Ahhhhhhh......

And now for something a little different. I've been keeping a personal journal along with my blog and instead of just retyping much of the same thing; I figured I'd just paste my latest entry as a blog update.

I've been kind of down on myself the last few days, looking back over the nearly 3 months that I've spent on the road so far. All the wondrous things that I've seen but haven't really appreciated. Things that I thought were going to be spectacular that it turns out I thought were just so-so, even though other people raved about them. I was really beginning to think that I didn't appreciate things enough and that maybe I was totally wasting my time on this trip. But I'm starting to change my thinking today.

The last two days I've covered the shortest amount of territory on what I'd consider “travel days” since I left Iowa. I always mean to just take my time and stop where ever I feel like but I never actually do it. The last couple days I have though. I found a place to sleep early last night which gave me plenty of time to collect fire wood before dark and sit in my chair and read my book until dark; when I started a fire and had a couple glasses of hot chocolate. Today I probably covered less then 100 miles stopping to take a short 4 mile hike in the middle of the day that turned into a decent amount of time after I spent quite a while just sitting back and relaxing at the falls. I meandered my way a little farther north on Rock Creek Road where at the last second I swung into the Rock Creek Fish Hatchery where I got to spend 50 cents for a couple handfuls of food to feed the trout and tour the facilities a little bit; I was the only one around. I love feeding the trout in the pools at the fish hatcheries out here, it's a blast! There are tons of them and they go crazy for those little pellets. Throw one in and watch them all race for it or throw in a bunch and watch the swirling twisting mass of fish as they swarm the area and swipe up every last little bit.

I took a little walk down the trail at the hatchery to the creek and found the black berries were finally ripe so I stopped and spent about 20 minutes just picking and eating the berries. I've been eating them for the last few weeks when I've found them but they've never been fully ripe until now. I was having a fantastic time and realized that I really do appreciate things, it's just the small things. I remembered back to all the small discoveries that I'd made while driving or on hikes that might not have been that incredible but they were surprises and they absolutely delighted me at the time. And I thought, you know what, I'll take appreciating the small things over the big things any day.

Just a few miles north of the fish hatchery I was following a road that followed Rock Creek and I started looking for a place along the creek to stop for the night. It only took about a mile to find a little pull off on a rocky beach right next to a large, deep, quiet pool with little rapids on either end of it. Just a perfect spot and I'm sitting in my camping chair, watching the fingerling trout feed and drinking a glass of wine as I type this.

After seeing the redwoods I finally feel like I can relax up here. Since I've decided not to see Glacier Lake on this trip there really isn't anything that I feel the need to see anymore. So far on this trip I've constantly been trying to plan out what I'm going to see next and how I'm going to work it all together in the schedule. The Redwoods were really the last thing on that list and I feel so relaxed now. I've had about 4 days to make it back to Portland after leaving Redwood National Park and I've made good use of all of them. I've already been to Portland, already met Jim and his family, and already worked at his shop. I feel no pressure or rush to get back and I'm really enjoying it. When I'm in Portland I hope the feeling will continue. I hope I'll finally just be able to relax and just take what comes. Not to say I haven't enjoyed myself so far, I have immensely, but this is different.

I can't believe it's been almost 3 months already since I've left Iowa and I can't believe I only have a couple weeks before I'll be leaving the PNW and heading back to the midwest (for a visit). But you know what? I think these last couple weeks have a good chance of being the best couple weeks of the trip so far. Time will tell.