After a relaxing week or so at Home, we left for Olympia to do a hike with Ted’s sister, Lori. Lori is an avid hiker and stoked us out with proper backpacking gear that was all very tiny and light. And thank goodness for that, because we hiked about thirty miles in the next three days with that gear! We hiked through a huge Jurassic looking forest to our campsite, and then the next day continued to the end of the valley where our chalet awaited us. Well, kind of… a chalet had been build there in the 30’s and had rooms where people could stay. It aso served as a ranger station until the river changed its course slightly and threatened to wash the whole thing away. Thankfully, a team of people MOVED the house about 70 feet using metal beams and soap to slide the house to a safer position. So we got to enjoy the view and shade of the chalet even though we couldn’t go inside. After meandering around a while, we headed back to our campsite and enjoyed another dehydrated meal before collapsing for the night. We survived the hike out and by we I mean I… Lori and her seven league boots can stride right up a hill like its nothing, while Ted and I struggled to keep up. Ever the sweetheart, she called out over her shoulder, “You guys can pass me if you want” as we blinked and she was gone.

Out of the valley we enjoyed some well deserved hamburgers at a local joint and then took our aching bodies back home. Thanks Lori for showing us such a magical spot!

Haven’t written on our blog in a while, mostly because we’ve been spending time with family. And while cards games and catching up with people we haven’t seen is a great time, it doesn’t make for the most exciting blog fodder. That being said, the next three blogs will mainly be a recap of the last three weeks in washington. We also spent about three weeks back home in Maui, which was (as always) a good time and we got to see lots of people we had missed on our adventures abroad. As exciting as traveling is, there is truly no place like home. And we even got a little bit of surf!

We left Maui around the third week of July heading for Home, Washington, where my parents live. There we were greeted by an abundance of blackberries, peaches and apples. Yum! We spent a few days relaxing and enjoying the peace and quiet of Key Peninsula and also saw my parents perform at a bluegrass “festival” on the peninsula. My parents are rock stars! Who woulda thought.

Home is a small community that originated as a “utopian” anarchist community around the beginning of the 2oth century. Each person was allotted two acres with which to be self-sustainable, and the town rule was no churches, bars, or cops. It became a quirky community of freethinkers, communists and nudists in addition to the anarchists. In time, it seems that anarchy was perhaps too much work in addition to sustenance farming, and the anarchist community dissolved. These days, some of the quirkiness mysteriously remains, and Home has attracted a community of mostly retired people that like to grow things and have parties. Oh, and play music. Most of Home is on a hillside that overlooks the Puget Sound and the main street probably sees a car about every hour or so during peak traffic hours.

Between projects around the house, stuffing our faces with blackberries, and listening to my parents’ band practice, we did get out on the water in the sailboat a few times, and saw Mt. Rainier peeking around the peninsula as well as several sea otters. We also took several road trips venturing around the state, from Olympia to Spokane and even to Canada, but always kept coming back to Home… maybe there’s a little bit of quirky anarchist blood in our veins as well.