B.C. Or Bust
It's May and the sun is out. More than out—we've got big-boy summer here. Because adventure was calling, I drove (WAY, WAY) up north last weekend to Tofino, B.C.—a small, super laid-back surf town on the fingertip of a peninsula pointing nonchalantly out into the Pacific off Vancouver Island.
It's hard to articulate how beautiful this place is. I mean I live in a scenic river town in the shadow of a volcano—I'm no stranger to sweeping vistas. But Vancouver Island is something else. Like, from a fairy tale. Snow-tipped fjords diving into arctic waters. Mirror-smooth lakes awash in profound silence. Sunsets to the West. Foggy harbors to the East. Skateparks. Surf breaks. Sea planes buzzing in and out. I couldn't believe any of it.
But. But! Tofino is very hard to get to. While not that far as the crow flies, the journey involves boat rides and crazy roads. Hours stack onto hours as you drive 25 miles an hour around hairpin turns. And the ferries are impossibly scheduled, either leaving at the crack of dawn or timed to deposit you inconveniently straight into big-city traffic.
Ah, but that's okay. All is as it should be. You don't take the easy way to a place like this. Fairytale lands, well, they have to be earned—everyone knows this.
We were hours from Tofino still, but the sun was shining and there was a lake to our left. Pretty okay first swim of the season.
Mark surfed the cruisey longboard waves. Me? I just polar-beared it and dove straight in. Lefty tried to "save" me but only managed to half drown in the crashing whitewater.
Golden hour with an empty skatepark and islands shrouded in mist.
We saw a tree that was a sapling during Marco Polo's day. The Pacific Rim rainforest has stories to tell.
On a boat! Looking back at the Olympics and Port Angeles. Not ugly.
Way Down Low
Winter's rolling out like the tide. But that's when it happens! When you least expect it. Yep, I succumbed to seasonal depression this weekend. Seriously. I sank so deep and lowdown, sitting there on the couch I must report that I cried—only a little, really maybe only one tear. And it only lasted a little while, but it came on out of the blue—like being struck by the opposite of lightening, something so dull, you almost implode. The world, my day, all of it suddenly a senseless pile of mush. Despair was near. And there was no accounting for it! My life is grand. Such a home. Such pals. Such unadulterated love. Such natural beauty all around me, at all times.
Aaaanyway, I'm just being honest. People don't like to talk about this stuff. About feeling feelings and such. But yeah, dark moods are real—a chemical reaction in your brain. As I get on in years, I deal with them almost never, and I'm way better at it. Still, you have to be vigilant. You have to take care when the wave comes in.
Me? I laced up my runners. I walked through the night, fast enough to get out of breath. Then: a cup of green tea, because caffeine lifts yer mood. And lift, it did. An hour later at Mark's house, there was life-affirming homemade pizza, very passable wine, and watching Vinyl. Things were, as they say, cool.
Gets You High
Busy as heck around here. Lots of work. For money. Typing words to tell stories that help people sell things. It's what I do when I'm not doing all the other things that don't make anybody any money, least of all me.
Aaaanyway, about last Thursday: the sun came out and it was sincerely warm, summerish even. The fine weather was palpable everywhere in the building—people were floating around flushed, the victims of spring fever. Work became impossible. We sat on the building stoop in shafts of sunlight listening to the sitar players riffing in the park. Life was grand.
It's funny. You can do a lot of things to try to control your mood. Exercise. Nutrition. Diet and discipline. Drugs, alcohol, or lack thereof. But none of that stuff really gets me high quite like the first serious blue day after months of bonafide darkness.
Lookout Below
I've almost never felt happier than I did on that first night spent rolled up inside a sleeping bag on a tiny bed in a fire lookout atop a towering mountain down south past Bend. This is because I was incredibly warm and comfortable, I was tired from wallowing 4 miles straight up in the deep snow with a heavy pack (an act that I would call mountaineering, but I know if I did real mountaineers would pat my head and say, "Hush"), I was among several people that I liked very much, and I was there in the cozy dark surrounded by 360 degrees of windows that held nothing but stars.
This fire lookout: it's a toy-sized hut built at the very top of the world. The idea is that from there, you can see everything around you, and when a wildfire starts—you can spy the column of smoke, sleuth it out on a topo map, and then quickly report it to the smoke jumpers. This is in the summer, mind you. Isn't it quaint that they still spot fires that way? Very antique.
Aaanyway, my bed was pushed up right against the window. Laying there staring out, I didn't see any mountains or rivers or majestic fields—or any land at all. We were up in the sky! I just saw stars, a senseless pile of them. And after drifting off, I awoke again hours later with the Big Dipper right in front of my face. A cosmic surprise and whatnot. In the interest of finding a "happy place" where one can seek shelter and zen-like peace, I think that this moment shall be mine and I'll close my eyes to return there again and again, then, now, forever.
Lefty and I woke up like this.
The sun poking out up at the top of the world.
Morning coffee has never tasted better than in this little ole cabin all filled up with sunlight.
See, errybody got to protect their feet up in the high alpine.
Exploring the morning after we got there meant doing this ... for fun!
Golden hour, way up on high. Nothing to do but watch the sun drop and the storms roll in.
Ah, this was Nate gearing up for our expedition. A rollie and a full wine-skin = hipster backcountry kit.
Did I mention we did a wee hike up Smith Rock on our way down to Bend? We did. Views on views.
Taking pictures of people taking pictures of sunsets.
The Great American West, guys.
January 25 + Astoria
As a month of 31 days, January's in no hurry to leave. I think the magic of this early-in-the-year time is getting 100% back to basics, getting 100% serious about clearing out clutter both mental and physical—like, replacing the strings of white lights in the windows with nothing, with fresh space, with newly cleaned glass.
Something else that makes me feel like I have more air in my lungs is travel, by road, by car, with good people if that's at all possible? Exploration. I am still determined to find new favorite places in Oregon. And despite my longstanding grudge against the Oregon coast (too crowded in the summer, too gloomy in the winter, altogether too many windsock shops), a few of us drove to Astoria this weekend, and I was charmed by the place.
I liked the ancient crumbling victorians piled all the way up the hillside. I liked the colossal freighters anchored in the inlet. I liked the melancholy place names—like Cape Disappointment, where all the ships crashed, even the one carrying supplies to build a new lighthouse. Astoria's just a grand, rugged ole frontier timber town straight out of The Journey Of Natty Gann or something. It's exceptionally Northwest!
Anyway, we let the dogs lunge through the waves and watched Billy do donuts in his SUV on the beach. We stopped at view points and looked at views. We drank beer and ate copious french fries and then fell asleep early in one of the quietest, comfiest hotel rooms with the softest of beds.
