Treated like royalty

Day 41

The perfect campsite allows for a perfect day of relaxation and rejuvenation. Thanks to the biodegradable power of Dr. Brauner’s we start our day off with a bath in the lake. Sure, we had to step over a bunch of frogs, and sure there was a bunch of green floaty algae, and sure there were leeches, but we still came out cleaner than we started. I guess since we didn’t shower once in the four days in Vancouver we couldn’t have gotten worse.

We open up the van (something that comes back to haunt me later), and enjoy the warm day playing cribbage, reading, napping, looking at rainbow trout swim up stream while an osprey watches, taking a bike ride along the lakes, walking around our campsite naked, and eating (in order) eggs with tortillas and avocado, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, veggie sandwiches with cheese and pesto and spicy mustard, chips and salsa, grapes and strawberries, and for dinner, salmon cakes with salad and corn on the cob. Essentially, all the groceries that we bought for the next few days disappeared rather quickly and deliciously.

We rode our bikes in the evening, and it felt like a storm was brewing - like in the east coast during those hot, humid summer days. But the rain never came. We went to bed full and happy.

**Note: I bet you’re wondering what haunted me. Answer: Mosquitos. I killed probably about a dozen that had managed to get inside the van while we had the door open for a couple of hours. After one day of camping I got 13 itchy bites. The only good part was smashing their guts. Except for this one mosquito who had apparently already eaten some of my delicious blood because when I killed her it leaked blood onto the carpet. Gross.

Day 42

We leave our little paradise nook and start driving east. We take Hwy 97 to Vernon, where we stopped to have a little lunch (at 4:30), and a swim in their Okanogan Lake. It wasn’t the hottest of days, but I swam like the dickens. It felt good to actually swim in nice clean water, instead of wade clumsily in green, murky, leech infested waters. Sure, I didn’t come out any cleaner, but no dirtier. Probably. Note: lunch was tuna sandwiches with chips and salsa and a ginger brew.

Then we continued our day the way it started: driving. And we were heading toward another little free camping site, only this time we didn’t have such good directions. The last step of the directions said “turn right on Summer Lake Rd.” So we did. Summer Lake Rd., as it turns out, is 46km long (like 26ish miles for the Americans out there). And since it is a free site, there are no markings. So we drive down for about 10 minutes and come up empty handed. So we decide that our best bet is to turn around and just start driving down some of the unmarked dirt driveways that we had passed. At no point did I think driving down strange dirt roads was dangerous or poor planning. And I was right! No danger at all. Our first unmarked dirt road led us to campsites! We drove to a little spot in a green field and parked. Then I saw that the road kept going. So we walked down a road littered with potholes, huge dips, mud, rocks jutting up from the earth in an effort to puncture tires, and huge puddles. On the other side: riverfront property. Correction: our riverfront property. Although Micah was hesitant (wisely pointing out that my AAA doesn’t work in Canada), I knew that we needed to camp right along the river. So we got the van, and burled through the messy road. Micah even made a video of it.

Now, here I am, sitting at a picnic table, Micah to my right, my van to the left, and the river and tree covered hill right in front of us. And there’s nothing else around. And it’s a beautiful evening.

Day 43

Today was a different sort of day. I made 2 discoveries on this day, both of which changed the course of our adventure.

Before I get to the first discovery, I must explain a stupid thing. That stupid thing is a highway that ends at a lake. The lake is not large. A Great Lake this is not. However, it’s big enough that the people of the county decided that it would be a good use of time and money to forego a bridge that would connect the two sides, and instead create a ferry system that travels back and forth across the lake until the end of time. And it’s not a big ferry either, which means that if there is considerable traffic, you have to wait about an hour for the ferry to come back. See, even though it’s only maybe a half-mile (at most) across, the ferry is slow, and takes about 15 minutes to cross (just enough time to make and eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches on cinnamon raisin cranberry bread). I found it all to be quite bizarre.

We made it to the town of Nakusp (whose name we could never remember and simply called it Naksuck). Anyway, this is where we made the first discovery. In town we went into the local market to buy some drinks. But they had none. Just like some of the bizarre conservative areas of the US, only liquor stores sell alcohol. Discovery #1: Beer is fucking expensive in BC. Like, prohibitively expensive. A six pack of Red Stripe for $12? Other six packs for upwards of $15. What the hell? Not only that, but both food and gas are also crazy expensive. A bag of Kettle Chips for $5? A gallon of gas for the equivalent of $4.40 a gallon? It’s enough to force me out of here more quickly than I wanted.

In Nakusp we went to the hot springs, which was great because the water felt amazing, and we got to take legitimate showers instead of lake showers. And here I made discovery #2: people here in Canada are very nice. Micah and I spoke with this gentleman for about three minutes, but he was on the way out, so we said goodbye. Then, after we were hanging out for another ten minutes the guy came back and handed us a piece of paper, saying “we have a lot of acreage, so if you guys want a free place to stay, you’re more than welcome.” This was perfect because we had no place to stay and it was already like 5:30. The only unfortunate thing is that it turns out that he’s able to let us camp any night but tonight. This is a problem because we were planning on being beyond the small town he lived in by the next day.

So Micah and I have ourselves a little huddle and call an audible. We decide not to drive the way we were planning and instead take this leg of the trip a little more slowly and take up the guy on his offer the following day. This just left us with figuring out where to stay the night. In our guidebook there was mention of a free campsite in the town of Silverton, which was less than an hour south. So we went. And we got the campsite successfully. And we read the sign that said it was $18 a night. And that made me unhappy. AH! But we didn’t give up hope just yet. We thought we might be able to just find some little road and stealth our way through the night. But it was getting dark and we were kind of clueless. We were stuck.

In the town of Silverton we parked next to a coffee shop hoping we could get some wi-fi to see if there was anything that we could quickly research. But they didn’t have any free wi-fi. So I went in to talk with someone inside to see if there were any camping options nearby. The only ones around (so I was told) were the expensive ones we already knew of. The people in the coffee shop - who, incidentally, we all playing musical instruments in some kind of all-inclusive musical jam - were quite friendly though, and before I knew it a woman named Linny had invited us to park at her house. And before we knew it, the entire community was welcoming us in. So we went inside, jammed on some bongos and egg shakers while drinking tea and meeting everyone in the little community. I think by the end of the night we had about 3 options of places to stay for free, but we stuck with Linny, who had been the first to extend her hospitality. When she was ready to head back home we followed her and Bronwyn (who was staying with Linny temporarily to help around the house) back to her home for a tour of her collections. Micah was suddenly in paradise as we walked from room to room, looking at and trying on various hats, purses, etc. She has something like 500 different hats or some completely amazing number. Basically, enough to never look the same twice. She also happens to be a chocolatier, and she shared some homemade dark chocolate truffles with us. Delicious! She also told us that the next morning was the local farmer’s market, where she sells her truffles, but where we could also pick up some other goodies.

It was a great experience to meet people who so honestly wanted to help out however they could. Everyone we met offered to let us do laundry or whatever we needed. Quite a change of pace to be in such a closely-knit group of people who invite complete strangers into their home. Discovery #2 was a lot better than discovery #1.

Fightin' off Canucks pt. 2

Day 39

Perfect weather, great walk around a sweet neighborhood in Vancouver around Main and Kingsway, and lunch at Foundation (again) - this time with veggie burgers instead of nachos. The menu is awesome, with each description being a little over the top. For example, for the burgers each bun is given a different adjective, like “shapely buns” or “firm buns.” Pretty funny.

We hang out in a local park and lay out in the sun for the afternoon/evening. We then cook dinner and go to a concert at the Biltmore. Luckily, earlier in the day when we were walking around, we decided to scope out where the Biltmore actually was. Good thing too, as it was nearly impossible to find, even for the iPhone. We had to ask someone eventually, and it turned out to be under a hotel. Bizarre. But the show was pretty great. There were four bands, and two out of four were really good. The other two? Band #1 was a guy and a “sort of” girl who was very round and shapeless who played some keyboards and was a little too nerdy-electronic for my tastes. Band #4 (the headliner) turned out to be four guys whose mission was to create as much noise as possible without actually playing musical notes. Micah and I were up front, which turned into a mosh pit of sorts once the band started pounding on all the instruments at once. Supposedly they are good at what they do (and Micah surprisingly didn’t mind them despite her insistence on changing the song whenever any band that I listen to starts to scream) but I couldn’t appreciate it for what it was so we left halfway through. Luckily bands #2 and #3 were both really good, and we wanted to buy the CD for band number 2, but we couldn’t remember their names. I think the four bands were The Sorcerers (#1), Fine Mist (#2), Bad (something) (#3), and SSRIs (#4). All in all it was fun, even though my ears were ringing for the next 2 days.

Day 40

We rode our bikes in the direction of the farmer’s market but turned around right before we got there because we thought we had gone too far and had somehow missed it. We then found another park and asked a guy where the market was and told us that “we weren’t close” and that it was back where we had just come from. We just needed to have faith that we were correct. We got some veggies for sandwiches, which we had for lunch as a picnic in the park. It was very hot. We got very sweaty, and this strange dog kept coming over to give us a ball to throw, even though we weren’t the owners or anything! The nerve! But it was a cute little pup, and I threw the ball as far as I could every time, which forced it to rest in the shade for a minute before coming back.

We took a bus down to Stanley Park and walked around the edge of the entire park before getting fairly exhausted. We did run into a few awesome people before petering out: 1) a woman and her date were talking right in front of us for a bit, and the woman had a skirt so short that any mishap would have been entirely revealing. She didn’t mess up, but she did have to put her leg up on a ledge to tie her boot. What a skank! 2) a friendly girl and her mom(?) were talking to some birds. Literally talking to them. Then they said hello to us and started talking about how their favorite thing to do is pick berries and then walk around the park and offer them to people. They had salmon berries (which suck), and huckleberries, which I don’t think I’ve ever had before, and they were quite good. 3) an evil bus driver who, when asked when the last bus would be coming back he said “that’s me.” Micah then clarified that she wanted to know the time the bus would be here (which was him supposedly), and he said “go ask that guy” and pointed to a man handing out maps. Because saying a time would have been way too much work.

A side note about the buses: they are annoying as all hell. You have to have exact change, and they don’t accept bills. Meaning, if two people want a ride ($5 total), you must have $5 in change. And there are no change machines anywhere. How is that efficient or convenient? Portland’s is much better - free.

We then made some delicious curry while watching a couple of groups play tennis. Dinner and a show. One group of players were so bad that they would often swing the racquet and miss entirely. And no one ever hit the ball very fast. One of the girls was so small that her racquet nearly touched the ground when her arm was limp. And I guess she was so bad that she wasn’t allowed to hit the ball because the guy (who also was terrible) would step in front and miss for her. What a guy. The second group of players seemed like a couple who were nice and gentle playing against a pair of drunk homeless guys who heckled them the whole time. So awesome. There was also a spectator who would periodically approach one of the players and ask if they wanted to buy a necklace for two dollars. He was drunk and certainly homeless and kept everyone on their toes. Backhand! Forehand top spin! Lob! Throw money at the homeless man! Backhand!

We then closed out the night by closing down a coffee shop. I think they closed early because they were sick of us. Micah taught them a lesson by using the restroom two times after they had cleaned it.

Guarding maple syrup

Day 35

Morning: travel prep.

Afternoon: travel.

Evening: dinner in Port Townsend for Micah’s “second” birthday dinner. This one was pretty good - seafood stuffs at Cafe Fountain. Expensive, but delicious. I got chipotle prawns on fettucini, and Micah got this big bowl of dead ocean animals. I got to try some of said animals, and they were pretty good. We got into Port Townsend late though, and we didn’t really have a solid plan of attack, so we ended up driving out of town to a state park (I think it was called Port Townsend Fort or some such nonsense), where we camped for an outrageous $19. PLUS! Since there was no way to get change, and literally no one on the planet has exact change for $19, they received a “donation” of $1. As much as I love state parks, I hate state parks. Such outrageous prices. In one night we more that doubled our camping expenditure for the entire first month. Weak. But the campsite was nice, and it provided a good night’s sleep. Sometimes it’s worth being comfortable.

Day 36

Time for Olympic to wow the pants off me! Our first objective: Hurricane Ridge. After proceeding past the gate without paying (NPP strikes again!) we crawl up the mountain 17 miles to Hurricane ridge to get a gander at the rest of Olympic National Park and beyond. But it’s cloudy, so we can’t see the whole park. Luckily, the side facing north is relatively clear, and we can see Canada and Mt. Garibaldi, which is sweet. Also incredibly sweet: we see a brand new kind of mammal. We don’t know what it is though, so we just watch as it sits there. It kind of looks like a furry beaver. Or a large prairie dog. So we go into the visitor center and ask the girl behind the counter. She decides to come out and look. She tells us that beavers can be furry like that, so it could be a beaver. I know she’s wrong though; her explanation makes so little sense. So we head back into the gift shop and found a postcard, which confirmed our suspicions that it was a marmot. We bring the postcard up the counter to show the girl that it was in fact a marmot. She then looks at the postcard, and says, “no, that’s a bear.” Keep in mind that on the back of the postcard it says that it’s a picture of a marmot. We tell her that, no, the postcard says explicitly that it’s a marmot. She says, “no, it’s a bear.” We decide that she needs a little proof. So we show her that it says “marmot” on the back of the card. She then says, “well, someone told me it was a bear.” Well, someone told you something very stupid and you bought it. I felt a little bad for her, so we just bought the postcard and left. Before leaving I watched the marmots a bit more. The only thing not awesome about marmots (which hibernate for 8 months out of the year) is that they do very little, so watching them isn’t exactly captivating enough to even make it on the extended footage of any wildlife program. Still, marmots!

We then camped by the Elwah River, which was beautiful. My mood was not. I found out that my camera had managed to erase all my photos, and I hadn’t uploaded any for like 3 weeks. I was super bummed. Hopefully I’ll be able to recover them, but I haven’t yet, so we’ll see. I may have no photos of my first backpacking adventure! So I sulked for a bit until Micah made me go for a walk to clear my head. We went down to the river and threw rocks at other rocks, and I smashed some sticks against rocks too. One of the sticks fought back and hit me in the head when I smashed it. I didn’t like that. Then we walked along the river, and I slammed my head against an uprooted tree that I was supposed to duck under and cut my head. That was hurty, and I didn’t like that either. Then we threw some large pieces of wood into the water, which went *sploosh!*. And then I felt a little better.

Day 37

We drove over to Rialto Beach all the way over on the west coast where there was supposed to be some great tide-pooling. But we got there too late. No tide-pools. It was still overcast and looking like it could be rainy, so we were starting to get bummed out. Then a minor miracle happened. An omen from across the water flew right past us. A huge bald eagle carrying an amazingly huge fish flew right in front of us and landed on driftwood less than 40 feet away. Micah took a ton of photos, and got some amazing shots of it in flight - which wasn’t very high off the ground because the fish was so heavy, but still really, really awesome. We actually saw a second bald eagle on our walk back, but it wasn’t as big and had no fish. Having now seen how huge eagles are I’m no longer as impressed when I see red-tails. I still like them and all, but they’re now runner-ups.

We drove through Forks, which is now the nuttiest place I’ve ever seen. They are the “home” of the Twilight Saga, so everything has Twilight something or other. The store we went in sold “Bella’s first aid kits.” Bella is a character in the books/movies. So what is her first aid kit comprised of? Exactly what a Johnson and Johnson first aid kit contains with the added bonus of a piece of paper taped over the front that says “Bella’s first aid kit.” Wow. The whole town is overrun with Twilight tours and other horrible things. So we left.

We went to the Hoh Rainforest, which was both confusing and somewhat underwhelming. It was one of the only places on our trip so far that didn’t have any rain, and while the hiking was nice, it seemed exactly the same as the place we camped in the night before. And we never solved the riddle of why it’s a rainforest. It just looks like a forest. It’s really pretty, but I think Micah and I are just a little bit burned out on the Pacific Northwest. It’s all very lush and beautiful, but we’re ready to move on.

Day 38

We take a ferry from Kingsly back toward the Seattle area and head north into Vancouver. Or so we thought! The border guards thought that letting two unemployed VW hippies into their country would be a bad idea, so they had us pull over and go inside for questioning. I got such insightful questions as “when was the last time you did drugs, and have you had anything to drink today?” I laughed at this last question, and since the guards are paid to never crack a smile, he then asked me why I thought this was funny, and then told me this was a serious matter because if I was drunk they would send me back to America. Keep in mind, it’s the early afternoon. But I played along and told him that I would never do such naughty things. He said my eyes looked glazed. So I said, OK. Anyway, the reason we got pulled over and all that was that I had been too honest and said that I don’t have to be back in California ever if I don’t want to be, so they were under the impression that I was planning on moving into Canada and becoming a burden on their economy/society. I assured him that I didn’t want to live in Canada, and that I have enough money to support myself, so I won’t be a burden. Little did he know that I would in fact burden his economy later that evening by flushing one of their toilets containing foreign toxins that expelled from my body! Take that Canada. Don’t want me here? Too bad. Watch as I sleep on your streets, eat your food, take up room on your buses. Try to stop me!

We find an awesome vegetarian restaurant after abandoning the downtown area. (Side note: we parked in an underground garage and my van barely, barely scraped through. I was nervous the whole time, and actually managed to hit a bit of sign with my skylight. Scary stuff indeed!). At the restaurant we shared a huge plate of nachos and a satay salad, which was fantastic, and a pitcher of Storm IPA, which was the special that day and only $13.

We found a great neighborhood to covertly sleep in, and our first day in Canada, which started roughly, successfully ended.

Another reason to hate fords

Day 27

The day started out with a breakfast scramble, and ended with a delicious meal lentil soup and pasta with scallops prepared by Micah’s cousins Nels and Alton, and by her aunt Rebecca. But where are we? Well, we left the campsite and drove north to Issaquah (just east of Seattle), where Micah has family. The drive was uneventful. Grey, rainy, long, boring. But we especially want to make the drive because her grandma Ruth is visiting and it would be nice to see her. Micah’s family is incredibly nice, and they all (save Grandma Ruth) love to cook, which fits perfectly with my love to eat. Alton is studying the art of bread-making so there’s always fresh bread around. No complaints from an avid carbo-loader.

Day 28

One of those days. I’m grumpy. I pretty much scare Micah out of the van, so she spends the morning indoors with her cousins while I stay in the van and read and try not to think about my grumpiness. But it’s hard! Vonnegut helps me out a whole heck of a lot because his writing is a perfect escape, but I remain fairly grumpy the entire morning, and don’t really improve until late in the afternoon when we drive into downtown Issaquah for some beer. We also elect to have 2 different kinds of fried potatoes, which boosts my happiness level considerably. I don’t want to be food-dependent, but French fried potatoes (and what I think they called Idaho fried potatoes) seem to strike that soft spot in my heart that melts away the cold, grumpy outer layer. Anyway, the day is very uneventful, but the beer with Micah’s cousin Nels was fun, and I go to bed less cranky than I woke up, so at least I made some progress on that front.

Day 29

Refreshed! I’m not a total ass this morning (which bodes well for people forced to interact with me (or wake up next to me)) and the weather is nice enough that we can run our errands by biking into town. The ride isn’t too terribly long (8 miles), but the entire way there is down hill, and since they (meaning stupid lazy people) haven’t invented a way to temporarily tilt the earth in the other direction to allow people to always travel downhill when their legs run out of energy, we are forced to bike back 8 miles of mostly steady uphill. Of course I manage to complicate matters by noticing that my front tire is somewhat deflated by the time I get to town. Luckily (thanks to Matt Smith’s rigorous bike training) I know to always bring a tire pump with me. So I take it out of my backpack. And I look at it. And I notice that the little hose portion is dangling like a limp noodle (or any other flaccid protuberance). Totally broken. Ah-hah! But I have also learned (from a certain electricly-minded father type unit) to always have electrical tape with me (for bandaging wounds and such). So I bust out the tape and start to repair the tubing. I do an amazing job. And I start to pump the tire. And it doesn’t fill up so much as it deflates even more. Something that hadn’t occurred to me: it’s not easy to make things air tight. For some reason I thought that it was easy. My tape job looked superb. Bottom line: I had to buy a new pump. Lame. But, as the cheap-ass that I am, I couldn’t make this part easy either. Even though we were in REI buying things we needed for our upcoming backpacking trip, and even though REI had bike pumps, I refused to pay their outrageous price of $12 for a pump. How could they charge so much?? It pumps air! Thus, my stubbornness made us walk over to Target for a better deal. How much was the pump? $10.66. Take that, REI! I knew their merchandise was overpriced.

But since I took so long doing all that crap we had to bike really fast back to the van because we were planning on driving to Seattle to meet up with a friend of Hannah’s (Micah’s sister) who had to work at like 5. So we hustled our asses up the 8 mile hill and were then slowed down by the desperate need to shower before interacting with other humans, so we only just barely made it to Seattle in time to meet Chelsea and wave goodbye as she went to work as a longshoreman. And then we relaxed on Chelsea’s couch (I got to watch sports!) until we (Micah) got a text from Chelsea saying she didn’t get work and would be back shortly. So we ended up making delicious burritos together along with her bagpipe playing Scottish husband Brian. They have one of those heat lamps that they have at outdoor restaurants and bars on their back patio, and we get to eat our burritos outside in the rain.

Day 30

We wake up lazily (in that we didn’t leave the house until the afternoon), and then head into downtown Seattle with Chelsea as our guide. We go to Pike’s market to look for a very specific bracelet that Micah remembers from like four years ago, and when she finds the people that used to sell them they appropriately respond “we used to sell those like four years ago. What took you so long?” So that mission is a failure. It’s a compounded failure because in finding parking Chelsea accidentally backed into a pole made out of cement, which didn’t move when struck by the bumper. It was unfortunate, and reminded me a great deal about the lesson I learned when backing into the unyielding backhoe.

We then head to Capitol Hill, where the gays, hippies, and emo kids collect (as well as a very amazing older man in an all yellow suit with a died pink and orange beard). We walk around and see very little that’s exciting so we go to a place that Chelsea had been wanted to go to for like 5 months but never made it: Pike St. Fish Fry. I dare you to figure out what they have on the menu. Give up? Oh, I’m sorry, that was your guess? Ha! Wrong, stupid. It’s fish! Fried fish. It was very good.

We then went to this other area of Seattle (south Seattle) in Columbia City to this place called King Donuts. I’m not even going to make you guess this one because it’s too hard, but they have (in addition to donuts), teriyaki chicken, and a laundromat. We got a half dozen donuts, sat down, ate some of each, listened to a short sermon by a black dude who spoke of Jesus in baseball terms (like rounding first), and took our leave.

Since we felt bad after all the fried food we stopped at a local farmers’ market and bought vegetables to make a salad for dinner. Which we did.

Our after dinner festivities included watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail (a classic I haven’t seen in like 15 years), and going to an open mike at this awesome dive-bar where a guy was playing guitar and his groupie (yes, singular) repeatedly went up and took pictures of him. Also she was overweight and was wearing Daisy-dukes. The night ended with our own private concert of Brain playing the bagpipes, which was really fucking cool.

Day 31

Micah and I sort of do our own thing around Seattle, which isn’t much. We prepare for our camping trip by getting food and rainproof pants for me. We wanted to go canoeing in the arboretum near Washington University, but it’s graduation day (annoying), and there’s nowhere to park nearby, so we go for a walk instead. It’s nice, but then it starts to rain and we head back. We made salmon cakes and went out for ice cream at this place called Full Tilt that also had arcade games (my favorite!), but there was a horde of screaming little girls doing birthday nonsense and their ear-shattering shrieks drove us out. They even had The Twilight Zone pinball game, which was one of my favorites from my Arcata days. Too bad.

Day 32

We leave Seattle early and head off into the wilderness out by Lake Cle Elum. The weather is mother f’ing perfect for the first time all trip, and the gods smile upon us. This is my very first backpacking adventure, and the absence of rain makes me believe this was meant to be. We’ve had rain all trip, and we now get to experience some true sun and summer weather. We are hiking into Lake Waptus, which is a 9 mile hike, staying two nights, and hiking back out.

The hike in hurts my shoulders. I feel like my backpack’s weight should be more evenly distributed to my hips and chest, but my shoulders feel like they’re taking the brunt. It’s an interesting hike though. We go through rocky terrain, forest, swampland, and snow. Part of the reason that we picked this area is because snow is down around 3500 feet pretty much everywhere, and this was one of the few places that had backpacking at or lower than 3500. But we still hit some snow. It’s not cold where we’re hiking, but some areas just never get sun.

It’s all going smooth enough (although my shoulders do hurt and my little pinky toes do too) until we reach an area where we have to cross the Waptus River, and the bridge is out. Solution: use the horse ford. Problem: there is no rope. The river is ice cold, it’s fast moving, it’s up past our thighs, and the bottom is rocky. It’s treacherous as all hell and halfway through I kind of want to just give up and float away. But we do in fact make it. Our feet are numb, Micah’s legs are bright pink, we’re soaked, and we kind of want to be at the campsite already. It’s not too far past the river fording, but it seems like it’s forever. It feels so good to take off the packs and make some dinner (dehydrated refried beans). Plus, we see something I’ve never seen before: a beaver! (the mammal kind). It’s pretty awesome to see it swimming in the lake in almost complete darkness. We don’t stay up much past the beaver sighting. Sleeping hurts, but our view out the tent onto the lake and the snowy mountains beyond are worth the stiffness.

Day 33

We enjoy the beautiful nature around us by doing very little. We wake up pretty late (I blame exhaustion), and we tinker around the campsite, reading, sitting in the sun, and me jumping into and out of the icy cold lake. All my external bits shrivel up and nearly disappear, but hanging out naked in the sun helps.

We take a small walk around the lake, but don’t even make it a quarter of the way before we decide that it’s too much. So we climb out onto a log floating in the lake and sit and relax. It’s perfect weather - not a cloud in the sky. We just sit and enjoy each other’s company without really having to worry about anything real.

We get back to camp and make lunch (thai noodles), and sit in the sun and watch a chipmunk scamper about. OH. And this relates to Day 32: when we got to camp and started unpacking I turned away from my pack for a couple of minutes and a chipmunk managed to get inside, eat some bagel, and make two poops. What a little jerk! But he is pretty cute and we soon become friends. Back to Day 33: We hang out on a log and watch the clouds get caught on the mountain on the other side of the lake. The sun starts going down so we make dinner (dehydrated curry lentils) and some hot cocoa. We’re both a little sad that we have to leave the next day, but we don’t want any rangers coming and looking for us, so we don’t have much of a choice. Plus, this was just a backpacking trial run to get me started and figure out what we need to do a little bit more efficiently on our bigger adventure.

Day 34

It’s Micah’s birthday, but I don’t really have anything to give her but a hike back. She doesn’t mind though. A birthday out backpacking is pretty sweet. The hike out isn’t as bad. Someone put up a rope to use for crossing the icy river of death, and since it’s early in the hike, the rest seems to be quite easy. Until the end when my everything starts to hurt. I have no clue how people put the backpacks on every day and keep going. I’d much rather hike one or two days, and then stop for a few days without wearing the pack before hiking back out. But even though my everything hurts, we make it out alive, and I’m a better person for it.

We stop in the town of Roslyn for a celebratory birthday/backpacking success beer. The little bar in town has an outside area that literally looks like some poor dude’s backyard. There were pieces of furniture falling apart, the ground was just dirt, there was some garbage over in one corner, and the people hanging out there looked like they’d been there all day. In fact, two of them might have been, as they were already drunk. One of them invited us to a barbeque at his house. There was actually some funny lead up to this where a couple other people came into the back area and started talking to him, and the conversation ended with him saying “I guess I just got invited to a barbeque at my house.” And then he invited us. The other guy back there mentioned how he drinks 10 beers a day, and the doctors tell him he’s in perfect physical health. To point: “I have no cholesterol, 50 beats per minute, and no blood pressure.” Micah pointed out how he must have some blood pressure, a point he conceded.

We then drove back to Issaquah where we had birthday dinner and cake with Micah’s family. It was great, but we were exhausted and wanted to go to sleep very badly. It was a great birthday, full of familiar and odd company alike. I didn’t have a present since I already gave her a bike, so that was somewhat anticlimactic, but it couldn’t be helped. Happy Birthday, Micah.

**Note on the first month: I spent a total of $5.33 sleeping. That was one night of camping at $16, split 3 ways. Other than that (including backpacking, which was free as well thank to the National Park Pass) we haven't spent a dime. Pretty awesome.**

Slanted, not enchanted

Day 22

We sadly depart our little yurt on the goat farm and head for civilization. We take our sweet time leaving though (it was harder than I thought to leave behind a life on the farm), so we don’t get to Portland until the evening. **Note to Stacey: they are looking for help. Open invitation** We weren’t able to get ahold of anyone in the area through couchsurfing, so we ended up in the northwest section of town since someone had recommended a brewery there. We got a pitcher of IPA at Lomoc Brewery, split a garden burger and portobello mushroom burger (I got fries and she chose salad), and happened upon the local trivia night. We stuck around to play, and fared better than I thought we would. I mean, we got last place, but we got 14 out of 30 instead of the 5 I thought we’d get. Notable accomplishments: presidents on Rushmore (I pulled Jefferson out of my butt), the spelling of pterodactyl, and got 1 out of 4 of the Hs in 4H. We then talked to a local group of folks who gave us some advice on things to do around Portland, which we added to our list that other people have been putting together for us.

We walked over to a local coffeehouse for a tea and a brownie (and some wifi), and stayed until closing. Slept on the street. So far so good.

Day 23

We go to a coffee shop in the morning for coffee (Micah), and internet so that I can post photos. This has become somewhat of a routine because they offer one indispensable service: bathrooms. Who doesn’t need to pee first thing in the morning? Typically we get up when Micah’s bladder is ready to burst and we head to a coffee shop. Sometimes, like this morning, she goes without me because I have the tendency to be rather grumpy in the morning hours. Some people I know can attest to this (hint: everyone). It’s pouring rain off and on like the clouds have diarrhea, but since we don’t want to stay in coffee shops all day, we start walking toward downtown.

We duck in and out of shops as the rain dictates, but since we have our rain jackets we can also give the weather the middle finger....as long as we’re OK with soaking wet pants. Some of the little vintage clothing shops are cool, but mostly the shops aren’t that great, and we just move along. Fact: Downtown Portland kind of sucks. This is not an opinion. It’s a fact. Sure, there are plenty of pubs and shops and trinket stores and Powell’s, but 1) there are pubs elsewhere that are better, 2) we don’t have any money for the expensive things in shops, 3) no one needs trinkets, 4) unless you are looking for the weirdest, smallest print run book, you can skip Powell’s - the prices aren’t great, so unless you need something specific, what’s the point?

We ate a packed lunch, which was yummy, and then walked back to the van.

Micah’s friend set us up with one of her friends, Britta, and we ended up going to her house for dinner. We ate with Britta, her boyfriend Guillermo, and some of their friends. They had just been to Olympic National Park (one of our next destinations), and had managed to collect a ton of oysters that they just picked up off the beaches. So we ate oysters and homemade pizza, drank beer and wine, and were merry. They were both really nice people. The other people were OK, but one guy could only speak if he had a story to tell that used the word “awesome” or “amazing,” and two of them never said a word (that I was able to hear). So I bet they were nice, but who the hell knows? We then went with Britta, Guillermo, “awesome” guy, and “awesome” guy’s girlfriend to a concert of Gratatillium. It was their CD release party and they knew one of the dudes in the band. It was pretty good, but people in Portland are a little bit too cool to dance so it was a weird mix of 10-15 people dancing and about 70 people standing around looking cool or disinterested. I feel bad not buying the CD because they were pretty good, but, well, I didn’t buy it. So no use fretting.

We slept in our van out in front of Britta’s house, but the road was kind of on a slant so we woke up pretty crooked.

Day 24

Coffee. Internet. Bathroom.

We took our bikes out because the rain had stopped (FINALLY!!), and biked from the northeast to the southeast section of town up to Mount Tabor. It was a really sweet bike ride, but the uphill dominated me. Micah did fine, but my bike is a little bit small for me, and not as fast as hers, and I’m a wuss I guess. But it was a great ride. Once there we hiked around and got a great view of the city. And then we left because that was really the only thing to do there.

We then biked to Alberta St., which has tons of funky little shops and eateries. Fact: the sections around downtown Portland do not suck. There are tons of great pubs and places to eat all over the place. Plus the vibe is way friendlier and you don’t feel like you’re going to be overrun by people who are just too damn cool. We did the Portland thing and ate at a food cart. See, it’s cool in Portland to have a little section of a block dedicated to several food carts. It’s “the” thing. So we did that. And it was pretty damn good food. Venezuelan I think. Excellent.

After having our fill of walking around we biked back to the van and went to a movie. I’ve been wanting to see “Greenberg” for a long time, and man was it ever fucking worth it. So damn funny. There was one part (and I won’t spoil it because you all must see this movie) that cracked me (and most other people in the theater) up. But I didn’t stop laughing when everyone else did. So Micah shushed me because I just wouldn’t stop (and was apparently laughing a little too loudly). This also marked the second time in a month that I got to drink beer while in a movie theater. This after having never before done this in my life. Great movie, pizza, popcorn, beer. All in one place. Beer + popcorn was only $6.25. I didn’t even want the popcorn that much, but what a good deal! I know some people (Enoch), who would never do this, but how can you pass up a good deal like this?

Then we slept on a slant. It feels like I’m going to tumble down onto Micah at any moment. Starting to get annoying.

Day 25.

Coffee. Bathroom. Reading (no internet needed!).

We head down to Hawthorne St., but I’m fairly grumpy and in no mood for shopping. Micah soon tires of my attitude and we head back. You know, sometimes I just can’t handle the walking into shops and looking at stuff kind of thing. Sometimes it’s fun, but I’m just a little burnt out. I find out later that I think I’m just a little burnt out on doing stuff, but this only occurs to me once I realize that I’m being kind of grumpy no matter what we do.

The best part of the day was going to the Amnesia Brewery, where we got some beers, ate some snacks, and played cribbage out on their patio. That was great. I ended up losing to the best hand you can get in the whole game, but that’s fine. Still fun.

Later on we went around with Britta and Guillermo to these art exhibits that were set up all around the city. They do this on the first Thursdays and Fridays of the month, and plus Britta had a piece in one of the shows. So we got on our bikes and went around, which was awesome. It’s so nice to be able to bike everywhere, and the weather was finally cooperating and giving us clear skies. The first two art exhibits that we went to were pretty terrible, but there were refreshments. The first had Budweiser (in a briefcase), some cookies, muffins, and scones. I tried one of each. Except the Bud. The second place had this vegan rice and bean dish, plus salsa, chips, hummus, and veggies. So I ate a bunch of that too. Then we went to Britta’s exhibit, but they had already closed! Crap! They ended up letting us in to see the pieces, and it’s too bad we only got to look quickly because the ones in this show were a billion times better. Maybe 3 billion times better. Maybe. Then we biked over to a place for dinner. I got mac and cheese, but returned to my semi-grumpy state, so it was only kind of fun. When we went to get our bikes some dude was lighting his glove on fire, which smelled terrible. What an idiot.

Then we slept on a slant. Grrrr.

Day 26

Our last morning in Portland. Britta let us take a shower (felt great), and we went to breakfast. Oh, and we had to buy a bike lock because I nearly broke the key off in the lock that I had brought from home, and we were lucky enough as it was that we were able to unlock our bikes in the first place. Guillermo managed to smash it flat with a rock after I managed to twist it nearly halfway around. We unlocked the bikes, but the next time the key turns it will break in half. So we did that as well. And then we drove off following the Columbia River toward Hood River. We took a hike at a place called Desolation Mountain or something awful. I don’t remember exactly. But it was straight up. Treacherous uphill climb. At the top we got a creek and decided to head back down, foregoing the 6 mile loop. We went out to a lookout that gave me the jeebies (so high up and looking straight down!), took some photos, and made our was down.

In an incredibly intelligent move we got some camping info at Hood River from two of the most useless “Tourist Information” employees I’ve ever seen. As Micah pointed out, “when do you think those two old women last went camping? Ever?”. Good point. But we got some maps, and (this is the good decision) decided not to head to Mt. St. Helen. I really just needed a day to decompress. We got to our campground, picked a spot next to the creek that got some sun (this has been the best day yet as far as weather goes), played some frizbee, and r-e-l-a-x-e-d. Perfect.

Slept pretty close to level. What a nice change of pace.

P.S. The campsite was $10, but their drop box was “out of order” (how is that possible?), and no one came around to collect. Thus, free camping.

Banana Yogurt

Days 15-21

What the hell? A whole bunch of days lumped together? It’s impossible to know what VanGuy was doing each day! I feel lost!

I know this seems disappointing, but I haven’t been writing out the details of each day, so some of it’s a bit of a blur, and I don’t feel like asking Micah what we did each hour of each day, even though she probably would remember. Which is creepy. Speaking of creepy, when we were hanging out with her friend Brad, the two of them happened to know that the last time they saw each other was in April of 07. Without even really thinking about it. I don’t even know where I lived in 07. I’d have to count backwards. But never mind. Some people just have better memories than others.

Ah! But what have we been up to this past week? GOATING! And it’s been one of the best weeks I’ve had in a long, long time. Micah and I have been living peacefully in a yurt out near the little town of Cloverdale in the northern section of the Oregon coast. We’ve been staying with Will and Deb, the parents of our friend Whalen, and they have been the most generous of hosts. Even though we’ve been helping out (I’ll get to that in a bit), they have been housing us, feeding us, beering us (must be a term if you can say “beer me”), and teaching us all about goats and farm life. They’ve also been very understanding about sleep schedules, and that even though I’m living on a farm, I’m eating breakfast after they’ve been up and working for about 5 hours. Again, very nice people.

Micah and I were eager to arrive and start learning about milking and making goat cheese, so that’s where we started. They have 3.5 milking goats (because one had it’s own babies and didn’t have as much milk). I must say, milking is pretty fun. You make a little ring with your fingers up at the top of the teat and close tightly, trapping the milk down in the lower part of the teat. Then you squeeze it out, working from the top down, and then you let go and allow the teat to fill with milk again. Fun! It takes quite a bit of strength, but we got it down pretty quickly (well, Micah got it down perfectly with her left hand, but I’d say her right hand needs to do some more rock climbing exercises to build up endurance). Micah also became the master cheese-maker. Almost every morning she would get the next batch of cheese that was setting, and mix it up with some salt and get it perfect. I think we ate goat cheese with every meal for the first 3 days before accidentally forgetting it when eating some leftover pizza for lunch one day. Micah also became the favorite playmate of the 7 little baby goats. They jumped on her incessantly, smearing pooh everywhere while trying to knock her over. Oh, and that’s the other thing. Nothing we owned was clean by the end of the week. Everything either had dirt (if we were lucky), goat shit or goat urine, sap (ruined Micah’s leggings), wood debris, soot, or peanut butter (I accidentally spilled some peanut butter on my shirt and attempted to lick it off with peanut butter in my mouth. Whoops.). But it was all worth it. We tried to help out as much as we could - we helped plant trees, chop wood, feed the goats, feed the hummingbirds, make and package up the goat cheese, chop down and clear out unwanted shrubbery, help with laundry, sweep up, do dishes, etc. But we never did a fraction of what they did all day long. The only real big help we were was cleaning out the goat barns. See, when someone says, “make the goat beds,” what they really mean is muck out all the shit and urine that’s festering on top of, underneath, and throughout the straw that they sleep on. So Micah and I got out shovels, pitchforks, and rakes, and cleaned out so much goat turd that I nearly barfed twice. The smell was soooooo bad. It was shit and piss that had been living in the cracks of the wood for what seemed like forever. But we made it spotless. Will and Deb, who also work other jobs on top of all the farming (he teaches an alternative education program at the high school and she’s a vet) were very appreciative of what an amazing job we did scraping crusty poop off the floor. It took hours, and it turns out they do that weekly (not as thoroughly as we did, but still).

When we weren’t working, we were doing one of two other things:

Relaxing in the yurt/talking with Will and Deb about life and such.

Going out on trips to the coast for hikes to the beach.

Will took us around town and showed us some of the cool spots along the shoreline. We stopped in a Pelican Brewery for some beer and fries, walked along Wineama beach, and checked out the towns of Pacific City and Cloverdale (which had 3 of its 5 buildings burn while we were up here). Micah and I also took a trip out to Cape Mears, where we saw a bunch of tourists taking a treacherous 0.1 mile hike to a lighthouse giftshop, watched large people picnicking in a patch of grass in the middle of a parking lot (oh, the excitement!), and took pictures of the amazing attire of tourists on Memorial Day Weekend. When we tired of the weirdos we took an actual hike down to the beach where we sat on the rocks and found a bunch of agates without much effort (pretty sweet).

In the yurt we hung out doing crossword puzzles, writing, reading, and accidentally making the place uncomfortably hot with the wood stove. We also played with the dogs (who I named Big Whitey and Jumper because one was very big and white and the other jumped on me), and some of their cats (one of whom I named Lion-O because of his awesome mane and his resemblance to the Thundercat), and baby goats (I was only allowed to name one, and Micah said it was the worst name ever, which I disagree with. Although it’s not the official name (I was overridden), I called my little goat Potato Yogurt.). The only real downside to the trip was that it rained pretty much every day. That was a major drag, but there were moments of clear sky and a bit of sun. Just not very many.

We stayed up many nights thinking about abandoning all other plans and living here with the goats, helping out Will and Deb, and leaving society behind. There was even consideration on Micah’s part of postponing grad school for a year to be out here. It’s just so peaceful. I think we’ve somewhat abandoned the idea of staying here forever, but we do have hopes of returning next summer during Micah’s summer vacation to live out on the farm. It’s pretty sweet out here. Really pretty sweet.

Four last thoughts that I forgot to mention: 1)Micah and I used the wood splitter. It was awesome. 2) We searched everywhere for clam chowder without bacon, and it didn’t exist. 3) Will said “If you wait for the weather in Oregon, you won’t get anything done.” 4) On this leg of the journey we saw two bald eagles, sea lions, and a whale. Now I just need to see a beaver (we saw a dam), and a wolverine and/or badger and I’ll be happy. Also a cougar.

**Pics forthcoming**