Mr. P in front of Bella Italia, where Bella and Edward supposedly had their first date. He was not impressed, not at all. I considered going in and ordering the mushroom ravioli dish that Bella had there while Edward watched her eat, but Mr. P wouldn’t have it. He had had enough of this silly vampire fever.

So, we went to the closest Safeway instead and bought blueberry bagels and cream cheese for dinner.

So, I have more things to confess. I’ve read the Twilight novels, too. During an intense two week period in the summer of 2009, I practically lived through those four books. I worked and I read. Maybe I ate a little, but I definitely didn’t sleep.

It’s not that they are that good, really, but more that they are really addictive. Louie, my host in Port Angeles, said it really well: “They are like potato chips – hard to put down but not nutritious in the least.” They feed little girls dreams of being special and meeting someone strong and beautiful that wants nothing else but to take care of them and make them happy. I think that it’s a result of the globalized world that we live in. It feels so big and uncontrollable, and especially for a teenage girl, it’s overwhelming and it feels impossible to live up to everyones expectations. In that context, finding someone like Edward the vampire, who can protect you from everything and is always there to save you (and also happens to be discustingly rich), must seem like the perfect dream for young girls. And me too, for two weeks in August 2009, apparently.

Well, the Twilight books take place on the Olympic Peninsula. Bella and Edward live in Forks, because that is the town that gets the most rain in the continental United States. (In Stephenie Meyer’s version of vampires, they can be out in the daytime, but they glitter in sunlight. So they choose to live in cloudy places, where they can hide their supernatural identities.) And when they want to go to the movies or eat dinner at a fancier restaurant, they go to Port Angeles.

To be honest, the first Twilight movie was the first time I ever became aware of the beauty of the Pacific Northwestern temperate rainforest. Then, I had the whole introduction to physical geography course and learned all about the uniqueness of that ecosystem and climate zone – but it was the romantic vampire movie that got my fascination started.

So, naturally, walking around Port Angeles, hiking in the Olympic National Park, I couldn’t help thinking about all those scenes in the books.

Getting off the bus at a trailhead, standing by the road that goes from Port Angeles to Forks, I remembered the scene in Edward’s car, when they’ve just had their first kind of accidental date at an Italian restaurant in Port Angeles, and he is driving her back home. There, Bella finally reveals her suspicions about him – that he’s a vampire.

Or on the trail, climbing up that mountain, I was just waiting to walk around one of those huge trees and meet a broody, gorgeous vampire drinking the blood of a mountain lion.

Walking around Port Angeles was simply surreal. The Italian restaurant, or the movie theater where Bella went with Jacob the night before he turned into a shapeshifter. I even went into an odd bookstore, found a copy of “Twilight” and read the part about how Bella got lost in Port Angeles after visiting a bookstore, she almost gets assaulted by a group of men, but at the last minute gets saved by Edward – after which they end up on their first date.

Nothing of this makes any sense if you haven’t read the books, and sometimes I really wish I hadn’t either. It wasn’t pleasant, the way these scenes in my head completely took over my thoughts. It was as if I was reading the books all over again, for the first time, completely hooked. I don’t like loosing control in that way. So, leaving Port Angeles after two nights felt like a relief.

Don’t get me wrong. The Olympic National Park might be the most beautiful forest I’ve ever visited. I just couldn’t take all the vampires!

30/5: After hiking in the park, I took the bus back to town and decided to walk around Port Angeles for an hour. You know, so that I wouldn’t miss anything.

But really, there wasn’t much to miss. It’s a small harbour town, mainly consisting of two main streets and then a couple of roads that lead out of town, flanked by odd stores, fast food restaurants and motels. The two main streets are kind of cute, but it doesn’t take long to see most of them.

Still, having a city hall with those beautiful snowcapped mountains in the background isn’t too bad. Port Angeles is a cute place, even though it felt far too desolate in my taste the afternoon that I spent there. If I put it this way: I wouldn’t want to live there, that’s for sure.

(On the other hand, living outside of Port Angeles, and being neighbours with the Olympic National Park, that I wouldn’t mind. Not one bit.)

30/5: I just simply couldn’t miss the chance to visit famous Olympic National Park, now that I was so near. And really, it wasn’t much of a detour, I still had to get from Vancouver Island to Seattle somehow. So, I found a Couchsurfing host (wonderful Sandy and Louie) in Port Angeles and got to spend an entire day hiking in the park.

What I’ve realised here is that North America isn’t a very friendly place if you don’t have a car. Getting around with public transportation is very complicated! Luckily, I had Sandy and Louie to tell me which bus to take and where to get off, and then how to walk to reach the trailhead. Without their help, I would have been completely lost.

I’ve already written about the hikes I made in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on Vancouver Island, how easy they were to walk, most of them even consisting of wooden boardwalks on top of the muddy ground. It was beautiful, of course, but still, it left a slightly artificial aftertaste.

Well, these trails in the Olympic National Park felt real. Really well made, but narrow and as soon as I entered the trailhead and left the road behind, I felt as if I was the only human in the world. The forest was so dense. Only me and the trees. And the ferns and orchids and birds and the moss. To put it simply, there are no words.

I made it to Marymere Falls, a small beautiful waterfall.

Next to the falls was Barnes Creek, and there I found the perfect spot to use the timer on my camera. Two trees had fallen across the river, so perfectly situated that I could place my camera on one and myself on the other and freeze this moment for all eternity. I’m not that extremely vain, but still, it felt good to have atleast one photo of me in this magical forest.

At last, I decided to climb Mount Storm King, 1382 meters high. But I wasn’t prepared for exactly how high that was. I followed the winding path up up and around the mountain. After a while, the lushness of the valley gave way for a more open forest of huge firs.

But the trail just kept on going up up up until I almost gave up. But then, eventually, I reached a turn in the trail and there it was. The lake. Crescent Lake in all its bright blue beauty, surrounded by those mountains and the ocean barely visible on the other side.

But I barely had time to appreciate the utter drama of the landscape, until I realised how extremely steep the other side of the mountain was. I am not exaggerating when I say that the slope facing the lake went straight down, from the top and about a kilometer to the foot of the mountain. The other side was not that much better, really, the trail was on this narrow ridge on the top of the mountain and it’s amazing how the trees have managed to start growing there. And there was I, sitting, right on the edge, with nothing to protect me from falling exept a couple of beardy trees.

I’ve never really been scared of heights, but now I got a severe case of vertigo. I could barely move, that’s how panicky I felt. I managed to crawl back from the edge and sit down on a big rock by an old, trustworthy fir and slowly get my breathing back to normal. Eventually, I could even admire the hawks flying above the forest way down by the lake and eat my lunch consisting of the last boiled Whiskey Creek Farm eggs and the Korean coconut cookies that Lori gave me before I left. All the while listening to podcasts from the Swedish public radio. It was a wonderful view, but I did not venture any closer to the edge. I had learned my lesson.

On my way back down, I found several wild orchids. Still as beautiful as the first time I saw them in Goldstream Provincial Park outside of Victoria. But you’ve seen them so many times now, so I promise, this will be the absolute last picture of a wild orchid from this trip on this blog. (About greenhouse orchids, on the other hand, I’m not giving any such promises.)

As the last thing, before I had to catch the bus back to Port Angeles, I walked down to the lake. There is something special about these mountain lakes. They are so blue, even when the sky is completely gray.

The bus was late, so while I was waiting, I took time to admire the huge colony of forget-me-nots that grew in the grass between the road and the trees.

29/5: On the ferryride from Victoria to Port Angeles, Mr. P refused to talk with me. He was angry with me for forcing him to leave Whiskey Creek and his new best friend Kermit.

I thought he was being unreasonable, so I left him to brood by himself. I bought six Reese peanutbutter cups with the remainder of my Canadian coins and went out to watch the ocean and listen to podcasts from the Swedish public radio. The wind was fierce!

So, I haven’t written for a while. It’s been weeks, I haven’t composed anything proper since I left Whiskey Creek Farm in the end of May. I’ve simply been too busy.

But we made it to San Francisco, Hanna and me, and we spent five intense days shopping, looking at houses and eating amazing meals. And then, one and a half week ago, Hanna went back home and I took the bus to Duckworth Farm, just outside of Sebastopol, Sonoma.

So here I am, wwoofing again, cleaning stables and weeding all day long. Or rather; a couple of hours a day, then the rest is off for other fun stuff. The first week, I took many naps. There was so much sleep that I needed to catch up on.

Now I’m rested and ready to take on the big challange of recapitulating everything that’s happened since I left Vancouver Island. This is going to be so much fun!

Driving from Portland to San Francisco was exhausting, exciting, beautiful and maybe one of the most intense experiences I’ve had. And utterly amazing, of course. I’ve made so many notes and taken so many pictures, that I think it’ll take weeks before I’ll be able to catch up with all the writing. But I want to do this properly. You’ll just have to wait.

Even though the roadtrip was fun, arriving in San Francisco on Wednesday evening felt good. We were done with driving. Now, we’re staying with Eric, a guy I met in Cusco three years ago, and taking it a lot slower with the sight seeing.

Hanna is getting impatient with me. She wants to go out in the sunshine. But I can tell you this much: San Francisco is everything I thought it would be, and so much more.

I spent four days in Seattle, fell in love with the city and my Couchsurfing host Miles (platonically, of course), met Hanna at the train station and took the bus to Portland the next day. Now, Hanna and me are sleeping on Leslies big, L-shaped couch in Portland. I met Leslie in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia, three years ago, and now, yet again, I get to experience how generous North Americans can be.

It’s raining. On Wednesday, we’re picking up our rental car and the road trip starts for real. I just booked lodgings for us for the first two nights. After that, we don’t know. The Thursday after, we’re due to arrive in San Francisco.

I’ll get behind with the writing again, but there simply is far too much to tell about the beautiful Olympic National Park and awesome Seattle for me to want to just rush through it. So, instead, you might get a few updates, just to let you know that we’re alive. And then I’ll write PROPERLY when I have the time. Okay?

Thursday (31/5): Taking the 6 AM bus from Port Angeles was an experience in it’s own right. God, was it hard to get out of bed at 4:45, with the clouds hanging heavy and grey outside. But Louie was kind enough to give me a ride to the bus station. A better couchsurfing host would be hard to find. Sandy and Louie have really devoted themselves to being a generous and welcoming family who offer a bed to hike loving travelers from anywhere in the world.

And I managed to get to Seattle. When I got off the bus at half past nineish, my first project was finding a place to collect my thoughts and my maps. Now, I’m sitting at the Pioneer Square Starbucks with a Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino, using the free wifi to find a place to store my green monster backpack for the day. At five, my Seattle host Miles gets off work.

Soon, I’ll have to get out into this hilly, brick coloured city, but for now I’m just enjoying my delicious frappuccino. I’m already starting to feel the coffee getting out in my blood, making my fingers tingle. The unlucky few who have met me after a cup of coffee, know that the first impression Seattle will get of me is that of a puppy on speed, hyper energic and unnaturally inspired, but without the ability to focus on one paricular thing for more than a minute. But I guess that for once, that is okay. I needed the pick-me-up after waking up at 4:45, and where would it be more appropriate to get a Starbucks coffee than in the city where this worldwide phenomenon actually started.

Now, I feel ready for the tough streets of of the American city. High on coffee and America.

I spent two nights on the Olympic Peninsula. The nights I couchsurfed at Sandy and Louie’s house outside of Port Angeles, and the day hiking in the Olympic Natinal Park. I also spent one and a half hour in Port Angeles, which is more or less enough to see what’s worth seeing and then have time to get bored.

But I think that I won’t write any more about my stay on the Olympic Peninsula, until I get a chance to upload the photos too. Because there simply are no words for the Olympic National Park.

I can tell you that my hosts in Port Angeles, Sandy and Louie, were great, though. They treated me like a long-expected guest, making me dinner and breakfast and giving me a lift in to town in the mornings. Their kids, Theo and Ansel, were super cute and the hens they had in their back yard made the longing back to Whiskey Creek Farm easier. Really, I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been with my Couchsurfing hosts this far.

I would gladly have stayed with Sandy and Louie for longer, hiking in the park in the daytime and playing board games with them at night. I would have been very happy. But I had to leave. Next stop: Seattle.