The Best Rocks Used to be Plants

There are some cases where seeing a tragedy of errors is just the correct way to transmit comedy directly into the bloodstream of suspecting readers. My recent rockventure (back) to Yakima Canyon was one of these.

Friday, early

After waking up at 0350 on the tail of a mad March week, Fry & I discover the incipient Midwestern blizzard is delaying flights. After stretching two of my three glutes and deeply breathing, very passably sanely, while face-planting in this MSP terminal gateway, I siezed on the hilarity of our duel sleep deprivation and whipped out my grad school Coolpix with insouciant aim. This pic has me beaming deliriously just below the frame because I managed to entirely miss myself while taking it.

Don't worry, it gets better.

Friday, we have realized things are not going as planned

Here we are, pulling over to find something to do because the Snoqualmie Pass closed 16 minutes (oh yes, minutes) after we entered it. The whole thing. Snow falls in western Washington State and hellion chaos unfurls with the spite of child in a pet sop deprived of petting the shelter cats. We drove into North Bend, WA, and found a QFC. A very amused and eavesdropping attendant in the QFC helpfully chirped that it stands for Quality Food Center. This is us, having sloshed through the instantly melting snow, about to forage for low carb, high protein road fuel in vain aspirations of penetrating the police blockade keeping the car pile-up from piling up any more between scenic coniferous peaks. See how thrilled we are? The flight took an extra hour, deplaning took an extra 50 minutes, and Enterprise is always shocked when I show up to select a rental.

Friday, and the power just went out (but they say it should be back on by 6)

We have been studiously watching the traffic and the snow is melting faster than our resolve to make it to our Ellensburg AirBnB tonight. Along the highway, we decide to pull off in some odd place Fry found and poke around in a bookstore. For art fodder and conversational fodder, and in general, something to stimulate us besides the flickering congestion of PASS CLOSED signage. We sludged out on the sidewalk and four people were standing on it. Two female nurses, smoking, told us the power for the strip mall had just gone out. She said it like it was really shocking. Then, turning my head, two males in Carhartt jackets outside whatever the other establishment was nearly stopped us from pulling open the book shop door, telling us again that the power had gone out. I hesitated for about 0 seconds, looked at Fry, and said, "Yea but the books don't need a fridge or anything or we can probably poke around. I've got like $12 in cash." And so we did. Handy thing, a cell phone flashlight app. After like 20 minutes of squinting at used but modern titles, I found a $6 book with design lessons.

Friday, later

Here we are, having returned to the grinding Pass and trapped in a maze of still working and not-quite-on-the-road pulled over semis. We were here for a while, and the State Trooper explained to use very kindly the hopelessness of our situation.

Friday, having abandoned all hope, We Having Already Entered There

Having assumed we were a couple, and eventually agreeing to rent us his remaining room with TWO queen beds, we found the door to the left of the open garage.

Our riveting North Bend accomodations. So weary are we, that we ate cheese and granola while trading social media health & fitness recs.

Huzzah! Having scored two separate beds!

Saturday, early

With the Pass still closed, despite.... actual reasons for that, we drove 2ish hours west! Landing here, somewhere outside Tualip, WA. Which was closed.

Saturday, slightly less early

Cute, darker than we have in Minnesota and South Dakota mallards are swimming in this photo. This is an ag field along the road we are returning from after another road we needed to access was closed. This one has apparently become a gated community, so beach access was restricted. Not just beach access, but we sat in the provided turnaround area when confronted with the "Whatever Bougie Gate Estates Resident Access Only Beyond This Point (you filthy plebian swine)" sign.

Saturday, midish day

The Stanwood Food Mart! Where we loaded up with gallons of water (typical biologists) and comfort protein shakes. What you can't see in this image is the Mexican food truck parked just to the right. The one that we very cool-ly Googled the menu for instead of walking the 5 meters up to it incase we didn't want to buy their food and then would feel bad about it.

Saturday, at the Sound

We have finally "deplaned" after hours of disappointment! Look how we beam in the fresh light of a sea-salted breeze! Our brazen strides to the shore, how we gloried in our vertiginous trek through the PNW, forgoing petrified wood (sexiest of the dead woods) for slim chances at scoring carnelian agates.

Look! I found one!

PLUS it was beautiful & smelled of seaweed & ageless waters lapped at neglected dock posts & smells drowned our sinuses in stims & we walked & squatted & squinted & searched, carving smiles out of sleep-deprived goodness, finally having landed our feet on sandy ground.

There was also this baldie who caught a fish, ate it, then just vibed above the parking area for the rest of our visit. Exceedingly confident.

Saturday, later

Snoqualmie Pass opened herself up to us, and we didn't even have to call her back! We just showed up, and she let us in. Once through, Fry & I hauled our whopping two agates in with our clean garments & food stuffs, and rolled around on soft AirBnB beds, trying to crack our bones back into place, while advising each other how best to release built-up whatever that is when you go from lots of sitting to squatting to more lots of sitting. Fueled up on cheese and yogurt and some ABSOLUTELY DANK TEA TREE SHOWER BODY WASH (I left a raving review for this place), we set a mild alarm for 0630 and promptly passed out. I think we called our S.O.s...but we both might have just blacked out amid the rugged, cowboy decor.

Saturday, late

We arrived. I hiked us up the canyon to my reliable spot. Knappers had already been there, digging up petrified pieces, and we hauled out half a canvas bag each of the loveliest pet wood ever silicafied from a lava flow on Earth.

Saturday

The next morning, having gorged ourselves on the globe's loveliest lady rocks (the best rocks used to be plants), we shoveled in some dope breakfast scramble bowls from The Early Bird - I was TOTALLY right that it used to be the Iron Horse Brewery house! I definitely drank Irish Death at that bar from which they now serve espresso and drugs baked into pastries that make you reconsider your life away from the smells and tastes of fresh bakery goods. Here, you can see a choice bit of ancient bog tree chillin' out with my Lucky Charm Latte (Earl Grey and lavander and some other stuff that they let me smell the syrup for before I ordered it). In luei of tatoos (one day, Fry, I am determined) I got us tees from the cafe.

Here we go, folks. Soak it all in. We arrived, walked into the valley, along the ancient creek adjacent from the sacred burial ground rammed through by colonizers. An Indian man told me that in the parking lot once. He pointed and said, "There, that was a burial ground. And they dug it up. Built the road. This was all sacred ground." I looked at him, then. Asked, "Maybe that part (seeing only the immediate gravel heaps and not the flattened part across the highway) is left over from constructing the parking lot? They put the rock there?" His voice was not flat, but steady. Kind and firm.

"No, they dug it up," he looked at me halfway, face unmoving but not without gentleness, "It's alright though," he nodded, to whom I still wonder, "they didn't know what they were doing."

We smiled that morning and parted. He with his kids into the valley, and me to crawl up the walls of the canyon to collect knapper reject bit and tumble them in my fisherhouse rental room for the job. There are other stories like this. The man at Bear Mountain. Men, really. Others. The clouds and the opossums, but those are other stories.

This time, it was Fry & I. We tread into the valley, pointed and trading ideas, picking tinier than thumb-sized pet wood from basalt erosion trails until we resolved to climb one. Which lead to another canyon wall, and eventually we were playing catch with playful banter while we switch-backed up the side of a canyon. Summiting it after finding another excavated log and knapper site. It was smells like your dreams. Clarity of the ones who came before. All the Rx we don't need falling asunder in the stim of wind, water, ground, sky, animals, caves, and drops that could kill you. Take it where you find it, ya'll.

We saw this cave from below. By the time Fry was climbing past it, I heard, "Oh we are NOT going in there it's an actual cave. With bedding, something lives in here." To which I threw back, "Ok, can you get a good photo of it so we can see what predator we could potentially get eaten by if we hang around?" And she did. I think it's a mountain lion, too big for a black bear. Probably a cave created by people and then traded between large predators feeding on the deer and bighorn sheep. I think mountain lion.

Sunday, late, somewhere outside Kent

We crashed with grace at the hotel before setting our alarms for 0230.

Next stop, Ace of Diamonds Mine or Dobel Ranch!

With love & whatever that monkey bread recipe was,

Rock Rat