Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 31

Yellowstone National Park

You know how to find a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park? Just look for the traffic jam.

Sadly, that is not actually a joke. I didn’t take any pictures of the grizzly bear I saw, because I would have had to park along the road with dozens of other cars and my picture really would have been of lots of people taking pictures of a brown shape lumbering away off in the distance. Still, it was cool to see.

I also didn’t take any pictures of any of the elk I saw, not even the baby, or the mama bison with her baby for roughly the same reason. (The baby bison was so, so cute, though. Baby bison are adorable!) There are plenty of places to pull off the road and take pictures in Yellowstone, but on a Saturday and Sunday in June, they usually had plenty of cars in them. I admired the animals on my own slow drive-bys, but I didn’t stop.

[image error]The only animal I took a picture of was this bison, because it was wandering near the campground.

It was still incredibly beautiful. And immense! I knew in my head how big Yellowstone was (bigger than the smallest two states), but driving through it makes it a lot more obvious. It did feel like I was driving through a state, one with spectacular scenery, snow-capped mountains, gorgeous blue lakes, and plenty of trees. Also plenty of people, but that’s how it goes.

And that was not a disadvantage for me, mostly. Remember my foreshadowing? On Saturday, I managed to snag a camping spot for the night at Norris Campground. The spot was small and slightly sloped, and the campground was full, but it was still Yellowstone. I actually took that picture of a bison from within the campground, while Z and I were out taking a walk. ( I don’t have a better one because Z was highly disinclined to sit still while I played at photography. )

My plan was to leave the campground as early as possible Sunday morning and head to Old Faithful, hoping to beat the crowds there. I’m willing to guess that even if all had gone as planned, there would have been no way to beat the crowds. And all did not go as planned. As I drove away from my campsite, the van started making a funny noise.

My first thought was that I’d left something loose in the back. I paused and did a quick check — what could be rattling around? But the silverware drawer (always a likely suspect) was closed, and there was nothing visibly loose and rolling. So I drove a little farther. Nope, definitely a weird noise. Paused the van again and checked the fan — could something have gotten stuck in it? I turned the fan off, just in case it was a problem with the cover rattling, and thought grim thoughts about hail storms and broken roof attachments. I started driving again and it was clear that turning the fan off had done nothing. So I paused again, in the middle of the road, and got out to walk around the van.

The problem was obvious, as soon as I crouched down and looked underneath. A metal bracket was dragging on the ground. I think — and I admit, I’m mostly guessing — I think it is a bracket for the generator, to hold the generator in place. Whatever it is, it’s not the kind of thing that you want scraping along the ground, as opposed to doing its job.

I thought bad words. I thought about wire and duct tape and zip ties and bungee cords. I thought about finding RV service places in the middle of an enormous park, at least fifty miles away from anything, and how much it was likely to cost to have someone come fix it, but how very bad it might get if that piece entirely stopped doing its job. And then I thought that at the very least, I needed to get out of the middle of the only road around that campground loop, so I carefully, slowly, drove down to the parking lot.

And the advantages of being in a crowded place immediately showed up. I’m going to guess that I had my head under the van for under five minutes, still trying to figure out what exactly this piece was and what it needed to attach to when a nice guy wandered over and said, “You need help?”

Yep, I needed help. He took a look, told me there had to be a piece with a bolt in it somewhere along my path, but that he’d zip tie it up for me in the meantime. I went back to the campsite where I promptly found a long metal rod with a bend at one end and a bolt at the other, and by the time I made it back to the parking lot, he’d already zip-tied the piece back in place. I showed him the piece and he said he needed to get his trailer set up, but he’d try to come back and help me with it.

I spent the next while waiting, while also figuring out how the piece worked, where it was supposed to fit, how it needed to go back into place, and trying to get the bolt loose. Basically the bent end of the rod hooked over a hole in an attachment on the frame while the bolt end was attached to the dangling piece. I have no idea why it worked its way loose in Yellowstone — I didn’t hit anything and I didn’t hear anything on the drive there — but I suspect my bumpy drive in Gallatin had at least a little to do with the problem. I theorize that it had come loose from the frame (maybe during the crunch I had in eastern Oregon several weeks ago) but was caught on one of the wires or hoses, and the bumpy road plus the slope of the campsite was enough to finally shake it free.

Anyway, I was just starting to reach the point of thinking that Helpful Guy #1 must have gotten busy with kids or campsite set-up or his own responsibilities and forgotten about me, when Helpful Guy #2 showed up. I showed him the problem and he went off to his campsite and came back with a set of wrenches. He told me he’d been carrying it around for 15 years and this was the first time he’d ever used it. I laughed and told him that my collection of tools was always for the last problem I’d had, never for the one I was currently having. But he loosened the bolt from the rod, and then we put it back into place, he tightened it up for me, and I was good to go.

It was a very satisfying outcome to a morning that had started out with an unpleasant sinking feeling. I think that unpleasant sinking feeling comes with some associated energy costs, though: the adrenaline high of “Oh, no, scary problem that must be dealt with immediately,” turned into an energy crash soon thereafter. By the time I’d made my way to Old Faithful and watched it spout on schedule (along with a thousand or so other people), I was seriously tired, and so sick of crowds of people. I like people-watching normally. I love situations where I can watch families and speculate on what they’re like, what their stories are. But not Sunday. I just wanted to be in a quiet place away from strangers, even nice helpful friendly strangers. So I got on the road and started driving.

It was another completely beautiful drive, this time into Wyoming. I was headed to Cody, where I planned to turn north to Billings. But along the way, I kept passing campgrounds and thinking, “I could stop there.” And when I’d been stuck behind a person going 55 in a 70MPH for a half hour that felt more like two, I let the impulse take me into the driveway of the North Fork of Buffalo Bill State Park.

There is no possible photo that could do this park justice, because it is one of those places with spectacular scenery in all directions. Also huge campsites, absurdly easy to get into. They’re all pull-through spots, parallel to huge grassy fields. My current spot could easily fit an enormous bus. And although I paid $35 for a water/electric spot, I’m actually worried about the water pressure — it blasts out so fast and hard that even with a pressure adapter on my hose, I feel like it might break something. That said, the water is delicious, so I am going to try to fill up my water jugs without getting too wet in the process. I think it’s the first time that I’ve ever had campground water that was noticeably good. (I’m not really a water snob, but I do notice what water tastes like.)

[image error]One angle on the view at Buffalo Bill State Park, Wyoming

The showers were pay showers — $1.75 in quarters got me five minutes worth of water — but private, clean, and with (unsurprisingly!) excellent water pressure.

In fact, I liked the campground enough that I seriously considered taking a rest day. I’m still not entirely sure what my plan for this trip is — I seem to be vacationing an awful lot, instead of trying to figure out how to write (fiction) while on the road. Somehow, though, I found myself clean, packed up, and ready to go by 10AM.

Answer: Too Badly

The question was: how badly did I want my surprisingly comfortable, $29.99 CostCo chair? Badly enough to try to order it online, absolutely. Alas, it wasn’t on their website. But badly enough to return to CostCo for a third day in a row?

It took me a while to decide, but I really wanted that chair. That said, I definitely wasn’t paying resort prices for a campground for a second night. It was time to hit the wilds. Off I drove, into Gallantin National Forest, and a land of roads with no names, just numbers. Directly south of Bozeman, three campgrounds border the Hyalite Reservoir. The first one looked nice, but a review said the second one was great, if you were willing to drive along a bumpy, rutted dirt road for a while.

Bumpy roads? No problem, I’ve done that before. (This was probably a bad decision but I wouldn’t know that for a while. ) And that campground, Hood Creek, looked fantastic. Narrow, winding roads, but the campsites were on different levels, bordering the water, laid out for privacy and views. Unfortunately, it was noon on a Friday in June, and I was too late: the campground was full. The camp host suggested I give the next one down the road, Chisholm, a try.

I did. And… it was not great. It wasn’t horrible, but the available sites didn’t have water access or views or anything. It was $20 for your basic parking spot in the woods. I was tempted to keep driving. Maybe the first campground I’d passed would have an available spot? Maybe a campground back on the road to Yellowstone would be better? But I had no cell service, so no internet to research my options, and the skies were looking gray. Plus, well… I really wanted that chair. If I kept driving, I’d have farther to go to get back to get it. So I settled in with a book or two. (I’m currently reading everything Martha Wells has written, because I liked the Murderbot Diaries so much).

[image error]My campsite: a parking spot in the woods, basically.

Within the hour, it started to hail. I like the sound of rain on Serenity’s roof. I am not so fond of the sound of hail on Serenity’s roof. It’s funny how much a seemingly minor increase in volume can change a noise from comforting to threatening. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it, so I read my book and waited for it to stop. To the best of my knowledge, the van survived just fine. Of course, I have no way to actually get on the roof and check for damage, but eh. I’m going to assume it’s fine. If it’s not, I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.

After the hail, the sky cleared. I kept my nose mostly buried in my book and bright and early the next morning headed back on that bumpy, bumpy road for the 45 minute drive to CostCo.

*Sigh.*

I shouldn’t have been surprised, really. When I took S to CostCo in Eureka, I told her that if you see something you want at CostCo, you should always buy it right away because there’s no guarantee that you will ever see it again. A third helpful employee tried to help me find the chair I was looking for, but this time, it was like it never existed at all. She let me look over her shoulder while she searched her computer for variations on camping chair, backpacking chair, outside chair, but nothing matched the one I’d seen on Thursday. It was the magical disappearing chair. I should have known that a comfortable camping chair for $29.99 was too good to be true.

The good news, though, was that instead of driving to Yellowstone in a hail storm, I got to drive there on an absolutely beautiful, blue sky, perfect weather June day. But it’s now almost 10PM and I’m tired after an eventful day, so I’m going to save my Yellowstone stories — and my foreshadowing! — for tomorrow. (Spoiler alert: I’m fine, so is Serenity.)

Bozeman Hot Springs Resort

On Thursday, I headed off, so optimistic about all the things that I was going to manage to fit into my day. Finding water for the tank was number one on the list, but I also needed groceries and windshield wiper fluid. Of course, I’d have to buy gas somewhere — it’s a daily occurrence when driving this much — and after a few nights without plugging into electricity, it would also be nice if I could find a spot where I wouldn’t feel bad about running the generator for an hour or so to recharge my computer. I wasn’t going to kid myself about getting any real writing done, but at the very least, I wanted to update my blog. That meant I also needed at least a short time of internet or cell service availability.

Cutting a long story short, by 5PM, I was tired, sort of frustrated, sick of driving, and had at least another hour of driving to get to where I’d been hoping to spend the night. And I still needed water. But then there, practically calling my name, was the Bozeman Hot Springs Resort.

It had only one problem: it was the most expensive resort I’d ever seriously considered staying at.

On the other hand, it also had one incredible virtue: with an overnight stay, you got a pass to the hot springs. These springs were swimming-pool/hot-tub style, and easy walking distance from the campground. There were 9 different pools, or maybe 10. (I feel like I remember 6 inside, and I know there were 4 outside.) It also had live music, with a singer-guitarist on a stage in front of one of the outside pools. Fancy! And for tired, frustrated, camping-dirty me, totally worth the $64 I spent on my campsite. I took a shower, soaked in all of the hottest pools, then took another shower. Yay for hot water!

The campground also included a nice hotel-style breakfast in the morning: scrambled eggs, waffles, yogurt, cereal, apples, bananas.

And the campsites weren’t horrible. They were definitely the parking lot style, the kind of place where if you stuck around long enough, you’d get to know everything about your neighbors just by overhearing every word they say, but they weren’t piled up on top of one another. There was nice grass between the spaces and I stayed in a water-electric spot, so refilled my fresh water tank and my jugs, and recharged my computer. Also used the sous vide cooker and insta-pot to prep some food for quinoa bowls later in the week. Yay for electricity.

[image error]I had no neighbors on either side of me, so it was nice and spacious, but it would have been pretty cozy if the campground had been full.

Plus, it kept me close to CostCo. One of the reasons for my frustration was that CostCo had the most comfortable camping chair I’d ever sat in out on display. I’ve been trying out camping chairs for basically forever. Well, for three years anyway. They’re just not really comfortable, mostly. They’re fine for half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes if you’re sitting around a campfire, but they’ve always got metal bars that dig into your legs or weird armrests or they’re too low to the ground or oddly angled. I’ve never found one that I really liked until that day at CostCo. And it was only $29.99! An absolute bargain, given how expensive they usually are.

Unfortunately, the only one they had left was the one on display. But that was okay, because they were getting a new shipment — 224 of them — the next morning. All I had to do was come back. That wasn’t exactly convenient, since I’d hoped to be well on my way to Yellowstone by the time CostCo opened in the morning, but it was worth it to me, because it was such a comfortable chair.

But boo for CostCo. When I drove back the next morning, there were no chairs. I found a helpful CostCo employee — not the same one I’d talked to the previous day — and he used his walkie-talkie to ask about the chairs. Alas, they hadn’t arrived. But they were still on their way and ought to be in the next day.

Did I want to stay in Bozeman another day? Nope. Places to go, things to do. But by the time I’d gone to CostCo, parked, wandered around searching for my chair, found an employee to help me, and chatted, I was already running late to get a campsite in Yellowstone for the night. (They’re first-come, first-served: during peak season, they fill up by 7:30 AM, but this time of year, they fill up around noon. I was about three hours away, so would get there around 2.)

I decided to start driving south, while I considered: how badly did I want that chair?

Best of May 2019

What a month May 2019 was!

It started on a beautiful morning of bird-watching at a county park in Oregon, included a state park and a parking lot in Idaho; a state recreation area and an independent campground in Oregon, plus a hotel in Oregon, then a county park in California, and then a driveway. But that was just the beginning. Eventually, I made it to a county park in Oregon, then a driveway in Seattle and a driveway on the Olympic peninsula, followed by a national forest campground in Idaho, an independent (and free) campground in Montana and then another independent (and very expensive) campground in Montana. Fourteen different places, five different states. It was a busy month!

And it was also a delightful month. I was terrible at the part where I wrote a book, but I was extremely good at the part where I thoroughly enjoyed my life and spent lots of time with people I love.

I’m not even going to try to pick a best moment, though. There were simply too many excellent choices. I barbecued peeps and soaked in a hot springs under the stars. I brought the dogs to a restaurant and found cool clothes at thrift stores. I failed miserably but entertainingly at building a campfire. I got to spend time with R and hear stories of his adventures. I went to multiple beaches and breathed deeply of fresh air on morning after morning. I ate great food — gluten-free cupcakes and fresh oysters come to mind — and took some good photos. (If I had faster internet, I’d post dozens of them.) I even went kayaking with my dog!

[image error]Zelda, content in the grass

I could probably spend the next two hours thinking about the past month, remembering all the things I liked about it. New moments keep coming back to me, things I wrote about at the time and things I didn’t. Playing games, watching Person of Interest, eating spicy seafood medley. Laughing about coconut milk. More laughing about coconut milk, which I thought was one of those stories where you had to be there, but turned out to be funny when shared, too. Having P’s co-housing friend J tell me how much she enjoyed Cici and how eager she was for the sequel. Just so much goodness.

But I’m still in the midst of the goodness, with stories to tell about the places I am and the places I’m going, plus adventures to have, both big and small. (Today’s adventures will include dumping the tanks and visiting CostCo, woo-hoo!). But if I get my act together, it might also include Yellowstone National Park! And I also need to write about my Thursday, where the need for clean water led me to make some unexpected, expensive, but quite delightful choices.

Sapphire Mining

On Wednesday, I started driving again. Along the way, I found my joy.

To be honest, I hadn’t realized I’d lost it until it was back. It’s not that I’ve been down — I’m quite upbeat most of the time. In fact, the terms “ray of sunshine” and “living your best life” have both been used to describe me recently. Really! But content, happy, enjoying myself, serene — all of those are quite different from the hum of joy that hit me on Wednesday.

I’m attributing it to Montana, because Montana is beyond awesome. I had sort of forgotten that. I mean, I remembered that when I went through Montana before, I liked it a lot, enough that I hoped to come back and spend a lot more time, but by the time I was planning this drive-through, I was mostly thinking of it as… well, exactly that — a place to drive through. An impediment on my road to friends in the east and time to write a book.

Instead, it’s just ridiculously gorgeous. I was so unenthusiastic about driving, but it’s so beautiful that I couldn’t help enjoying myself. Green hills and mountains and pine trees, rugged cliffs and then sprawling plains, horses and cows and cute little Western towns.

I was still indecisive about where I was going for the first couple hours of my trip, but when I hit St. Regis, I didn’t make the turn to Glacier. I do want to go there someday, but in that moment, it felt like it would be marking off a checkmark on a list of places to see instead of being fun. And I was in the mood for fun. So instead, I went back to the sapphire mine near Phillipsburg.

I bought myself a bucket of gravel and spent a pleasant hour playing in the muddy water and sorting rocks, and then retreated to their campground in the hills, where I did… well, nothing. Except feel happy and pleased with the world and full of joy, as I made my dinner and washed my dishes, and hung out with my dog.

[image error]Free camping in the hills.

It was dry camping, and by dry, I do mean dry. Their website said that they had water available by the parking lot, which was technically true, but it wasn’t close enough to the parking lot that I could use it to fill Serenity’s tank. If I’d been desperate, I could have filled a jug or two, but the woman at the mine said she wouldn’t drink it, so I didn’t bother.

By now, I travel with five gallon jugs of water lining the floor between the beds. Three years ago, that would have seemed like a lot of water, but not anymore. Between the generator, the van’s engine, and my solar panel, I never worry about electricity, and I actually quite appreciate my days without internet (as long as they don’t happen too often!), but it is impossible to go a day without water. So I wasn’t desperate, but I was careful, washing my dishes with my spray bottles and not washing myself at all.

As a result, my plan for Thursday… well, let’s say it evolved. Quite nicely, too. But I’ll save that story for my next post, because I’ve got things to do!

Beauty Creek Campground

[image error]The creek is dry, but the campground is still remarkably beautiful.

I had a fairly typical driving day on Tuesday: I left Seattle by 9:30 and took a break about two hours later, wondering why I hadn’t managed to get farther along my path. I ran the generator to use the InstantPot, and made myself a delicious quinoa bowl, with fresh greens, avocado, pickled onion, shredded carrots and a lime-yogurt dressing. Walked Zelda, washed dishes, checked my email, read the news, and then realized that it was almost 1 and I’d been sitting at the rest stop for over an hour. Sigh.

Back on the road again, but I stopped an hour later to get gas. Back on the road again, and Z was awake and wandering the van restlessly, so it was time for the next rest stop and a quick dog walk. Back on the road again and traffic was picking up. Road construction around Spokane, an early rush hour…

I spent my day thinking about nothing. Watching scenery; listening to music; wishing I wasn’t driving; trying to promptly clean splatted bugs off the windshield; remembering details from the weekend; considering billboards and lottery winners and the weather. Developing strategies for measuring time as it passes, counting down the minutes on Apple maps.

Debating places to visit. Glacier National Park? But the Sun road is still closed, and I’d so much rather go there when I have time to be there, not just a quick glance into the visitors center followed by more long driving days. The sapphire mine in Phillipsburg? A reader in Montana (who I should really have emailed days ago if I planned to stop by)? Yellowstone?!?

Arguing with myself over whether to drive long days then take rest days vs trying to drive 100 miles every day or drive 250 miles every other day. I finally told myself that I’d just finish every driving day by filling the gas tank. When I’d driven to the point where I needed gas, I’d give myself permission to stop.

But I wanted to spend the night in northern Idaho, because my Progressive insurance adjustor promised me I’d like it. I was aiming for Beauty Creek campground in Coeur d’Alene. It’s first come, first served, and according to the reviews, sometimes crowded. Given that it’s now post Memorial Day, I was prepared to be disappointed, but I persisted anyway. And it is so, so beautiful. My insurance adjustor was not wrong.

[image error]My gorgeous view wasn’t cheap: $23 for dry camping, with no hookups, no showers, just vault toilets and picnic tables. The trees were alive with bees, too — I could hear the hum of a happy (and probably big!) hive in the grove of trees next to the van. A few visited and explored my screens, but none made it inside.

I’d hoped to fill up my fresh water tank here — although there were no hook-ups, they did say they had water. But the water was a pump. And not an electric pump, the kind of pump where you move the handle up and down to get the water to run. It’s a multi-handed operation — one person to pump, one person to hold the water jug and the spigot open. Zelda was not much help. In fact, Z was sort of actively unhelpful, because she didn’t understand why I wasn’t walking when as far as she was concerned, we were taking our evening stroll. Oh, well. I filled one jug, enjoyed the experience, and moved “water” higher up my list for a future campground.

And sadly, my neighbors found it important to run their generator all evening long. I was so tempted to go knock on their door and ask why they were ruining the camping for the rest of us, but a) the rest of us was just me, the only person in hearing distance, and b) ha. I never would. I might think about it, but that kind of conflict is not in my nature. Instead, I eventually closed my windows and appreciated the stillness and coziness of my quiet house, minus the fresh air.

Memorial Day Weekend

On Friday, I visited the school where P teaches and answered questions asked by three of her language arts classes (and gave them tours of the van & introductions to the dog). It was so much fun that it made me wish I wrote middle-grade stories so I could visit more schools. In the evening, we went to a literary event where three authors and a musician read/sang from their works. It was also fun, but made me glad I don’t write literary fiction.

And now I’ve been thinking about those things for twenty minutes or longer, but I’m not sure I’ve got anything more profound to say about them than this: talking to kids about creativity and imagination and writing to please yourself felt full of joy to me; listening to the adults share their pain in literary form for our muted applause had no joy in it. At least not for me. Maybe it did for them? Either way, I’m not going to start writing literary fiction.

On Saturday morning, P and I caught the 6:10 AM Edmonds-Kingston ferry, to visit friends of hers on a farm near Quilcene for the weekend. The weather was miserable and Pam’s hopes of stunning me into devoted love for the Pacific Northwest seemed doomed to failure. Rain, gray clouds, a chill in the air… But we hung out at the farm, which was quite beautiful, and met the chickens and goats and resident cat and people. Ate veggie hash and chicken-apple sausage for lunch and tried not to get too wet. The air was amazing — fresh, clean, with that smell of wet plant-life mixed with a hint of ocean — and everything was lush and green.

[image error]My weekend view. As driveways go, it was spectacular.

In the afternoon, we went on a walk to a beach: not a hike, more of a stroll. But it took us on a dirt road through a nature preserve, surrounded by gorgeous rain forest. Then down an invisible path, Zelda hopping over the logs in her way, until we reached a marshy area that opened on to an almost deserted beach, with oyster shells everywhere.

[image error]The trail down to the beach. The pink is wild rhododendrons, I think.

Sunday dawned almost as gray. But I had a nice walk around the farm with Zelda, and then an excellent late breakfast of blueberry pancakes, bacon and potatoes. Afterwards, P and I drove into Port Townsend and wandered around for a while. It’s an appealing small town, right on the water, but around noon it started to get crowded. Lots and lots of dogs on the sidewalks for Zelda to sniff! On our way back, we stopped at the tiny local grocery store, where I found gluten-free sandwiches, gluten-free brownies, even gluten-free oats. And some beautiful fruit and veggies. The weather might not have been selling me on the Pacific Northwest, but that little store was amazing.

And the weather was starting to improve. The sky was clearing, patches of blue showing up. By late afternoon, it was gorgeous. We took another drive, this time to an oyster beach where Pam could harvest oysters. She’s got a license that lets her harvest 18 per day, and we brought one of her friends from the farm with us, so the two of them harvested 36 oysters, while Z and I wandered around and admired the view and the day and the feeling of ocean air.

[image error]Before the walk down to the beach, a viewing stand had signs with information (none of which I remember) and stairs leading up to a platform where you could admire the view. It was well worth the pause to admire.

That night, our hosts invited several people over for a barbecue. They grilled salmon and shrimp and beef and pork tenderloin and chicken, with roasted vegetables, kale salad, and potato salad, followed by ice cream for dessert. Oh, plus the oysters, rolled in corn meal and pan-fried. It was an incredible feast, all of it delicious. We sat around a bonfire and ate, then shared a few ghost stories.

On Monday I woke up super-congested and not feeling very well. I’d had plans for the day with a local friend, but he texted me that he’d caught something over the weekend and wasn’t feeling great and since I was also not feeling great, we agreed to try again next year. Then P said, “Oh, if you’re not leaving, we should kayak today.”

Apparently, the word “kayak” is a miraculous health restorer for me, because I forgot all about not feeling well. We took the kayaks and Z and went for a paddle. Unfortunately, Z was not super-cooperative. I put a towel down for her on the front of the boat and she did okay for a little bit, but then she started jumping off, repeatedly. I managed to pull her back in without overturning the kayak multiple times, but finally I took her back to shore. P went to put her kayak away so she could help me with Z and while she was gone, Z peed without waiting to reach grass. (An indication of how urgent the need was, because Z only pees in grass.) Drat. I wish I’d realized earlier that that was her problem, because we could probably have kayaked for longer and farther, but by then P was out of the water and it made sense to head home. But it was absolutely lovely to be on the water and it was a perfect day.

[image error]A perfect day for kayaks!

After kayaking, we began the trek home. We knew we’d have a long wait for the ferry, but we used the time to first get ice cream and then walk Zelda down to the beach by the ferry dock. I’m not going to post any more pictures, because I’m actually writing on Tuesday morning and hoping to get on the road in the very near future and my internet is so slow that picture-posting is tedious — but the path to the beach had wild roses and fennel growing, and the beach had kids playing in the water and people enjoying the sunshine, and it was lovely and warm and perfect.

Despite the weather, my congestion, and the traffic, it was an amazing holiday weekend. I still don’t think I’m going to wind up living in the Pacific Northwest, but I hope to spend lots more time here in the future. But not today — today, I start heading east. I have no reservations and no definite plans, but I want to be in Michigan by June 22nd, which means it’s time to get moving.

A day of highlights

At dinner on Wednesday, we did “best and worst,” a childhood tradition at my friend P’s household in Seattle, where you share the best part of your day and the worst part of your day. There were eight people at the table, and the majority of us went with some version of the best moment being the delight of being at that table, with those people.

I was almost the last to go, so I picked another moment in the day — sitting out on the back porch, on an absolutely beautiful spring morning, while R and M and Zelda all ate scrambled eggs that I’d just finished making. I was enjoying the weather, loving the company, and my dog was eating. What more could anyone ask for?

What more would be the Vietnamese food later; the sitting around the table at the house talking; the dinner; the walk down to Ballard with a conversational crowd; sitting outside eating ice cream and appreciating city energy; and then the later walk through Ballard with just my bouncy dog. Bouncy at least in part because she’d just eaten a full serving of expensive vanilla ice cream, but that’s okay.

It was a day of glorious moments. One of my favorites was when we got back from Vietnamese food. Pam had gotten home from work and when we walked in the door, she turned around, beamed at Rory, opened her arms and exclaimed, “My son!” They exchanged a huge hug and I mock-protested, “Hey! Mine!” But I am so glad and so grateful that they have that relationship, that he has another adult in his life who adores him, another place where… well, what’s that saying about home? That it’s the place where when you go there, they have to take you in? But I love knowing that R has this place where, when he comes here, they are delighted and welcoming and would love to take him in.

[image error]Seattle, a city of unexpected roses.

Gills Landing RV Park

Once upon a time, I was going to spend a week or ten days slowly going up the Oregon coast on my way to Seattle. That was before I crunched Serenity, causing a delay of several days, and before R let me know that he was passing through S with a long, long layover. Change of plans, so I took the most direct route possible, up Highway 5 through the middle of the state.

While I drove I was remembering all the other times I’ve driven on that road. Once in 1999, maybe? A couple times around 2003, I think. Once headed south in 2017. Enough times to make me think that one of my issues with traveling is how much driving days feel like wasted days. I need to do better about turning them into discovery days — days when I do something more interesting than simply drive. Spending all day on the road, especially when it’s a familiar road, just isn’t an interesting way to spend time. Yesterday’s big event to that point had been a stop at a Safeway to pick up salad greens and get gas. Woo-hoo! (Not.)

The day got more interesting when I arrived at my carefully-selected campground and discovered that it was full. On a Monday. In May. Having had so much availability earlier in the day that I’d decided I didn’t need to make a reservation! Dang it.

Back in the van and on the road we went and no sooner had we gotten back on the highway than I was cursing myself. The only reason I needed a campground was to dump the tanks. If I wasn’t heading from one ten-day stretch in a driveway to another several days in a driveway, I wouldn’t need a campground at all, I could just spend the night in a rest stop or a parking lot. If I’d thought of that before I left my carefully-selected campground, I could have asked to use the dump station and opened up my options. But alas, I didn’t think of it. So I was on the hunt for a campground with a dump station or hook-ups.

Fortunately, I found one reasonably easily. I got mildly lost once and had to ask for directions at the non-camping park across the street, but Gills Landing, a county park in Lebanon, had spots available, and I was settled in — tanks dumped, water tank topped up, with electricity running the InstantPot — by about 6PM. I was a little dubious about the train tracks running directly behind my campsite, but if any trains went by in the night, I missed them.

And I quite like the campground. It’s not for tent campers — there’s a bathroom but it closes at dusk, so they only accept RVs with a manufacturer-installed toilet system (and both hosts asked me about it, so that is something they take seriously). But the spaces are level, with concrete pads, and lots of room between them. It’s $35/night, so not cheap, but they are full hook-up spots, so not unreasonable, either. I didn’t check out the bathrooms and don’t know whether they have showers. But I have reasonable internet access on both T-Mobile and Verizon.

[image error]Serenity, with the elevated train tracks directly behind her.

Unfortunately, the rain started in the night. Z and I started walking this morning and we got about four sites away before she stopped and stared at me, her attempt to psychically say, “Why are we doing this?” I got the message and we turned around and came back to the van. There’s a river nearby, according to the map, so I suspect there’s probably some nice walks and maybe even a view — but Z isn’t curious enough to want to walk in the rain, so we are probably not going to investigate. Instead, I’m writing these words and hoping that Fen’s adventures aren’t so totally disrupted by my driving day that I can write some of those words, too. And then it’s back on the road. Seattle by dinner-time!

Eureka!

[image error]Beach buddies

On Saturday, I had dinner with the mayor of Eureka. Her name is not Henry; she doesn’t drive a tow truck; and it was Eureka, CA, not Eureka, OR. But it did amuse me nonetheless. And also made me reflect on how odd it is that a television show changed my life in such dramatic ways.

For those of you who don’t know this story, in 2010, I fell in love with the television show Eureka. During the break between the two halves of Season 4, my craving for information led me to discover fanfiction. Literally — I’d never even heard of fanfiction before, to the best of my recollection, and I’d certainly never written any. In fact, I’d given up writing fiction entirely at least a dozen years earlier (when I decided freelance writing was a stupidly difficult way to earn a living and went back to editing.) But Eureka inspired me and I wrote a bunch of Eureka stories that were really fun — complicated science, humor, romance — skipping all the tedious parts of writing, ie description.

Then the new episodes started playing and I hated where they took the characters. By then, I was possessive of them, even though they weren’t mine. So I started writing original fiction, where no one else could make my characters do stupid things. At the very end of 2011, I posted my first full-length original story to Amazon, so the people who’d been reading along online could have it in ebook format if they wanted. I made a cover for it in Powerpoint, using a photo from a free site, and told my friends and family that they could buy it if they wanted to give me a gingerbread latte, or download it for free on its KU free days if they just wanted to read it. That was A Gift of Ghosts. I was in grad school and my goal was to write for fun — a million words that I was willing to share — while I got my degree and started work as a therapist. By now I should be about ready to start my own practice, having finished my degree, worked the necessary hours for my license, and built up a bit of a client base. Ha. Instead I dropped out of school, and I’m wandering around the country, still undecided about my ability to support myself as a writer, although still enjoying writing.

Speaking of which, I’ve been waiting two months for Amazon to notice that Ghosts is available for free on the other sites and price match it back to free. I’ve even gone so far as to try to report the lower price myself, but to no avail. It’s pretty weird, because they noticed that it wasn’t free about five days after I put it into KU — I guess they’re prompter about not losing money? Short version of this story: I tried out Kindle Unlimited for three months, the shortest term that you can sign up for, and it killed my sales. I earned some money from page reads, but not enough to make up for the fact that I no longer sold any books anywhere. Two months ago, with a great sigh of relief, I let the KU term expire and put the books back up everywhere, but I’m still not selling as many as I did before this experiment, because Amazon hasn’t price-matched Ghosts to be free. Anyway, if you have a minute and feel so inclined, there’s a: “Would you like to tell us about a lower price?” link on the Ghosts page underneath the publisher info and it might help me out if you reported Ghosts being available for free elsewhere. (Elsewhere being Barnes & Noble or Kobo or iBooks or Google Play.) And I say “might” because Amazon can be weird and I don’t honestly know if this is what they need to make the change. But thank you in advance for trying if you do!

Back to my life news — Sunday was supposed to be thunderstorms and rain in Arcata. Instead, it was gloriously sunny for most of the day. We took the dogs to the beach for one last romp that was wonderful — Zelda was having a very good day, and not only did she run and roam and play, she paid attention to where I was and responded when I called her. We also did useful things — laundry and packing up and cleaning. S spent lots of time in her garden and I spent lots of time in the van, but it was nice to have one last glorious day.

Today, it’s time to move on. I tried to remind myself this morning that a departure is not an ending, it’s just a change, but I’m still sad to be leaving. On the other hand, once I get on the road, I will remember that I’m headed to another place I like, Seattle, to see more people I like. And a few I love! Conveniently for my enthusiasm level, if I make it there by Wednesday morning (new goal: get there by Wednesday), I will get to spend a few hours with R and his delightful girlfriend as they pass through.

And meanwhile, S and I already have plans for our next adventure together — New Mexico, sometime in 2020. In my head, maybe even my heart, I know that life is not about what happens next, it’s about what’s happening now, but it’s still comforting to remind myself that I have plenty to look forward to.