Friday, June 27, 2008. Ochoco N.F. to Cascade, Idaho, Arrowhead RV Park.
327 miles, 8 hours.
Expenses:
Fuel $102.00
Campground $28.00
Western Oregon is high desert country. The radio, where there is reception, is all country music and Rush Limbaugh. Now, Rush and I live in completely different political galaxies, but you’ve got to give the guy credit—he almost got me believing that there is actually more ice in the Arctic this year than ever before!
American flags fly everywhere. One town is all gussied up for the 4th, and they must have voted in a tax increase just to cover the hundreds of red, white, and blues shading the entire three blocks of Main Street.
This is a land of unusual churches—Church of the Nazarene, Church of the Holy Redeemer. You don’t see many Lutherans or Presbyterians out here, not to mention Unitarians or Quakers.
Rising out of the high desert east of Redmond are forested ranges with cool breezes and chilly nights—the Malheur and Wallowa National Forests. I make a mental note to remember Dixie Campground in Malheur N.F., and two or three others on the east
side of the summit. The brown and khaki tones of the high desert below are interrupted only by the deep blue-green waters of a reservoir, miles long, which doesn’t even rate a name on the map. It is nearly deserted, even in this ninety-degree weather.
Much of Eastern Oregon is populated with far more cattle, magpies, rabbits, ravens, vultures, deer and elk than with humans. This scrubby desert somehow feeds them all.
I take Idaho 55 north from Horseshoe Bend, the highway curling upwards beside the Payette River canyon, the trees getting taller with every mile. It is still hot, though, even as we approach 4,000’, and the long line of vehicles I’m in, like one boxcar in a train, reminds me that it is Friday, and I’d better settle in early.
It seems like it takes a long time to drive the 53 miles to Cascade, where I decide to camp at a large RV park. An employee, driving a golf cart, models the park’s 5 MPH requirement as she escorts me to my campsite. The site is sandwiched in between two big rigs, one with a pop-out I can barely squeeze past when I go out to attach my hook-ups. I’m careful which way I bend over, so as not to frame my butt in their big picture window, from which they can probably read the labels on the cans in my cupboards. My sixteen-foot Nash looks like a dollar hamburger lost inside a big bun.
There are many 5th wheels parked here, trailers that hitch into the back of pick-up trucks. These trucks are loaded with custom features, like red and yellow flames, and lightning bolts, which make them resemble the drawings pre-teen boys make while ignoring a teacher in middle school. The owners of these pick-ups, however, haven’t seen middle school in quite a few decades!
At Arrowhead RV Park, I realize that I am safer than I was in my mother’s arms. All around me are men, 75+, of the Hunting and Gathering Culture, who only speak to each other and rarely to women they are not married to, men of diminished testosterone who still take their roles as protectors of women quite seriously. These men are happy, even anxious, to offer advice on any question of trailer maintenance. They are delighted to second-guess the guy who actually worked on my trailer, the guy I trusted completely before hearing what these guys have to say.
Even though I rarely spend this much to camp, preferring National Forest campgrounds, when I think about getting water, electric, and sewer hook-ups, a shower, wireless Internet and technical advice, all for only $28.00, I realize I have gotten a real bargain!
Lee Lawton is a Renaissance woman, Jill of all trades, writer and poet.
Monday, November 24, 2008
RV Adventure, Day One: The Lock Doctor
Thursday, June 26. The great adventure begins—me, my 12-year-old chow-corgi mix, Rudy, and my 16’ Nash trailer. Corvallis to Montana and onward.
Day One. Corvallis to Ochoco National Forest. About 170 miles, 4 1/2 hours.
Expenses:
Lock Doctor $78.00
Fuel $50.00
Propane $12.00
Lunch $5.00
All packed early this morning. I’ll just hook up, which is not rocket science, as I remind myself. It is the first time I’ve done it alone however. I’ll get the stabilizers and sway bar out of the side compartment of the trailer. No stress, I’ve got plenty of time—I’m planning to camp in the Ochocos in the middle of Oregon, only about 4 hours over the Cascades from home. It is a pocket of coolness at nearly 5000 feet, surrounded by Oregon’s high dessert, now getting uncomfortably hot in late June.
The lock on the side compartment of the trailer has always been fussy. I’ve got bent keys to prove it. This is where the hitch-up items are stored, along with the tools needed to let the awning up, and to put the stabilizers down so the trailer doesn’t rock when I’m parked. Plus, a few other tools.
This morning at 7:45—no way I can get that compartment open. I’m grunting loud enough for people already camping in the Ochocos to hear me, and I cannot get the dammed thing open.
Okay, call the Lock Doctor. It is not quite 8:00 a.m., but this is a lock emergency, right? Lock Doctors must work all hours. Two rings. Three rings…damn! Four rings and a man with a calm voice answers, “Lock Doctor, how may I help you?” Sweeter words were never spoke!
I tell him my story, he asks directions; he can be here in half an hour. Sweet!
Okay, I’m all packed and ready except for hooking up the trailer. I was going to hold off on the shower until afterward, but with half an hour to wait, might as well take it now.
Feels good, and I get out and apply a new lotion I got while I was stocking up on travel-sized toiletries. Olay Body, the bottle says. I like Olay products. I squirt some into the palm of my hand, and start rubbing it, two-handed, onto my legs. Jeez, this stuff is THICK!
I squirt a little more and rub it on my arms. It stays on my skin like frosting on a cake. Yuk. Wish I’d stuck with the cheap stuff I usually buy.
I am just about to exit the bathroom and get dressed when my brain says, “wait a minute, why is that stuff so thick, and why isn’t it sinking in?” I peer at the plastic bottle, no glasses on: Olay Body, it says, then something about it moisturizing your skin….uh huh, uh huh, the Lock Doctor is going to be here any minute, and unlike other doctors, he may not expect me to be naked.
Then I see, at the bottom of the label, in small letters, the words, Body Wash. This is SOAP, not lotion! Back in the shower I go, frantically washing the soap off, trying to remember to rinse all the parts I’ve rubbed it on.
Doubly clean and properly clothed, I meet the Lock Doctor, who replaces the faulty lock, and I begin to hook up the trailer. He admires my skill at getting near the hitch the first time I back up, and I am feeling pretty darned confident, until, that is, I try to drive away with the chocks in front of all four wheels.
Day One. Corvallis to Ochoco National Forest. About 170 miles, 4 1/2 hours.
Expenses:
Lock Doctor $78.00
Fuel $50.00
Propane $12.00
Lunch $5.00
All packed early this morning. I’ll just hook up, which is not rocket science, as I remind myself. It is the first time I’ve done it alone however. I’ll get the stabilizers and sway bar out of the side compartment of the trailer. No stress, I’ve got plenty of time—I’m planning to camp in the Ochocos in the middle of Oregon, only about 4 hours over the Cascades from home. It is a pocket of coolness at nearly 5000 feet, surrounded by Oregon’s high dessert, now getting uncomfortably hot in late June.
The lock on the side compartment of the trailer has always been fussy. I’ve got bent keys to prove it. This is where the hitch-up items are stored, along with the tools needed to let the awning up, and to put the stabilizers down so the trailer doesn’t rock when I’m parked. Plus, a few other tools.
This morning at 7:45—no way I can get that compartment open. I’m grunting loud enough for people already camping in the Ochocos to hear me, and I cannot get the dammed thing open.
Okay, call the Lock Doctor. It is not quite 8:00 a.m., but this is a lock emergency, right? Lock Doctors must work all hours. Two rings. Three rings…damn! Four rings and a man with a calm voice answers, “Lock Doctor, how may I help you?” Sweeter words were never spoke!
I tell him my story, he asks directions; he can be here in half an hour. Sweet!
Okay, I’m all packed and ready except for hooking up the trailer. I was going to hold off on the shower until afterward, but with half an hour to wait, might as well take it now.
Feels good, and I get out and apply a new lotion I got while I was stocking up on travel-sized toiletries. Olay Body, the bottle says. I like Olay products. I squirt some into the palm of my hand, and start rubbing it, two-handed, onto my legs. Jeez, this stuff is THICK!
I squirt a little more and rub it on my arms. It stays on my skin like frosting on a cake. Yuk. Wish I’d stuck with the cheap stuff I usually buy.
I am just about to exit the bathroom and get dressed when my brain says, “wait a minute, why is that stuff so thick, and why isn’t it sinking in?” I peer at the plastic bottle, no glasses on: Olay Body, it says, then something about it moisturizing your skin….uh huh, uh huh, the Lock Doctor is going to be here any minute, and unlike other doctors, he may not expect me to be naked.
Then I see, at the bottom of the label, in small letters, the words, Body Wash. This is SOAP, not lotion! Back in the shower I go, frantically washing the soap off, trying to remember to rinse all the parts I’ve rubbed it on.
Doubly clean and properly clothed, I meet the Lock Doctor, who replaces the faulty lock, and I begin to hook up the trailer. He admires my skill at getting near the hitch the first time I back up, and I am feeling pretty darned confident, until, that is, I try to drive away with the chocks in front of all four wheels.
How the Stars Move Above the Mist
It was the night of the comet. The best viewing night of all, and after busy weeks stacked on each other like a pancake supper, we loaded the telescope, carefully set in the molded safety of its case, into the back seat of the car. A warmed-up supper of Campbell’s bean and bacon soup and melted cheese on tortillas sat in our stomachs like an anchor holding a boat in a storm.
There is something about anticipation that slows time. A half-mile from the city we held to the speed limit. Within a few minutes of passing the last convenience market, we sped up a little, just above the speed limit. By the time the lights of the city hid themselves in small valleys and behind tree farms and fields where pumpkins gave birth to themselves, we were a full ten miles over the limit. The trees and the pumpkins couldn’t care less.
We dropped over a hill into a bottle of smoky ink, fog throwing our headlights back in our faces. One faint light to the west, two to the east, and a reddish glow behind as Sodom must have looked after a long day’s walk. A faint luminescent sign pointed the way to the model airplane field.
Empty. Did I neglect to mention that with every mile we drove, the fog became thicker? It was like falling into an old box of insect specimens where exoskeletons were pinned to the very same cotton we now drove through. Slowing with each curve, signs wreathed like romance, we made our way to the field of grounded toy planes.
We set the telescope up anyway, pulling each smooth black piece from its molded bed as if the very act of bringing into the open such a precise instrument could turn the weather around.
The comet should be near the horizon now, in the northeast sky. Like the fallen tree in the forest, we could not know if it made sound or light.
We ranged the sky with the lens, caught a fleeting glimpse of the North Star, and then moisture covered everything. It was raining without gravity—droplets forming underneath the tube as quickly as atop it. Like the angels, we lived in the clouds and did not fall through.
It had been a long day for both of us. The necessities of life in middle age, the unaccustomed body slowness, the speed of the days passing, the need to work when the joy of it was long gone. The anticipation of an evening just for the two of us, our minds on the heavens, the warmth of the eyepiece like a seat recently vacated. No way were we going to give up.
When the skies yielded nothing worth watching, like naughty children we pushed the lens into a more horizontal view, and we did not give one thought to passing that large, lighted window.
Framed there, like some gothic nursing home scene, were two bent figures leaning on silver aluminum walkers, facing each other. These old ones slowly pushed their walkers into the middle of our framed view until they met, with an almost audible click. The fog pulled a curtain over our view, as if what was about to occur demanded the respect of privacy. We fiddled with the scope, adjusting the focus, unable to pull away from this shameful act of peeping. Peeping at these ancient people, as if at our futures.
The sharp yellow light returned to view, and now the old couple was facing us, as if they knew we were watching, as if they had some act of wisdom to perform for us--an heirloom of shuffling movement granted to an unlikely pair with a dripping telescope and no comet to pursue.
The old couple took a couple of awkward shuffling steps, leaving their walkers just behind. They moved at the star’s own pace, as they inch across the night sky. One step, two, a scarf of fog, the walkers obscured by bodies turning, hands reaching and meeting, melding into one shapeless form. And then, face to face, cheek to cheek, belly to belly, with infinite care, and with the slow grace of snails moving through a garden, they began to dance.
There is something about anticipation that slows time. A half-mile from the city we held to the speed limit. Within a few minutes of passing the last convenience market, we sped up a little, just above the speed limit. By the time the lights of the city hid themselves in small valleys and behind tree farms and fields where pumpkins gave birth to themselves, we were a full ten miles over the limit. The trees and the pumpkins couldn’t care less.
We dropped over a hill into a bottle of smoky ink, fog throwing our headlights back in our faces. One faint light to the west, two to the east, and a reddish glow behind as Sodom must have looked after a long day’s walk. A faint luminescent sign pointed the way to the model airplane field.
Empty. Did I neglect to mention that with every mile we drove, the fog became thicker? It was like falling into an old box of insect specimens where exoskeletons were pinned to the very same cotton we now drove through. Slowing with each curve, signs wreathed like romance, we made our way to the field of grounded toy planes.
We set the telescope up anyway, pulling each smooth black piece from its molded bed as if the very act of bringing into the open such a precise instrument could turn the weather around.
The comet should be near the horizon now, in the northeast sky. Like the fallen tree in the forest, we could not know if it made sound or light.
We ranged the sky with the lens, caught a fleeting glimpse of the North Star, and then moisture covered everything. It was raining without gravity—droplets forming underneath the tube as quickly as atop it. Like the angels, we lived in the clouds and did not fall through.
It had been a long day for both of us. The necessities of life in middle age, the unaccustomed body slowness, the speed of the days passing, the need to work when the joy of it was long gone. The anticipation of an evening just for the two of us, our minds on the heavens, the warmth of the eyepiece like a seat recently vacated. No way were we going to give up.
When the skies yielded nothing worth watching, like naughty children we pushed the lens into a more horizontal view, and we did not give one thought to passing that large, lighted window.
Framed there, like some gothic nursing home scene, were two bent figures leaning on silver aluminum walkers, facing each other. These old ones slowly pushed their walkers into the middle of our framed view until they met, with an almost audible click. The fog pulled a curtain over our view, as if what was about to occur demanded the respect of privacy. We fiddled with the scope, adjusting the focus, unable to pull away from this shameful act of peeping. Peeping at these ancient people, as if at our futures.
The sharp yellow light returned to view, and now the old couple was facing us, as if they knew we were watching, as if they had some act of wisdom to perform for us--an heirloom of shuffling movement granted to an unlikely pair with a dripping telescope and no comet to pursue.
The old couple took a couple of awkward shuffling steps, leaving their walkers just behind. They moved at the star’s own pace, as they inch across the night sky. One step, two, a scarf of fog, the walkers obscured by bodies turning, hands reaching and meeting, melding into one shapeless form. And then, face to face, cheek to cheek, belly to belly, with infinite care, and with the slow grace of snails moving through a garden, they began to dance.
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