Words and Photos by Laurie Klein
Too much good fortune makes some explorers . . . wary.
Scanning new horizons, we brace for the other hiking boot to drop—hopefully not over a cliff.
We knock on wood to forestall bad luck.
Heaped with silvering driftwood, the beaches of Olympic National Park offer wanderers countless opportunities.
“Two drifters, off to see the world”
Just outside the park, my husband, Dreamer, orders elk burgers at Lake Quinault Lodge. I love doing life with a wilderness guy.
Cameras in hand, we head for the beach. As Mancini and Mercer wrote: “There’s such a lot of world to see.”*
First photo op? The Lodge chimney—where the two-story rain gauge measures precipitation . . . in feet!
Re-purposed driftwood ahead marks an irresistible trail to the shore.
Not many beachcombers are out today, and the cove below the Lodge, littered with driftwood, beckons. Think private playground. Legendary terrain.
Norse mythology claims a trio of gods created the world’s first humans from driftwood. Two trees were used: Askr (ash) and Embla (elm), for male and female, respectively.
Makes a gal with serious mileage feel almost immortal.
Catch my drift
Jack-strawed logs jostle here, like giant Pick Up Stix. Flotsam abounds.
Ever seen a bone yard of the gods?
Annual snowmelt from the Olympic Range erodes riverbanks. Scores of evergreens northeast of Lake Quinault keel over.
Headlong down the Quinault River the fallen trees sluice during springtime rush, occasionally stranding on sandbars.
Next season, riddled with bacteria, gribbles, and shipworms, waterborne trunks bump ‘n grind toward the coast—aging exotic dancers headed out to sea.
Fanciful? Maybe.
As author Margaret Atwood said, “So much depends on the light, and the way you squint.”
Here, a driftwood portal frames lakeshore scenery. My camera lens, seemingly beguiled as I am, blurs the distant focus to dreamscape.
Zoom in, and limbs resemble an animal bandit: two perky ears and a weathered snout.
Worth a stoop
So often the view from one’s knees alters outlook.
Breathing deeply, weight on our heels, we salute the circle of life.
In Olympic National Park forest castoffs reinvent themselves, reborn as shelters for voles and other small creatures.
Bobbing timbers offer perches for weary birds.
Water-cooled air laced with silt and stories invigorates the imagination.
With a final nod to mythology, and to those who still rap on trees to alert wood spirits within to benign human presence, Dreamer and I pat a trunk or two. Then head onward.
Still bemused. Still feeling lucky.
Laurie Klein is the author of Where the Sky Opens, a poetry collection partially inspired by National Parks. Trip by trip, Laurie and Dreamer will eventually savor every American National Park: two thirds down already, a third more to go. Read more work at lauriekleinscribe.com. Here is a list of resources provided by Laurie Klein:
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_River
See fabulous driftwood sculptures by Jeff Uitto here: www.jeffuitto.com (Click on “Big Projects”)
http://www.olympicnationalparks.com/
https://www.booking.com/hotel/us/lake-quinault-lodge.html
http://twistedsifter.com/2013/10/sculptures-made-from-driftwood-by-jeffro-uitto/
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/knock-on-wood.html