Our LaPush trip

After a lot of anticipation, our trip over to La Push was better than we could have imagined. For those who don't know, Jan 21st was the 20th anniversary of my dad's death. He died in a boat wreck right off the coast of La Push, which is real close to Forks (yes, the Twilight place). It was the first time I had ever been there, and that had been bothering me for a while. I did a little research online about the details of the wreck, so I could have some idea what I would be looking at. Good thing I did research at home, because our cabin had no internet/TV/phone to help with that. La Push is on the Quileute Indian reservation, and is population approx 417. Maybe not that small, but you get the idea.

Our cabin was right on the beach, I could have thrown rocks into the ocean from our deck, and we had a clear view of where the wreck happened. When we first got there it was about 3:00 and very windy, with about 14-16 foot waves VERY similar conditions as the day of the wreck. There were 2 fishing boats that were coming in at the time and watching them was one of the most surreal moments in my life. We walked out to the beach and it was just amazing. The waves were coming in so big and violent. There was a lot of beauty to be seen out there, but every time I looked over to the jetty that the boat crashed into I got pissed. A lot of mixed emotions on that beach, but having Crystal and the boys there was the only thing that made it tolerable. After the boys went to bed that night, my wife had a little surprise for me. We had been talking about the memory of my dad, and how I didn't really have a lot since I was only 8 when he died. She pulls out this little journal with entries from all the people she could contact who knew my dad. They had all given her some memory of him that they had, and she wrote them all down for me to keep. There were some stories I hadn't heard before, and some emotions that I didn't know people had about him. I think on about the 2nd entry I start crying, and it only gets worse as I read on. I think Crystal did it just to watch me cry. No, she did it because she is the most caring, compassionate person I've ever come in contact with. She told me that Wayne, my stepdad, didn't want to participate in the whole thing and that was disappointing because he was my dad's best friend. I would've loved to have his memories in there.

The next day we checked out a couple of places around town to see what kind of info we could dig up on the accident. We talked to the Coast Guard (no help) and to the people at the resort (little help). Then we went to the tribal center and talked to a few great people who steered us to a fishermen memorial. One lady even gave me her brother's phone number because he'd been fishing there for 30 years and would know all about it. He wasn't home, but the gesture was appreciated nonetheless. Everybody we talked to was very nice and as helpful as they could be. We never really talked to anybody that could recount the accident, but it was great just being there where it happened. We finished the stay with a little hike to a secluded beach to play for a bit, then headed off to my mom's house.

That night at my mom's house my stepdad completely opened up his memory bank and took me on a 3 hour tour of my dad's wild times as a 18-20 year old thrill seeker. Yep, 3 hours and we only covered 2 years of his life, and probably not even all of the details. Some of the topics made my mom squirm a little bit, but I really wanted as much info as I could get, good or bad, funny or sad. I think that might have been the highlight of the trip, as weird as that sounds, but hearing so many details of his life was indescribable. Wayne had to wrap up story time so that everybody could go to bed, but he assured me that we'd pick up where we left off next time.
Speaking of next time, maybe I'll have Crystal write a blog about the fun times we had on our trip, and put up a bunch of pictures.