Wednesday May 7

More rain and cold. I should have stayed in Tucson.
No sun but a couple days when it didn't rain. Took
some long bike rides and went to the state park. John
the ranger is a very nice, very laid back type. I
think we'll get along fine. The park has old
conifers, very thick tops so the forest is pretty
spooky. I expect to see ROUS's (see The Princess
Bride) around every corner.

I'm sleeping in the toaster. Got a wifi modem so I
can listen to the BBC at night before falling asleep.
Getting lots of time to read. Finished a great
whodunit by Janet Evanovich called "Twelve Sharp" with
an accident prone female bounty hunter main character.
Saw a red breasted flicker and stellar's jay. Just
so some of you birders don't think I'm making up some
of these names, they don't appear in the eastern US
bird books. Find a western Sibley's and eat your
hearts out.

Went into Seattle last weekend and spent time with my
brother's old girlfriend, Kris, and got lots of
cultchah. Mostly improvisational dance. Lots of it
pretty boring. But a great video of a young couple
with an 11 month old discussing art: to my ears, how
many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The whole
time this little cutie is babbling and you get the
idea that what he has to say is more compelling than
the adult conversation. Don't know if that was the
point or not. Kris is my age (or so) but dances way
younger. She says she doesn't stuff Ibuprofen but I
don't believe her.

Saw a wonderful movie last night called A Band's Visit
about an Egyptian Police Orchestra that gets invited
to Israel to give a concert but ends up in the wrong
town. Much of it in Hebrew and Arabic but in halting
English when the Israelis and Egyptians talk to each
other. Touching but not sappy.

Got a 50 lb sack of Magic Mushroom popcorn. It was on
the doorstep when I got home from the movies last
night. Made some for breakfast. Wow. I'll send some
to the PCC.

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Saturday May 2

THE TOASTER HAS LANDED! At 2:14 PM yesterday landfall
was achieved on Whidbey Island, WA. A beautiful ferry
ride from a strangely named town called Mukilteo.
Sunny day, lots of wind, just perfect for being on the
water. Mom was pretty pleased. Set up the trailer in
her driveway and now I have a couple weeks to sightsee
and kayak before starting at the state park.

The orientation for new camphosts was some boring and
some very well done. Three naturalists from the state
spent a day talking about geology and it was pretty
cool. A glacier created an enormous lake that finally
exploded the ice dam and carved out all kinds of
canyons, carrying rocks hundreds of miles and
generally created conditions for endless numbers of
PhD theses.

All kinds of interesting people. Lots of obnoxious
men, of course, who seemed as if they had never had
anyone to talk to and were making up for lost time.
And many lovely couples who were enjoying each other
and the time they had together in retirement.

Drove east from Coulee City over the cascades. Huge
amounts of snow at the top. Came through Leavenworth,
a ticky, tacky tourist trap made to look like a
Bavarian Village, complete with McDonalds and Holiday
Inn Express. The east side of the Cascades is big
apple country. Right in the middle of the apple
bloom; miles of soft white felt covering flats,
hillsides and mountain tops.

Mom has two cockatiels. This is their mating time and
they are obnoxious. Loud, flying around constantly,
and there is very little to tittilate human beings in
their sexual activity.

The day is overcast. We have great plans to get a
wifi modem and visit the state park. Or just stay in
and read a good book.

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Monday April 27

A little overcast this morning but it warmed up
quickly. First day of orientation. Pretty basic
stuff. But talked to lots of interesting folk Two
guys who worked at the mint in Washington, DC regaled
us with tales of people trying to steal money. A
woman from Anacortes, WA who is further left than me.
She runs a group trying to get homeowners to get rid
of their lawns to save water. We were both pissed off
at a short video in thet afternoon essentially saying
that employees attitudes about custormer service have
nothing to do with how they are treated by their
bosses. The workshop on dutch oven cooking was great.
They made 5 desserts (one for diabetics) and it just
seemed like magic, piling all the ingrients into the
cast iron pots, closing the lids and putting hot
charcoal briquets under and on top, waiting 45 minutes
and finding exquisite looking (and tasting) things
inside.

Gas prices are having an effect on the number of
volunteer camphosts which is way down this year
according to the director. A number of state park
managers are here trying to recruit people who may
have some available months in their schedule.

There is a strong wind blowing tonight though it's not
very cold. There are no tenters so it's all very
quiet outside with everyone watching their satellite
tvs.

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Sunday April26

Drove to Sun Lakes State Park outside Coulee City, WA
for the orientation for new camphosts. Finally here.
Lots of confusion around campsites because it was
crazy busy, being the first weekend of fishing season,
a new reservation process and the campground and the
volunteer program not communicating very well. It's
quieted down now. All bent out of shape noses seem to
be back in their correct places.

I had lots of time to sit in the sun and read this
afternoon. Started and finished a great book called
"Birds in Fall", fiction by Brad Kessler (thanks,
David). About the aftermath of a terrible plane crash
in Nova Scotia, interwoven with descriptions of fall
bird migrations. Takes place mostly in a fancy inn run
by a gay couple. Thoughtful, and settings that are as
interesting as the story.

I'm hearing peepers tonight for the first time this
spring.

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Thursday April 24

Drove to Baker City, OR to the Oregon Trail
Interpretive Center. It sits on a hill top
overlooking miles of the old trail. You can walk
along it and in places the ruts made by the thousands
of ox-drawn wagons are still visible. When things
went well, the trip took 150 days from St. Louis to
Oregon. With poor weather, dead livestock, pissed-off
Indians it could take 200 days. These were tough
people. Most were middle class, many, farmers who had
sold their homesteads to get enough money to make the
trip. It was an expensive undertaking. Over 100,000
people went to Oregon by wagon between 1830 and 1850
(when the train made it unnecessary). I wonder about
the change in human character since that time. Is the
striving towards new frontier good for the human soul?
Or did it just give men more opportunities to build
phalluses (I'm talking symbolically here). There was
a bit on male/female relationships on the trail. The
heading was something like, "Men worked hard and had
fun and women did what men let them." There were very
few incidents of Indian aggression in the first few
years of emigration. The native tribes were actually
very helpful and were eager for trading opportunities.
At some point, however, the numbers of white people
got to the point where the local folk started to see a
decrease in property values: spoiled water sources,
decreased buffalo populations, annoying missionaries,
and they started to fight back. Buy the book and find
out who won.

Discovered that Farewell Bend, where I camped
yesterday got its name as the place where Oregon
Trailers, who floated down the Snake River to cut off
a few miles, got out to avoid the rapids further down,
and continued on by land.

Drove up and over the Blue Mountains, pretty much the
same route as the Oregon Trail, imagining what it must
have been like. Got into La Grande, OR and, for some
reason, noticed how white the population was. At the
same moment, I saw I drive-thru Greek take-out place
with a young black guy with serious dreads waiting for
an order. Of course, I went in. Yai Yai Nikki
(Grandma Nikki) was the proprietor, an old lady with a
Greek accent, and her American husband. The gyro was
better than anything I've had in NYC. I'm came
dangerously close to telling my blood sugar to fuck
off and suck down a piece of baklava.

Continued on into Washington, through Walla Walla.
Having also been to Okeefenokee, I only have Kalamazoo
still on the list of weird, trite, named places to
visit. This area is good sized hills totally plowed
and planted with wheat, a deep bright green with the
early plant shoots. Miles and miles of softly rounded
mounds lacking only pigmentation and nipples to be a
male adolescent's delight.

Tonight in Lewis and Clark State Park. They came
through here on their way back east. The park is in
pretty bad shape. No one else here. Not even a camp
host. Lots of wind damage. No hot water. I think L
& C used the bathrooms. I hope this isn't
representative of Washington State Parks.

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Friday April 25

Drove through more miles and miles of wheat fields.
Huge grain elevators. Beautiful patterns of rows of
green wheat shoots on the hillsides. Contour plowing
meets cubism. As fertile and planted as the land is,
the small villages I passed through are dying, many
empty store fronts and houses in need of care.
Perhaps the only people left are on the widely spaced
farmsteads who do their marketing at Walmart.

I'm in Spring Canyon campground at the Grand Coulee
National Recreation Area, the lake on the Snake formed
by the Grand Coulee Dam (Lake Roosevelt). Not only
there a large body of water behind the dam but there
is a whole pump and canal system that lifts Snake
River water 300 ft above the lake and supplies an
irrigation holding reservoir that used to be a dry
canyon. It is 60 miles long itself.

The campground sits on a cliff overlooking the lake
and the dam. About half the sites are filled. It's
very quiet. Saw yellow-rumped warblers and northern
flickers.

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Wednesday April 23

Woke up this morning to a light drizzle which turned
to real rain during my second cup of coffee. So I
quickly packed up and headed west. Got into Boise in
time to find a sports bar and watch Manchester United
play Barcelona in the second semifinal match.
Pinpoint passing but powerful defenses (and a missed
penalty shot by Christiano Rinaldo) ended up 0-0.

Major agricultural area. I thought Idaho grew potatos
but in this area it's soybeans. Wide irrigation
ditches, hundreds of yards long circular spraying
machines, enormous elevators and tractors the size of
small apartment buildings.

Stopped in to visit Mary Sullivan's son Patrick, his
wife Cory and kids, Sean and Lily. They were a little
bleary-eyed, having gotten back home at midnight last
night from a week in Puerto Vallarta. Parick runs a
shelter for homeless youth, with funding from the same
place as TLP. They have 12 beds and are staffed 24
hours. Patrick makes his own kettle corn with a
popcorn called, I think, Magic Mushroom, which he buys
in 50 lb. sacks. It is by far the best popcorn I've
ever had. Giant, perfectly shaped pieces, puts
Orville to shame.

Drove into Oregon to Farewell Bend State Park on the
Snake River north of Ontario. Only $13 a night with
electricity and $3 for a wheelbarrow load of firewood.
The Snake is famous for things during pioneer days
and tomorrow I'll try to find out what they are. The
campground is about ¾ full. It's no warmer here than
any other places I've been lately so I'll also have to
find what what the big attraction is. There are some
very noisy Canada geese walking around the camp. They
seem to be nesting on an island in the middle of the
Snake. And the robins are doing things we'd rather
our teens didn't. (No, not smoking little robins size
hash pipes.)

In coming into Oregon I'm now on Pacific Time. Seems
like some sort of milestone. All the way across the
country.

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