Welcome Guest Blogger Cara Leckenby of One Thousand Days

It’s Freaky Sunday! Today Cara is being Annie and guest-blogging on The Sunday Hiker while Annie is posting on Cara's blog One Thousand Days. We’ll have hiky goodness all around!

Did you know that it takes 10 seconds for a 12 year old to walk all the way around a ridiculously huge Cedar tree? Did you know that in the Pacific Northwest Rainforests, ferns grow on trees and make 200-foot tall oak trees look like they’re crawling with spiders? Did you know that negative ions cause a sense of euphoria, and are used as “therapy” to treat depression, and that negative ions are present at waterfalls (and in cold showers, but who wants to take a cold shower)?

I knew, but had forgotten these things (after years of neglecting…er…denying…my Northwest roots), and was delighted to rediscover them on a meandering dawdle through the woods at the behest of a favorite fellow blogger.

The darling child and I chose to peruse Marymere falls, which is a modest 90 foot tall waterfall located at the feet of the Olympic Mountain range in Washington State, and nestled between the mountains and Lake Crescent. Marymere Falls trail, very conveniently for my doddering old body, is a hike that can be accomplished in an hour and a half.

We took two hours, of course, but we soaked up the wet and sweetly moldering air, walked the circumference of every ostentatiously large tree, photographed the fungus we found amongus, paused on every bridge crossing and marveled at every lacy little bit of moss and fern. And of course we spent a good deal of time soaking up the negative ions at the pinnacle of our meander-about. Who needs Prozac when you’ve got a waterfall on hand? I’m seriously considering erecting one in my backyard. Or at least making it a point of extricating myself from the quagmire of life on a more regular basis in order to visit these magical places. Or maybe just a sprinkler?

The conversation was positively scintillating on our amble through the woods, with topics ranging from ninja skills to tooth brushing technique. And just at the moment that we’d decided that the Leckenby family (or at least the 12 year old member of the Leckenby family) could do with an improved oral cleaning tactic (read: “Brush your teeth like you mean it, kid, and I mean it!”) we rounded a corner and the darling boy pointed at a rock formation and declared: “Looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t brush his teeth!”