, Hubby and I had bad service in before. Not going back. But these saw paintings were on the wall by our table.

We drove to La Push, which is about 14 miles from Forks and on the Quillayute Indian Reservation. This is the first glimpse of the beach as you come around the corner and into town. You can see it is foggy. The large island on the left is James Island and is sacred to the Quillayute Indians. The islands sit at the mouth of the Quillayute River and La Push is thought to possibly be "butchered" French for La Bouche - "the mouth".

I have been camping in La Push since about 2nd grade - about the same age as my son, however, my family has been coming here since the 1940s. I have stayed in tents, campers, cabins, motels - you name it! Some of my happiest memories have been on these beaches which are in the Olympic National Park. Now they have built new cabins, condos and motel units. When Hubby and I go back in a couple weeks, we have a suite in the Whale motel building.

The metal artwork on the motels is beautiful. The whale and thunderbird are prominent in Pacific Northwest Indian art.

There are new signs up and a sidewalk! I never dreamed I'd see a side walk in La Push.

We went through a lot of bugs to get here! GROSS!

We spent a couple hours on the beach at La Push. Here is the path from the Whale Motel.

This is what the whale motel looks like from the beach. In 2002, when I was pg with the girls but didn't know it, we wanted to tent camp here but they had torn out all the camping sites to build condos and RV sites. I sat in the car and cried. Then we ended up later finding a nice spot at the Mora Campground by Rialto Beach. It wasn't easy camping in a tent with a ten month old while your gastrointestinal system was turned inside out by a twin pregnancy! LOL I managed to nurse while sitting on a camp stool and keep D from eating slugs and we had a nice time. So, it has been 6 years since I have been in my favorite place on the whole earth! I feel blessed to visit twice this year.

Aunt Shelley taught J and A how to blow dandelion fluff.

Shelley took this picture of me holding A, J and D, with foggy James Island and the beach behind us.
Shelley took this shot of me so that I could tease Hubby! He made fun of me for all the clothes that we took. It isn't easy to pack for six weeks for all climates and we needed our winter clothes! LOL

A, J and D saying "Hi Daddy! We love you! We miss you!"

Shelley tried to get pics of the girls (J, A) at the beach but they are very uncooperative for portrait type pictures.

This is what the picture looks like from the other side! Chaos! :o) The girls look everywhere but the camera. They'll say "Cheeseburger!" but they won't look while they are saying it.

It has been a colder, wetter year than Washington has seen in several years. The vegetation is lush and profuse. Besides small, wild blackberries, we saw these wild strawberries.

Looking south on the beach.

Looking north on the beach towards James Island.

Everywhere we went there was a lot of drift wood. There must have been big storms this last winter.

Shelley on the beach.

Panoramic views first north and then south on the beach. I called this the long, gray post because everything looked gray in the fog.

D and J with the beginnings of the "volcano". Since we went to Mt Lassen and saw a movie of Mt St Helens' eruption, D has been interested in volcanoes. We are hoping to see Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker and Mt. St Helens while we are on this trip and we will be studying them a bit in school this fall.

J and the volcano.

Someone's building efforts with the driftwood.

A was in constant motion... including her mouth. The above pictures show her gleefully running in circles with her stick.

Occasionally she slowed down to play in the sand.

Dirty waves coming from the south.

Looking north in the fog.

A watched me burying my feet in the sand and had to follow suit.

And J wanted to re-bury my feet for me.

Pictures of J as she buried my feet.

D working on the volcano.

A with the grin she is currently posing with. She put her clips in and made herself look like Punky Brewster!

One last look at the beach.

J - "I picked these for you Mommy!"

A with her dandelions.

The "Flower Girls" - J and A.

Girls being silly.

Unloading at our cabin. It is fairly new but looks old because of the moss. It's wet on the coast!

The girls running around in "Twin Zone"!

This was supposed to be the sleeping loft where the kids were going to sleep. Little did we know that it was basically a twin sized bed with a big ladder that has adult sized steps. Shelley considered sleeping up there but when she tried to go up, we realized that there was a step missing at the top, making the last step over 3 feet long (in spite of what it looks like in photo). So, the kids slept on the floor and Shelley and I slept in the bed.

Here was the bed. The whole cabin was about 15 foot square.

The view from the door and bed - I told you it was small! :o)

A view of the kitchen from the bed! There actually is a four person table in between the bed and kitchen.

This is Rusty. He is part blue heeler and part lab. He also felt comfortable to enter the cabin at whim. Here he is at the door sill patiently waiting while we ate spaghetti dinner. There was also a funny looking pug mix dog that did not want to leave once he entered!

Shelley's birthday was July 8th and we celebrated it (late) at the cabin with these brownies and presents.

Naturally, the girls were quite interested in all the presents. J on left and A on right.

These tree fungus paintings were on the shelf above our bed.

After dinner we drove down to Rialto Beach, a few miles away and in the Olympic National Park. This water is the Quillayute River and the islands are the James Island grouping from the previous pictures, from a different perspective.

On the trail down to the beach. D's head is on the far right. Then the little pink behind hte log is A, the purple is J and Shelley on the right with me behind taking pictures.

The fog rolled in and the surf was incredible as the tide was coming in.

Everyone was fascinated by it. I have seen it before, but never get tired of watching it. Shelley had not seen it like this and the kids hadn't either. L to R J, A, D and Shelley behind. They are holding the little lanterns Shelley got them.

This photographer was from Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Missoula, Montana. We saw him the next night and I told him about catching him in the waves and he gave me his card so I can email him a photo. He just did a photo school in Sacramento this last winter and they come there every couple years. I forgot to ask them what they do, but I imagine if they do it in the winter they may be photographing water fowl at one of several federal preserves in the area or ?

J,A and D watching a BIG wave!

J, A, D and Mom, sitting on a log and watching waves.

Many of the waves were well over 10 feet. Several worship songs came to mind. It is awesome to watch His power in action.

Looking to the north where you can hike for almost 2o miles. The fog is settling in.

American Still Life: Plastic Children's Lanterns.


Driftwood was everywhere.

The kids decided to build a log cabin and I tell you, when these girls get together and decide on something, there is no stopping them! A in pink. J in purple.

Big Brother D gets in the action and helps A carry a log.

While Shelley and I take pictures, the kids keep criss crossing logs to make their cabin.

Still more fog rolls in from the north.

Then these crazy people decided to climb the trees!

Shelley

Backpackers heading north. Not a sharp shot, but I thought it gave some perspective on the size of the driftwood and the waves.

This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine! J, D and A with their lanterns and part of their cabin.

It's hard to see in the picture, but these logs are criss crossed like a log cabin. They got pretty far in a short time period. Now if they could only put as much effort into cleaning their room! LOL

This is the last shot looking south - what islands?! We went back to the cabin to sleep and await another adventure. The next day's journey brought lots of color and many surprises. It should prove to be a more interesting post, however, it may take a couple days for me to get pics up.

I can't keep up with email, so I apologize if I haven't answered your comments or visited your blogs lately. I'm sure you will all understand. I haven't had much time to myself and work on this when the kids are in bed and I'm nearly asleep! :o)

Things are going well. I am still struggling a bit with breathing, shortness of breath and swollen ankles. On top of that I am having a killer outbreak with my rosacea and my face is hot and tender. So, if you feel led, please pray for me in these areas and that God would continue to keep our family safe as we are apart from each other.

This weekend I am looking forward to getting together with my Mom's family for a dinner!

We miss you Honey! We hope you enjoyed this day vicariously through the blog.