Begin Again

  The sort-of goal for my October trip–to experience the much-touted fall foliage in New Hampshire and Vermont and New York–might have been just a little silly. I realized today, when I walked my boys through Drake Park, that I can get all the fall spectacle I need right here at home. A cool breeze ruffled the Deschutes and coaxed leaves from the park’s glorious maples, deepening the golden carpet. Small groups of visitors posed for each other’s cell phone cameras. “I have never seen such a beautiful place!” gushed one woman who almost backed into me, trying to frame the best shot of trees, river, and footbridge. Would this have been me in New England, if plans hadn’t changed, thrilling to Norman Rockwell scenes that I might have discovered without ever leaving Bend? Maybe there’s some deep truth to be found in today’s little park experience. But I’m too busy planning my next adventure to look for it. Before winter sets in (I hope), I’m taking off again, heading south to Joshua Tre...

  While I was on my trip, I found myself sympathizing–a little bit, at least–with my son, Colin, in regard to his attitude about eating. As someone who does not enjoy any part of the food process–planning, acquiring, preparing, ingesting, cleaning up, eliminating–he looks for ways to get the calories and nutrients he needs with the least effort and most efficiency possible. I, on the other hand, actually enjoy food. I like finding the best in-season peaches, trying a new recipe, creating a pleasing presentation (even when I’m the only customer), and experiencing the tastes and textures of a meal. I don’t even mind the KP duty afterward. But I had some trouble getting the hang of meal times on my trip. I mean, I made a couple of OK camp meals–a vegetable stir-fry on instant rice; a bowtie pasta with peppers–but most were minimal, rushed, and not so great. The Kraft mac and cheese with sriracha-flavored tuna was especially awful. I love my little camp stove, and I had all the tools I...

  I imagined that when I rolled back into my driveway after a month on the road I’d feel some relief. Camping is a lot of work; driving long distances on unfamiliar roads can be exhausting. But today I feel disappointed. I’m not even close to ready for the work and exhaustion to be over. Not to mention the absolute pleasures–falling asleep under an unbelievably thick blanket of stars that shone through my moon roof at a trailhead outside of Bozeman, savoring a jalapeño-cheddar croissant and a latte from Bernice’s Bakery while people watching in a pretty Missoula park, marveling at all the jaw-dropping wonders of Yellowstone, reading in my camper-car while snuggled under a cozy blanket, the dogs snoozing beside me as a cold rain poured down outside–all of my moments have filled me with gratitude and with a strong urge for more. So, although I know that my Chip needed to come home, I also know that I will need to go back out–when the time is right. In the meantime, as Jack Kornfield ...

Kennewick, Washington, has everything you’ll ever need. At the Columbia Center, just down the street from my Fairfield Inn, you’ll find Build-a-Bear and Cinnabon, Hot Topic, Sephora, Macy’s. It is, in fact, “The Tri-Cities’ family favorite shopping dining and community destination.” (I don’t know why they reject the serial comma.) Target is just across the street, Costco’s around the corner. For at least 9,000 years, the original residents of the area–Umatilla, Nez Perce, Wanapum, and Yakama–managed without these conveniences. According to records from the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805, about five to six thousand people lived peacefully here, catching salmon in the Columbia, living comfortably through the relatively mild winters. Then, as Wikipedia so deftly describes it, the area was “discovered and settled by European descendants.” Now the native American population of Kennewick is .8%. In spite of what website photos suggest, you’d spend a long day at the Columbia Center S’barr...

  When my mother was still somewhat coherent, but clearly in mental and physical decline, she became very emotionally fragile. Each time I made the trip to Medford–once or twice a month–she spent much of our brief weekend visit recalling past hurts, bemoaning how seldom her children called or came to see her, expressing her sadness and loneliness. It made me feel awful. I knew that she actually did get calls from my siblings, and I tried to stay connected as much as possible. My father doted on her. But her experience was painful and, to her, real. What if she had a dog? What if I could find her a little, non-shedding, hypoallergenic, even-tempered dog to love? I believe in dogs, and have had one almost constantly since Coco (technically my brother Bill’s, but actually my sidekick and soulmate) joined our family when I was 7. I even tried to smuggle a stray into my dorm room as a freshman at San Diego State. Each has enriched my life, and I wanted that to happen for my poor mother....

  You guys. I feel like someone should tell you about Wyoming. It’s just hanging out there in the middle of nothing–windy, unpopulated (it has, like, 127 residents and 2 Senate seats; that makes sense), a good setting for Annie Proulx stories, but otherwise forgettable, right? Oh, and Yellowstone. Yogi Bear. Old Faithful. You guys. Yellowstone is actually a f*#king death trap, possibly the portal to the underworld. No–it  is  the portal to the underworld. The earth here is literally boiling up all over the place. Impossibly deep pools of water bubble and churn, sending clouds of steam across the sky. Around every corner, scalding water spurts from rocks, mud hisses and gurgles, heat blasts from below, warming the cold October air. Everybody talks about the earthquake potential along the San Andreas fault or the Cascadia subduction zone that might one day wipe out the Pacific Northwest. But Yellowstone is sitting on one of the planet’s most active volcanic, hydrothermic, a...

  Two times today, maskless strangers thanked/praised me for wearing a mask. “It’s such a good idea because you just never know,” said a woman in the hotel elevator. Right. Since arriving in Montana, a state with one of the highest Covid numbers in the nation, I have seen few masks. There are no restrictions for indoor dining or bar capacity, and while there are markers on the floors of grocery stores and other businesses encouraging safe distancing, no one seems to notice or care. I mean, the sky is big and all, but come on. At a Bozeman Starbucks, I saw a cluster of maskless people crowded around a table, one literally coughing right into the group. Ew. Even without Covid–ew. So, I’m staying masked, and isolated as much as possible, today hiking Moose Tracks trail at the amazing Big Sky ski resort, yesterday taking in the views along the Gallatin River on the Ousel Falls trail. Ousel Falls, Big Sky MT Chip is doing his best to keep up, but he’s clearly not as peppy as he once was...

I did not anticipate a lot of social interaction on this trip. Mostly, I thought to convene with elk and bison, especially while in the super Covid-heavy state of Montana. But on emerging from the bath house at my Missoula-adjacent campsite on Day 3, a pleasant older man (probably slightly younger than I) was sitting with my tethered dogs, and greeted me warmly in an (Italian?) accent. Starting with some innocuous dog questions and comments, he moved to more personal revelations (he is traveling solo from North Carolina to the west coast, likes to hike, also has a dog (Irish terrier), is staying one more night), and questions–Where am I going? Do I like to hike? Why hasn’t he met me before? Why don’t I stay another night and he’ll take me on a hike? Leigha tells me to pay attention to my Creepy Feeling alarm. But my feeling about this guy was good. He was open and friendly, seemed nice. It was my brain that said uh oh. I mean, I wasn’t interested in staying another night or getting to ...

  From the time I was a backseat passenger in my family’s Chevrolet station wagon on trips to visit relatives in Minnesota or Nebraska, to vacation in sunny California, or to get away for a weekend to cabins in the Rockies, I remember looking at the tiny towns we passed, the isolated houses, once just a single-wide mobile home in the middle of the Arizona desert, and marveling–people live here. What do they do? How do they manage, so far away from, well, everything? As I began my October journey, across the miles of open country of northeastern Oregon and into Washington, passing these small communities and homes, I wondered these things again, but I also found myself making assumptions: These people don’t watch the NewsHour. They will never hear (or hear of) Billie Eilish. They don’t like me and my kind, zipping through their territory in my shiny new Forester (goD, I love this car!), on my way to somewhere worthwhile. What sad, small lives, I thought. But as I drove, I was also l...