Fun trip to Olympic National Park

Over the weekend my girlfriend and I went to Olympic National Park. We saw a lot of breathtaking natural scenes - including the tidepools at Ruby Beach, the verdure at Hoh Rainforest, and the beautiful mountains at Hurricane Ridge - but overall it was a pretty awful trip.

First, let's get through the parts of the trip that were actually good. Our well-maintained, two-night campsite handed us tranquil vibes on arrival. We pitched the tent, set out camp chairs, kicked up our feet, and enjoyed the plans we hadn’t set. Maddie moved her bookmark by an impressive chunk. I finished writing three scenes from my book, about half a chapter done. Later, we stayed warm with a very controlled fire. Emphasis on very controlled, despite what the waist-high height might indicate or the concerned looks from my girlfriend. Once we had respectable embers, I roasted marshmallows for smores. And do you know how everyone claims to have cooked the perfect marshmallow? Well, I’m realistic; mine was a four on a ten point scale.

When we weren’t at the campsite, we were looking at starfish. If you’re a five-limbed echinoderm with aspirations of being famous, Ruby Beach is the place to be. I had hoped to see at least one starfish, but we saw a hundred. Also in the tidepools, subtly teaming with life, other critters made cameo appearances: hermit crabs, crab crabs, fish, etc. The impressive scene would make any field-tripping juvenile want to become a marine biologist. 

Speaking of child-like magic, our next stop was the Hoh Rainforest. We hiked through breathtaking foliage and out-of-this-world forest trees. Like, trees that looked like they crawled out of H.G. Wells’s head and were making their way to London for the coming invasion. The trees were moving at a slow pace though, so we got some cool photos. 

The rest of the weekend (excluding the traumatic ending) was swell. Some highlights included swimming in the pool-part of a natural hot springs, driving to the top of the world along Hurricane Ridge, and taking in the calming views of Lake Crescent. All very peaceful and reviving. Now, let's go through the parts that we’re actually going to remember, the awful parts.

***

Where were you during the PNW heat wave of 2021? Well, we were in our car, in Kingston, waiting for the ferry. After waiting an hour, in the 100 degree heat, the ferry arrived and our car died.

At first we didn’t believe it. We’re both white and fairly privileged, so bad things don’t often happen to us. We tried turning on the car a few times, but the car only flashed hieroglyphic error messages before giving us the middle finder and pouting out. 

We were overwhelmed, so we hopped out and decided to find one of the ferry traffic directors to help us out. If overwhelmed, ask for help.

We’d walked 50-some feet when another driver, probably exhausted, sweaty, and dehydrated himself, jumped out of his car and followed us, yelling to get back in our car. The ferry was loading and it was time to leave. Now was no time for ice cream.

First we flagged down someone wearing a yellow neon vest, then we frazzledly explained to the overbearing man that our car had died. The traffic attendant said to pop the hood of the car; she would be by momentarily to help. The overbearing man said he was sorry and didn’t understand the circumstances; he disappeared back into his Ford F-150.

We popped the hood and stood there awkwardly as the cars maneuvered around us onto the ferry. Soon we were isolated at our car, the only car in the terminal lanes, in the sourcing heat, watching the ferry float away. Despite being 200 feet away we’d missed our ticket home. So close, but so far.

The lady in the yellow neon vest returned with a jump starter. We tried, but to no avail. During the failed attempts she asked us accusatory questions with a scolding tone, “Was your car on the whole time?”
The dehydrated me answered, “No.”
“Were you running the air conditioning?”
“Yes.”
“There’s your problem. You shouldn’t run the AC if you turn the car off. It’s probably an issue with…” 
She went on with valid points about car maintenance, to which I responded, “Uh hum. Ok.”

We established that the car couldn’t be fixed on the spot, so we’d have to call a tow truck. As we began to tackle this next obstacle, they blocked off our lane with orange traffic cones. Not to brag, but I can say, fun fact, that I’ve blocked an entire lane of ferry traffic for multiple hours. 

Calling a tow truck proved impossible because all the businesses were unavailable. Half the businesses didn’t operate on Sundays and the other half were actively melting in the heat wave. We frantically called businesses and family members to help with the adulting “What do I do here?” until finally, Triple AAA found the last remaining tow company that hadn’t melted. Apparently the towing company was dealing with a slew of other dying cars, so they’d be to our location in two hours. It took them a minute to take down the address, “Yes, we’re literally on the ferry dock… The traffic is flowing around us… Please come as quickly as you can…”

During the time it took for the tow truck to arrive, we made multiple phone calls. We called the currently closed auto repair shop and left a voicemail. We told them to expect a dropped-off Kia Sportage; please take a look at your earliest convenience. We’re stranded here until our car is fixed. Help us, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope. 

We called four hotels to check for rooms. They all said, “I’m sorry. The universe let us know you’d be having car troubles today, and that you’d desperately need a room, so we went ahead and pre-booked everything. There’s no room at the inn.” We tried the friendlier AirBNB. Nothing. 

We weighed the option of buying two passenger tickets for $8, a $75 dollar Uber back home to spend the night, a $75 dollar Uber back to the ferry, two more $8 terry tickets, for a total of $182, but decided against spending the next 24 hours ping-ponging between far-away locations. Eventually we found the world’s last remaining hotel west of the Puget Sound. Unfortunately they understood the economics of supply and demand, so they charged us $340 for a room that should have been $120. All the other rooms had been sold out to people trying to avoid the heat wave and needing AC.

As we waited for the tow truck, several passerbys attempted to offer their help, “How are your coolant levels?”
“Half empty.”
Another good samaritan: “I have a jumper, do you need me to jump start the car?”
“No, we’ve already tried.”
The most helpful people merely offered their empathy, “That really sucks. I was in a similar situation once. There’s not much you can really do.”

If at this point, you think I’m writing too many details, it’s only because I’m trying to paint a picture. A painful picture where the girlfriend’s face is as red as her autumn hair and she’s on the brink of tears. A picture where it’s so hot outside that the pictured protagonists are dripping enough sweat to fill a camping-sized cooler. That cooler along with all their other gear is baking in an abandoned car with the hood up in defeat. Their clothes, still dirty from hiking that day, have already molded to their body. A picture where everyone is turning to look at the sad spectacle, even though both she and I desperately want to hide the embarrassment. We watched them load and unload four ferries, and we missed them all.

***

Things started to look up. The tow truck finally came. We handed them the car keys and the chain tethering us to the location. Before trying to secure a ride to the hotel, we decide to take a breather. We got ice cream. With a waffle cone in hand, we collapsed in the outdoor seating under a large umbrella. I had vanilla and she had mint. 

Next, I quickly messaged my work telling them I’d be taking unexpected PTO on Monday. I left a summarized sob story so they’d have some empathy for the extra work they’d probably have to pick up in my absence. Maddie did the same. Then, my phone died. I hadn’t packed a charger, because I was making an effort to enjoy nature. Way back at the beginning of this story, it’d been a vacation.

The final hurdle to a day that my girlfriend described as “one of the worst days in my life”, we had to find a ride to the hotel. We tried Uber. They had no options. We tried Lyft. They said wait for 30 minutes. And we did, but no one came. What the hell Lyft?! One star review. We looked at the bus options. No busses run on Sunday. Our options were wearing so thin that it got to the point where Maddie said, “How many miles to the hotel.”
I said, “Nine.”
And then Maddie ambitiously said, “Hmm.”

We thought about hitchhiking, but quickly ruled it out. How could anyone trust us; we could be a stranger danger. We thought about going door-to-door and trying to find a small business owner who could drive us home. We ruled it out since we weren’t at rock-bottom yet. We looked like it though. We looked very homeless - camped out on a bench with two backpacks and a travel bag as we parsed through every option. The final idea was ingeniously suggested by Maddie.

We went to the town’s only pizza place and asked if they delivered pizza to our hotel’s address. They said yes. Me and Maddie looked at each other with hope (maybe you can see where this is going) then we asked if we could tag along with that pizza. Obviously we’d give a good tip. The highschool aged clerk with a scrappy chin beard and mustache said he’d have to go ask his manager in the back. 

Two minutes later, he returned and said… no. It was against protocol. But, he recommended Yellow Taxi cab company. One door shut and another one opened. We called Yellow Taxi. Unfortunately (the kind of “unfortunately” that has more meaning than the typical unfortunately seen in work emails) Yellow Taxi didn’t service the area. 

Well, fuck. 
(That deserves it’s own paragraph. It pretty much sums up the day.)

With the idea of a taxi in mind, apparently that’s still a business, we tried two more cab companies. The first didn’t exist; the second said they could have a driver out to us in two hours, “Would that be a problem?”
“No, any time in the next four hours would be amazing! Thank you so much! Hallelujah! 

While we waited, we went to a wine bar and downed an entire bottle of overpriced rose. We’re keeping the $50 bottle as a memento of that one time we had really bad car trouble. As a funny aside, we smelt so bad that the couple sitting adjacent to us, got up and left 10-minutes after being seated. After we ordered the wine, before we might have ordered food, the waitress hastily took away our menus subtlying implying: please leave as quickly as possible. You’re scaring away the other customers.

The taxi costed $28. When we made it to the two-queen hotel room, we crashed.

***

In the morning, we called the repair company. As expected, more bad news. (I used to be an optimist, but now I’m a pessimist.) None of the employees had shown up for work. They’d taken the day off to deal with the heat wave. The owner would take a look at the car if he had time. His tone implied that he would not. 

Me and Maddie frantically started coming up with plan E and plan F. We’d already burned through plan B, plan C, and plan D earlier in the adventure, so the naming convention had to be further down the alphabet. But…

The owner called back in 15 minutes. He told us that he’d solved the problem and that it’d be fixed in four hours. The battery died and he was ordering a replacement.

Speeding through the remaining details: We watched Euro soccer to kill the time. The hotel had a complimentary breakfast, so that was nice. We snagged the same cab back to Kingston; the driver even remembered us. We opened the unlocked car, grabbed the key from under the seat, and drove back to the ferry. The owner who had fixed the car, eager to get out of the heat himself, had us pay by phone. The replacement battery was about $400. At the ferry, we waited in line without AC, because we were deathly afraid that something bad would happen if we used it. See the above twenty paragraphs as an example of “something bad”. This time, the car didn’t die. We drove off into the ferry and got on with our lives.

***

The story is over, but if you’re still reading, here are three important morals: 

1. Find someone who can deal with stressful situations well and never let go. Everyone can deal with fun dates, but how do you look when faced with a stressful situation? My girlfriend Maddie remained level headed for the majority part of the trip and I’m in awe. She was the one with Triple AAA and coordinated the tow truck. She was the one who found the hotel. She was the one who talked with the mechanic to fix the car. I was the one behind the wheel when the car died.
   When we made it back to the ferry for the second time, she suggested we buy a cold drink for the nice lady who tried to jump start the car the previous day. The lady was working today’s shift in spite of the record high temperature. When we gave the lady the iced tea, we talked for a while and found she was much nicer than the original scolding tone from the day prior would indicate. I’m in love with Maddie for a thousand other reasons, but one of the big ones is that she has a kind heart.

2. Have an emergency fund. Go read a Dave Ramsey finance book. The much needed ice cream costed $15. The emergency wine costed $50. The round-trip taxi costed $60. The hotel room costed $340. The Teriyaki dinner costed $25. The Rite-Aid basket of necessities costed $5. The replacement battery costed $400. The new ferry ticket costed $25. For a grand total of … thank goodness it’s not a concern, because we have emergency funds.

3. If you’re waiting over an hour for a ferry, whatever you do, don’t blast the AC for the entire hour. Sitting miserable for the hour is much better than the possible alternatives.