Midwest2Westcoast

  I was with a couple of new acquaintances last week, and one of the more perceptive people noticed my pants and hat and asked, “Are you into hiking and camping?” “Yes,” I replied. “That’s really why we moved out here.” Much later that day, I was about to part ways with the second person, and he said, “Hey, if you like hiking, you should go to Lena Lake. I used to hike and camp there. It’s beautiful.” “Thanks,” I said. “If you say I should go there, I shall.” About 36 hours later, Ann, Mary and I were getting in the truck to head out for Lena Lake. It’s on the Olympic Peninsula, and like everything else, it is about two hours from Tacoma. There are three ways to get there – south through Olympia; north, crossing the Hood Canal, or west, skirting around the bottom and up alongside of the Hood Canal. Each divergent route is within a couple of minutes of drive time of the other, so we chose the western route, driving around the Hood Canal, because we hadn’t been that way yet. From Ta...

You learn a lot about tides when you live on a house on piers over the water. I soon heard about “King Tides,” a particularly high-water mark. Where I’m at, King Tides came in December and lasted until February. High tides here are usually about 11 feet, but a King Tide meant the tide was going 13 feet, and there were probably going to be logs knocking around under our house, sounding like they were going to knock the house down until we removed them. A couple of weeks ago we experienced the other side of extreme tides, a low tide of negative three feet. Low tides were typically about a foot on the positive side. The water was much farther in front of our house than usual, so we took a walk down to our beach. As we walked the waterline, water spouts were going off all over the place. It was like lawn sprinklers. The source: the elusive Geo Duck (pronounced gooey duck) clam. Some indigenous tribes around here get permits to harvest the Geo Ducks in deep water, and do so with breathing ...