It’s been ages since I travelled alone – I almost forgot how meditative it could be…
This time I was hesitant – scared by the great distances in Olympic peninsula, “what if I miss that ferry”, shower forecasts and lots of work that could be done over the weekend to make my last week in Seattle easier… I’m glad I went.
It was between wandering through driftwoods and sand of Dungeness spit, clouds of Hurricane Ridge, showers on the way, rocks of Cape Flattery, sunset tide pools of small beaches along the North coast, and miles of winding roads… Somewhere in between the stress and anxiety of past weeks escaped, giving the place to the quiet readiness for things to come…
I had some unexpected discoveries on the way as well.
The Dauntless Bookstore in Port Gamble – small, cosy, inviting to sit and read, full of unexpected findings. Who knew that City: Rediscovering the Center would be waiting for me just when I go through my discoveries of urban ethnographies? That We’ve got blog would be sitting between just a few computer books as a reminder of the reasons for me to be here?
Then Angeles Inn B&B – a place with great hosts, wifi (not that I wanted to work, but just for skyping home :), tasty food and stories of WWII veterans who stayed there on a way to their reunion.
And then The Makah Museum in Neah Bay, letting me in for free because I was there almost before the end of the day, a very special blend of history and current days, science and stories, sad, proud and full of respect (did you know that research actually helped negotiating the tribal rights to use fishing nets proving scientifically that they were used long before white people came?). The voices, singing and conversations, were following me as I went through the rooms, until I discovered the source – invisible, but present elders in the long house… So much unlike the feelings I’ve got in other reservations…
Tags: Seattle, travelArchived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005/09/05.html#a1657; comments are here.