Thursday, August 23, 2007
Draper Farm, Grundy County, Iowa
The rain, thunder, and lightning keep rolling through. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself that our farm is in such a relatively flat area, with the Iowa River valley and Pine Lake 12 miles away near Eldora. But in a weird weather pattern like this, I’m glad to be where we are, and not on the evening news with a basement and backyard full of water. The people they interview on the news, though, are, for the moment, pretty lighthearted about their situation, annoyed yet matter of fact about the major hassle of a flooded town (“We had to park three blocks away!”), and at the same time tickled to be on t.v. for once.
I’ve never seen such soggy fields of corn, or ditches turned into streams. This afternoon Walt and I walked (slowly because of his tender back) for a ways down the road to the south, scaring up a great flock of blackbirds or starlings out of the corn. They were invisible until they lifted into the air en masse, then wheeled back and forth, glittering darkly in the overcast afternoon light. There were deer tracks in the mud by the side of the road, so I know the deer I saw in the fields last summer have remained, and a monarch butterfly came close as if to greet us as we started off down the gravel road. I’ve seen more monarchs this year than last, and more milkweed in the ditches. But I seem to have come too late for the lightning bugs. In June they go airborne at dark, flashing above the fields, a million fairy lights. Tonight brought something new, though: a hatch of some variety of tiny gnat or fly lured thousands of dragonflies and swallows to feast at dusk. The gnats were almost invisible so it looked like utter chaos, the entire yard and shelterbelt as far as I could see full of birds and bugs, flying in crazy circles and swoops. Finally I caught sight of a gnat and watched it spiral upwards in a lazy loop until zap! A dragonfly ate him.
I take back what I said about being a bread snob. I’m an Iowa gal; how could I be elitist? It is not snobbery to want to eat only what tastes really good and was grown and produced in a sustainable way. What I’m after, really, is simply to live in a place where to act on such principles doesn’t make me remarkable. I want to live where eating in the way I prefer makes me normal.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Where the Corn is as High as an Elephant's Eye...
Sunday, August 12, 2007
KOA kampground, Mitchell, South Dakota
Coming home, there is a slow sensual familiarity that creeps over me, starting when we cross the Missouri and leave the arid Badlands far behind. I can identify the crops in the fields, copses of deciduous trees again soften the rolling landscape, the sky grows slightly less squintingly blue, and as I awake in the morning my hair has curled in its old way and the air has a substance, a presence on my skin, that carries the smell of earth and growing things, that I never feel in my adopted West. After a few more hours of driving we will be back at the farm.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Draper farm, Grundy County, Iowa
The air here can be eaten with a spoon, and our nighttime dreams have often been accompanied by strobe-like lightning and low peals of thunder. The ground is saturated with rain, the ditches like swamps. But still the farm works its spell on me: 12 miles from town, with nothing to see but acre after expansive acre of corn and beans and the comfortably spaced windbreaks and farmhouses, I settle into an eat-work-read-sleep routine, lightened by my mother’s willingness to wash dishes and cook and my dad’s tidiness that is as reliable and reassuring as sunrise. I am not yet required to be parent to my parents, and I am grateful to slip back into being their child.
The robins are all finished raising their families, and their abandoned nests are dropping out of the trees now in the downpours. But there is a mourning dove sitting on her newly hatched babies in one of the spruces in the new windbreak; she was still there after the tremendous storm Sunday night, watchful as ever.
All is not complete rest at the moment, since Walt succumbed last night to agonizing muscle spasms in his back. He spent all day Saturday trimming the gigantic honeysuckle hedge with the chainsaw, forgot to continue his regimen of ibuprofen yesterday, then spent several hours yesterday evening scrunched up in his theater seat watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. So today he was confined to bed, a complete invalid. One day of this and I know I was not meant to be a nurse. Reed, however, might be; he ran up and down the stairs with water and food, sang songs, tried to read a Frog and Toad story for Papa, etc. We made it all the way down the stairs so Walt could take a shower this evening, and made it back up again, so I have high hopes for tomorrow.
We arrived just over a week ago on a Sunday evening. Monday I spent doing laundry and trying to organize all our gear, and on Tuesday we got up early and drove down to the Iowa State Fair, with a little caravan of Drapers; Glen and Vicki leading in their truck, then us, and then Dad and Lois behind. Alice had gone earlier in the morning. Mom had to stay home since her abscessed tooth swelled up to grotesque proportions and was giving her a lot of pain. We all sat around fanning ourselves and sweating among the hordes of people while the Century Farm awards were given, clapping occasionally, until finally, when it was the Draper farm in Grundy County’s turn, no one was left in the building, since ours was the last county before the lunch break. We got up on stage, shook the Ag secretary’s hand, smiled for the camera and the completely deserted rows of benches, and then with relief headed off to find some cold ice cream and an air conditioned building.
Reed’s first trip to the Iowa State Fair ought to be a memorable one, as I let him ride on the big slide by himself, showed him the life-size butter cow and the butter Harry Potter, let him meander through the cattle barn and the sheep barn, took him on Ye Olde Mill, let him get all wet in the fountain, and finished up with a ride on the Sky Glider. Someday maybe he’ll take his wife or girlfriend on Ye Olde Mill and remember his first ride with mom… or maybe not! The food was notable in that I allowed him to eat junk food basically the entire day (we didn’t have much choice, surrounded as we were by corn dogs, elephant ears, deep-fried Twinkies, and beer on a stick), starting with French fries and a cinnamon roll for a mid-morning snack, continuing with a vanilla shake for lunch from the dairy barn, and finishing up with a BLT wrap from the relatively healthy “Salad Bowl” stand. We drank so much water on this blistering day I had to replenish our empty bottles at one point at a water spigot inside the sheep barn, where the 4-H kids fill the animals’ water pails. Water is water, I figured, and I knew they wouldn’t have anything but the best for state fair livestock.
Eating on the farm in Iowa is alternately blissful and frustrating for me; one day we’ll have chicken and noodles - comfort food straight from my childhood - accompanied by sweet cherry tomatoes still warm from the sun, finishing up with chocolate zucchini cake… and then at breakfast I’m faced with storebought whole wheat bread for toasting, thin, soft, characterless, and seemingly designed for preschoolers to eat with processed American cheese, which is about the most exciting cheese I can find at Family Foods in Grundy Center. I used to work there, by the way, when Walt and I lived in Grundy 10 years ago. I worked in the deli/bakery, frying donuts at 3 in the morning, cleaning out the chicken fryer at 8 at night, washing dishes, baking cookies, cakes, and breads, pressure frying chicken, assembling potato salad and chocolate dream pie, and filling up the hot food case with barbecued ribs, rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, meatloaf, cheesy cauliflower, and green bean casserole. All the stuff we Iowans love so much. But the experience put me off grocery store deli food forever, just as baking at the Mojo in Sitka permanently quelched my appetite for muffins. Anyway, I never meant to become a bread snob, but after having fresh loaves from the co-op or Sage Bakery every day back home, I’ve reached the point of no return for bread. I have yet to discover what I’ll miss from here once I’ve gotten to France… but bread won’t be one of them.
KOA kampground, Mitchell, South Dakota
Coming home, there is a slow sensual familiarity that creeps over me, starting when we cross the Missouri and leave the arid Badlands far behind. I can identify the crops in the fields, copses of deciduous trees again soften the rolling landscape, the sky grows slightly less squintingly blue, and as I awake in the morning my hair has curled in its old way and the air has a substance, a presence on my skin, that carries the smell of earth and growing things, that I never feel in my adopted West. After a few more hours of driving we will be back at the farm.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Draper farm, Grundy County, Iowa
The air here can be eaten with a spoon, and our nighttime dreams have often been accompanied by strobe-like lightning and low peals of thunder. The ground is saturated with rain, the ditches like swamps. But still the farm works its spell on me: 12 miles from town, with nothing to see but acre after expansive acre of corn and beans and the comfortably spaced windbreaks and farmhouses, I settle into an eat-work-read-sleep routine, lightened by my mother’s willingness to wash dishes and cook and my dad’s tidiness that is as reliable and reassuring as sunrise. I am not yet required to be parent to my parents, and I am grateful to slip back into being their child.
The robins are all finished raising their families, and their abandoned nests are dropping out of the trees now in the downpours. But there is a mourning dove sitting on her newly hatched babies in one of the spruces in the new windbreak; she was still there after the tremendous storm Sunday night, watchful as ever.
All is not complete rest at the moment, since Walt succumbed last night to agonizing muscle spasms in his back. He spent all day Saturday trimming the gigantic honeysuckle hedge with the chainsaw, forgot to continue his regimen of ibuprofen yesterday, then spent several hours yesterday evening scrunched up in his theater seat watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. So today he was confined to bed, a complete invalid. One day of this and I know I was not meant to be a nurse. Reed, however, might be; he ran up and down the stairs with water and food, sang songs, tried to read a Frog and Toad story for Papa, etc. We made it all the way down the stairs so Walt could take a shower this evening, and made it back up again, so I have high hopes for tomorrow.
We arrived just over a week ago on a Sunday evening. Monday I spent doing laundry and trying to organize all our gear, and on Tuesday we got up early and drove down to the Iowa State Fair, with a little caravan of Drapers; Glen and Vicki leading in their truck, then us, and then Dad and Lois behind. Alice had gone earlier in the morning. Mom had to stay home since her abscessed tooth swelled up to grotesque proportions and was giving her a lot of pain. We all sat around fanning ourselves and sweating among the hordes of people while the Century Farm awards were given, clapping occasionally, until finally, when it was the Draper farm in Grundy County’s turn, no one was left in the building, since ours was the last county before the lunch break. We got up on stage, shook the Ag secretary’s hand, smiled for the camera and the completely deserted rows of benches, and then with relief headed off to find some cold ice cream and an air conditioned building.
Reed’s first trip to the Iowa State Fair ought to be a memorable one, as I let him ride on the big slide by himself, showed him the life-size butter cow and the butter Harry Potter, let him meander through the cattle barn and the sheep barn, took him on Ye Olde Mill, let him get all wet in the fountain, and finished up with a ride on the Sky Glider. Someday maybe he’ll take his wife or girlfriend on Ye Olde Mill and remember his first ride with mom… or maybe not! The food was notable in that I allowed him to eat junk food basically the entire day (we didn’t have much choice, surrounded as we were by corn dogs, elephant ears, deep-fried Twinkies, and beer on a stick), starting with French fries and a cinnamon roll for a mid-morning snack, continuing with a vanilla shake for lunch from the dairy barn, and finishing up with a BLT wrap from the relatively healthy “Salad Bowl” stand. We drank so much water on this blistering day I had to replenish our empty bottles at one point at a water spigot inside the sheep barn, where the 4-H kids fill the animals’ water pails. Water is water, I figured, and I knew they wouldn’t have anything but the best for state fair livestock.
Eating on the farm in Iowa is alternately blissful and frustrating for me; one day we’ll have chicken and noodles - comfort food straight from my childhood - accompanied by sweet cherry tomatoes still warm from the sun, finishing up with chocolate zucchini cake… and then at breakfast I’m faced with storebought whole wheat bread for toasting, thin, soft, characterless, and seemingly designed for preschoolers to eat with processed American cheese, which is about the most exciting cheese I can find at Family Foods in Grundy Center. I used to work there, by the way, when Walt and I lived in Grundy 10 years ago. I worked in the deli/bakery, frying donuts at 3 in the morning, cleaning out the chicken fryer at 8 at night, washing dishes, baking cookies, cakes, and breads, pressure frying chicken, assembling potato salad and chocolate dream pie, and filling up the hot food case with barbecued ribs, rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, meatloaf, cheesy cauliflower, and green bean casserole. All the stuff we Iowans love so much. But the experience put me off grocery store deli food forever, just as baking at the Mojo in Sitka permanently quelched my appetite for muffins. Anyway, I never meant to become a bread snob, but after having fresh loaves from the co-op or Sage Bakery every day back home, I’ve reached the point of no return for bread. I have yet to discover what I’ll miss from here once I’ve gotten to France… but bread won’t be one of them.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Road Quipping
Saturday, August 11, 2007
KOA, Mitchell, South Dakota
We spent a long day in the car today and knew it had been too long when we started cracking up about the hay bales in the ditches along I-90 having jumped the fence, like errant livestock. All the other hay bales were resting quietly in their fields...
One more day of driving and we'll be done road tripping and camping for now; it's just as well, as we're beginning to feel out of place with our car in South Dakota where right now it is nothing but Harley Davidsons heading home from the rally at Sturgis; we also shared the road and many campgrounds and restaurants with bikers during these past two weeks. No disrespect to my Harley-owning relatives - but Walt and I were having fun thinking of what kind of things motorcycle riders might do while they're at a rally with hundreds of thousands of other bikers. Are there workshops and panel discussions?? Possible subjects could include "Head Scarf Tying For Guys and Gals," "The Ongoing Helmet Debate: To Live Or Let Die?" and "Care and Maintenance of Leather Clothing." If the bikers we've met were any indication, their general reputation for being troublemakers is completely undeserved, I have to say.
KOA, Mitchell, South Dakota
We spent a long day in the car today and knew it had been too long when we started cracking up about the hay bales in the ditches along I-90 having jumped the fence, like errant livestock. All the other hay bales were resting quietly in their fields...
One more day of driving and we'll be done road tripping and camping for now; it's just as well, as we're beginning to feel out of place with our car in South Dakota where right now it is nothing but Harley Davidsons heading home from the rally at Sturgis; we also shared the road and many campgrounds and restaurants with bikers during these past two weeks. No disrespect to my Harley-owning relatives - but Walt and I were having fun thinking of what kind of things motorcycle riders might do while they're at a rally with hundreds of thousands of other bikers. Are there workshops and panel discussions?? Possible subjects could include "Head Scarf Tying For Guys and Gals," "The Ongoing Helmet Debate: To Live Or Let Die?" and "Care and Maintenance of Leather Clothing." If the bikers we've met were any indication, their general reputation for being troublemakers is completely undeserved, I have to say.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Custer's Best Park
Friday, August 10, 2007
Center Lake campground, Custer State Park, South Dakota
Thanks to my parents for the tip about this place, which deserves an entire vacation spent only here. Excellent naturalist programs, children’s activities, wildlife, hiking trails, hot showers, a good sandy swimming beach with very shallow water, etc etc make this the nicest place we’ve been (aside from the Lochsa). Beautiful too. So say I, comfortably warm and entirely relaxed after an entire afternoon reading a book at the beach while Reed practiced his back float and built castles at the lake’s edge.
I too remember spending hours playing in the water and wonder why now I am satisfied with mere dips, a 25 yard swim out and back, then enduring the five minutes of exquisite torture while the wind dries me off and then I can sit unmoving in the shade.
Now our new neighbors, deux adultes et deux enfants are moving into their campsite, speaking French, which has sent me into an immediate fluttery panic about trying to converse with them in my oh so limited French. The opportunity seems God-given, but perversely premature.
We drove most of the day yesterday from the Big Horn mountains, through Sheridan (where we indulged in a mom and pop restaurant lunch of cheeseburgers and fries – the real thing in Wyoming) then through Gillette and south to Newcastle and across the border to Custer. The long day was worth it, allowing us to spend today entirely in one place. We warmed bean quesadillas on the charcoal grill for supper last night, saving the steaks we bought at the store for tonight, with potato salad and baked beans on the side. We visited the visitor’s center this a.m., seeing a buffalo up close on the way there and on the way back. While there Reed participated in one of the kids’ programs, making a cute little buffalo bank out of a recycled plastic water bottle. On the way back to camp we dropped Walt at the trailhead of a 3 mile trail that led back to our camp and he had a hot but welcome solitary hike while Reed and I ate sandwiches and packed the bag for the beach. Reed and I also stopped at the box office of the Black Hills Playhouse and got tickets for him and me for the musical “A Year with Frog and Toad.” He must be excited about it because he is willingly foregoing a night around the fire for this play. How could he resist, when it features characters from one of his favorite books?
Center Lake campground, Custer State Park, South Dakota
Thanks to my parents for the tip about this place, which deserves an entire vacation spent only here. Excellent naturalist programs, children’s activities, wildlife, hiking trails, hot showers, a good sandy swimming beach with very shallow water, etc etc make this the nicest place we’ve been (aside from the Lochsa). Beautiful too. So say I, comfortably warm and entirely relaxed after an entire afternoon reading a book at the beach while Reed practiced his back float and built castles at the lake’s edge.
I too remember spending hours playing in the water and wonder why now I am satisfied with mere dips, a 25 yard swim out and back, then enduring the five minutes of exquisite torture while the wind dries me off and then I can sit unmoving in the shade.
Now our new neighbors, deux adultes et deux enfants are moving into their campsite, speaking French, which has sent me into an immediate fluttery panic about trying to converse with them in my oh so limited French. The opportunity seems God-given, but perversely premature.
We drove most of the day yesterday from the Big Horn mountains, through Sheridan (where we indulged in a mom and pop restaurant lunch of cheeseburgers and fries – the real thing in Wyoming) then through Gillette and south to Newcastle and across the border to Custer. The long day was worth it, allowing us to spend today entirely in one place. We warmed bean quesadillas on the charcoal grill for supper last night, saving the steaks we bought at the store for tonight, with potato salad and baked beans on the side. We visited the visitor’s center this a.m., seeing a buffalo up close on the way there and on the way back. While there Reed participated in one of the kids’ programs, making a cute little buffalo bank out of a recycled plastic water bottle. On the way back to camp we dropped Walt at the trailhead of a 3 mile trail that led back to our camp and he had a hot but welcome solitary hike while Reed and I ate sandwiches and packed the bag for the beach. Reed and I also stopped at the box office of the Black Hills Playhouse and got tickets for him and me for the musical “A Year with Frog and Toad.” He must be excited about it because he is willingly foregoing a night around the fire for this play. How could he resist, when it features characters from one of his favorite books?
High Elevations
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Porcupine Campground, Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming
We’re settled into an alpine campground at about 8000 ft. elevation in the Big Horn Mountains in northern Wyoming, after a steep climb up from Lovell yesterday afternoon, that Betty Subaru performed admirably in a very low gear. (We sold our old Betty Su but our new gal just seems to be named Betty as well…) We immediately changed into long pants and sweatshirts and boots since at 6 pm the air temperature was rapidly cooling down into the 50s. We ate our cold dinner (while Reed complained about not having hot food) of deli fried chicken, baked beans from a can, applesauce, and carrot and broccoli spears with blue cheese dip, finishing with storebought chocolate chip cookies.
The night was restful despite two thunderstorms that blew through, one with a fair amount of rain, and the other just lightning and thunder. It was just as the ranger at the visitor center for Big Horn Canyon said: up here you’re right with the lightning and clouds. Here in the trees there was no amount of wind to speak of so the storm seemed lovely and comforting, compared to the one we experienced Sunday night at Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park next to the Jefferson River in Montana, where the storm that blew through just after bedtime was accompanied by fierce winds that tried to take down our tent. Walt and I stayed awake for two hours holding the tent up from the inside while the rain lashed down. I was already tired of Reed’s chatter so the storm keeping him awake kept me from appreciating his good attitude about it. He sang songs loudly, asked if I’d remembered to get the suitcases off the top of the car, asked if he could help hold up the tent, etc. Finally around midnight things quieted down and we fell into sleep at last.
The food situation improved this morning after Walt and I took apart the stove (which we’d given up on) and used the wire from a twist tie to clean it out. When we put it back together and tried again it worked beautifully so instead of a cold breakfast on a chilly morning we had a hot breakfast instead, and can look forward to hot pasta this evening to accompany the hot dogs we’ll grill on the fire. Maybe even have scrambled eggs for breakfast tomorrow before heading towards Sheridan.
There is a creek running next to this campground (Porcupine) that we’ll hike along this afternoon. Some mild excitement yesterday was that the rangers trapped the black bear that had been rummaging around our camp and the neighboring camp the previous night.
After the storm in Lewis and Clark Caverns S.P. we awoke to a sunny, warm morning, perfect for the 2 hr. guided hike through the really spectacular caverns, which started with a bit of an uphill trek to the caverns entrance. The view from up top was postcard Montana, with a river meandering through a lovely green valley with steep, rocky hillsides rising on either side. Fairly dry country, there were tiny prickly pear cacti all over the place, and Walt almost stepped on a snake. He doesn’t think it was a rattler but doesn’t know for sure. Saw an old mine setup too, now rusty and sad. We finally got the car packed up after lunch and hit the road around 2 p.m., driving just about 100 miles to the KOA campground in Big Timber, where we happily stayed in a little “kabin” knowing we were safe from any big winds. Walt has always been a snob about developed campgrounds like this but even he had to appreciate having a pool, a hot shower, clean laundry, and not having to set up the tent on a blustery night. It was Walt’s first KOA so Reed was excited to show him the whole thing; it was my first KOA where I didn’t have a dog and a child with me every single minute; our previous KOA stays have always been on road trips with just Reed and me and Fiona. This KOA was too close to the interstate for comfort but it was also just down the road from the Prairie Dog Town, where we saw dozens of the “petite chien” as the early explorers used to call them. Most were pretty shy but there was one who lived quite close to the main road who was trolling for handouts as we departed. We seem to be leaving a trail of hungry rodents in our wake, since we never feed them.
We were happy to get out of smoky Western Montana, where the fires are raging. Sometimes in Missoula the smoke was so thick we couldn’t even see Mt. Sentinel. Still, it was wonderful to visit with old friends and smell the familiar enticing spiciness as we entered the Butterfly to order espresso milkshakes. Unfortunately we never got there early enough in the morning to visit with Dave Beans; we console ourselves knowing we’ll be back through in a year on the return trip. Ray Shackleton let us set up camp in his backyard and allowed us to treat his house as our own, besides treating us to Vietnamese food for dinner one night. We visited with Jennie and Blake Bucher who have lived in France before and who kindly refrained from ridiculing our poor French. Bonnie Connery and her girls took us out to breakfast for lunch at the Uptown Diner; we enjoyed an evening of catching up and drinking wine with Ted and Laura Heuchling while feasting on Laura’s tacos and cowboy caviar (while Reed and Teddy played well and only ended up scuffling over something once.) We went for a wade in Rattlesnake Creek too and afterwards went for ice cream at the Big Dipper. Steve Loken (who actually performed our wedding ceremony 15 years ago, besides being our boss for a time) fed us scrumptious omelettes and hashbrowns at his house up the Rattlesnake on our last morning and led us in typical Loken style on a brisk walk up and down the Rattlesnake, exercise we desperately needed. We left town on Saturday afternoon, August 4, and headed for Piney Campground at Georgetown Lake where we thought we’d escape the smoke but no such luck.
We’ll stay here again tonight since Walt feels so happy in the mountains and I am enjoying the solitude as well – if you can call being surrounded by frolicking little squirrels solitude, which I do.
Later in the afternoon…
After a difficult start with a whiny 6 year old we finally got a nice walk in along a tiny portion of what is a very long national recreation trail, through the alpine meadows of the Big Horns. We shared part of it with some cows, and went just as far as two broken down old cabins down by Porcupine Creek. We headed back and were caught up by a real Wyoming cowboy on a lovely horse named Chantilly Lace and accompanied by a scruffy cowdog was named Mickey, who seemed appreciative of my gentle scratching behind his ears even while he was still wary of Reed. The cowboy and I’m assuming his associates bring up the cows and calves – who bawled quite a bit when we climbed over a fence by them to keep following the trail through the rocky opening in the valley called “the jaw” - in late June and stay through September, when the snow sends them all back down to their ranch in Lovell. The association as he called it has 950 pairs grazing up here now; this gentlemen lives in a cabin or an R.V. all summer and rides to check on the cattle every day. I’d never thought much about Wyoming cowboys before but this guy has a life I have to admit is pretty good: all summer in a spectacularly beautiful place, just keeping his eye on the cows, riding his horse, only going to town every 3 weeks for groceries and dog food. Wonder if he has a wife down below, or if she comes along too. The cows, at least, get to spend most of their lives on open range in lush greenery, before getting “finished” (kind of an ironic term) on grain back on the feedlot in Lovell and sent off to market.
Porcupine Creek meanders along its rocky bottom, with a few deeper pools here and there, where there are some cagey little fish that are almost impossible to see. A shadow sends them into hiding. Lots of pretty shrubs are in the creek bottom; it reminds me of some of the dwarf prostrate sand cherry that we’ve got at home. Also there is a type of sage, I think, growing on twisted, dead looking branches, that smells heavenly, fresher and more herby than the sage that grows in eastern Washington. I’d like to fill the whole tent with it, it smells so good. The sun got hot on us while we were walking, hot enough that I wanted to slide into one of those rocky pools, if the water hadn’t been like ice, so cold that even Walt wouldn’t go for a dip and that’s saying something.
Porcupine Campground, Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming
We’re settled into an alpine campground at about 8000 ft. elevation in the Big Horn Mountains in northern Wyoming, after a steep climb up from Lovell yesterday afternoon, that Betty Subaru performed admirably in a very low gear. (We sold our old Betty Su but our new gal just seems to be named Betty as well…) We immediately changed into long pants and sweatshirts and boots since at 6 pm the air temperature was rapidly cooling down into the 50s. We ate our cold dinner (while Reed complained about not having hot food) of deli fried chicken, baked beans from a can, applesauce, and carrot and broccoli spears with blue cheese dip, finishing with storebought chocolate chip cookies.
The night was restful despite two thunderstorms that blew through, one with a fair amount of rain, and the other just lightning and thunder. It was just as the ranger at the visitor center for Big Horn Canyon said: up here you’re right with the lightning and clouds. Here in the trees there was no amount of wind to speak of so the storm seemed lovely and comforting, compared to the one we experienced Sunday night at Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park next to the Jefferson River in Montana, where the storm that blew through just after bedtime was accompanied by fierce winds that tried to take down our tent. Walt and I stayed awake for two hours holding the tent up from the inside while the rain lashed down. I was already tired of Reed’s chatter so the storm keeping him awake kept me from appreciating his good attitude about it. He sang songs loudly, asked if I’d remembered to get the suitcases off the top of the car, asked if he could help hold up the tent, etc. Finally around midnight things quieted down and we fell into sleep at last.
The food situation improved this morning after Walt and I took apart the stove (which we’d given up on) and used the wire from a twist tie to clean it out. When we put it back together and tried again it worked beautifully so instead of a cold breakfast on a chilly morning we had a hot breakfast instead, and can look forward to hot pasta this evening to accompany the hot dogs we’ll grill on the fire. Maybe even have scrambled eggs for breakfast tomorrow before heading towards Sheridan.
There is a creek running next to this campground (Porcupine) that we’ll hike along this afternoon. Some mild excitement yesterday was that the rangers trapped the black bear that had been rummaging around our camp and the neighboring camp the previous night.
After the storm in Lewis and Clark Caverns S.P. we awoke to a sunny, warm morning, perfect for the 2 hr. guided hike through the really spectacular caverns, which started with a bit of an uphill trek to the caverns entrance. The view from up top was postcard Montana, with a river meandering through a lovely green valley with steep, rocky hillsides rising on either side. Fairly dry country, there were tiny prickly pear cacti all over the place, and Walt almost stepped on a snake. He doesn’t think it was a rattler but doesn’t know for sure. Saw an old mine setup too, now rusty and sad. We finally got the car packed up after lunch and hit the road around 2 p.m., driving just about 100 miles to the KOA campground in Big Timber, where we happily stayed in a little “kabin” knowing we were safe from any big winds. Walt has always been a snob about developed campgrounds like this but even he had to appreciate having a pool, a hot shower, clean laundry, and not having to set up the tent on a blustery night. It was Walt’s first KOA so Reed was excited to show him the whole thing; it was my first KOA where I didn’t have a dog and a child with me every single minute; our previous KOA stays have always been on road trips with just Reed and me and Fiona. This KOA was too close to the interstate for comfort but it was also just down the road from the Prairie Dog Town, where we saw dozens of the “petite chien” as the early explorers used to call them. Most were pretty shy but there was one who lived quite close to the main road who was trolling for handouts as we departed. We seem to be leaving a trail of hungry rodents in our wake, since we never feed them.
We were happy to get out of smoky Western Montana, where the fires are raging. Sometimes in Missoula the smoke was so thick we couldn’t even see Mt. Sentinel. Still, it was wonderful to visit with old friends and smell the familiar enticing spiciness as we entered the Butterfly to order espresso milkshakes. Unfortunately we never got there early enough in the morning to visit with Dave Beans; we console ourselves knowing we’ll be back through in a year on the return trip. Ray Shackleton let us set up camp in his backyard and allowed us to treat his house as our own, besides treating us to Vietnamese food for dinner one night. We visited with Jennie and Blake Bucher who have lived in France before and who kindly refrained from ridiculing our poor French. Bonnie Connery and her girls took us out to breakfast for lunch at the Uptown Diner; we enjoyed an evening of catching up and drinking wine with Ted and Laura Heuchling while feasting on Laura’s tacos and cowboy caviar (while Reed and Teddy played well and only ended up scuffling over something once.) We went for a wade in Rattlesnake Creek too and afterwards went for ice cream at the Big Dipper. Steve Loken (who actually performed our wedding ceremony 15 years ago, besides being our boss for a time) fed us scrumptious omelettes and hashbrowns at his house up the Rattlesnake on our last morning and led us in typical Loken style on a brisk walk up and down the Rattlesnake, exercise we desperately needed. We left town on Saturday afternoon, August 4, and headed for Piney Campground at Georgetown Lake where we thought we’d escape the smoke but no such luck.
We’ll stay here again tonight since Walt feels so happy in the mountains and I am enjoying the solitude as well – if you can call being surrounded by frolicking little squirrels solitude, which I do.
Later in the afternoon…
After a difficult start with a whiny 6 year old we finally got a nice walk in along a tiny portion of what is a very long national recreation trail, through the alpine meadows of the Big Horns. We shared part of it with some cows, and went just as far as two broken down old cabins down by Porcupine Creek. We headed back and were caught up by a real Wyoming cowboy on a lovely horse named Chantilly Lace and accompanied by a scruffy cowdog was named Mickey, who seemed appreciative of my gentle scratching behind his ears even while he was still wary of Reed. The cowboy and I’m assuming his associates bring up the cows and calves – who bawled quite a bit when we climbed over a fence by them to keep following the trail through the rocky opening in the valley called “the jaw” - in late June and stay through September, when the snow sends them all back down to their ranch in Lovell. The association as he called it has 950 pairs grazing up here now; this gentlemen lives in a cabin or an R.V. all summer and rides to check on the cattle every day. I’d never thought much about Wyoming cowboys before but this guy has a life I have to admit is pretty good: all summer in a spectacularly beautiful place, just keeping his eye on the cows, riding his horse, only going to town every 3 weeks for groceries and dog food. Wonder if he has a wife down below, or if she comes along too. The cows, at least, get to spend most of their lives on open range in lush greenery, before getting “finished” (kind of an ironic term) on grain back on the feedlot in Lovell and sent off to market.
Porcupine Creek meanders along its rocky bottom, with a few deeper pools here and there, where there are some cagey little fish that are almost impossible to see. A shadow sends them into hiding. Lots of pretty shrubs are in the creek bottom; it reminds me of some of the dwarf prostrate sand cherry that we’ve got at home. Also there is a type of sage, I think, growing on twisted, dead looking branches, that smells heavenly, fresher and more herby than the sage that grows in eastern Washington. I’d like to fill the whole tent with it, it smells so good. The sun got hot on us while we were walking, hot enough that I wanted to slide into one of those rocky pools, if the water hadn’t been like ice, so cold that even Walt wouldn’t go for a dip and that’s saying something.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Working Out the Kinks
Monday, July 30, 2007
Wilderness Gateway Campground, Lochsa River, Idaho
First the embarrassing confessions. Last night Walt’s camping stove wouldn’t work properly, having not been used for probably 8 years. I refrained from reminding him that I had tried to talk him into a new one last summer. Then, yesterday at lunchtime we drove away from Apgar campground where we had stopped for a picnic with the pillows sitting on top of the car, where Walt had put them when he got the cooler out of the back seat. At bedtime when we discovered they weren’t in the car, and we realized that when Walt put the cooler back in the back seat he neglected to replace the pillows, well, he felt pretty bad, having been forgetful so often lately in his opinion. So I again kept my mouth shut. Second, we were so concerned with getting Walt his double espresso on ice on our way out of Kamiah yesterday morning, we forgot to get a fresh bag of ice for the cooler; consequently, there was no ice left by this morning. Apparently when we drove away from the house we forgot to pack our brains. Reed and I finished off the milk to avoid wasting all that calcium, I tossed out the ketchup and the horseradish (leftovers from the fridge), and put the rest of the stuff in plastic bags and into a spare duffel which I then set in the cool water of the creek. It would be silly to drive 20 miles just for a bag of ice, so we’ll make do.
Anyway, after the stove, pillow, and ice incidents, when the clouds rolled overhead this morning as if to storm, Walt and I looked at each other like, is this trip going to be one thing after another? But then blue sky appeared and the day got hot and sunny as always, and as it turned out we didn’t miss the pillows that much last night anyway. And the stove worked for breakfast.
Last week I dreamed that we were at the airport and I’d forgotten the passports in the dresser drawer at home. (Yes, I have them now, I just checked.) Last night I dreamed we’d gone home to get the bag of ice and some more pillows, and discovered that a thick layer of dust had settled immediately over everything that I’d just cleaned. Then, Walt and Reed came in with their stuff as if to spend the night, spreading things out on the counter and in the bedroom while I scurried around fretting, saying, “No, we can’t spend the night! This place is all clean, we’ve got to get OUT of here!” So waking in the tent to the sound of the river was a relief.
Nights in a tent are long and luxurious, since we go to bed when it gets dark and don’t get up until the sun is well up. You wouldn’t think that after such a night I could possibly lay around all afternoon but indeed I did, after going for a mile long hike along the river after breakfast, and then reading through lunch. I’m reading Simple Cooking by John Thorne, published in 1987, the kind of really good book about food and cooking that makes me wonder what else I missed when I was in college studying the supposed great works of literature. There are some passages in Thorne’s book that beg to be read aloud on a summer evening in bed with someone you love who loves things like clotted cream and strawberries as much as you. Such a communion of tastes ought not to be taken lightly, I realize now. Thorne reminds me that I seemed to have missed James Beard, Waverly Root, and Elizabeth David in my youth as well, although I’ve certainly heard of them and I’ve started trying to catch up, first with Elizabeth David. But who has time for James Beard when there’s still M.F.K. Fisher and Jane Grigson to enjoy?
Reed and Walt returned from their hike around lunchtime too, and we settled next to the river on our private beach for the afternoon, swimming in a deep pool with a sandy bottom behind a large rock when the urge struck, and lying face down on a towel in the sand other times. Reed paddled a little bit after we pointed out to him that he recently learned to swim; we also gave him a safety lesson in river swimming. I wish I could be one of those happy go lucky moms who never pay attention and whose children seem to survive nevertheless, but I’m not. I imagine every little danger, and try to warn him against them.
So many people think of wildlife as big animals but it was a regular nature’s half-acre around here today. Baby fish of all sizes nibbled on our ankles when we stood still in the river, hopefully finding something tasty, or at least to satisfy their curiosity. We spotted a bright red crawdad or crayfish about 6 inches long, looking for all the world like a baby lobster. He fiercely struck out at the stick I poked at him, then moved stealthily away into the shelter of another rock. Then, a snake about 2 feet long swam through Reed’s little pool after catching a fish about 2 inches long. He swam past and then headed back up the bank through the rocks. A pika got into our picnic basket this afternoon and ate half an apple, and in my last swallow of spritzer at lunchtime I got a mouthful of drowned hornet. A few minutes later I was stung on the back of the knee by one of his kin, probably an insect act of revenge. The finale, though, was at supper, when Reed said, “Look! A deer! In the trees!” It took me a full two minutes to find the well-concealed deer; I was fully ready to deal with Reed’s disappointment at having mistaken a log for an animal. But no, it was a deer. Reed is right so often about things it’s a little scary.
On the Road
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Wilderness Gateway Campground, Lochsa River, Idaho
Already I’m having a hard time remembering what day and date it is, so quickly have we gone from non-stop packing and cleaning and preparing, to not doing anything in particular. At 4 p.m. yesterday, Saturday, we finished mopping the floors of our empty and shining house (empty except for the brim-full garage and extra room in the basement, both padlocked against the possibility of an unscrupulous renter – although we have high hopes that we’ve leased our home to someone who will eventually become a friend), climbed in the loaded car, got out one more time to check that the door was locked, and drove away. “We’re in the car!” I crowed into the cellphone to our friend Kathy, awaiting our arrival in Kamiah. “See you in two hours!”
We spent a restful night on the futon in the spare room at Pat and Kathy’s. Always ready to pull up stakes themselves, jealous but not unpleasantly so, they were ideal company for our first few hours away from home. We finished off Walt’s birthday cake for dessert (we did manage to have a small party on the 26th, a small gathering to celebrate Walt’s 50th, and how he loves the way people never believe he’s that old…). We also picked up a book there for Walt to read – 1491, by Charles Mann – and left a book there that I finished this morning – Whereabouts, by Alastair Reid. Reid writes much about Spain, so I know Pat and Kathy will appreciate it. The trading was good practice for the journey, where clinging to our possessions and being overly picky about our reading material will not be wise.
After a leisurely breakfast of apple pie with cream and homemade bread with homemade jam, we waved goodbye and headed east on Highway 12, up the Clearwater River, which turned into the Lochsa River, winding up into the forest towards Lolo Pass. We are camped now at a forest service campground called Wilderness Gateway, with a campsite right next to the river, near where Boulder Creek empties into it. The sound of the shallow water on the rocks drowns out the sound of the little bit of summer traffic on Highway 12, and it’s quiet now at the end of the weekend, with no one camped near us, and our secluded site is nestled down in the trees, with a rocky path to our private beach. I did have to chase off some very bold and very fat ground squirrels or pikas, who would’ve stolen our food from right in front of me if I’d kept still.
We all went in the river several times this afternoon to cool off. The creek was chilly but the river in mid-afternoon under the blazing sun was quite comfortable, warmer than any mountain river I’ve felt before. In between I drowsed in the shade on my towel on the little bit of pebbly beach, while Reed rearranged the smooth river rocks into a little pool at the edge of the water that he was gratified to watch fill up with inch-long baby fish, trout I would guess. They seemed to like the restful place, and he created a channel so that it would have a continuous flow of fresh water. Walt sat in the cold rapids of the creek for a while, and he didn’t have to say anything for me to know that doing so made him supremely happy. The Lochsa is the river where Walt and I did our first hiking and hot springing together, these woods are where he took his first “lichen” to me; with Missoula, our first home together, just a short drive over the pass, we feel strangely at home here, even though I can’t walk around identifying the flora and fauna with much authority. Walt having grown up playing in the Cascades feels completely himself in the woods. I dipped again to stave off crankiness before getting the fish and potato salad for supper ready and helping Walt put up the tent. I didn’t pack with much aforethought, throwing everything from the fridge and freezer into the cooler at the last minute. But our supper was good: a piece of halibut from Lisa and Peter, fried in butter, served with more butter and lime juice. And on the side, prebaked potatoes, now cold, cut up with cold hard boiled eggs and some diced red onion, dressed with mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and lime juice.
Now it is well into evening and perfectly cool. I’m still wearing my swimming suit and intend to do so all day tomorrow as well, although in this campsite I could go naked and no one would notice, or if they did, they wouldn’t care. That’s one of the things I love about the wilderness out West. Apparently the owners of the R.V. parked down the way a little bit and across the river feel that way as well since I saw the man skinny dipping earlier this afternoon. Perhaps we’ll stop in at Jerry Johnson hot springs before we go to Missoula on Tuesday, so Reed can have his first hot springs experience. Why not? We’ve got plenty of time.
That we will not be home for a year, that in just over a month we’ll be in France, doesn’t feel quite real, of course. On the other hand, our year divided between France and Ireland is something so inevitable, something I’ve been preparing for on some level for so long, that it is always a little shock when I recall that very few people who would like to do this are able to, and even more amazing to me, that there are some who wouldn’t even dream of it.
“I wish my parents had thought of it when I was 7,” Pat said last night, reminding me that I don’t need to feel guilty for taking Reed away from his friends, our house, and his violin teacher for this extraordinary year. As with everything in parenting, I console myself that someday, he’ll be grateful. I, on the other hand, don’t have to wait for someday.
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