Somewhere past the last streetlight on the Olympic Peninsula, the mountains fold into the fog and the water goes still and dark. I spend my free time exploring what’s beyond the pavement, from the quiet coves of Lake Crescent to the open water beyond the headlands, always with the next bend in the shoreline calling farther away. The Pacific Northwest keeps its secrets well: the trail that disappears into old-growth, the morning mist drifting along the river.