Home Town

October 24, 2010

Day 44

Arriving Home

It was the perfect decision to make a visit with the Swopes our final family visit on the trip.  Virginia, when she heard we were coming, changed dinner plans and baked a roast, mashed potatoes, made a garden fresh salad, and baked a lemon meringue pie!  What a glorious homecoming meal that was.  We visited through the evening and headed to bed early from a long day’s drive.

We woke up to a cool Yakima morning, fresh rain saturated the ground, the sun was shining warm and trees were lit in yellow and orange.  We had fresh fried eggs, hot toast, freezer jam in three varieties, raw fried potatoes and perfectly seasoned, lightly salty sausage.  The wood stove heated the house and warmed us up for the final leg of the drive home.  One last washing on the car windows and reloading of the luggage and we’re heading home.  But, not without a stop at a Yakima fruit stand.  In the remaining space of the car we squeeze in winter squash, apples, potatoes, a few zucchini, tomatoes – red and green, garlic, onions and enough fresh green beans for one dinner.  Plus a large pumpkin to decorate the back door!

The fall color tour is on its last lap, but not short of color.  As we leave the pine trees of eastern Washington we move into the Doug Fir and Hemlock of western Washington.  That brings the rain and golden colors of Washington’s hardwoods.  Only the occasional vine maple streaks through with its red and orange flame.  The closer we get to the summit the heavier the rain.  We stop in North Bend at the T – Tweeds Café made famous in the TV series Twin Peaks.  Soup of the day on Sunday is homemade chili with cheese and onions on top.  One bowl each we order.  It arrives almost immediately in two heavy ceramic bowls.  The Seattle Times is scattered about and we read local news and politics and find that it’s absolutely identical to everything we’ve seen in our travels: politicians talking in clichés and pointing fingers.  Thirty minutes later we’re ready to leave and the rain is coming down sideways mixed with swirling, soggy maple leaves and we know for sure we’re in home country.

The rain pour most of the way home.  Across Highway 18 and south on I-5 and we pull into our drive.  Jack unpacks the suitcases and various bags of souvenirs and tubs of gear that we’ve schlepped across the country and back.  I open and sort the mail, or should I say I separate the political adds from the bills and business mail.  Three twelve inch piles of mail are reduced to one pile of magazines and about 22 necessary pieces of mail.

We start laundry and change into sweats.  The chili we had for lunch turns out to also be dinner.  Slowly the adrenaline of the drive wears off and we make a protein drink and watch 60 Minutes.  We are re-entering our life in Olympia.

You Can't Go Back - Pullman

Day 43

October 23, 2010

Morning tea, toast and oatmeal.  Off to yoga with John and Tina.  Being part of a full yoga class and working through the poses that stretch and strengthen remind me that my traveling routine hasn’t really been challenging me very much.  After yoga we say our good byes and head to Pullman along the back road.

Rural Washington only varies slightly from all the other rural towns we’ve seen.  A few lone barns succumbing to gravity, big barns, small barns, horse barns, farm houses and equipment in fields all look familiar.  Small towns come and go.  The line between farm and natural landscape is easily drawn.  Where farm lines stop desert scrub begins.  The fields here are not flat like those left behind, but roll across the curve of the earth in swelling mounds and steep slopes.  Some of the fields are freshly plowed dark open hills, others are freshly cut stubble and still others show the fresh hint of velvety green sprouting winter crops. This is land that grows crops without the benefit of irrigation.

We’re in the Palouse, home the WSU Cougars and the place where we first met.  We envisioned a sunny eastern Washington afternoon stroll across the campus with dry leaves crunching beneath our feet.  It’s raining.

We pull into town past the old Rosauer’s grocery.  It’s now a Barnes & Nobles that also serves as a Bookie.  We’re headed to the original Bookie located across from my old dorm, McCroskey Hall.  This is the place where we bought our textbooks, Cougar wear and other minor necessities of campus living.  We find a parking spot next to the Bookie at a building that is now an Interfaith Center.  Two young men, perhaps from India park in front of us and feed the meter.  The Bookie is just a few steps behind us.  Remarkably quiet for a Saturday, it’s closed.  All the business has been re-routed to the Barnes & Noble.  So we head to the CUB to sit in the old Cougar Union Building.  Another Barnes & Noble, Subway & Starbucks greet us.  We browse the sweatshirts, but something seems all wrong to be in a Barnes & Noble store for our Cougar wear.  Maybe we’ll go to the old creamery and get some Cougar Gold cheese and have some of creamery fresh ice cream.  We know the original location has been moved and we ask directions.  “The only weekends they’re open for is home games.” we’re told.  It just doesn’t fit.  I’ve picked out a new sweatshirt and a few gifts and we head to the register.  One station is just closing and the clerk asks one of the people stocking candy if they can wait on us.  A young, pony-tailed co-ed sighs and rolls her eyes and asks her male counterpart if he can help.  He hesistates to think a minute.  Another young man appears from around the aisle and pleasantly rings us up. 

We’re a bit disappointed.  It’s been a long time since we’ve walked the campus and there have been a lot of changes.  There is no activity on campus.  It’s drizzling rain and the air is cold.  The students are huddled up somewhere behind closed doors and pulled curtains recovering from Friday night or just enjoying a quiet Saturday morning.  We walk the long way back to the car and take pictures for old time’s sake. 

One thing that hasn’t changed is that the campus rolls a bit up hill and down on a smaller scale than the surrounding farm land.  There are steps everywhere.  I feel a little burn in the legs and a shortness of breath.  I tell Jack, “I use to scamper up and down these hills without a second thought 20, oops 30, years ago.”  It’s funny.  I graduated from WSU in1971.  It’s been almost 40 years ago. 

We pull out of town and Cougar country farms gradually recede along the long straight stretch of Highway 26.  Long lines of pivoting irrigation stations on wheels start to appear in the fields.  Orchards, some still bearing apples now crop up.  This is a land that grows crops using water from wells and the Columbian Basin Irrigation Project.  Breaks between farms are classic eastern Washington desert.  Sage brush and rabbit brush grow in clumps and sprouts between native bunch grass and the invasive cheat grass that is trying to take over.  We are on the edge of the Hanford Nuclear Area. 

We could make it home tonight, but it would be dark traveling for several hours and we’d arrive late.  It doesn’t seem right to end this way.  Conveniently located at the end of the day are Jack’s Aunt Virginia, Uncle Jim, and his cousin Bob. We call and invite ourselves to stay the night.  It’ll still be late and Jack wants to eat at a Mexican (again) restaurant in Othello, so we tell them we’ll have eaten.  We pass through Othello, not quite hungry and the Mexican restaurant is out of business.  We call Swopes and suggest we bring in some bacon and eggs and make ourselves dinner when we arrive.  There’s been a big misunderstanding and Virginia is cooking a roast and corn thinking we’re coming to dinner!  Halleluiah!  Another home cooked dinner with family awaits us.

Welcome to Washington - A visit with my brother's family...

Day 42

October 22, 2010

It feels a bit like the last day of our vacation.  Today we enter Washington.  We have plans to keep the vacation spirit.  We’ll visit my brother John and his family in Spokane and then go on to Pullman – home of WSU, our alma mater.

We travel west along I-90 out of Montana.  One small side road slows down our pace a bit and we travel alongside the Clark River.  A small fishing pullout out has a picnic table and we take the opportunity to make lunch.  The air is cold, the sun is warm, the river flows quietly, trees rise up on both sides of the river.  We spread out the paper towels, lunch meat and garlic cheese curds bought in Wisconsin.  Our condiments are thin, so I mix a big squeeze of brown mustard with a little scoop of plain yogurt and spread it on all sides of the hearty wheat bread and proceed to pile on the meat and cheese.  Wrapped all in paper towels we dine in fine style. 

The mountains remain rocky and the larch, fir and pine mingle in large bands of green and yellow.  In places, the larch predominates and rolls over the hills in big yellow patches.  An occasional maple, quaking aspen, or cottonwood add brief glimpses of orange and brown.  The fall color tour continues.  We’d seen the larch along the east coast, but it’s reappearance here is far more dominate.  This is a marketable evergreen that actually changes colors and eventually drops it’s needles.  The sun is bright and when it lights the larch a beautiful golden light radiates through the forest.

Our new friend from the Safeway parking lot yesterday tells us that the weather has been unusually good this year.  Normally snow would cover the ground.  We did bring chains for that very possibility, but with the exception of a few very wet days in Vermont and some very hot days in New Mexico, the weather has been idyllic.  We’ve been blessed for sure.

The long stretches of interstate and short drives along the scenic bypass don’t offer many safe photo opportunities.  The expanse and majesty of it are hard to express and even harder to capture on film.  We pull into a rest stop that has very good views of the surrounding hillsides and Jack is a happy photographer for a few brief minutes. Information posted on two platforms tells the story of the original road built here in the late 1800s.  In four months, ending in December over 100 miles of road were cut, leveled and bridged. A quote in this transcript says it far better than I, “The scenery was the wildest ever gazed upon, and grand if so feeble a word can be used to properly express anything in this amazing mountain range.”  Randall Hewitt, 1862.

Leaving Montana and entering Idaho we are along the lowlands with mountains towering high above.  Looking out the window layers of stratified rock stare back at me.  Perched perfectly on the low ridgeline at the freeway exit into Wallace is a perfect flaming hardwood.  Red at the crown, quickly fading to shades of orange and yellow.  With the sun lighting it from above it glows.  We’ve entered Pacific Daylight time.  My watch, which has never been reset to the local times of the areas we traveled, now reads the time correctly once again.  Wallace, Idaho is a worth stop.  A old mining town, it’s an easy and fun walk through the main street.  An antique store has a sign for tea shop inside.  Well we’re tea drinkers and this is a definite temptation.  We’ve had plenty of tea on the trip: weak tea, tea brewed in lukewarm water, tea brewed in water stored in a pot that sometimes serves coffee, tea in styrofoam cups, paper cups, and the occasional mug, generic tea, popular brands of tea, but not tea that s really brewed hot, in a pot, in a tea cup.  Not that kind of cup of tea. In a corner of the shop are five tables fully set with silver, linen tablecloths and napkins rolled in silver rings. We order a pot of tea, but the waitress insists we have a small plate of sweets with it.  As our teapot is preheating she brings us a small fruit plate of melons, red grapes and black grapes so sweet with delicate fruit forks to pluck delicacies from the plate.  China cups and saucers, raw sugar, cream and a plate of cookies, breads, scones, and lemon butter-way more than we want or need. Our tea has steeped and it steams rich and amber into our cups.  We’re in heaven.

An hour later we are welcomed at my brother John’s house, a nice change from the chain of motels we’ve stayed in.  Warm and inviting and so close to home.  Shortly after Tina arrives and groceries are unloaded.  We visit a while and take a walk through the neighborhood before dinner.  On the perimeter of the neighborhood we walk a trail for about 2 miles.  We walk around and down a few hills and out to the Little Spokane River where deer are feeding in a field.  The hill seems a longer climb back and I need to pause and drink while John and Jack can talk and walk without missing a beat.  Home cooked burgers with quality beef, home baked fries, salad and berry cobbler with ice cream.  It’s all good – food, conversations, Phillies on TV and finally we sleep.

Big Sky

Day 40

Wednesday  October 20, 2010

Montana

Two words – Big Sky!  It fits.  It just seems we’re riding on top of the world.  Big feather clouds sweep from the horizon clear across the sky.  Fields are neatly cropped with fences, but no farmhouses to give a hint of who owns or works this land.  About mid-day, rather abruptly, we enter into a wooded section of the highway.  Farmland gives way to big pine trees that begin to come into view.  Lines of cottonwood glow golden in the sun.  No reds from the east coast, but big clusters of sunlit gold.

We began the day at a state park walking along a Badlands trail.  This is an area where dinosaurs roamed.  It is harsh and dry.  The trail takes you into a small section where you can see and feel the sandy surface of the muddy deposits that formed this land.  Because the deposits include hard and soft material the erosion is uneven.  Softer soil is worn away by wind and water leaving small capstones on the tops of pillars.  The trail is narrow and loose gravel lends itself to unstable footing.  In spots I freeze up afraid to go on, but Jack’s encouraging and comes back to give me a hand. 

We leave and travel on to the site of Custer’s Last Stand.- a badland in a totally different way.  It’s quite a long ways away and we arrive with 90 minutes so try and experience it all.  Smaller than Gettysburg it feels the same.  This war, also known as the Battle of Little Bighorn lasted two days in 1876.  June 25 & 26.  Many lives were lost in battle.  We drive the five mile loop trail and read some of the signs or read from the brochure about how the battle was fought.  Each side advancing and retreating until, in the end, the Indians win the battle.  Custer is not only defeated.  He and his unit of men are dead along with his brother, two nephews and a brother-in-law. 

The Lakota, Sioux and Cheyenne won the battle but in the end they lost the war.  Ultimately, the Plains Indians knew that they either had to fight until they are all were dead or surrender their nomadic lifestyle and culture to the reservation.  But even then, they were not safe.  Once gold was found on their reservation fortune seekers came looking for gold.  With no regard for the treaty they entered the reservation and took what they wanted.  The government tried to buy that land from the Indians, but they refused.  Further battles and many more deaths followed. 

Gravestones mark the place where soldiers fell during the two days of battle.  When the fighting ended the Indians took their dead and left the battlefield.  Many spears were left behind. Looking across the grassy field now it’s hard to imagine this blood soaked land.  Running through the center of this land is the Little Bighorn River.  Today bright yellow cottonwoods line the river and the scene looks so peaceful that it’s hard to imagine the fighting, the dust, the smoke and the gunfire.  The dust and smoke were so thick that rifles were tossed aside and hand guns were used.  Indians fought knowing that their lives and their culture were threatened.  It's an interesting, but sad day.

Both sides suffered great losses.  Over 259 of Custer’s men died.  Oral records count the number of killed Indians to be between 50 and 300.  Surviving soldiers buried the dead and marked their graves.  Many of the dead were known by name as they were officers.  Others were only known only by the rank on their uniforms.  All the graves were marked by scratching names or rank on broken spears and then driving the stake into the ground where the soldier was buried.  Later, marble headstones replaced the stakes.  In some places a lone headstone stands on a hill.  In other places small clusters of two or three or four markers show where men died.  And still other sites have many headstones – the sites of the strongest conflict.  Red stone markers show the places where Indians fell.  Because fallen Indians were carried away from the battlefield, the headstones are placed in locations that have been identified through oral records.

A few days ago we saw a map of the United States before Europeans came.  Every square inch bore a tribal name.  We know the story of what happened.  There seems no way to undo it all.  But in the days following Custer’s battle it wasn’t just a war that was lost.  It was a culture, a lifestyle, a nation of people that were forever changed.

Buffalo Moon

Buffalo Moon

Our final stop is at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  It encompasses part of North Dakota’s Badlands. We’ve had a busy day and question whether or not the ranger station will be open.  We move from mountain time to central time about two minutes before we enter the park and in just the blink of eye we lose an hour.  Lucky us!  It’s 30 minutes before they close.  A few quick ideas from the ranger, a map, and an interpretive brochure and we’re headed 14 miles to the lookout at the end of the road.

The park brochure tells us that the Badlands are an area of low hills that were “formed 60 million years ago when streams carried eroded material eastward from the young Rocky Mountains and deposited them in these vast lowlands.”  60 million years ago dinosaurs roamed the earth.  Mother Nature has been working on these hills a very long time.  What we see today are a series of small rounded hills nestled and layered together.  The hills are nearly bare and the bands of geologic deposits are stacked one upon another clear to the top of the hill.  One of Mother Nature’s gifts was to create ‘slumps’.  As water flowed at the base of the hill it caused enough erosion to wash out part of the base and it ‘slumped’ downhill just enough to create other small rounds or protrusions that look like giant, carved horse hooves lined up along the base.  It’s a bit like a jigsaw puzzle and when we look closely we can see where the slumps would fit onto the mountain if we just match the bands.

What we see are layers of sediment deposits piled one upon the other in a near monotone with shades of grey, brown, and orange.  This blends nicely into the surrounding landscape of prairie grasses, scraggly brush and juniper.  Some of the layers are made of harder material than the layers above and below.  With time erosion has erased enough of the deposits above and below to show these layers like little shelves or benches. 

Shortly after we pass a sign saying, “Buffalo are dangerous.  View at a distance.”  we come to several buffalo at a scenic pullout.  Some have their heavy heads bowed seemingly content to chew the grass that rims the parking area.  The sun has been out all day and has heated up the blacktop. Two massive buffalo recline in regal repose collecting that heat so as to remember warmer days when the snow flies.  Wanting a picture, Jack drives closer and closer.  I’m surprised he doesn’t run over the tail of the beast.  Rolling down the window he pokes his camera about two feet from the buffalo’s head.  “MOVE THE CAR!” I say, ever so gently and with increasing alarm.  “I’m fine.  It’s fine,” he replies trying to calm me down.  As the buffalo slowly rises up from the blacktop Jack winces.  “MOVE THE CAR NOW!” I repeat.  Dropping the camera on his lap and putting the car in gear we roll away. 

“You were startled weren’t you?” I asked.  “No I wasn’t.” he insists.  We go back and forth about this for a while and he finally admits that he was surprised, but not startled.  Whatever. 

As we continue up to the overlook we see wild turkeys, big horned sheep, deer and raptors.  The overlook gives us a sweeping view of the distant hills and the Little Missouri snaking through the valley.  We return to walk a small trail along the base of one of the canyons.  A big buffalo pie sits at the head of the trail. I read on the sign in log that a previous hiker left the trail because of the presence of buffalo.  I panic.  I get a bit worked up about the possibility of encountering a buffalo on foot. Jack is flitting about capturing the fleeting photos of the day.  My nerves still jitter, but then I tell myself to just feel the power and history of the buffalo and my fear is gone.  I enjoy the remainder of the trail.

We’ve had a full day.  A three quarter moon is rising over the hills to the east.  Behind us the sunset is starting to color the clouds and band the sky in pinks and purples.  The hills absorb a hint of color as we head to Montana for our B & B in growing darkness.  This area is so rural and towns are so small that the road is quickly enveloped in total darkness.  Fog stripes along the side of the road and yellow center lines show the way.

Finding Lewis and Clark

Go West Young Man!

The rural landscape gives us uninterrupted satellite radio.  No high mountains or deep canyons to interrupt the signal.  Now, if only cell phone coverage was as good.

Quite by accident we find a Lewis & Clark Museum in Washburn.  Jack wanted to pull over and read maps.  I suggest the gas station to the left, he goes right.  Lucky me, we spent the next 45 minutes touring the Lewis and Clark Expedition Museum which has a nice overview of the their expedition.  On the lawn outside the building steel buffalo walk alongside the side walk.  Larger than life  steel sculptures of Lewis, Clark and Sacajawea are gathered in a circle having a conference.  

President Thomas Jefferson commissioned them to explore the land beyond the Louisiana Purchase and to find a water passage to the Pacific.  They took a group of about 40 and explored the territory.  Lewis made extensive notes and drawings.  Clark – not so many.  The notes were published on their return, but only the adventurous side of their sensational expedition was published.  Over 100 new scientific discoveries, including new species of plants were recorded in their journals.  The media then, much like it is now, was more interested in the ‘adventure’ than the science.  The hardships of the travel, living through the winter, encounters with the Indians all these fascinated people more than the scientific discoveries.  These had to wait for over one hundred years to be published. By then, others had made the same discoveries, but the original credit goes to Lewis and Clark. 

Nearby is Fort Mandan where the expedition wintered in 1804.  They came prepared with food, gunpowder, lead, vinegar (for scurvy) blacksmithing tools – everything they needed except winter clothes.  They had brought about four dozen Hudson Bay wool coats which were inadequate in both number and warmth.  These were cut and sewn into mittens.  Buffalo were hunted and killed for meat and hides.  Buffalo hides could keep them warmer than anything they’d brought.  They arrived in early fall and began construction of the fort Octobe 4, 1804.  It was completed by Christmas.  Small buildings, about 11’ x 9’ were built side by side and shared a chimney.  An officer and a lower ranking member of the expedition slept on the main level.  The officer took the upper bunk while the other slept on the bottom bunk to stoke the fine every half hour or so.  Each room had a lot where 7 to 9 others slept on the floor rolled up in buffalo hides. 

Over time the Missouri River has eroded the original fort.  In 1971 the fort was reconstructed in preparation for the Bicentennial Expedition.  What took Lewis and Clark’s expedition two months to build, took volunteers over 2 years to build.  The original construction crew was highly motivated by the onset of bitter cold and snow and worked night and day to complete the shelter.  Like the Logging Camp Park we saw on our first day of our vacation, this is another example of the willingness to work hard and endure significant hardships for the sake of exploration and adventure.     

Lucky Lunch

A Bowl of Homemade Soup
October 19, 2010

A few miles later Jack’s wanting me to reach in the back seat and grab him an apple.  As if my arms will bend backwards 45 degrees and be able to find the apples hidden among the books, bags, and coats.  He pulls to the shoulder, I tell him to take a left into the small town and find a proper parking spot for me to get out and excavate those apples.  Turns out we’re in Wing, North Dakota. Lost in time, the city has your usual theater, post offices and other necessities.  But, they appear to be original construction from maybe the 1940s or 1950s.  The monotony of contemporary construction has not blighted this small town.  Right in front of us is the Chat and Chew Café.  The apples are forgotten and we go in for tea.  Vinyl covered tables line the wall.  Four or five hunters are spread out at the front table, another table is occupied by a couple just finishing.  We take a seat and look at the menu.  It’s definitely home cookin’ and we’ve been yearning for home style food. A chalkboard by the counter lets us know the daily special, “Zucchini and hamburger with gravy and bread.”   Knoephla soup is one of the options.  It’s a German creamy potato like soup with small dumplings.  There’s nothing about this soup that says it’s good for you except that it’s home made and will nurture the spirit like nothing else today.  We order two bowls and two cups of tea.  The soup needs nothing and is quickly consumed. We order a caramel malt to go.  We can hear the whir of the old fashioned, traditional blender go to work on the scoops of ice cream and caramel.  - 2 soup – A$7.00, 2 tea $1.00, one malt – $3.50 – the best bargain we’ve had so far.