"We're having a pee problem"

Yesterday, Sarah and I took Constance for a walk. We were standing on this corner in North Portland for a minute while a neighbor lady loaded her dog in her car. Constance, while a lover of all strangers, is sort of a dog hater. So, we waited for the dog to be in the car before we crossed the street. While we were standing there, the lady said something rather indecipherable that we thought was, "We're having a pee problem." We didn't pay attention. I guess what she meant to say, or what we were meant to hear was, "Don't walk down this street, there are swarms of bees and you will be stung."

We walked. Sarah and Constance were in front of me and then they were covered with bees and then we all started to get stung. This is what we did:

1. Ran
2. Flailed our arms and tried to squish the stingers
3. Took our hoodies off in the middle of the street with complete disregard for traffic
4. Flung the Chuck It and lost the tennis ball
5. Screamed a lot of swear words for about 2 blocks

We came home, with lots of stings and without our hoodies. We borrowed a car, took Constance to the Doggie ER to make sure she was ok (she is), and got ourselves some bourbon and hydrocortisone cream. We also complained. A lot. That shit hurt. Drummer said, "are you sure they're bees? The only swarm bees around here are honey bees and the rest are all solitary. They were probably wasps." So, we looked. Sure enough, Yellow Jacket Wasps.

Please note the following information we found:

"It is always best to avoid unnecessary stings. Should a yellowjacket wasp fly near you or land on your body, never swing or strike at it or run rapidly away since quick movements often provoke attack and painful stings."

"Never strike, swing or crush a wasp or bee against your body since it could incite nearby yellowjackets into a frenzied attack. Wasp venom contains a chemical "alarm pheromone," released into the air, signaling guard wasps to come and sting whomever and whatever gets in their way. Unfortunately, many serious accidents have resulted when one runs away from attacking wasps and into the path of automobiles."

"Yellowjackets have a lance-like stinger without barbs and can sting repeatedly whereas honey bees have a barbed stinger and sting only once."

"The colony then expands rapidly reaching a maximum size of 4,000 to 5,000 workers and a nest of 10,000 to 15,000 cells in August and late September."

I also read something about how they become the most aggressive in late August. Good. To. Know.

Unfortunately, the lady who tried to warn us also got stung... but not as badly as we did. She said she found out where the nest was and was going to take care of it.

We came back to the house with our anti-sting cream and booze and drank a bit while a bunch of traveling musicians played a nice show downstairs. The stings hurt intermittently throughout the evening. First the ones of our heads hurt the most, then they got better and other ones started hurting more. It was pretty bizarre. They still hurt today, but mostly itch, but when you scratch them they hurt like hell.

Sigh. And, I just took out a ton of student loans. I'm in a big "looking up" phase right now...

"If you're a nice person, you'll be ok. You can make it if you're just a good person"

Tidal pool at Hole-in-the-Wall

That's what the guy on the bus said as we sat at the downtown terminal in Olympia Tuesday morning. We were pretty stinky - 5 days of hiking and all. We had big packs, trekking poles and a bucket that we hung our food in a tree with. The guy on the bus was one of those bus people that talks to everyone, is friendly, a little bit weird and maybe mentally ill, but who cares. He told us that in the 60s and 70s a lot of young people used to hike around and now they don't. He said its hard because its expensive but that you can make it if you're nice. I spent a lot of time thinking about that, especially after what happened. I wondered if you could just really get though life better by being nice and it seems like its probably true, maybe. More on that later in the post; here's our trip, in a nutshell:

We started off by getting dropped off at Lake Ozette; its in the far northwestern part of Olympic National Park, Washington State and the Continental US as well. From there we hiked in the woods, due west till we hit the ocean at Cape Alava (right).

We hiked down the coast for 3.5 miles until we hit Sand Point and camped for the night. It was late, dark, chilly, and kinda rainy. We were feeling a bit tired and frustrated. We camped in beautiful woods and even though I've seen it quite a bit, I was newly amazed at the closeness of the forest to the ocean. The huge forest and the huge ocean.

The next day we got up and things seemed brighter... it rained a bit but the sun was rising instead of setting, we had a long stretch of beach in front of us and we were like, "yeah! the backcountry!"

We set off for Norwegian Memorial (named after a shipwreck). I kept calling it Norwegian Woods. That was a looooooong hike. Over rocks. So many rocks. So many rocks that were hard, and sharp and sometimes slippery and had a tendency to create blisters on feet that were covered in nothing but sand, salty water and some running shoes. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Some of the hiking was easy. Some was hard.

Easy hiking.

Hard hiking.

I loved Norwegian Memorial. We met someone there who was super nice and also knew someone that I knew. Weird. But, great. These were some of the nice views from there (sandpipers at the freshwater source, campsite view out toward ocean, view from edge of campsite toward ocean):


The next day was more hiking. More foot destruction, muscle soreness and ocean beauty. We hiked down to Chilean Memorial (another shipwreck site). More bouldering, sand walking, tidal pool exploration and overland trails. There are some places where the headlands are too eroded to hike around so there is an overland trail on the shore. It looks (really hardcore) like this:

cheri. hiking up the overland

It was at Chilean Memorial where lots of things happened... we revisited our tidal charts and maps and realized that because the tides were not fluctuating greatly that week that we wouldn't be able to hike through one of the points at all, we realized how sore and tired we were, we wanted to be there more and travel less - particularly see some tidal pools, and we made some nice friends. We ended up having lots of time to explore at Hole-in-the-Wall, which is about a mile north of Rialto Beach - a day trip from the Puget Sound area if you're so inclined. It is amazing.


After a lot of discussion and mind changing we redid our plan. We opted out of 3 more days of tough coastal hiking and impassable tidal lands and choose a day on the beach of tidal pool playing, and light hiking. We decided to leave 2 days early because we met some really great people who were driving from the coast back to Eastern Washington via Olympia and they said they'd give us a ride. In my head it was a weird moment. Can you just trust anyone? It seemed like "yes, they're super nice and great and we just camped with them and shared a fire and played a really great game," but I'm really accustomed to not trusting people and it was kinda hard to make that leap. But, I did. And I was better off for it. It worked out great. We even stayed at Lake Quinault one night with our new friends and saw a bit of the rainforest and freshwater. I experimented with the 16 shot continuous feature on my borrowed camera.

We planned on trip and had another. The point of the trip was for it to be a relaxing vacation, a restoration of sorts and it was. Even though it was hard and painful (blisters!), it served its purpose. We saw the ocean, the tides, the mountains and old growth forests. We saw a sea otter and sea lion, lots of sea stars, anemones, interesting rocks, huge drift logs, and tons of birds who's names I don't know. We met really nice strangers who reminded me that not everyone is an asshole and sometimes people are just really good and kind and can help you through life when you need them to.

There's tons and tons and tons of pictures here. Check out the sea lion carcass if you think that kind of thing is interesting and you're more into nutrient cycling and less into feeling sad about the death of megafauna.

I Went to School in Olympia...

Ok so I'm off... tomorrow I fly to Portland, not to return for nearly 3 weeks. I'm excited, for sure. It's a great time to be in the PNW - its dry, not muggy and everything looks beautiful. I have a few things planned while I'm out there - some are logistical but most are fun. First I'm going to head up to Olympia for a day or so to meet up with a friend and prepare to go hiking. The plan - as of now - is to hike from Ozette Lake down to Oil City - just north of the Hoh River. We have to watch out for tides and trees but I think that'll be the extent of our worries for a few days, in theory.

Then, back to Oly for a few days to hang out with old friends and at old haunts. Then off to Portland to hang out with old friends at new haunts. I'll be working a bit while in Portland and also dealing with a lot of pre-school stuff - tuition, jobs, residency classification and other really fun time user-uppers.

In spite of that, it will be a great trip. It seems like a good time to leave and I mean that in the best way possible. I'm ready for a change in cities and weather. I want to see the ocean and the volcanos and huge trees and an appropriate number of bike lanes. And coffee. Coffee...

So, more later. I'll blog throughout the trip, but probably not until I get back from hiking on the 14th. I have a temporary camera that I'll try to use to share some pictures with you. For now, please enjoy the world's second most amazing dog; I will see her tomorrow: