Washington State, Revisited

This past weekend I took my 4th trip to the West Coast in as many months. Apparently the Left Coast, especially the Pacific Northwest, is my favorite. I visited Washington State for the first time ever in December, spending a long weekend in Seattle. This most recent trip had a bit of a sad undertone - my parents, aunt, and gentleman friend T. and I were there for Carrie's memorial service. Carrie didn't want anything formal, so the weekend was a chance for those of us who knew and loved her to get together at one of her favorite places - Ocean Shores, WA (a place not far from where she grew up, and the town where my brother was living when they met) -  to celebrate her life.

For as meaningful and emotional as the week that I spent in California before Carrie passed away was, this past weekend ranks up there in terms of significant trips. If it had been for anyone else, the weekend may have been sad and somber, but in the spirit of Carrie's sense of adventure and love for travel, T. and I decided to make the best of our time in Washington.

We flew into Seattle bright and early on Friday morning. We rented a car for the 3 hour trip to Ocean Shores, and agreed to pick my aunt and dad up from the airport too, since my brother and mom were driving up from California. Everyone's flights landed a few hours apart (8:30, 11 and 2), so we had some time to kill. After grabbing some breakfast, we went back to SeaTac to pick up my aunt and took her down to the Pike Market. You know, now that T. and I have visited Seattle once, we know our way around pretty well. If you don't count the accidental 3 mile round trip walk from the parking garage to the Market. But it was a nice day and my aunt had never been to Seattle, so obviously we were making sure she could see the city. Wasn't that considerate?

I think I need to go to the market anytime I'm in Seattle. There's so many tasty things there! I wanted to pick up some hybrid apples that we had there in December and can't find anywhere else (unless you, readers, know where I can get Opal apples in the Midwest? No?). It was awesome being there during the spring time since there were beautiful fresh flowers at just about every other stand.

We eventually made our way over to Ocean Shores in a nice mess of rain, traffic, rain and more traffic. It rained pretty much non-stop on Friday night, which made me wonder how Carrie's beach memorial service would go, but I'll get to that. On Saturday morning, T. and I headed to the beach to try to take a walk. Unfortunately it was only 40 degrees, windy and constantly threatening to storm, so we weren't out long. But it was pretty.

A faint rainbow

T. the shadow man

Carrie's wake and memorial were in the afternoon. Something I didn't really expect was that so many of her friends and family that I had never met already knew me! Some said that Carrie had told them all about me, but a lot of people were saying they recognized me from the Lung Run fundraising pages over the years, or even from Facebook. Talking to so many people that Carrie knew was really neat, because she truly touched so many lives. Everyone she met became a friend, and she had such a strong and positive impact on so many people. She was obviously an extraordinary person.

After the wake we all paraded out to the beach for a simple ceremony to scatter some of Carrie's ashes. I got to walk my canine BFF, Lucky, over to the beach. I miss having dogs, so I'm glad Lucky is always willing to hang out with me. He's 4 years old but still acts like a crazy puppy, so I ran him around to tire him out. Which did nothing but amp him up more and wear me out.

There were several dozen of Carrie's favorite roses - yellow and pink - that everyone threw out into the ocean to remember her. It was unlike any other ceremony I've been to, and was beautiful. And, somehow, the weather was just perfect. Sunny, not too windy and not too cold.

That night, about 30 of us had dinner together at Carrie's favorite restaurant in town. There was a slide show full of pictures of her, and my brother gave a really nice eulogy. I had just met a lot of the people at dinner that day, but everyone felt like family because of our common tie to Carrie. I think she would love knowing that so many people were coming together for her and bonding over her.

On Sunday morning we had plans to have brunch at the nearby casino with everyone, but first T. and I drove an hour north to Olympic National Park and hiked through a rain forest. I say that like it's no big deal, like we just hike through rain forests here in the Midwest all the time. But seriously, it was really cool!

Driving with the sunrise

Lake Quinalt

Driving back to Ocean Shores

I love everything I've seen in Washington and am excited to be able to visit it a lot more often once I live out that way. The air is so fresh, and it's so green and lush there! Of course, that's because it rains all the time (that doesn't really seem to be a myth). And I'm happy to have had a few days in a beautiful place to remember and celebrate an amazing person. I wished she had been there so I could tell her all about my and T's adventures exploring the area, but I think she was in spirit.