Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

We're back! Most of you might not have known we were gone, but after a good week's worth of camping in the Olympic National Forest and Park, we came home and now it is time to get back to normal life. This was our first week long camping trip and we tried to hit every waterfall in the Olympic Peninsula. We've wanted to visit more since we lived in Seattle and here are the pictures of our adventures.

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We left as soon as we could.

That was Saturday afternoon, around noon. The drive was hot, but thankfully not as long as the trip back.

We arrived in the Eugene/Springfield area (and, yes, we strongly believe that Springfield, OR is the true Springfield where the Simpsons are from: it doesn't matter what a silly online poll says) late Saturday evening to spend the night at Faith's mother's house. She just recently had hip surgery and so Faith needed to be near to the hospital. Thankfully the drive to Oregon wasn't overwhelming. It was a nice start to the week. The cool shadows of the evening made the drive less painful in our very un-airconditioned car. But Faith's mom lives out in the sticks, where no street has a real name, or at least none which we were told: everything is identified by landmarks and the forest is all around the house. We woke Sunday morning and went to church, visited Faith's mom in the hospital and had a nice breakfast for dinner (with real bacon from a pig named Lucy...bacon tastes better when you know the animal's name).

But we didn't really take this trip to spend time with friends in the Northwest -- although that was a definite side plan for the trip. We drove further out into the country to Amity and spent the night with Sara and Jarem. Sara was terribly cute about having us as guests. She left chocolates and homemade chapstick on our pillows. Although we got there late and left early Monday morning, we had to stop by because we were borrowing Jarem's cooking stove for the week and we intended on spending more time with them at the end of the week. Without that cooking stove we probably would have been sunk. Although we did get a fire going every night, it was never easy and we couldn't cook much on each fire. The rain forest is wet. How's that for an obvious statement?

But we ran into a couple of early problems with the cooking stove. First of which, it had no fuel and only REI carries the right fuel, which we learned after we checked at Target and Wal-Mart stores. But things worked out in our favor because we had already planned a lunch visit in Seattle with Rebecca's sisters and we were able to pick up some cheap fuel before we left civilization. While in Seattle, we took Amy (who was in town visiting Suzie) and Suzie to our old haunt, Mr. Villa's. And it was just as good as I remembered. Sort of. The food is a different kind of Mexican cuisine, a little more exotic than normal taco shops. But the service and the price and the comfort of the restaurant is unparalleled. At least in our experience, it still measures up to a great restaurant.

Monday turned out to be a bit of a call back to 2 years ago in Seattle because we also spent the night at Collins campground on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula, where we were introduced to the area by Rob and Camille. Collins campground is one of the best we've seen. It is cheaper than most places, right alongside a beautiful river, in the heart of the forest and if you manage to get campsite 13 like we have both times you will find that it is completely isolated. We've tried to make careful notes so that anyone who wants to recreate the trip we made will be able to, but for the passing visitor, Collins campgrounds are top notch.

So we woke early Tuesday morning (the only morning we actually woke early) and found the one small flaw in Collins campgrounds: the only water pump is a rusted hand crank pump from a well over a mile from the campsites. So we filled our 2 gallon tank with brown water (from rust or dirt, we knoweth not), and drove around the bend to Murhut waterfalls.

Our vacation was guided by the waterfalls in the area. Rebecca was too pregnant to do any serious non-day hikes, not to mention our lack of equipment to make an extended stay up on the glaciers. So, instead of hiking the hundreds of miles of trails through the ONP, we made treks to most of the major waterfalls in the area, getting a taste for the rainforest. Murhut is one of our most treasured spots. We had been there two years ago, but never braved going up to the upper waterfalls. Which we did this time. And then promptly dropped our camera case over the edge of the waterfall. I scrambled back down the cliff to catch it before it was swiftly carried down the miles of rocky stream. Thankfully, neither us nor the camera fell as well. But we climbed all over the Murhut falls and even behind the falls. It is a magical place of old growth forest. Although, if I was to advise someone about doing the trip right, I would recommend going to the falls in the morning, not in mid-day. The lighting is better at that time of day.

After Murhut, we began our trek north to find the ONP information center. Along the way, we stopped off at a few other short hike waterfalls. Of special mention is the Rocky Brook waterfalls -- it even has a special pool for swimming, if you can stand the cold.

Eventually we decided to camp at Sol Duc, which wasn't an ideal campground because it was more commercial than the primitive campgrounds we are used to. The ground was covered in gravel and most sites were barely large enough to accommodate the size tent we use. This is because the "campsites" are meant for RV campers to pull their car into the parking spot and only use the picnic table on the ground. But the funniest part about camping at Sol Duc were the crows. At sun up, we had a murder of crows screeching at each other at the top of their lungs right above our heads. That is, by far, the most efficient alarm clock I have ever heard.

Wednesday morning we hiked down to the Sol Duc waterfalls: the wettest, loudest and by far the strongest of the waterfalls in the ONP. Their 20 feet of downpour has etched a straight narrow ravine in the rock which looks artificial. The jet spray got us both fairly wet and we sat at the top of the falls and watched the magnificence of the falls. After visiting a few more waterfalls and driving to the western side (the "official" rainforest side), we camped at a small primitive campsite just outside the Hoh rainforest. The mosquitoes were so bad along the Hoh river, we spent the evening running back and forth from our car to the tent and back again. It was an adventure to stay un-bit [made us giggle anyway :)].

Most of Thursday was spent hiking through the Hoh rainforest. However, what designates the Hoh as a rainforest is no more than a political designation. The rest of the peninsula was just as lush and almost just as wet. Hoh, however, was much more tourist-oriented. It was nice to hike through the moss covered trails and the bearded forests. After a full day of hikes, we began to turn towards home and head south along 101, stopping along the beach and flying our kite for an hour. The winds were up and the sport kite did tricks we've never seen [and we laughed and laughed our heads off! -beck]. I attempted the dangerous "glide through the water" and failed, but at least the kite kept on ticking. 12 miles down from the Quinault Lake, we found our last campground at Graves Creek. This is the other spot we can't recommend enough to people who would like to visit the area. Graves Creek is a great campground and truly isolated from civilization, but has more amenities than Collins did. The campsite host even came over and chopped dry wood for us, gave us some firestarter candles he had made and dumped a bottle of imitation vanilla extract on us to keep the mosquitoes off. The poor old man was bored and wanted to tell us stories about his life so Rebecca patiently listened.

After all these miles of hikes, we woke up sore Friday morning, drove down the upper north shore road, stopped in the middle of nowhere in the forest, and listened to the quiet. We made it to the last few quiet places in the country, a place where the sounds and seismic pollutions of cities hasn't reached. It was magical to say the least.

With the rest of our day, we reflected on what we had seen and calmly drove down 101 through coastal land of Washington and Oregon. A few hours before dinner we realized we could attempt to get to the Whiskey Creek Cafe in Tillamook for the best fish in the area, however, when we got there, the place had been sold to some people who made it into a mediocre Italian restaurant. But after a day of driving, we crashed at Sara and Jarem's house and hopped into the hot tub to get the stink of campfire out of the skin.

Saturday was a nice lazy day spent with Sara and Jarem. There is a wonderful breakfast/lunch diner in McMinnville, not to mention the Brigittine Monastery where we picked up some truffles (how they support themselves) and chatted with one of the monks outside the cloister. We spent the afternoon looking at fun booths at the Portland Saturday Market with Rebecca's old roommate Amy. Then we saw Ratatouille in the evening with Jon and Faith and drove home in the hot sun all day Sunday. A 9 1/2 hour drive turned to a 12 1/2 hour nightmare in the sun. But it was a good way to remind ourselves of the wonderful trip which just ended.

"I thought you'd mention something about how I smell. Don't I smell like cookies!?"

-The guy who used vanilla extract to keep the bugs away.

We had a nice relaxing week. It didn't take too long to feel recovered from our big camping trip. We had errands to run and tons of laundry to do, but that just took a couple of days to get things taken care of.

And then because we enjoyed our hikes so much, we went hiking two evenings this week: once to the south bay area, where the birds tried to dive bomb us. Literally. Hehehe. We had nice timing to see the sunset out by the bay. I was amazed by how much area "used to be" bay but isn't currently. The second evening hike we drove through the winding roads at the foot hills to the Monte Bello open space preserve. We saw two coyotes and a deer there, but forgot to bring water bottles so we didn't get much more than a mile of hiking in. We did pick up a nice map they offered showing other trails, so we have more exploring ahead of us.

We went swimming Saturday morning, and Wayne went swimming with Chris one of the week nights (I personally found it too cold, but that's just me). Swimming pools are nice, for sure. And it's nice that swimming suits are stretchy enough for me to still fit mine!

Wayne's artist friend taught a hands on mini class on building a bot that follows light with photoreceptors, so Saturday we both headed to campus to learn how to build a bot. We turned the motors a different way though, so we could attach wheels, but as soon as we attach wheels we'll get some video of the bot and Star cat! Tee hee. She'll like that, I'm sure.

And today I taught my ctr-8 class again. It felt like it had been forever since I taught. It's the first time since I've had this calling that I missed more than one week at a time. It turns out most of the kids (and subs!) were also out of town, so today we had two lessons in one. :) The kids seemed to take it alright. They liked having a class outline so they knew what was coming when. (Or maybe I liked it so I didn't get questions interrupting the lesson all the time asking if we're going to play a game today?)

Rebecca's hands fall asleep in the middle of the night. Normally, sleeping would be a good thing, but this is referring to the "pins and needles" sensation of a loss of blood flow to an appendage. We were a bit concerned about this happening to both hands (since sleeping on her side she could only possibly be laying on one hand at a time), so we called the doctor. The nurse told us that everything was normal and the best thing to do is "to have the baby." It looks like she's just stuck with it. [she said it's not my hands falling asleep actually, but a prelude to carpel tunnel, which is "common" in pregnancy because of increased bodily fluids putting pressure on various things...who knew? -beck] At least we found a fun monkey pillow on clearance that now doubles as a small pillow to keep Rebecca's back supported in the night.

We learned that the Discovery Channel Store is going out of business and shutting down all their physical stores in replacement of only doing online business. The clearance prices range in the 40%-60% off, so we decided Monday evening to stroll through the store and see if there was anything worth considering. And there wasn't. In fact, it was all cheap junk [or things that rely on batteries...we don't like battery-operated things]. No wonder we haven't ever bought anything from that store. Afterwards, we came home and made a second batch of jam, this time playing with the recipe to make a fruity mix of blackberries with a primary strawberry base. It turned out delicious and best of all we were able to do it in record time and without anyone getting bit by bears.

Work for both of us was straightforward this week. I spent all of Wednesday on the floor and with a soldering iron readjusting all the nodes on my light bot. Thomas realized I had read the schematics backwards, which wasn't making the right kind of resistance for the processor chip and the potentiometer. Finally, I have a bot which chases light and performs very erratic behavior, yet because of weight ratios being unevenly distributed to the different axles and the motors running at different torque, I still have problems with efficiency.

Friday morning, we got a phone call at 6am. I didn't answer. It was too early and I was tired. But the phone rang again and again, so I answered. My worried mother had heard (from Camilla I might add) there was an earthquake in Oakland that measured 4.2 and was checking up on us. We were fine and hadn't even felt a thing at 4 am when it hit. Later, I checked up to see what the damage was, since we didn't feel a thing. At 4.2 on the Richter scale, and 3.6 miles under Oakland, the earthquake had managed to set off some car alarms and that was about the extent of the damage. We felt nothing. Oakland is too far away.

We've had a few warmer days here and we've spent a few more evenings in the swimming pool. Before we had dinner with Chris and Alyssa on Friday night, we went swimming and then picked up a free baby tub for newborns to 2 years old. We have been trying to get other baby things for free through craigslist and freecycle in the area, but due to the oversaturation of these sites, getting anything is as tough as the lottery.

Saturday morning we went to the temple and took care of some errands along the way. The nearest Wal-Mart to us is halfway to Oakland, and we needed to return something we picked up on our trip a few weeks ago, as well as get some thread for mending jeans. Thread isn't one of the things you can easily get in the bay area. What we also learned is that, a) when the Oakland temple pageant is running the temple is closed, and b) apparently we were fated to not see the pageant this year because everything was already planned for us over top the show dates.

Rebecca heard the funniest comment this week from one of her co-workers. When mentioning that we were going to Oakland to take care of some errands this weekend, she replied that it was a good thing we were getting errands out of the way now because once you have a kid, you can't. So there you have it from someone who had a kid in the past year: you can't run errands anymore because of the kid. They lock you in a house and you can never leave. I'm not sure I understand some people's parenting style.

"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "The Little Prince", 1943

Comcast doesn't work on our computer. I call them up. They say:
"Unplug the power to your modem."
"I already did that."
"Do it anyways. Do you use a router?"
"Yes."
"Here at Comcast we strongly discourage that you use a router. Plug the internet directly into a desktop."

How am I supposed to use my wireless connection on my laptop?
There is no answer. There never will be from a company who believes that their customers shouldn't use a router.

Happy Anniversary to Wayne and Rebecca. It has been four wonderful years of marriage, one sealed for eternity.

This week marked our fourth anniversary. We felt fortunate to be able to celebrate on our anniversary itself; last year I was at Girl's Camp on the day. And so we went to a fancy restaurant to celebrate -- probably the nicest we've ever been to, though I know there are nicer places out there in the world. What better way to celebrate than with cheese and chocolate fondue (no, not in the same course)? It was our first fondue restaurant experience, and it was a lot of fun. Wayne surprised me by having balloons and rose petals waiting at our table, and we were content to take well over two hours for the meal experience.

We found other ways to keep busy this week too -- so much so that I haven't even started the Harry Potter book a coworker lent me last Wednesday. Wednesday evening we rushed off as soon as I got home from work to Oakland. Amazingly, it took about the same time to get there in evening rush hour traffic as it does on Saturdays (an hour and a half). We made it in plenty of time to get good seats for the Oakland temple pageant. It was a decent show, I thought. At least, I was willing to overlook things I normally cringe at because I had an excellent view of the percussionists; what fun watching them do their thing! I don't know why I get such a kick out of percussionists, but I remember really enjoying Stomp when we went to see them years ago too.

Friday evening we hung out with two dogs, a cat, and a bird. We are house/pet sitting for a family in our ward. Can you believe they fit all these animals in a townhome? We took Star cat to meet them, because the dogs get along with cats and we know our cat is a social animal. After a bit of suspicion and hissing on Star's part, she eventually got used to them being around and enjoyed exploring the place. However I wouldn't say she has warmed up to them; she is still quite jumpy, especially when she has to walk past the collie. The dogs, on the other hand, were impressively patient with her, even though they were obviously excited to meet her.

We took the dogs out early on Saturday morning so we could get out to the Gilroy Garlic Festival bright and early. We wanted to see what all the garlic hubbub was about. It was a pretty good festival; we tried garlic chips, garlic salsa, garlic bread, and garlic ice cream. Yes, you read that right. We had some garlic ice cream. It's crazy stuff. Sweet, and yet with a garlicky after-taste. We also caught a magic show and cooking demo. We looked at all the crafty booths, but liked the bubble booth best. Who doesn't like bubbles? :) Our verdict of the event is that it was overpriced for what we experienced, but that we're glad we went. And we're glad we went early in the day. Traffic when we left early that afternoon looked horrendous (obviously it isn't overpriced for everyone!).

This morning I'm finishing up preparations for sharing time and a primary lesson. Wayne's already walked the dogs. I can say one thing: dogs are good for exercise!

Keep walking, but you won't knock down our wall.
Keep walking. But she isn't gonna to fall!
It's plain to see, your brains are very small..
To think walking, will be knocking down our wall.

- the French Peas, Veggie Tales song Keep Walking!

Jingo, by Terry Pratchett, is another in the City Watch series with all your favorite characters.

This book, however, was boring. I prefer the Patrician to be a sideline character, and not a principle adventurist. It wasn't as believable to have his character trekking across the known world to save the day when he should be smart enough to get other people to do it for him.

While the parallels between Sam Vimes character and the opposing force's captain were interesting, it made for a poor substitute for an interesting plot. And by this time, I've gotten really tired of everyone commenting on how Carrot is such an obvious leader. It gets silly, and not the kind of silly that made Rincewind a hilarious character to read about.

While one of the more suspenseful Terry Pratchett novels I've read, this book doesn't take the cut as being one of his best told stories, along the lines of Men at Arms or Sourcery. I did appreciate the humor of affirmative action in a City patrol made of warring factions of races. I could laugh at the continuing puns that ran rampantly through this book. I even felt for the heartfelt and touching moments at the end of the book with Dorfl.

While not Pratchett's greatest work, definitely one to add to the collection of Pratchett books filling our bookshelves.

Trying to collaborate on something as complicated as a book is a tough thing to do. I know from the experience of collaborating on art projects that there are a few models to get you through this challenging exercise. They are as follows:

You can be a dictator, and make everyone slaves to your idea.

You can do your part, let someone else do their part and the compile the information into a final piece.

You can really join forces and create an unique beast which is driven not by singular interests, but by collective force. Often this is the most destructive of forces.

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman opted to write this book using the second method, that of rotating collaboration. What resulted was a disjointed book that highlighted both author's characteristic styles, without being able to get beyond those styles.

Granted, this isn't all bad. I happen to like both authors and I have no complaints about a story which contains elements of both genius. Yet, it was lacking in that I felt cheated that neither author could go beyond what they had to offer.

My critique aside, I enjoyed this story and was impressed with the maturity of its message. We do all have decisions to make with our lives no matter what the fates may say. We aren't controlled by our destinies and we can choose to live our lives how we wish to. A charming novel throughout, Good Omens takes the Apocalypse and turns it into a tale about agency and the redeeming qualities which make us human.

I have a confession to make. I am terribly in love with the Percy Jackson books. I might moan and gripe about Harry Potter books, but everything bad I see in them, I find the opposite is true in the Percy Jackson series.

We read this book on our road trip to Washington state last month and I wouldn't let Rebecca stop reading it to me. We read every night and every moment in the car and talked about it on our hikes and kept thinking about it all through the night.

This was the best Percy Jackson book so far, completely blowing out of the water both Sea of Monsters and Lightning Thief. While I agree with my sister that I was upset Annabeth wasn't around during most of this book (her quips remind me of being that age), I didn't ever forget about her being out of the picture - she was always on our thoughts and we wanted Percy to proclaim his affection for her.

Oh dear, I'm so wrapped up in Percy-land.

I was reading up on Rick Riordan to see if there was any news of how far away the next Percy Jackson book is from being released, and I came upon the saddest news I've heard in a while.

So, the genius behind such classic films as Fantastic Four, the first two Harry Potter films, Home Alone and Adventures in Babysitting is going to make the Percy Jackson books into a movie. I understand that sarcasm doesn't come through very well in print, so let me clearly reiterate that this is sad news.

Is it because of the stupidity of numbers which keeps Chris Columbus and Michael Bay in Hollywood? I understand that Hollywood isn't the best place to find intelligent film making. But these two directors are the poster children for banal "summer blockbusters" which have as much substance and craft put to them as a dead donkey. Or horse.

Yet, people keep going to their films. And they are still allowed to make them. Maybe it is a conspiracy of the accountants and producers who want a high return investment and fudge the profit numbers. Let's hope that is true, for the humanity of mankind...let's hope.