The Last Hurrah

6:40 a.m. and nearing two weeks since we arrived back in the Great NorthWest. I still get up naked and join my buddy Jack in our good morning ritual of stretch, morning voice trilling and a watering of the grounds /marking of our territory.  Next there is breakfast for my appreciative brother, and after stoking the slumbering coals in the wood stove , I turn to making the coffee and catch NPR Morning Edition. ---oh yea and put my well worn velour sweat pants on.  This routine hasn’t changed much since we ended our journey to see the Northern parts of the U.S.A. and SE Canada.

The grandeur of Wyoming , the Tetons and Yellowstone are slipping behind the mist of my own personal geyser (my brain).  The embrace of daughter Elena when she greeted us outside her Seattle home on Oct. 21st still seems fresh—there is such joy for me as a dad in seeing my beautiful, intelligent and loving daughters!  I still make the morning coffee, but instead of the French press, I have my Krups coffee grinder for the freshest of grounds, as I pour hot water through the #6 Melitta paper filter.

What have I learned?  What do I miss about being on the road, and what is good about being back in our island home?  Just a few words  on each of those topics:

I learned again about the beauty of this great land of ours, and that of our wonderful Canadian  neighbors.  All of it, from the plains to the mountains and river valleys , Great Lake’s  Basin, and ocean shores.  Its good, strong, productive land peopled by hospitable, kind, hard working , and fun-loving folk.  I  also was reminded of how much fun it is so get up without the nettlesome bill paying and paper work of the staid life, and head out into a new horizon without any real cares and no itinerary.  Next time around (should there be one) I would like to travel with no time restrictions what-so-ever; just keep traveling and working part time jobs till we had our full!  Lastly I found out again just how tough and resilient my mate is, and despite our regular sparring matches over some minutia, how much I like and respect her.  Oh and Jack too was a super star that  was a great travel mate, despite his occasional chasing of squirrels along the way (we don’t have squirrels on San Juan Island, so this was a new quarry for him).

As for being ‘home’ (the road actually felt pretty much like being home) my ‘gizzard’ was warmed through by the greeting we received as we arrived on the 7 pm ferry and into the arms of our ’friday nighters Club’ seated around a large table in one of our favorite watering holes, The Cask and Schooner.  Our family of friends as always, is the bedrock of our life.  I am happy to be back to our hot tub (even though it has a leak somewhere that is nettlesome), our nice big bed, our bidet, and the freedom that Jack has with the run off our 5 acres.

To all our ‘Road Angels’ I give thanks!  You made our journey safe and fun.  To our trusty B150 Econoline Travel Time conversion van; you were terrific!  A  more comfortable, safe, and trustworthy rig, I have not known.  We averaged about 16.5 mpg for our 10,500 journey…not great fuel economy but its other attributes compensated.  We could (and did) pull into the smallest and  most  unlikely of ‘camping’ spots and were able to blend in.  The head space, while I couldn’t stand upright, felt workable and I never did bang my noggen.  The power of the V-8 was great to have, although next time around I will look for a V-6.  The biggest issue with it (small potatoes) was the directional /signal lights on the dash aren’t easily visible, and so Shann often had to remind me to turn them off as we cruised easily at 70mph (of course only if permitted by the law!).  We will probably sell  our van ‘Roosevelt’, and take the moula and stash it for our next go-around---any takers out there?

Thanks for following us on our meanderings and if you are open to a bit of advice here it goes—‘carpi diem’---don’t put ‘IT ‘ off, go do ‘IT’!

steve

Home Sweet Home

On a road trip that was meant to seek beauty, we succeeded. I said we were no strangers to beauty, and this photo essay is to document the first two sweet days of being home. The old Celtic priests believed that the soul needs both travel and home to be complete. I know that is not true for everyone. But it is true of me. Coming back to our own five acres and the trails we built around and through it, with the garden still abounding with chard and kale, the colors of our own oak, ash, aspen, alder and maple turning and the rose hips fat and red and the madrona berries shining against the green leaves of that special tree completed this trip. Our eyes are still fresh. The work of the world has not yet settled over them .

Frog hunting in our pond.

Looking at our own land, with its secret and intimate places, like the mostly dead willow which gives me such deep companionship, and coming down to our own beach. touching my hand back again to the salty surface of the Pacific, I felt the goodness of knowing a place to be home.

San Juan Valley.

Farmer's Market.

Projects that await us.

Our beach.

Oystercatchers.

Looking out toward Victoria and Vancouver Island on the great Salish Sea.

Look carefully. See the mountains, just visible over the clouds? This is the vista that those of us who live in the shadow of the Cascades and Olympics know as intimately as our own reflections. 

The Road Warriors Have Come Home

We left Wyoming like tourists bedazzled and nourished by the splendor of the Louvre or the palaces and castles of the best of human-made structures. Our last three nights of the trip were spent in the van, on the streets of Cody, between Yellowstone and Teton National Parks, and on at a secret spot in eastern Washington.

Our days on the Grand Tour have come to an end. I will miss the simplicity and the focus. I will embrace the sweet comforts of home. Was it worth it? 11,000 miles of seeing our country and the southeast of Canada? I wouldn't trade it. It was the stitched quilt, the tapestry of one six week adventure in a lifetime, of taking the time to see this land from sea to shining sea and having that mean something. It was also being sixty-something on a tour that I took without concern in my twenties, and this time, so aware of how fortunate, how rare a journey. It was trading that experience for all we could buy or save, against every shred of advice in the game. It was being "Alive in the World" as Jackson Browne said.

Even now, when I close my eyes, I see the North Star and trace the lazy W of Cassiopeia. The red rock of Wyoming and flaming colors of the East still light up my mind. Bore Stone Sanctuary in Maine rests deeply in my soul. The people and landscapes of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton and Halifax in Nova Scotia have become three dimensional again.

In the United States, we hear so much more about the countries we are at war with, or disasters. We forget the majesty and miracle of our peaceful neighbor and we take it for granted. And we shouldn't.

America's shared sacred places are her parks. Another realm we should never take for granted. See this important article for more about parks. http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/national-parks-window-america Yes, that means that sometimes too many of us flock to see them (ala our experience at Mt. Desert National Park). But we have received the benediction of the founders of these parks without ever meeting them for they did it for us, the wandering and seeking pilgrims who came to see the amazing sights. My gratitude for them is boundless. My resolve to continue to protect these public areas for those unknown travelers after me is renewed.

For all those who received us warmly, our friends and family, thank you. What a difference it made for us. I wish I could also thank the countless strangers who gave directions and blessing of their own, who opened our way and gave local advice for the wandering ones with the big fluffy dog.

What I will take away is that sense of sacredness of this land. I do believe all lands hold it but I don't know them all. The most prominent and spectacular have been made into parks or mostly protected someway. But every inch in between has that same magic. The city parks, the unused vacant lots, the tiny streams and winter trees.

We went out to see it.

Sitting at the Kellogg Idaho Public Library

Sitting at the Kellogg Idaho Public Library (what an extraordinary institution; the public library!) just a day out of Seattle,and at the near end of our 6+week drive accross America. So many moments that didn't get shared with my 'admiring public'. Following is just a few:

Noticing my 'Lopez Island right index finger off the steering wheel greeting' , as I drove the lonely stretchs of America's blue Highways. So many times, actually most of the time the other drivers would wave back, across the momentary flash of us speeding away from one another. Still a very human touch-in of strangers, that would in all likelihood never get to know each other, sending out a positive little ripple of human kindness.

The Golden Eagle senior citizen card that opened up for no cost, the many national parks and monuments that Ken Burns so well docuemented in his recent series----Its a must see! Boy oh boy the parks are definitely one of Americas best ideas. Watching the mini series made me understsand, probably for the first time, why the Park Service is so militaristic (initially the Parks were policed by the U.S. Cavalry) and based on the huge numbers of visitors, why there have to be so many rules (I am not a good 'rules' person!)

In Chamberlin, S. Dakota, at Michelles Marina Bar on the banks of the Missouri River (which caused massive flooding throughout the region this past summer) talking: bow hunting for deer; shot gunning for pheasant; walleye fishing; golfing; regional beers and how best to drink them; and baseball: a nice pourpouri of local lore to mull over, as wifee and Jack sleep in the van 'out back'.

Looks like we are off again down the road a bit further, before the sun sets, to get us within 'shooting range' of daughter Elena and Seattle by tomorrow afternoon. Wonder where the 'road gods' will lead us to for our last night on the open road? The journey has been rich and the strangers and friends along the way have been embracing. I will hopefully write a summation from our Friday Island home in a few days. My allotted tim on the computer nears its terminus----salude! steve