October, 2020
This morning we headed home. We loaded Jan’s stuff into the back seat of the big white truck, then we hitched up the trailer to the truck. Little Towhee jumped up on top of the dashboard inside the cab of the truck so she could guide us homeward. We waved good-bye to Lake Quinault and headed on down the road towards home.
It was a little misty, moisty this morning … not real rain, but just some soft moisture in the air. It was a sweet ending to a sweet week.
There is tourism out here in this part of the State of Washington, but not enough to interfere with real beauty and peace and wonder. I don’t even remember what the speed limit was on this road (the main and only “highway” out here). I just remember toodling along at whatever speed seemed comfortable. Other folks either passed me by (not many of those), or they just toodled along behind me, not bumper-hugging to try to get me to go faster, but just hanging back and enjoying the drive until they got to their turn-off.
Ah, but wait!! Some of you will remember that I promised earlier in this blog to tell you about Humptulips!
What the heck is a “humptulip”? A flower? An alternative spiritual practice? Maybe it’s the word for a home on a high “hump” of a hill for leprechauns or other little people?
As far as I know, the word/name Humptulips exists only in the State of Washington, nowhere else on earth, and only in this one very particular area of the State of Washington. Put the word into Bing or Google and you’ll probably be referred to the Wikipedia page for the TOWN named Humptulips. It’s not a big town. It’s spread out over a few miles. But … most of this town is forest and woods and rivers and streams … homes and businesses are few and far between. (All photos below were copied from the internet.)
The center of town …
gas, diesel, propane, groceries, ice, firewood, the post office.
In addition to the town of Humptulips, there’s the Humptulips River, large enough to have two major forks or tributaries. Remember that we’re still in the rainforest here with lots of rainfall as well as snow-melt from the Olympic Mountains.
There are mentions of a Humptulips Lake online as well, although it appears there is no official designation of a lake by that name.
The town of Humptulips is mentioned in at least four major books of fiction.
Where did this funny word/name come from? Well, from what I can gather online, the original word has long been lost … long ago mashed up and shanghaied by white settlers and their offspring. The closest that is reported online is that the word/name was the name of a small band of the Chehalis Tribe/Nation. I found three different websites that each state the original meaning of the original word … but each of them states something different from each other.
Fishing is very popular on this river, kayaking is very popular on this river, camping is common hereabouts, and lots of folks simply live here and love the place, with good reason.
It’s a beautiful area. We didn’t see any tulips. 🙂 We did see what I’ve shared here in this blog as well as lots more stuff too. Fun stuff, great people, and amazing scenery and geology.
Thanks Jan for wanting to share an adventure! You got me out of the house and on the road to explore a new place that I’d never been to before.
And thank you to all of my readers … the best readers in the world! 🙂
ADDENDUM:
In response to Jan’s comment below and her request for photos of Skunk Cabbage, here are a couple of photos of the plant. The first photo below was one I took while on this camping trip to Lake Quinault. The Skunk Cabbage with very large leaves was in the very wet ditch right beside the road along the south shore of the lake. We were there in late October, so the flowers are long gone and the leaves are decaying. The second photo below is taken from the internet and shows the plant with the pretty flowers and brand new small leaves. It’s pretty, yes indeed, but it stinks! 🙂
Such a pretty part of the world! And cute name for a town or a river!
It’s a pretty part indeed, makes it fun to explore.
My favorite story about Humptulips is of a brand new Washingtonian, straight from Manhattan. Soon after she arrived in the state she and her friend were driving the road that runs through Humptulips and they too speculated on the name. When they saw spectacular yellow flowers with beautiful leaves growing in the wetlands along the road by Humptulips they thought they had found the answer. A grand tulip it was!
When she proudly showed me her photograph I didn’t know whether to tell her or not: she was looking at Western Skunk Cabbage! Its Latin name is Lysichiton americanus; its Eastern US cousin is Symplocarpus foetidus (aptly named as fetid is the English word meaning smelling extremely unpleasant.) I was much taken with an alternate name I found when looking this up: Swamp Lantern. So much nicer.
Ann, perhaps you could add a few images?
What a funny person from Manhattan, and her friend, but that was a good story and maybe not too surprising. Skunk Cabbage in full bloom is pretty, except to those of us who know the plant and who know how bad it smells … yikes. 🙂 I’d not heard the alternate name, Swamp Lantern … thanks Jan. Let me see if I can upload a photo or two of the Skunk Cabbage that you and I saw when we were at Lake Quinault.
Thanks, Ann, for adding the photos.
That’s a small town! But a really cool name. Makes me wonder what the original native name was and what it meant. Maybe it was their name of the river?
If I remember correctly, two of the websites said that the name Humptulips sounds somewhat like the native tribe’s name for the river. There is different info online about the word Humptulips and where it came from, so I don’t know what the truth is, but you could well be absolutely right, Nevada.
here’s a quote from an item on graysharbortalk.com in 2015:
“Humptulips is a Salish word, named as such by the Chehalis Tribe a few thousands years ago. The word and name Humptulips means “Hard to Pole.” This term refers to the difficulty in traveling the river by boat. The Humptulips River was hard to pole canoes up and down stream, caused by downed timber that lined the banks of this beautiful river.”
That quote reminds me of your earlier entry and photo about the area near Montesano ( Grays Harbor County) where posts lined the Chehalis River, left over from when logs were floated down the river.
Thanks, Jan. That’s a website I hadn’t seen.
That’s the difference between city people and country people … city people hug your bumper and try to make you go faster … country people just drive along and enjoy the drive even if they really would like to go faster. Maybe that’s simplified, but it seems to us what we find. Glad you just went your own speed, Ann. Great week, thank you!
Since I’ve moved out of Seattle, then moved again even further away from a big city, I’m finding the same. People are just not in such an all fired hurry out in the country. I think it’s better out here. 🙂
I’ve been spending the last year or two going back and reading books from my youth. Just finished Tom Robbins “Another Roadside Attraction” where he mentions Humptulips. There are no coincidences. That was a great week, Ann, and your blog is terrific. Thanks.
Thanks Joe. I had read that there were a number of novels that named the town of Humptulips in them, but I didn’t know the names of any of those books. Now I know one of them. I read “Another Roadside Attraction” in my youth, too, although I have no memory of the content. Maybe I’ll read it again!