Montana Mega-Weekend

In Montana, the plains are soft with grass and the mountains are always standing watch. At dusk, the details flatten out and all you can see is shapes, triangles stacked up North to South—each peak cast sharply against a prism of golden light. During dinner at Catherine’s house in the Bitter Root Valley, in the shadow of St. Mary’s Peak, I squashed mosquitos and sweated through my jeans while Jedda, the pup, barked and chased. She loves Montana because of all the space. No leash. No rules. It’s nice to be wild.

Since last writing to you, I drove out to Big Sky Country for a long weekend—our annual swim mission, skate mission, dog mission, beer mission, BBQ mission, bike mission, sunburn mission, heatstroke mission, hike mission, camp mission, everything-that’s-good-about-summer mission.

I bought a cowboy hat. I saw an owl. We got to skate two new Evergreen parks, one of which had ponies galloping by and both of which served up stupid beautiful vistas. We got to drink straight from streams and swim in the most lovely lake. I ate the best-tasting PB&J of my entire life next to an ice-cold plummeting waterfall. We hung with friends and their family, and we laughed a lot and baked in the sun.

I was very at home in Montana. It felt effortless and natural to be there. The sweeping scenery relaxed me as we drove along. The high-country smells of dust and pine bubbled up a sense of peace from my kid-hood in Colorado. When we drove by tidy farmhouses for sale, I saw myself buying them, selling off my Portland possessions, disowning my city life, and moving there to chop wood, grow vegetables and walk in the snow. I could do it, I swear. Not yet, though. Not yet.

As Of Late

Go Skate Day: Old news but good news: Go Skateboarding Day happened, and I skateboarded. It wasn’t exactly a satisfying session, as skate sessions go, but it was a premium hangout with my old-time skate buds. For me, that’s what it’s all about these days—that good stuff that happens when you do something you love with people you love. Rolling. Laughing. Falling down. We're humans. All we have is each other. So, another GSD spent with Scott and Ashley and Derek and I couldn’t ask for more.

Work train to Seattle: I rode the train up past the Puget Sound (destination: Seattle) to do a fancy ad-agency pitch for Nemo. It was a fun and adult-y thing to do. I like train travel even though it makes me a little bit car sick. Train sick? Anyway, it’s very hassle-free. A throwback from another time. Also, train stations are beautiful, and I always take time to appreciate beauty in my travels.

Holiday crowd avoidance: For the third year in a row, we went into the woods for a couple days, walking far and high, sleeping in tents, and then returned to town on July Fourth afternoon so dirty and dog tired that there was no need felt to celebrate, to light things on fire. Instead, copious food was eaten, and day beers drank at George’s house, and then home to watch TV as the mortars blasted through the evening cool. This has become my “America day” ritual, and I am not sorry.

Homesteading: Like a boss, Mark framed up a shed/living quarters AKA shedquarters in two days. I tried to help. I moved some two-by-fours from one pile to another and also tacked up plywood with the motherfuckin nail gun. It feels good to be building, building something real made from tangibles like wood and nails and windows, but also building a life—a potentiality of future days spent easily and peacefully off in the forest.

The Northwest-est

Piney’s gone. There, I said it. He’s on the other side. I’ll tell you more about it sometime, but for now I thought I’d get out of town. Get moving. Move on. I never did know anything else to do.

In our ambition to flee, we thought about driving south to California—but ended up heading north and west—the northwest-est—to the Olympic Peninsula. Here, is where the trees are so old and tall they meet in a perfect V overtop the road. Here, is where arctic oceans end in glassy bays at the feet of a razor-sharp range. Here, depending on who you are, is the promise land.

Pic by Mark.

Camping without my dog, or any dog (who is “my dog” anymore? I’ve had many …) was strange. After making camp, I didn’t have anything to do, no one to keep an eye on or worry about (except Mark, and he doesn’t need eyes keeping on him). I just sat in the sun and drank wine and read while the tide rushed in. Darkness fell, the stars came out—stark, distant, beautiful. When I looked up, a vast loneliness harpooned my soul. Guys, I’ve always been searching for something and never really found it. Maybe it’s the big “why.” Maybe it’s the definition of “me.” Having no real answers for you, I do know that the path to self discovery is a way full of desolate wonder. I leaned in and stoked the fire.

Pic by Mark.

Pic by Mark.

Sunday morning we awoke to whale spouts past the breakers and a pale, slippery head emerging from the sea. Rising and falling. Curious, but not too curious. An intelligent eye looking solemnly our way. I don’t have particularly eloquent words for what it feels like to see and be seen by a whale. Special? We felt special. It was everything you could hope for. We packed up and went home.

Pic by Mark.

Where-Ness

A while back after my boss returned from sabbatical in Europe, we had a conversation about the thing we really remember and hope for from a trip. Those encounters of “where-ness.” This has nothing to do with all the stuff you saw or plans you made, but rather a single experience—often just a flash—where you felt like you were an authentic part of a place.

He told of a sunset walk through Madrid with his wife, the air all warm and glowy pink, when they sauntered into a medieval square and were greeted by the student choir sitting on the fountain steps singing “Hey Jude.” The tune rose and fell as the pigeons flapped for scraps, and people milled around in a relaxed fashion—on their way home from work or out for an aperitif.

This moment had a live-in magic, and he thought he might remember it forever—or for a long time at least, long after he forgot the train rides and museums tickets.

It got me to thinking about trips of my own. What were the highlights? The squishy candy middles?

My rally through Canada last summer was full of them. Like: our first morning in Nelson—a laidback mountain town on a cold-water lake. My old friend Mark who lives in Nelson advised us on a morning wander. “Hike up the Pulpit early before it gets too hot,” he told us and we listened. Straight from the café with paper cups of dark roast still in our hands, we began our ascent on a morning of dazzling heat and beauty. The trail to the Pulpit—a big rock looming on high over the town and lake—was essentially just a steep set of stairs carved into a plummeting hillside. We climbed and climbed. Soon we were high on caffeine and lung-fulls of warm, tree-scented air. I nabbed a sweet, mealy saskatoon berry and popped it in my mouth. The temperature rose. We sweated into our tee shirts. Less than an hour later, we emerged onto the precarious sun-washed rock AKA my forever happy place. Overhead, bluer than blue sky. To either horizon, steep green valleys. Directly below, the city and of course the lake—calling us back down for an afternoon swim.

Early Spring Things

Austin, TX: I went to Austin. It was cold and I got a cold. My intention for the trip, to skate/drink margaritas/wear short sleeve tee shirts, was shipwrecked by sickness and the evil, piercing temperatures. "Unseasonable," locals called it. Still, I was charmed by the city, by its accessible tacos for every meal and the cheerful custom neon announcing every business. People say it's like a  "hotter Portland." I don't know about that. Austin has an altogether different feel. It's rambling, winsome. It reminded me of the plains cities I hung around in my Coloradan youth, where dust was part of the decor and the streets were built wide so the tumbleweeds could roll on through.

The Fredericksburg, TX park—built by Billy & Cathy. 

Me and Amanda at an Austin watering hole. We're cool and we party. 

Dark On Netflix: Crikey! It would be too reductive to call this show the German version of Stranger Things, so I won't.

Snow in the city: I threw out kale seeds and then it snowed over the chartreuse sprouts. Later, the rain melted the blanket of snow away. There were the sprouts! Little fists of defiance pumping up toward the sky.