It’s been too long – I’ve just been living life – and life is good in Cannon Beach.  When I arrived back in April after my first trip back to Austin, I plunged into volunteering at the fabulous Haystack Rock – the icon for Cannon Beach. It’s a National Wildlife Refuge and Marine Garden and only two blocks from my cotage- so it’s a great excuse to play and call it work.  Every day at sunset, you can find an army of camera wielding people – only some of them tourists -waiting for the sun to slide behind the horizon.  Yesterday, in the blink before it disappeared there was the “green flash.”  It obviously has the power to derail a person from posting a new blog or any productive work.   And there are the tide pools and thousands of nesting birds in the spring and summer – even more temptation. 

But it’s not summer anymore and the beach at least has reclaimed its sense of pristine windswept remoteness. 

I’ve been to Austin and back again (October) and I have to say it was one of the most bizarre trips ever.  Classes didn’t “make,”  there was a donnybrook over payment (a satisfactory compromise was reached after much sturm und drang and  emailing…)   One relationship experienced a strange, histrionic demise while others bloomed and some wonderful discoveries were made.  The ultimate distillation of the trip was the realization that my periodic trips have come to a natural cosmos-supported close, just as opportunities are blossoming here. And all is as it should be.  The universe in its infinite order orchestrates the opening of new doors as others close.  This has been an interesting journey as I continue to dismantle aspects of a previous life (websites and an email address I’ve had for 20b years…) and populate a new one  by fine-tuning older proclivities or adding new projects.   I love that doing things I love at the volunteer level have organically morphed into income.  I think that’s the way life is supposed to work.   An idea for a non-profit to keep Ugandan girls in school is  also afoot, but has a lot of development that needs to be done before its launched.  More on that as it evolves.

Gooseneck Barnacles

Meanwhile, back on the beach, volunteering essentially as a Naturalist, I can give myself permission to spend hours at the tide-pools at low tide. That volunteering has turned into a part time job from February through September with a group known as Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP).  We’re there every daytime low tide to protect nesting habitat and educate visitors about the birds and marine life, but I confess – it’s more like play and an endless source or discovery. I’ve become a student all over again:  Above is some gorgeous lacy pink algae and what’s visible of a Sea Star (aka Starfish), with some seaweed mixed in. The cluster to the right that looks a little like dragon’s claws is actually a colony of Gooseneck Barnacles, still a little bit open from feeding.  Who knew that barnacles could be beautiful!

FEED US!

About mid July, I also started working part time at the Visitor’s Center – at least it started as part-time. In a town that boasts a population of about 1800,  summer brings an absolute swarm of tourists that can swell the population to 20,000 on any given day. We are hit with the most amazing array of questions and the occasional calamity and have to think fast.  My favorite inane question so far, from a young college graduate:  “So what time are the tides – I mean – WHO DECIDES THAT?”   Patience and a sense of humor rule the day.  It’s been a steep learning curve to tell people about an area I, myself, am just learning – but that’s half the fun.   Another perk:  this little nest of barn swallows that made a home just to the left of the entrance!   Trying to capture the perfect shot of these little hatchlings,  the mom flew by just as I snapped and all the mouths opened. 

When Brett moved to area 10 years I knew his enchantment with the area meant he’d never leave.   I’m beginning to understand it.  I love my coast better than his trees and mountain, but it’s all available and I bought some trekking poles to hike when the wind on the beach is so strong it blows sand in your teeth.  Winds of 80-120 mph are not unusual.  The forest offers other treasures, one being edible mushrooms, but I’ve not explored that aspect except in pictures. If this orange fungus is what I think it is – it’s edible when it’s “young and fresh…”  But I think I’ll pass.

Amid all the flurry or tourism and visits from friends,  much of Oregon burned over the summer and tourists here were unhappy about the burn-ban.  Really?  In other news,  Marijuana has been legalized and small Cannabis Boutiques have sprung up all over. I haven’t sampled them yet.   Toward the end of the summer, we were blessed with an invasion of Humpbacks – cavorting, breaching, diving and generally enjoying a feeding frenzy very close to shore.  They were accompanied by porpoises (rare here), sea lions and the occasional Orca!   Unfortunately,  they were driven closer to shore because of a bizarre low-nutrient warm water mass given the scientific name of “The Blob” and that’s a scary thing from an ecological perspective.

So here we are at run-up to the holidays and I’m glad to be out of the fray.   Cannon Beach is a little burg decorated with lights and trees, but none of the hype of bigger cities.  When they say this area is rural,  they mean it.  Christmas tree lots are just beginning to show up.  There’s only one radio station I can tune in – courtesy of the sandwiching of the area between the sea and the Cascades – and on that single station, I’ve heard not a single Christmas carol.  And speaking of reception, Verizon is the only network that works reliably, so if you come with anything else, you essentially don’t have a phone. It’s a rude awakening for some – but in that regard, Uganda was good training.   I appreciate the slower approach and waiting till after Thanksgiving to sell Christmas.  A big day out shopping here is a trip to Costco and Fred Myer and all the rest happens at small, locally owned stores. 

So that’s the news from the strange and wonderful world of Oregon. Wishing you all Happy Holidays to come,  whatever your holiday is called!

Forget the big-girl-panties…..  I went for the jock-strap and channeled my “inner-trucker.”  It seems to have worked.  My good friend Karla from Peace Corps has achieved sainthood status because she flew over to make the trip with me.  Not sure what I did to deserve this generosity, but I picked her up on Saturday and now, here we are in Oregon.  How will I ever thank her!

Driving the truck back on Sunday after loading was a little like it must feel taking your first step on a tight-rope while holding an elephant by the tail.   I was scared to even attempt the steep hill going to Lizzie’s house, but the only other option was to drive half way around Austin to avoid it.  I was relieved to discover it did not in fact stall half way up as I had imagined….

Karla and I with our weapon of choice

And  I’m sure you all will be glad to know we heeded suggestions that we take a weapon for self-defense. Refusing recommendations of a gun, pepper spray or wasp/bear spray we opted for a fierce hand-rake that presented itself during loading.    Soon every car will be equipped with one.

From that inauspiciously fearful beginning, we have now accomplished a 45 hour drive of  roughly 2400 miles,  transiting Texas, New Mexico, a corner of Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Oregon in a truck with a gasoline addiction resulting in the consumption of 350 gallons of gas (8 mpg). We accomplished the entire trip in what seemed to be a state of grace. Karla’s navigating saved the day and made it possible without total madness and the purchase of a female-voiced Garmin navigator we named Garmina has made me fall in love with technology.  Interesting sights along the way kept us totally engaged and entertained.

Driving through the desolate no-man’s-land of West Texas we crested a hill and had to immediately dodge the debris of a blown-out tire. While still wondering what vehicle had survived that blow-out, the other side of the hill offered up a scene right out of a fifties’ movie:  two ancient white school buses snugged up to each other facing opposite directions and surrounded by six grim looking armed guards  policing the transfer of prisoners.   We didn’t think it wise to stop for pictures.

We continued on for a total of thirteen hours that day and settled into a routine. On every trip concessions must be made to accommodate space and time limitations.  On this trip, there was no CD player for books on tape or music.  But with Karla – for whom every site triggers a song,  there was always music.  For me, it’s stories, so between songs and tall-tales, we managed to keep each other entertained, if not a little crazed.  One of those concessions was not about to be good coffee, so at each unloading of more bags than a traveling circus, the one with coffee, french press and fixin’s plus an ice box with the half-and-half had highest priority.  Waking up at 5:30 each morning – usually with a headache brought on by driving 10 hours the day before – yours truly (that would be me) greeted the day with a primal scream for coffee and started the ritual of figuring out how to make said coffee using the various contraptions available on site.  Some mornings required a heating element purchased in Mexico, some resulted in messes that could only be described as volcanic, and others employed various contraptions mimicking a stone-age Starbucks. All required the focus of a chemist.   But in the end – there was C-O-F-F-E-E to jump start the process of cognition sufficient to transit another 500 miles.

There were bizarre moments of mental lapses so aberrant that – had I been elsewhere – might have resulted in a scene out of One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest.   Consumed in an examination of a lever I’d already used for a day, but which boasted a sign for a device  about which I know nothing – I asked in the most earnest of voices “what do you think this lever is for… it looks like it has a purpose”  Karla, looking incredulous and more than a little spooked at the prospect of continuing another 2000 miles with this mad woman, suggested it might be for shifting gears, at which point a deafening silence ensued. The incapacitating laughter that erupted when I came out of the time warp returns unbidden every time we think about it.  Some things are simply inexplicable.   Maybe we were just preparing for Roswell of alien fame.  We hadn’t originally planned that stop, but as the route unfolded,  Jeannie’s directions brought us right through Roswell and its ubiquitous supply of “little green men.” This one was the greeter at the Motel 6.

After a night in a dank and smoke infested Roswell Motel 6 (the alien was of no help) we managed to  arrive in Albuquerque to meet up with another Peace Corp friend, Jeannie and had a great visit.  Wish we had a friend like Jeannie at every stop along the way as she really made us feel so welcome and well cared for.  Professional truckers that we are and each of us taking care of different things, not always checking in with the other – we drove out of Albuquerque on Day 2 to the sound of a small horn beeping behind us only to discover that Jeannie was not just giving us a a grand send- off, but warning us that we’d left the back of the truck open!  How the mighty truckers had fallen and been reduced once again to the realm of mere mortals.   So grateful were we that our stupidity was discovered before we got on the highway, that we almost forgot to be embarrassed.  Thanks to Jeannie we were spared the abject humiliation of it happening it 8 o’clock Albuquerque traffic.

Shortly after that fiasco – laughing all the way – Jeannie’s improved routing took us past a resort where eight hot-air balloons were readying for lift off against the morning sky.  Spectacular.  The scenery that took us up to Colorado gave truth to New Mexico’s title as the Land of Enchantment.

Colorado was surprising in that we went across the southwest corner that looks like a moonscape with desolate buff-gray rounded land forms that gave way to Utah and its jaw-dropping surreal landscapes of red rock sculptures, arches and canyons.  Just as we thought it couldn’t get any more spectacular,  dramatic dark cloud formations dumping swaths of rain danced across the horizon occasionally gracing us with a shower to clean off the dust collected along the way.

Getting through Provo and Boise, Idaho kept us on our toes as we kept the U-Haul, newly christened Guadalupe after Our of Guadalupe (you can’t drive something 2400 miles without giving it a name) moving forward as Garmina would periodically remind us to “stay on road.”    Who would have guessed she had a sense of humor?    I wish her expertise extended to motels, because the next night we landed at a new and improved version of Motel 6 where the AC abandoned us.  That made us determined to find another option,  so we  reserved a room at the lovely looking Dunes Motel in Hillsboro (the coast having NO VACANCIES because of the holiday) and arrived to discover it surrounded by yellow hazard tape and absent siding.  Photo-shop is a grand invention.

Road signs and place markers did their part to keep us entertained and wondering about the fate they suggested: Dismal Nitch, Dead Horse Canyon, Starvation Road, Poverty Lane, Hells Bend and Humbug Cove.

And Guadalupe never met a gas pump she didn’t love.  We spent a lot of time nurturing her addiction. Gas prices got worse as we went west and we spent about $1200 feeding our trusty transport.  But otherwise, she treated us well and was surprisingly comfortable, if you don’t count needing back support for the driver. At the last minute, Liz donated a bath mat that served that purpose.  Improvisation turned out to be a valuable skill on this trip.

Coming into Oregon from the south east was shocking as we saw a part of the state that echoed the moon-scape feel of parts of Colorado, Texas and Utah, punctuated by hundreds of towering white wind turbines turning against the back drop of a bluebird sky.

Driving under the Welcome to Oregon arch gave me chill-bumps as I realized how long I have planned for and thought about this move.  When the Columbia River and Mount Hood came into view it was nothing short of a spiritual experience.

We abandoned Garmina’s logical best-route commands when I decided to turn off and take the back way into Portland via Mt. Hood and Timberline to visit Brett.  I couldn’t possibly be that close and opt for logic over heart and miss the opportunity to hug Brett in celebration of arrival.  Approaching 11,000 feet,  Guadalupe gasped a little, but pulled her weight and made it up the winding roads without a glitch.  Getting to the top caused some angst when I realized I would have to get her down 6% slopes without riding the brakes.  We managed to piss-off a few drivers behind us, but put her in  low gear and snaked our way down.

No U-Haul trip would be complete without navigating and taking a wrong turn in a city during rush-hour the Friday before a holiday.   We obliged and thought we might implode from hysterical stress-induced laughing as we squeezed across a two land winding bridge tailgated by a schoolbus full of football players.  The driver had the good sense not to pass us, knowing no doubt that the drivers didn’t know what they were doing – a generalized assumption about U-Haul drivers that is probably well deserved.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the trip thus far has felt truly blessed.  At every juncture, it has been easier than expected.  When there was threatening weather all around us,  the road through it seemed to open up.  Guadalupe has been comfortable and accommodating, despite her guzzling addition to gasoline.  The loading was so well organized that nothing appears to have shifted and there have only been two  glitches in routing over the entire route.  We’ve laughed more than I thought possible, eaten some truly awful combinations of food (fried chicken, corn dogs, Cheetos, road food) …..   OK – so the food has not been so blessed.  But otherwise it has been a remarkable journey and the rest of it is just beginning.

We have checked out Astoria, a major seaport at the mouth of the Columbia River, Seaside and Cannon Beach for rental possibilities, but of course everything is closed for Labor Day weekend and no one has returned calls since property management companies are closed.  Flexibility being the byword here,  we spent the day at the Japanese Garden and Rose Garden in Portland.   Tomorrow we’ll explore Lincoln City and on Tuesday hopefully there will be some movement!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being in an empty airport all night is an experience.  Those of you who saw the YouTube of the man trapped in the Vegas airport filming his own music video with Celine Dion’s “All by Myself,” may have wondered how he got all those shots with NO ONE in the background…  Well – here’s San Francisco’s airport to the right.  

An interesting re-discovery of US air carriers was the fact that even on a 5 hour flight, there’s no free lunch – not even peanuts. Contrast this with Ethiopian Airlines that managed  a three course complimentary meal complete with wine on a three hour flight.  However, customs in San Francisco was thankfully easy, and I hoped this bode well for over-nighting in an empty airport while I waited for a 5:50 AM connecting flight to Oregon.  The gift in that was being met by the sweet PCV friend who had to return to the States after being hit by the drunk driver in Uganda.  The last time I saw her she was packaged ready for MedeVac to South Africa.  What a great reunion! But that still left 6 sleepless hours. 

Such an environment is ripe for introspection and remembering other airports, other trips, and other transitions. I realized I’ve lived in each of the four corners of the US and then some:  Lousiana/Texas,   Florida, Southern California, West Virginia and soon – Oregon.  I don’t know that that says anything in particular – just part of the Gypsy mentality I guess.  

The walk I took yesterday afternoon through one of the amazing forests near Mt. Hood and along the Salmon River triggered an awareness of the contrasts inherent in the last two places in particular: the heat, sunlight, blindingly white

sand and  turquoise waters of Playa to the cool,  fern covered, moss draped banks along the tumbling waters of the Salmon River.  And it all shifted in a day’s time – a real statement about the times in which we live.  Things, places and situations can change in a heartbeat.  

A good Peace Corps friend of mine reminded metoday of where we were on July 4th one year ago:   Zanzabar!  I have tended to fold my memories of Peace Corps into one envelope labeled Uganda and it feels like it was both yesterday and in the far past – yet it was only a year ago.   I’d lost this beautiful memory of a fabulous time with friends in the over-arching memory of the difficulty of living in Uganda.  That’s a loss,  but it has colored my perceptions of the present and my ideas of the future, which unfolds in front of me like one of those sticky fruits roles where every little bit that unrolls is stuck to what preceeds it.

As I acclimate to the “first world,” having used Mexico as a transition to lessen the incoherence between the third world and this one, I gradually shed or at least become aware of the baggage brought with me – the stuff sticking to me. While in Uganda, I never went out after dark: too dangerous.  In Mexico, I began poking my head out and discovering there’s really not a boogeyman in every shadow.   In Playa I went to a friends’ house for breakfast and coffee and realized I was scooping up the extra salt on the plate – leaving no grain behind – only after my friend said, “You know you don’t have to clean the plate – you’re not in Uganda anymore.”  There are other holdovers:  a continuing – though reduced – hyper-vigilence, conservation of every resource, meticulous management of consumables – not quite realizing things are readily available and don’t have to come in care packages, dread and hyper-preparedness around travel.  Now in the States I marvel that I can drink water from the tap and it’s OK to take a bath because I won’t drain the water tank doing it – not that I had a bathtub there anyway.  

Since I now have a US phone, I suppose that makes me a citizen again – albeit not a very active one because  I don’t exactly know how to use it.   It turns off at its own will – not mine, and seems to have a prima-dona attitude,  unlike those tough  little phones in Uganda that tolerated being dropped in the mud, coming apart in three pieces and still working when you put them back together.  It beeps at me for reasons unknown  – I don’t know it’s beep-language yet, it not being English, Spanish or Acholi.   But time heals all wounds – or  wounds all heels – right?  I suppose I will catch up, but am not at all sure that’s what I want to do.  

So here I am in Welches, Oregon at the base of Mt. Hood where the beauty almost makes you weep – the pure richness and accessibility of it – picturesque little towns, bright purple and pink baskets of Petunias, giant evergreens and trails populated with families carefree enough to hike in the woods with the family dog, cold water rapids from melting snow.  I suppose in part it’s being in a culture where despite our problems and the complexity of life, we have enough disposable income and time and feel safe enough to go climb a mountain,  to travel, to expend energy in ways other than finding food and to think about what we’d like to do rather than endure what life has dished out.

What strikes me as one of the most salient characteristics of the developed world is the presence of choice.  It doesn’t mean that those choices are easy or that we even recognize the reality of their existence, but for the most part, they are there in every breath.  It includes things as mundane as food choices: not IF we can eat,  but which of many possibilities are we in the mood for.   The down side is that few realize just how much opportunity to choose we have on a moment to moment basis and therefore don’t really exercise the right to choose, living instead by default.

So, in gratitude –  here’s to choice and all that that entails, including the responsibility to choose wisely and often lest the freedom inherent in the privilege is lost.

Happy 4th of July!