Before heading out to backpack, however, we were joined in Seattle by Jr and Huey. What followed were without a doubt the 4 most chaotic, degenerate days I've had since I moved out here. Within a day, my apartment was trashed, the futon was broken (sorry about that, ex-roommate), and none of us found it necessary to wear anything more than boxers anymore. Each morning we'd wake up at 9 AM after a terrible night's sleep in my loud, blazingly hot apartment and make a chocolate cake for breakfast. Sick from the breakfast of cake and code red, we'd lie around the apartment sprawled out like a bunch of strung out junkies until about 3 or so in the afternoon. Finally about 6 hours after waking, we'd start our day of ridiculous adventures. This all used to be standard affair, of course, a couple years ago, but it had been awhile since I'd lived like this, and I forgot how fun and satisfying it was. Anyways, above is a picture of JR right after I'd poured my glass of ice water all over his chest.
Here's a picture of Dan once again pledging his allegiance to the late great Tupac Shakur. To say this man's work has been an influence on all our lives would be the understatement of the century. Throughout my adolescent years, Mr. Shakur's songs served as a moral compass that taught me how to resolve disputes, respect women, and kill east coast Bad Boys.
Another picture of Jr. He's perpetually posing for shots. This is right after we'd finished off yet another case of Code Red. All told, I believe we drank 72 of those disgusting drinks in a little under 4 days. Also, you can make out Huey's left arm on the left side of the picture. This happens to be the only evidence that Huey was ever actually in Seattle.
As with all good things, this debaucherous way of living had to come to an end. JR and Huey had flights out of town on Wednesday morning. I think in the long run it was for the best. If Jr and Huey had stuck around any longer, both Dan and Jr would have broken up with their girlfriends, I would've dropped out of grad school and been evicted from my place, and Huey would've continued his two-year stretch of unemployment.
Knowing full well that we had to be at the airport at 5:45 AM on Wednesday, like idiots we stayed out til around two in the morning on Tuesday night playing pool with a bunch of drunk bafoons at the Emigrant. From the airport, I was to come back, pick up Dan, and make the 5-hour drive over to Ozette on the Olympic coast. From there we'd have to bust our asses to make it around the headlands before high tide. Before we'd even started our hiking trip we were already digging ourselves quite a hole. Luckily, I'd had the foresight to know that absolutely nothing would be accomplished while these three were in Seattle, and I'd already gotten quite a bit of gear together before all the insanity had started. Nevertheless, when the alarm went off only 2 and a half hours after my head hit the pillow, I lay there wondering what the fuck I was thinking when I came up with this absurd plan.
Still half asleep, I somehow managed to get JR and Huey to the airport in one piece. We quickly said our goodbyes, all of us too groggy to reflect on the greatness of the past few days. On the way back from the airport, I finally started to wake up and began to switch gears, eagerly anticipating the next series of adventures Dan and I were about to undertake. By the time I got back adrenaline was coursing through my veins, while Dan, on the other hand, still totally disoriented, just managed to throw his shit in the car and pass out again in the passenger seat.
The ferry ride across the sound was classic Seattle, gray and cold. It was almost July now, though, and I knew that the clouds would burn off soon, and we'd have a great day ahead of us.
After the short ferry trip, we were back on the road again on the Olympic peninsula. We were already severely behind schedule, and all I could think about was getting cut off on one of the headlands and never making it to Shi Shi Beach for the night. Eyes still on fire from the lack of sleep and a danger to myself and everyone else on the road at the time, I put my piece of shit Prelude through the paces, hauling ass down 101 and 113 across the peninsula.
Finally, at around 1 in the afternoon, we made it to Ozette, and it was time to start hiking. After punching through 3 miles of coastal forest, we arrived on the beach, and it was like walking into Eden. Above is the view at the end of the forest trail from Ozette. I remember Dan, amazed at the scenery, asking me if this was what the whole coast was like. Many considered our eventual destination to be the wildest section of the entire park, and I knew that we really hadn't seen anything yet.
Although it would've been easy to sit around there for a half hour or so, I knew that time wasn't on our side, and we still had quite a bit of ground to cover before the tides came in. We began hiking north setting a pretty good pace. After rounding a couple of points, our final destination first came into view, a strip of land extending into the ocean with a graveyard of giant rocks at the end. Truth be told it actually wasn't our final destination for the day, but it was what we had to get past before the tides came in, and I was pretty sure it would contain the most spectacular coastal scenery I've ever witnessed, so we just fixated on that sight for the next couple hours. The scary thing was that it still looked really damn far away, and it wasn't getting any earlier.
Although I couldn't wait to get to Point of the Arches, our journey across the beaches before this area was anything but boring. Hiking along the coast, you realize that beauty here exists on all scales.
While it's happened a number of times now, it still freaks me out when I see deer on the beach like this. I've always associated these animals with the woods, and they just seem very out-of-place on the beach.
After an hour or so, Point of the Arches was finally starting to look a little closer. During the hike, we'd passed a couple groups coming from that area, and their comments were less than reassuring. I recall one guy with his kids telling us that they'd gotten trapped between two headlands and had to wait 6 hours for the tides to go down, while another guy simply wished us luck, telling us that some of the overland trails were "pretty hairy." This really got the butterflies going in my stomach, and I really began to worry about not making it to Shi Shi Beach.