The Myth & The Majesty

It doesn't matter. That's it. ... ... Allow me to explain. Nothing about my perspective on a week or a month or even a year is what it was in 2012. When I first logged on to Facebook today, it was to multiple reminders that yes, today is Halloween. I had managed to completely forget: you see, I live/work with the same 3 (4) people and Halloween is kind of a nonissue here. We're too far off the beaten track for trick-or-treaters, and while I could come to work in costume, it would be weird. Since we don't have guests at the moment, it's really just the last day of the month. [I did make a run to Walmart, where I came across a guy dressed head to toe in white spandex. Halloween ... or just another Walmart patron? Judge for yourself.] Weekends mean very little. In the summer, they blend in with the rest of the week (although summer weekends generally-but-not-always mean a different variety of guest); in the not-summer, weekends are usually our occupied tim...

This is a continuation, of sorts, of Journey To The Mountain . *  At 7:15 that night, I was standing in the Pacific Ocean. This was a first for me. I'd never seen the Pacific from this side -- and I'd never stood in it at all. For that matter, my only glimpses before had been from airplanes and through Chinese smog because my taxi driver had taken a wrong turn. But here I was. I had still felt a little shell-shocked as I left Mount Saint Helens behind me; two hours later, I found myself on highway 101, the cure of an ocean view alongside my car. This was, among other things, the furthest west I'd been on this continent. A dubious honor, since it had taken  me nearly thirty years to get there -- but I'd made it. I was 1,000 miles from home and I had another eight days before I'd be back ... I had more mountains to drive through, and desert, and as it turned out some rather interesting weather. Right then, though, I was happy. I had a gorgeous p...

It's fall, and I have writer's block. Okay, let's not get carried away. I have blogger's block. It's different, mostly in the fact that it matters a whole lot less. In any case, here I sit, nearing the end of October, things having mostly returned to normal. Well, fall normal, which is new to me. I still have a lot of Great Western Trek things to tell you but when I attempt to write, it mostly sounds like an 8-year-old's "What I Did This Summer" essay. And my usual day-to-day stuff is ... well, not interesting. Not interesting at all. But here I am. Strictly speaking, there are other things I should be doing right now anyway. Like cleaning my house in preparation for fall decorating. Searching for plane tickets for Mia Sorella's wedding. Gathering recipes for Thanksgiving. Really, doing anything for Thanksgiving since I get to host this year. Christmas shopping. Baking something. Reading. Calling my mother. (Okay, scratch that one, it'...

So the last month was what I'll call a learning experience. Make that Learning Experience. (I could capitalize it all, but you get the idea.) And although things worked out here for the better ... eventually ... it also showed me how unprepared I really was.   So. Before this happens again ...   Things I Will Make Sure I Have On Hand 1. Dry shampoo. As it turns out, not so deep down I'm an incredible girly-girl. 2. Some form of breakfast bar, so at least one meal each day doesn't have to be junk food. 3. A headlamp. (Maybe I should upgrade from the tiny one I do have ... Or at least find that one.) 4. A crank radio. (Need to get one of those...) 5. Batteries. For everything. And then a few more, just in case. 6. My journal! Because wow, do I get antsy if I can't sit back and write at least a little. Also: Things I Will Do 1. LAUNDRY. 2. All of my dirty dishes. 3. Charge my phone. And probably my camera battery. 4. Park my car in the garage, w...

"Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" I was quite young when I first heard of Mount Saint Helens.  Yes, another bridge. Just a few miles into Washington on I-5. It had erupted four years before I was born; when I first started school, it was still a relatively recent memory, much as 9/11 is still fresh for many of us. Growing up in the house I did, it was the kind of thing I heard about when Dad was watching the Discovery Channel or Mom took us to the library. And being the science geek I've always been, it was the sort of topic I went looking for in said library. I was fascinated by how the eruption had played out, from the studies of the mountain for the weeks prior to the things that had made it so different. As I got older, I found myself equally fascinated by the scientist that had announced the explosion.  Johnston at the Coldwater II site a few hours before his death. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia . David A. Johnston was 30 years old when the er...

My fascination with Portland began with a bookstore. It's true -- I'm just that big a nerd. The bottom line was that I hadn't really considered it as a vacation destination until Daz visited years ago and brought me a map. A map to a bookstore. A map to a bookstore that took up an entire city block. And so it was that on my very first morning in Oregon, I had exactly one thing to accomplish: I was going to Powell's . I'd feel a bit sheepish that the whole reason I wanted to drive 1500 miles was to go to a bookstore, but, well, that was really my motivation. That first morning, I rode along with Katie and Evie to Evie's (regularly scheduled) doctor's appointment, then made my way to the light rail (which would have been easier if the station at the hospital wasn't closed, but hey, it all worked out). And before long, I was downtown, across the street from the first of my trip's bucket list items.  It. Was. Awesome. Keeping in mind...

And now, we return you to your regularly scheduled program...  * Eastern Washington reminds me quite a bit of eastern South Dakota. And eastern Wyoming. And pretty much all of Nebraska and Iowa. What I mean is ... it's pretty flat and open. Not entirely flat, not watch-your-dog-run-away-for-three-days flat, but pretty flat. And dry. And ... well, not exactly an interesting drive, although it was nice to get out in the open after a couple solid days in the mountains. Having woken up in Spokane, though, there was really only one logical route to Portland -- and that took me right through eastern Washington. But then ... Then you cross the Columbia River. Only one member of my party died! Even though everyone got cholera from those dang berries...     Whoops. I mean...   I may have gone a tad overboard with pictures taken JUST to get Mt. Hood in the background. Easily the best part of the 350-mile trek from Spokane to Portland is ...

Thanks to some repostings on Facebook, I've gotten a bit more traffic than usual. So while you're here, I'd like to point out the folks out there that kept the world moving last week. 1. The power crews. Oh, the power crews. Thank you SO MUCH for your many, many hours of work to get the Hills back up and running. There are so many stories out there about how many poles were down to get to one house or how deep the snow was or how many trees had to be cut first -- so thank you to the co-op crews, the BHP crews, and the crews that came from other co-ops to get work done. 2. Everyone working in Rapid who got stuck there. From the employees that ended up staying at the hotels where they worked to Gunner, the KFXS radio DJ that kept us sane, it seemed there were as many people stranded away from home as there were at home. But you kept truckin', so to speak, and made life easier for the rest of us. (In particular, we can't say enough good things for the staff...

This is the last in my "official" pieces on the 2013 October Blizzard. The first two are here and here , if you'd like to read about how things went down at the camp.  *  The next few days would seem entirely surreal in retrospect. Everyone had been affected, and it seemed that even on Tuesday (four days after the snow stopped falling) I talked only to people who still didn't have power. The people working at the hotel where we'd crashed the night before were also staying there because their homes were without power; the guy who made my coffee was relieved to come to work where the toilets worked. The woman working at the outdoor store and I talked for a full twenty minutes about our lack of power and how our neighborhoods had fared. But what was truly astonishing were the stories from the ranchers. My great-uncle's funeral brought together a huge contingent of area ranchers, and the two topics were Uncle Marion and the blizzard, usually in that ...

This is a continuation of my first storm post, The Wrath Of Atlas . Day 3 Man makes plans ... and God laughs. -Michael Chabon It was at the 51-hour mark that I awoke on Sunday and slowly got moving. By now, we had a routine, of sorts. Coffee from melted ice-machine-ice and instant packets. Oatmeal or one of yesterday's cinnamon rolls. Then snow to melt so we could use the commodes. Plowing to be attempted. Waiting to be done. The guys had headed out not long after I'd finally rolled off my couch to attempt plowing the now-much-slushier road. The Chef Lady and I busied ourselves with what we could inside Allison. The day dragged. There's a certain point where you hit a wall -- after the eighteenth pot of melted snow, after ten sudoku puzzles, halfway through your second book -- and you start to lament your lost days. We were supposed to have had guests this weekend; thankfully, the storm had hit at a time where they didn't get stuck here, too. We should b...

Day 1 The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for the following counties in western South Dakota ... Lawrence, Meade, Pennington ... Expect high winds, snow accumulation up to 30" ... No travel advised ... It was a little before 5AM when the trouble started. Scratch that. The trouble started much earlier in the week, when the weathermen couldn't agree on how much snow was going to fall. Depending on who and when you watched -- and where exactly you lived -- the prediction varied from one to thirty inches of snow. One to thirty. While the amount was a point of contention, it was universally acknowledged that yes, it WOULD snow on Friday. 100% chance. So we planned accordingly. Errands that would have been delayed were taken care of on Wednesday or Thursday. Guests were warned. The fact that the plow was in town being repaired was lamented -- but the M-Man had his back-ups ready. You see, we'd never really been snowed in before. Mother N...

If you've seen anything on the weather here, you know we've had an intense week. I'll have a lot more to say about all of it later on. For now -- we're good, we're safe, and we can get in and out. There's been a fair bit of tree carnage, but otherwise, the camp is okay. Like so many out here, there's quite a bit more of a story behind all of that. But for now, I'll leave that as a "to be continued." Have a good week, all.

A week after returning, I feel as though I never really left. Not that I'm feeling restless already or anything. In fact, it feels good to have settled back into a not-summer schedule (because I can never call it a routine). Especially now that we've come to autumn, my favorite season for food, smells, weather... It is this weather, though, far more restless than me, that has me sitting at home tonight. We've been promised two to 22 inches of snow over the next 36 hours; for now, it's rainy and cold, the kind of night for hot chocolate and a movie. And, in my case, chips and guacamole and setup of my new work computer. While it runs through its numerous restarts, I sort through pictures, feeling more nerdy than ever -- two laptops running on my coffee table, "Lord of the Rings" on my television. ... Maybe I should dig out a chick flick. Eesh.

I first fell in love with Big Sky Country in 2005, when my family stayed in Gardiner, the tiny town at the north entrance to Yellowstone. At the time, it was partially due to my restless mind, as I had returned from Russia only a couple weeks before. In Gardiner, I had found a quiet but active little town and the kind of setting my exhausted brain needed to recover. Yellowstone as a whole was a reprieve, one I had protested when I realized we'd be taking this family vacation right after my trek to Russia. In the end, though, it had left me energized -- in no small part thanks to a little town that had seemed fairly ignorant of the noisy tourists on their way to the geysers. That love extended as I made my way through the state. Cities along I-90 here are stunning through no effort of their own. Every one of them gets the elegant backdrop of this or that mountain range, and after that it's just a matter of not making a mess. This was partially why I had chosen to camp whe...