At first I was a bit bummed out that yesterday shaped up to be the second rainy day of my Birth Week—I suppose I should really count myself lucky overall, given how many days this week showed rain in the forecast last week, and most of them had no rain at all. Or, as in the case of Sunday when I went to Fort Worden in Port Townsend, there was rain only intermittently and it was totally dry during the time I was actually at the park. The rain did stop in favor of sunshine yesterday afternoon, but that happened while Shobhit and I were driving back home from Olallie State Park.
That said, the rain actually
really enhanced the photogenic elements of our visit there yesterday. Yesterday was my actual birthday, I turned 45, and as usual Shobhit took PTO from work to spend the day with me; I always reserve my actual birthday for him. He had never heard of Olallie State Park, of course—and to be fair, neither had I, before I first started researching state parks to visit. This was the first one of the week to be further inland to the east rather than on an island or coastline, and it was every bit as pretty as most of the other parks. And it was especially the case thanks to the wet weather.
The rain was pretty light the whole time, although I was still glad I brought my umbrella with me for the mile-plus hike into the woods to see Twin Falls on South Fork Snoqualmie River. I don't even care how ridiculous I must have looked to the occasional other hikers with whom we crossed paths. It kept me dry, mostly, and the trail was large enough and maintained enough that there was space for me to hold it. Still, side note to self: I really need to get a new lightweight rain jacket for situations such as this, where I can just use a hood and do away with an umbrella. That would indeed have made the hike easier.
Anyway, the rain created this beautiful layer of mist right on top of the river, which made for some great photographs. The one above was actually taken on our hike back out, when the mist was even thicker than when we hiked in. It's easily one of my favorite shots I've taken this entire week, and it's not even of the main attraction.
As for the hike itself, and the trail specifically, it really took some relatively steep climbs and declines, and the way to being quite close to the Twin Falls waterfall, which was itself spectacular and certainly worth hiking to. There were three vantage points we hiked to, the first
from pretty far away; the second from the bottom of a
wooden staircase that had been installed back down the hill so you could view from about halfway up the height of the waterfall and from across the canyon; the third from a bridge
right above the waterfall. There was more wooden staircases going further up the cliff on the other side, but we still turned back from there, and a couple we passed right after starting back assured us there was just "miles" of more trail beyond that, but no more points of interest like this waterfall.
And really, it was enough of a challenge just getting to this waterfall and back, on often kind of steep, wet dirt paths. Shobhit is in much worse shape than I am in, and I would frequently need to pause so he could catch up. He was also sometimes slowed down by fear, as he does not usually like heights and some points on the trail had a very steep drop to the side. He was a trooper though, to his credit, and he never complained about my wanting to go in as far as we did (a little more than a mile; no big deal on a road but a challenge on this terrain), whereas I think he might have on any other day.
I got a lot of photos out of it: 35 along the hike; 37 in or near the park;
43 shots total thanks to a few more pictures taken later over dinner. That makes it, so far anyway, the
third-largest photo album of my Birth Week this year, the only larger ones being of Jarell Cove, that one padded by my overnight stay with Jennifer; and then of course the other overnight stay, in Long Beach with Dad and Sherri when we went to Cape Disappointment. So, if you exclude the ones that were padded by overnight stays, this one is the largest photo album. And to be fair, even this one was achieved only by going out to dinner; otherwise I'd barely have more shots in the Deception Pass photo album.
Since we were near there, though, on the way back Shobhit wanted to stop at the North Bend Premium Outlets mall, where I spent the most time being dreadfully bored of the entire week. Shobhit's attitude was, "I did what you wanted, now you can do what I want." He loves to shop, and just browse around endlessly, which bores me silly. To be fair, we couldn't have been there, wandering between stores, for more than an hour. It just felt to me more like a day. He found a few things to buy, but I did not, even though I did look a little. But, that's basically what makes an outing like this feel like it's not worth it to me: too much time invested for too little reward. I very, very rarely find anything I really want just browsing through stores.
Oh wait, I nearly forgot! I did find one long-sleeve green shirt I liked on sale for $10 at one store. Eddie Bauer, I think? So I did buy that. I'm still not sure it made wandering aimlessly for an hour worthwhile. It was kind of more like a consolation prize. Otherwise, I was literally doing nothing more than waiting for Shobhit. At the Nike store he spoke to an employee about a pair of shorts he's looking for, which was clear very early on they did not carry, for at least ten minutes straight. I was left to stand there watching the astonishing number of people walking into and around that store in particular, with their face masks pulled below their noses. Are morons the target demographic for Nike?
Eventually we finally left again, and drove back home. Olallie State Park had been just over forty minutes to drive there, the same coming back, and that actually made it one of the closest state parks to home. At 36 miles away, it's the third-closest state park I'll have visited this week, after Dash Point in Federal Way (28 miles) and the one we're meeting Karen at this afternoon, Saint Edward (15 miles). Oh wait, Mukilteo Lighthouse Park is only 26 miles away—it just took longer to get to because of traffic, and also it's not technically one of the state parks.
Anyway! After getting back home, I edited and uploaded my photos, and we killed just a few hours before heading out for my birthday dinner—the first time Shobhit and I dined at a restaurant in Seattle since before the pandemic, and the first time we dined at a restaurant together anywhere since stopping by the Shipwreck Cafe under new ownership last June on our way to Long Beach. I had thought this would be my first time dining at a restaurant at all since then, but then I wound up going to three different restaurants with Dad and Sherri in Long Beach on Tuesday and Wednesday.
And those had all been indoor dining—but, last night, I made reservations at the French restaurant in Fremont called Le Coin, which a Total Wine & More coworker of Shobhit's had recommended, and they have the ability to reserve outdoor seating specifically, So that's what I did. And they really did a good job of keeping things within recommended protocols, right down to clear dividers set up between tables, even outside (the same had been done inside, where just a few people were dining), along with tall space heaters in between each table. I was just barely warmer than comfortable, and even though it must have been in the low sixties outside, I spent the dinner with my jacket off.
All servers kept face masks on at all times, of course.
Shobhit's coworker had raved about a legume dish they have, which turned out to be only part of their tasting menu—but the server asked the cook to create it as a starter for us, so we still got to have it without having to go for the tasting menu which as notably more expensive.
That dish was unlike anything I had ever had, and it was shockingly delicious. (Maybe it's just that you can make anything delicious by marinating it in a butter sauce.) We then split main courses of Vegetable Wellington and Agnolotti Pasta, both of which can be seen in the photo below; the pasta was very good but the least-good of all our dishes; the Wellington was spectacular. And then, so was
the gorgeous dessert, "Chocolate Cremeux," with Saskatoon berry preserve, huckleberry ice cream, and feuilletine praline. They brought it out to me with a single candle because of course Shobhit had already mentioned several times that it was my birthday.
Shobhit paid for it all, going out of his way to tip over 25% for the excellent service, so the bill then totaled $110. That strikes me as a hell of a lot for just dinner for two (and consider that we did not drink anything other than water), but whatever, it was my birthday!
[posted 9:11 am]
