A Very Eastern Washington Kind of Day

The events here described take place on Tuesday, 09/07/10.

The Fred Meyer parking lot seemed a reasonable place to try and sleep, barring the discovery of some unknown rest area along Highway 2.  It was well-lit, there were quite a few cars.  All seemed well.  So, I went to sleep.

And then I woke up.  Again.  And again.  It wasn't noise or anything like that.  There was just that creeping sense of the unfamiliar.  No help at all was the fact that at about 1:00 am (after having awakened for perhaps the third time) all the parking lot lights had been turned off--in an effort to go green, I suspect, but also to save money.

So, creepy as it had become, I chose to stay.  After all, I had nowhere else to go in the pitch black of the Wenatchee night.

Dawn came earlier than I would have thought, and I began my day at approximately 6:30.  I started by taking some pictures of the surrounding area.  The main interesting things was the bridge spanning the river.

I headed north from there on 97, the thought being to go up and around and make for Bridgeport.  There was actually a lot of interesting and neat scenery along 97. 

Prepare for examples:

and:

Once I had rounded through Brewster and begun heading south and east toward Bridgeport, I noticed a couple of really fascinating things.  The first is something that without a video camera and an extra pair of hands, I'm pretty hopeless to show.  But I can describe it.  I can describe the heck out of it.  Well, maybe not.  But here goes anyway.

You may have noticed in the above pictures that the sky is mostly cloudy.  When I was just outside of Bridgeport, the sky had begun to clear up a bit, and that's when I noticed the grooves in the center.  I think they're the kind of grooves that are meant to keep the sleepy drivers from being sleeping drivers, but I didn't test them.  In any event, due to some kind of recent precipitation, the grooves were each filled with still water.  So, as I cruised past at roughly 60 miles per hour, the lines in the pavement blurred, but the reflection of the sky above remained almost unchanged, other than my perspective on it.  Sure, occasionally the water levels wouldn't match causing a bit of blurriness, but overall, the effect was (nearly) mesmerizing.

The second thing I saw that I thought was neat was an old run down building.

This would have been their view, once upon a time:

In town, I stopped at a park along the river.  The home neighboring had the kind of garden that I've liked for a long time.  It's the kind of garden that at first looks kind of overgrown, but upon closer inspection, you realize that it probably takes a lot of effort to achieve that look.

 Also, they had a couch in their yard.  It didn't have any cushions, but they did have a yard couch.

Shortly thereafter, I stopped at a viewpoint over the Chief Joseph Dam, and here is my somewhat unconventional dam picture:

It could probably stand some cropping, but I like it well enough as-is.

It's weird, a lot of the pictures that I really like from (at least these first few days of) my trip have a really washed out look.  That being said, here's another one that I think is pretty great:

A little farther east toward the Grand Coulee Dam, I had to stop again.  I came across an area of the landscape that looked as though it had experienced a grass fire or something in the last few years.  I pulled off to the side of the road onto sort of a steep drop-off.  On a whim, I decided to see if I'd be able to drive out of it and get back to the road.  The wheels were willing, but the traction just wasn't there.  It suddenly became time to (off) road test the four wheel drive.  The good news is: it worked.  The bad news is that I didn't find any more hospitable looking places to pull off the road until I was out of that area.

Shortly thereafter, however, I did happen upon something else that was (perhaps) a bit better.  Usually when you can see far into the distance, the weather is pretty clear.  I had the unique opportunity to see far into the distance, but this time into the clouds.  Looking across a flat landscape and being able to see the tops of clouds in the distance can be a bit disconcerting.  At least, it was for me.  Here, for your viewing enjoyment, is a 2 dimensional light-capture representation of what it was that I saw.

I passed through the town above the big dam, and I decided to stop for a meal at a restaurant called Pepper Jack's.  I believe I had the Cowboy Chicken.  It was quite good.  The place's decor had a very (at least this is how I imagine it to have been) genuine 1960s feel.  I liked it.

After that, I stopped at a viewpoint over the Grand Coulee Dam and found it largely uninteresting.  I'd been there before, twice.  I didn't feel any kind of need to stop and take the tour, or wait for nightfall and see the dam lightshow.  The reflection of the bridge spanning the river below the dam, however, was of interest.  In particular, the broken reflection it cast upon the waters' surface.

 The next place I had in mind to stop at was the Dry Falls.  On the way south I passed through Electric City (which I sincerely believe they should change the name to Electri City, but don't hold much hope of that ever happening).

Once on the road and a ways farther south, I encountered yet another one of those things that so fascinates me of late.  The abandoned.  This time it was an old store/restaurant/gas station/motel.

The following isn't my favorite picture of the scene, and I don't want to inundate you with too many of the same thing, but this one really sets the stage for the tale of how I felt about the whole place.

In the background to the left, you can see the edge of the building in the first picture.  In the mid-ground, you can see the first and second (and a tiny bit of the third) motel cabins that have been boarded up.  In the foreground... in the foreground is a blank sign of no particular importance.  Or so it would seem.

The whole place was more or less heartbreaking to me.  I knew that this was situated at the intersection of two fairly major (given the area) highways.  Times are tough, I know, have been for a while.  Something about seeing things like this just makes me miss the days I was never a part of.  Makes me want to not partake of restaurants and hotels/motels that are part of chains longer than about three links.  Something a long the road later on made me realize what it is about nationwide chains that keeps their position.  Of course there was something about them in the beginning that helped them rise above their local competition and expand, but once they reach a certain point, the quality of their goods or services is no longer as important as proximity.

We are creatures of habit, for the most part, and we seek the familiar.  I've recently taken up coffee as a casual habit, I think of it as renting space while I write in (mostly) peace, away from the distractions of home and work.  That being said, Starbucks is hands down the winner in terms of proximity for me.  And by virtue of that, I find them gaining my business most frequently.  And such is the case on this last little journey around eastern Washington and Oregon.  I'd want to stop and do some writing, or feel that I could use the caffeine to stay awake, and I'd find myself searching out Starbucks on my phone because I knew what they had that I wanted.  Something in me thought, 'well, it's just coffee.  how different can it be?'  This would become one of the previously mentioned caveats to my 'no chains' rule.

I hadn't stopped for coffee that day at that point.  This little aside is just to illustrate my point about how heartbreaking it felt to see a place like this, that could have been great in its heyday.  And the irony of the above mentioned sign.  The road facing side was blank, sure.  But the backside, which presumably used to face the road, told a different story.

Now, maybe I'm reading far too much into this (which I'm no stranger to), but this says a lot about the character that the establishment must have had--the character that I could sense ghostly remnants of as I traversed the desolate grounds.

There was a certain irony in the following picture (last of the deserted motel series, I promise):

On my way back to the truck, I noticed that at least one of the deserted buildings, in this place that probably no one cares enough about any more to even want to tear down and build something new, had a tongue on it.  It was a mobile.  This place that cars could visit, where there were no longer any customers, where at least part of the structure was designed to move--would probably never move again.

And then I stopped at Dry Falls (huzzah!):

I thought this one was also good:

Farther down the road, I saw a sign for some caves.  I still had my headlamp with me, so I figured what the heck? Why not?  I grabbed the light and my camera and headed up the trail.  The next thing of significance I found was this apparent stairway to nowhere:

Once I found the caves though, man, was I disappointed.  The Ape Cave spoiled me.  These were more like shallow spots hollowed out in rocky cliff-sides.  Underwhelmed.

While it's true that there may have been other, actual caves up there, I only took the one trail and this is what I found.  I decided against further investigation for the time being.  Maybe another visit later, perhaps?  These little adventures really bring home just how far away I can get in a day.

That being said, I decided to pretty much call it a day at that point.  I hit up the Starbucks in Moses Lake (see what I'm talking about?), wrote for a while, used their internets and whatnot, then headed east on 90, on my ever decreasing fuel supply (more on that topic in the next day's entry).  

Still not of a mind to pay for lodgings, I found the nearest rest area, and took many, many short naps in my truck for the rest of the evening and night.  And morning.

A Good Start

My day, being Monday the 6th, began like so many others.  The majority of others, barring a few minor differences, in fact--at least since as far as the last 4 months go, anyway.  I woke up at 4:45ish, a.m.  Dark and early.  The milk had run dry, and I had decided not to replenish the day before, as I was going out of town for the next week or so, and figured I didn't need to come home to that particular olfactory bouquet.

With cereal essentially out of the picture, I opted for some whole grain toaster waffles I picked up a while back.  They did the trick.  They were food.  I had taken a shower the night before just to be on the safe side--I didn't need that eating into my precious little time and mental faculties at such an hour. 

And then I went to work. 

That was an interesting experience.  Since I've had this job, I haven't taken more than 2 days off in a row, so I was really excited at the prospect of a whole week away.  Then I got really tired.  Someone had brought in a cardboard container of Starbucks coffee, so I decided to have a cup, figuring that would do just the trick in waking me up.  Then, a coworker mentioned that he was going to Starbucks himself, and was taking money and requests.  I figured if I'm going to drink coffee, I might as well drink it in a flavor that I like, so I put my order in with him, too.  Then I finished the cup I'd already taken.

Once I began drinking the specifically ordered drink, I was pretty wired in a way that I don't ever really recall having been before.  At least one of my coworkers took note of my... change in behavior.  Hopefully he was more entertained than annoyed.  Plus, he knew how excited I was about my vacation. 

The remainder of the day came and went uneventfully, except for the fact that at a mere suggestion, I changed the plan from heading directly south on I-5 to heading east, and exploring Eastern Washington.  And I'm extremely glad that I did things that way.

This is another terrible tease, I know, but there are a few things that I realized that I have particular interest in--as far as photographical subjects--and Eastern Washington had them aplenty.

Aged or abandoned buildings, barns in particular, have always been of special interest to me.  Driving around over there though, I just kept seeing fascinating image after amazing scene.  I stopped.  A lot.  I think in my first 3 days out I took over a thousand pictures.

So, I left work, heading south on 405, then turned east on 90.  On the way up to Snoqualmie Pass, I saw a sign for something that I'd wanted to investigate for a long time.  This is exactly the sort of thing that this journey is supposed to address.  So I took my leave of the freeway and made for the location of the signs' suggestion: Iron Horse State Park.

The park was a lie.

When I think Iron Horse, I think old locomotives.  You know, trains.  Nope, not there.  At that state park, they're referring to the other Iron Horse: the bicycle.

I got up to the park, and I was looking all around for an old locomotive near a parking lot so that I could get out, inspect it, and take pictures.  I did find it curious, all the mountain bikers weaving in and out of the forest, but figured it was a state park, so it wasn't really a big deal.  Yep, I'm a quick one.  It was probably five more minutes of me driving around the park before I finally realized my error.  Liars.

Anyway, there was a really neat lake up there, I believe it was called Rattlesnake Lake.  I've got pictures which I'll have to check to verify (and add, of course), as well as maps, and whatnot.  There was also a cute brother and sister that were playing on a tree that was growing out of the water.  It had branches that dipped beneath the water line.  The little girl had been adventurous enough to try and see how far she could get toward the water, when her brother decided to follow suit.  This produced... unexpected effects for the girl and her position with regard to the water level... well, the brother did have a bit of a mischievous grin and a glint in his eye, so the effects may not have been so unexpected to him.

Shortly thereafter, I summited the pass and began my descent.  The next stop I made was at the Indian John Hill Rest Area.  It was an interesting place.  Lots of people coming and going.  Obviously the restrooms were in demand, but there was also a staffed donation based coffee/snack building that demonstrated quite a draw.

I left there continuing on my eastward journey, thinking that I wanted to get to Wenatchee or a rest area to sleep. 

However, I did decided to stop at the historic mill in Thorp.  Afterall, it was Labor Day.  The mill was closed for the day.  I still wandered around the grounds taking pictures, though.

On the way back out to the highway, I saw a few old barns that were interesting.   So, I decided to stop and take pictures of them, as well.  While doing so, the farmers brought out some large piece of farm equipment that I am hopeless to know the name of, and hauled a load of hay from one side of the road to the other.  The older farmer drove a small ATV and as he passed by, his dog--a blue heeler, I think--climbed out of the passenger seat and onto the back to look at me skeptically as they passed.  The man smiled as I took my pictures.

Another reason the barns held my interest was the fact that there's a wind-farm under construction on the hill directly behind them from where I was positioned.  That presented some kind of juxtaposed, anachronistic irony to me, and was just another reason as to why I couldn't bring myself to pass it up.

After I finished, I continued on my way, and then turned north for Highway 2 to be able to get to Wenatchee.

I stopped a few more times for pictures of barns and various other things, but by and large the light was fading fast and there wasn't much that I could do about that, especially considering I was still in the mountains.

I did make one more stop before Wenatchee, and that was in the town of Cashmere.  One of the loose rules that I made for myself (which I have amended and added caveats to a few times already, you'll see) was that I didn't want to eat at any chain restaurants (at least of the sort that we had in my home area).  So, as I drove through the town, I was looking for a restaurant that fit my criteria.  You know, something with a little local flavor (those of you who know me won't believe this, but no pun intended).

It came to my attention that the fair was going on, and there were signs pointing out the direction of the fairgrounds, and I thought I followed said signs, but no fairgrounds revealed themselves to me.  Hungry as I was, I headed back for the town and noticed an older building in need of renovation or, at the very least, repainting.  At the top of the building read the words "Modern Apartments."  This demanded attention from my camera, and I was happy to oblige.  See below (eventually):

Bringing the truck around to the main street, I parked and looked at my three main options.  There was a pizza place, something about a block to the east, and another restaurant which at a glance I couldn't tell the name of, nor what they served.  I'm fairly familiar with pizza at this point (though not as familiar as I had suspected, as you'll hopefully read in the entry that deals with the 8th), so I decided to risk it at the place across the street.

It was a Mexican restaurant and I ordered Huevos Rancheros.  I was thinking of the road trip I did in 2006, and the stop I made in Albuquerque, NM, at the suggestion of my brother-in-law.  Not quite as tasty now as then, the meal was still pretty good and to be recommended.  Alas, no green chile this time.

I paid up and headed out.

My next destination was the Wenatchee Fred Meyer.  I figured with the amount of time I'd been using my phone, I'd need a car charger, but then decided on one better, and was on the hunt for a power inverter.  One was found at the Wenatchee Fred Meyer (and only one--I feel a bit fortunate to have been the one to claim it).  It was 29.99, and when I told the young man in the Electronics section that I had other things to look at in other parts of the store, he said it was fine, and gave me a coupon for 20% off.  Sweet deal.

The other stuff I needed was a tarp and a mallet.  I have a tent, but forgot the other stuff before I left, so I figured the Fred Meyer in Wenatchee was as good a place as any to amend that mistake.

Soon thereafter, I was tired and sleepy.  That's right, both of them.  At the same time.  Too late to find a campground, and not quite ready to spend money on a motel, I decided that the parking lot of that very same Fred Meyer would be as good a place as any to try and catch some of those elusive Zs.

I might have been mistaken.

But First, A Word...

Allow me to take this moment to set the stage for what happens next.

Several months ago, I heard about something on facebook.  Many things, probably, but one thing of extreme significance.  A friend of a friend posted something about this crazy obstacle course called 'Warrior Dash,' and how it was happening in Oregon on September 11.

I was fortunate in a couple of ways.  My friend commented on the post, and the privacy settings between the two of them were just right for me to be able to see that he had commented on said post.  I was then able to comment as well, and express interest.

Ultimately, I was able to secure the necessary days off, and the plan had been to drive down on Friday, do this thing on Saturday, then drive back on Sunday.  After a few months, the details of the southward journey and the temporary residence situations were still completely unclear. 

Since my work week is Thursday through Monday, and the days I already had off were the middle three days, I did something maybe a little unnecessary and got Thursday and Monday off, as well.  Because the details hadn't been hammered out as far as I knew, I informed the organizer that I would no longer be needing a ride, and that whatever accomodations were planned I would still pay my share for and make use of.

But my new plan... oh, my new plan.  My new plan was to just go drive around for a week.  The only commitment was really to go to the Warrior Dash, and pay whatever was owed on the room, if anything.  I planned on putting it to use, but as long as I paid my share, I had been willing to stay somewhere else come what may.

I write this preface from the midst of my journey.  The plan was intended to be only vague at best, and at times has become necessarily specific, but all of it has been worthwhile.  There have been moments of worry and frustration, but also moments of great satisfaction and levity.  To this point, the good has far outweighed the bad.  I'm not even complaining about my sunburn.

So, all of that being said, stay tuned, stay RSSed, and stay fed.  There will be more to come.  Happy reading.

Aside

If anyone out there in the cyber-darkness cares, I do plan on revisiting these picture-less posts.  I'll add photographs and try to change the text to make things fit a bit better.  It's hard to tell if the problems I've been having are arising from the internets that I'm using or the computer itself.

As I continue to be out and about on my present outing, I will try to begin adding text-only posts of the current outing.  The same as above, but for a slightly different reason.  It's been 3 days, and I already have roughly 800 pictures on my main camera.  So... it'll take me a bit to get those onto a computer, sort, and add.

I will say this though, if I do make a habit of these adventures (as I hope to) and continue to post from the road, I will seriously entertain the idea of a new laptop computing device.  The one I use, for those of you who don't know, is kind of ancient in the computing device world.  There are smarthphones on the market which are capable of more--to be perfectly clear, it's a pIII, 1000 MHz.  But, up to this point it has served me well and faithfully.  So, for the easily foreseeable future, at the very least, it will continue to be my glorified typewriter that (technically) has internet capabilities.

A Day in the Dark, Part II: Blackout

We awoke uncomfortably in the cab of my truck at about 6:30 am.  After utilizing the facilities for their requisite needs, we began our journey southward once more, the intention of which being simply to turn around at the Battle Ground exit.  This task was accomplished easily enough, and we were soon headed northward again, toward exit 21. 

Toward Cougar.

Not a lot happened between then and Cougar.  We stopped in at the gas station in Cougar so that I could make change in order to pay for parking, and the gas station was utterly fascinating to me, for two reasons.  The first and less important reason is that there were more and various kinds of beverage for sale with alcohol than without.  Curious.  The second was that just outside the main building of the convenience store, was an add-on, like a formalized lean-to.  It clearly wasn't a part of the store, and had only the one entrance, but as I came around I realized that it was just a room for people to sit in and talk.  There were probably 5 men in there ranging in age from 40 to 75 or so.  Maybe this is a horrible stereotype on my part, but I couldn't help imagining them swapping various fishing tales.  The idea of which was utterly fascinating.

I bought a root beer and some Grandma's cookies.  Chocolate Chip.  They weren't as good as I remember.

We left the store and continued eastward, stopping next at Cougar Park on the Yale Reservoir.  At least, I think that was the name of the park.  There, I changed clothes in order to be better suited to the treacherous environs of the confines of the cave.

When we got there, it was obvious that there was no one else present.  It was roughly 8:30 in the morning.  The parking lot was completely empty, aside from my own vehicle.We outfitted ourselves with more than enough supplies, assuming that it was better to be over-prepared than under. 

Then, we began our descent.

Man, those REI-bought headlamps were so much better than my ironically solar-powered flashlights.  It actually became pretty easy to set up my camera and tripod and take various pictures of the cave interior.  The only drawback was that at times, the cave walls were too distant for the camera to get an accurate read on for the purposes of autofocus.  This, however, also made it difficult for the purposes of manual focus, as well.  I did my best though, and a number of them came out very nicely, I think.

It was quite a bit of fun playing with the headlamps and the various settings, tilting the direction up and down, and switching between spot and flood.  At times it was difficult to achieve the envisioned image, though, because we would have a tendency to move or shift with the headlamp during the prolonged exposure.

The cave opened up and narrowed down, as we ventured forth down the lower tube.  At times it seemed wide enough to be able to drive a bus through.  It appeared for the most part flat, as well, though that was partially a consequent of the light being so bright at such close range as to leave very little in shadow.  This caused me to trip.  A lot.  I never fell down, though.

I took what felt like a lot of pictures, but really wasn't all that many.  It just seemed like more because the shutter was open so much of the time.  Ah, well.

We reached the end of the cave, and we saw that it became increasingly lower and more confined.  The young man at the REI had suggested commando crawling to the end, just to touch the wall and say that you had done it, but I got the sense that being able to say that wasn't all that important to me.  Especially given the camera and tripod that I was hauling around, and even though we were in a cave by ourselves to that point, I didn't want to just leave them alone.

So, feeling satisfied with that leg of the journey, we turned around and headed for the upper cave.

About halfway back, we encountered our first other cave venturers.  The first of many.In the darkness, it came to light that it would be a good idea to resurface and drop off some of the things that hadn't played such an integral part in our excursion to that point.  Just under the mouth of the cave, I stopped to take a few more pictures, playing around with various exposures, and at some point it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to finish the series without people in the shot.  Many, many more people were now heading down into the depths.

We resurfaced, resupplied, then went forth once more into the hole in the ground that is Ape Cave.  This second leg of the journey was to be only short lived.  We took the paths that were easy enough, they led us to a great, cavernous room with what was reportedly the first of, I believe twenty-seven was the number given by the tour guide two weeks prior, rock piles.  It didn't look so bad until you start to climb it, not knowing which way to go to reach the continuation of the cave.  Inevitably, we went the wrong way to start with and saw another place that looked like it would have been commando-crawl-able, and decided against that.  We circled around, and tried it from the other direction, but until other people came along who looked like they knew where they were going, we remained uncertain as to where the cave path lay.

At last, feeling sufficiently beaten and still unprepared, we decided to turn around.  I'll take the blame, and say that it was me and the camera,and the tripod.  I had cleverly hooked the tripod to a useful strap on the pants I was wearing, but even though the tripod no longer required a constant hand, it still necessitated quite a bit of maneuvering through and across the rocks.  My assessment is that the lower tube is for picture taking, but the upper tube is for adventuring.  One day I'll go back and make a day of the upper.  It was not that day, however.

Once back in the cathedral sized room before the rock pile, I decided to play around with pictured, exposures, and the various modes on the headlamps.  That was fun, and the results were very interesting.

  

The above was a continuous red beam, the below was the spotlight on strobe.

 

We encountered a few more people on the way out, including a Swedish couple, I believe; the man of which fell in a hole that was about a foot deeper than the rest of the cave floor.  He was alright, and I had to stifle a laugh.

Back at the mouth of the cave, I once more set to work trying to complete that series I had started before.  This time, I was able to.  I was pretty happy about that.

Upon exit, I noticed a weird thing.  There was a group of three people walking toward the cave who appeared to have no light sources with them.  They had pants with pockets, so they may have been concealing their lights, but I remain skeptical.

As we approached the truck to make our escape, a couple in the neighboring car offered me their parking pass.  I reluctantly declined, citing the fact that I already had one.  That, and my truck's plate number wouldn't have matched.  Oh, well (no, cave!).

The drive back down from the cave, through Cougar, and--save a couple of stops at an abandoned-looking couple of houses and a day park on the reservoir--was fairly uneventful.  We had discussed hunger levels, but neither of us were really feeling that a stop was necessary.

Until we drove past... aah! I can't remember the name of it.  And I'm on the road and away from my pictures, so am unable to reference them for the answer.  Anyway, it was a unique chicken restaurant.  We had discussed stopping there before, and upon seeing it again, I realized that my hunger level not being desperate enough was no excuse.  I needed to stop at this chicken place.  And stop we did.  It took us a while to figure out what we wanted.  I had some kind of chicken sandwich (how unoriginal, I know) and a Cookie Dough Hurricane.  A lot like a Blizzard from Dairy Queen in concept, but a little grittier.  And the dough blobs were cubed.  That was weird.

There was also a deaf man who dropped off some buttons at our table and with a message saying that we could donate money for the buttons, and that was how he was trying to support his family.  He left for a while, then returned.  I fished around and found a couple of dollars for him.  For some reason the idea of the buttons was intriguing to me.

After that, we were once more on our way.  I was getting a little tired after a while, and it looked like my friend was nodding off a bit, so I decided to introduce her to a podcast.  It's This American Life, and it was an episode that I have kept on my phone because it is very... emotionally powerful.  It's got all the hallmarks of a Hollywood action film, but goes to some length in describing the fallout of the events detailed within.  The episode is entitled 'Save the Day,' and the act concerns a man approaching 40 years of age, who wants to change someone's life.  He wants to do something good with his own.  He finds out about a couple of reportedly kidnapped children and, using his own unique skillset, goes about tracking them down.  If you want more than that, I highly encourage seeking it out and giving it a listen.  It's episode #402.

Rolling with the emotionally powerful, I decided to play a song by Richard Buckner, called Tom Merritt.  Go on, find it at www.grooveshark.com and give it a listen.  Pay attention to the lyrics.

Soon thereafter, the tiredness began to set in again.  A stop at the Starbucks in the Chehalis Safeway, and everything was good again.  Except for my gas tank seeming dangeriously low, but that's all part of the adventure, right?  RIGHT?

Ever northward and into Seattle, we were able to take the express lanes, which seemed all well and good.  Until they merged with the express-less lanes in Northgate.  Then there was traffic.  And it was bad.  A few minutes later, my check engine light came on, and according to my owners manual, that can mean 1 or 3 things.  I don't remember the other 2, but one of them is that the vehicle is running on reserve fuel.  I think the reserve amount is either 1.5 or 0.5 gallons. 

It became do or die (at least as far as the truck goes--or wouldn't have gone, as the case may be), and it did.  We made it to her exit and I stopped at a gas station before dropping her off.  Fifty some odd dollars and about 10 minutes later, she was safely at home, and I was headed for home, myself.

Except that I decided to go over to my parents house and share my pictures with my dad.  My mom was out at the time.  It was pretty awesome.  My dad showed me the pictures from their recent adventures, and I forced him to see the pictures from my own.

Then I really did go home, unpack--and by unpack I simply mean haul all my stuff inside, drop it on the floor, and pretty much collapse.  I was exhausted.

A Day in the Dark, Part I: Preparations

Attempt number two toward Ape Cave began on August 30, 2010.

There were a couple of things I had planned on doing differently.  Chief among them was to have a better light source than my ironically solar-powered flashlight.  The solar flashlight is recharged by the sun and has a battery backup, but just can't hold a candle(power) to the headlamp that I ended up buying from REI.

I had gone into several stores looking for camping supplies thinking that I would just buy a lantern.  A lantern would serve my picture-taking purposes well, I thought.  It would light up a broad area and leave the shadows static for the image sensor to pick up more crisply when the shutter is left open for tens of seconds.

Four or five stores later, and no lanterns could be found.  Thus, almost in desperation, I landed in REI.  There were a couple of different lanterns that seemed likely, so I decided to do something that I rarely do, ask a store associate for help/advice.  The guy that was requested by the customer service desk was really helpful.  I ended up getting (what appeared to be) one of the better headlamps with spot, flood, high and low power, white strobe, solid red, and red strobe.  With battery life supposedly lasting up to 160 hours, and peak output being 60 lumens.  I felt much better about that than my previously mentioned flashlight, which I believe had been rated at 20 lumens.

Another preparation I had in mind was to take someone with me.  Someone to help with the experiment that was meant to be cave photography, as well as someone to keep me company/sane in the utter darkness.  I found that in a friend from high school who was between quarters at their college at the moment.  She ended up buying the same headlamp as myself, and all seemed set.  We just had to await the day.

The day came quickly.  Before I knew it, I was at work, eagerly awaiting the day's end so that I could leave.  I picked my friend up and we left, headed south toward the cave.  The plan wasn't really clear, nor was the weather, but that was just fine.  The forecast called for abject rain the next day, which may have caused an additional precipatory quality to the cave, but the cloud cover would make no difference as to the level of illumination (which remained a natural zero).

Southbound on I-5, we generally conversed and squinted in the sunlight.  We talked about once and future endeavors, past and present adventures, and just generally getting out and exploring the world a bit more.  One hers will be an inspired Journey.

It was a little weird.  I'd done outings and adventures on my own before, and little one day things with other people, but never really anything like this with someone else where there was only one real goal and the rest was completely up in the air.  When I had done my long road trip back in '06, people had suggested that I take someone with me.  I didn't think anyone would have had a schedule that could have allowed, but more than that, I never wanted to have anyone to answer to.  There never had to be any sort of compromise, and if I missed out on something, or worried that I had, I had no one but myself to blame.  This change in the dynamic posed (potential) problems.  None, other than the worry of which, came to light.

That being said, at some point south of Olympia, food was mentioned.  We happened to be nearing the exit to Vader, and I saw a sign for the Country House Restaurant and said something like, "Do you want to stop at the Country House...?"  She replied almost immediately, "Do it."

I thought it would be neat to stop at a little diner.  When we got in, the the place was largely empty.  There were people at one table, and a second table was taken after we got there, but other than that there was only ever one other customer who came in shortly before we left.  He seemed by far the most interesting, but I'll get into the whys on that a little later.

Upon entering and being seated, something seemed different than I'd expected.  There was one customer facing employee in the place, and she appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties.  She also spoke english through a noticeable Japanese accent.  She also bowed to us when presenting us with out menus.  Menus which, the first several pages contained standard fare for such a place, but the back half of which contained various teriyaki dishes.

After a few minutes of consideration, I went with something, at least in name, that I felt I could only get at this unique restaurant in Vader, WA.  It is called the BigFoot, and is a country fried steak, probably 10 inches in length.  It came with a selection of vegetables and fries.

The 'steak' itself was unsurprisingly standard, the gravy was better, but the vegetables tasted like they were fresh from a freezer bag.  The fries were a tier above the vegetables, but the difference in tier height was not substantial.  Ah yes, I also had a Butter Pecan milkshake.  It was alright.  Nothing stellar.  I was a little surprised that it was served in the tin.  Something makes me think they offer milkshakes, but it's almost a bit of a surprise to them when folks order one.

As the meal wound down, the other people found themselves having left the establishment.  Then, an older gentleman arrived and took a seat at the bar.  He looked to be in his late 60s or early 70s.  His right arm was in a sling, and when she saw him, the accented woman no longer used her inside-voice when she called out, "Gary!"  It was actually very cute and sweet to witness.  I'm glad I was there.

I'd be curious to know how he has achieved such a role in the establishment as star customer.

After refueling ourselves, we made a quick stop at the neighboring Chevron to do the same for my truck.  $53 later, and we were back on the Interstate, though our travels would remain intrastate.

On our further southward travels, we stop at the Gee Creek rest area and I explain how things had happened on my last visit to the establishment, though we were early enough that I was confident this time was only a pit-stop.

Which it was.

The idea came into my head to head further south until we found the Columbia River and find something interesting and industrial along it to take pictures of, but that idea was not to come to fruition.  I once more became distracted by Battle Ground.

This time the lake was to blame.  Last time, I hadn't realized there was a lake.  And I suspect that they didn't build it in the two weeks during my absence.  Oh well, it probably wouldn't have made a difference had I know about it on the previous trip.

It was very scenic, and I got a lot of nice pictures of the clouds and reflections off the lake.  The sun had gone down behind the tree line, so a lot of the harsher shadows were no longer present.

There was a dock that jutted outward into the lake and a designated swimming are nearer the restrooms and shower.

Out on the dock was a young man, he appeared to be in his late teens.  He sat lazily leaning back with a fishing pole propped up on the edge of the dock, line dipped in the water.  Over in the swimming area a young girl and her mother were splashing about and conversing about the grander implications of life and self-identity.

A few things from their unintentionally overloud conversation still ring out in my memory.  The first of which is that the little girl claimed she knew the secret to breathing underwater.  The explanation to which reminded me to the creative possibility of a child's mind.  It's something that many people lose over the years, but I think the best of us are able to retain, whether by great strength of will or natural talent or aptitude, I cannot say.

At first when she made the claim, her mother didn't understand her at all.  "Like, you know how to SCUBA dive?" she asked.  "No.  I know how to breathe under water!" the girl claimed, almost indignant.  "Do you have gills?" The mother asked, beginning to understand, and now in disbelief.  "No!" the little girl claimed again.  It was probably a look from the mother that I was too distant to observe, but an explanation by the girl had thus been prompted.

It's both an explanation that I hope I never forget, and one that I'll share with you now.

"When you're underwater and you're coming back up, you know how you're exhaling, right?" the girl began.  "Well, what you have to do is catch up to one of your air bubbles, put your head in the bubble, and breathe it back in!" she said, as if it were the most simple and straightforward thing you could do while beneath the waves.

I've probably over-simplified it, but I remember understanding the concept very plainly, the practical execution of which could only take place by cartoon characters in my mind, however.

There was a chuckle from the young man on the dock, and I felt that was my opening to crack wise.  "It sounds like she's thinking of it like an astronaut helmet, or something," I said.  He laughed again.  Then I remarked audibly on the imagination of the young.

With two simple words, I came to believe instantly that the mother still didn't understand.  "Show me," she said.

It came to mind that her words rang with terrible implications.  Fortunately(?), the girl started shouting about things touching her legs underwater and they moved closer to the shoreline, her special, however logical talent, for the moment forgotten.

Another thing that the mother and daughter were discussing was that of identity.  The youth was talking about family, and her various cousins.  She said, "you know how [cousin x] is known as the [noun a] cousin? And [cousin y] is the [noun b] cousin?  I don't want to be known as the cello cousin."  Even though I have no right what so ever, I felt proud of her in that moment.  Not wanting to be pigeon-holed into a category, to me, showed a maturity beyond her years.  And then she went and ruined it.  "I want to be known as the robotics cousin!" she proclaimed proudly.

Then the sky began darkening in earnest, and we decided it was time to head back into the Battle Ground.  There was a building we had seen on the way into to town and had planned on stopping to photograph it, but it had become too dark to do so.  Instead, she aimed her camera as I slowed my truck on the main drag of Battle Ground, and some kind of photograph was taken.  To my knowledge, it doesn't depict the building particularly well, but she was satisfied with the overall outcome.

As we drove on back toward the freeway, I once again explained my mishap with the Northward on ramp from WA 502, and how I was not going to let history repeat.  Not this time.

Success.

A left turn heading West brought me to bear on my Northward intent.

A few exits later, we were on the highway that would have taken us to Cougar.  It was much too late to head for the cave, and feeling ever the cheapskate, we conferred and it was decided to follow my established pattern and sleep at Gee Creek.

Turning the truck around and heading south to the rest area, we found it with ease.  That was my third visit, after all.

At the rest area, we spent a while sitting in the back of the truck discussing various topics, not the least of which were those astronomical oddities that populate the heavens.  And of course how much more visible they all are from a place like Gee Creek.

After that, we got back into the cab and settled in for a night of tossing and turning and waking up every 45 minutes or so (at least that was the case for me).  But hey, you get what you pay for, and I absolutely got my money's worth.

A note: I'm going to try and post this with no pictures as I'm writing from the road on my next (current) adventure.  The internet here hasn't been exactly cooperative, so I'd just assume wait until I can try a different access point for the pictures, or wait until I get home.  If this continues to be the case until I'm home, I'll try to continue posting updates in this manner for Ape Cave Outing 2, part II, and for the current adventure (which has me at a coffee shop in Moses Lake, of all places).

Happy reading!

Over the Top

Two weeks ago now, I was at a loss. I needed a destination, but couldn't think of one. Then I remembered a couple of things.

One is that I had wanted to take a picture of a good, quality log jam for a while now, but have previously been foiled. The second is that I saw some pictures posted by a group who hiked up to Lake Serene on Mount Index last Spring. I recall emailing the person who had posted the pictures of the log jam they had found asking how far it was up the trail, and I was met with internet silence.

This time, it's for real.

So I decided that I was going to get that picture of a log jam, regardless. If there had been a wind, I would have thrown caution at it; my mind was made.

I overslept.

I probably didn't leave my place until after noon, and that's no time of day to start a hike. Trying to console myself with thoughts that I would be coming back down the mountain when the lighting was better for picture-taking seemed helpful, but turned out to be mostly untrue. As you will see, literally.

So, I arrive at the parking lot sometime further after noon. Nothing really major happened on the drive up. There was a bit of a dirt road before the parking lot that I may have driven (a tad) too fast on, but nothing much more than that.

In the parking lot there were a few cars and a man cleaning the out-house. The smell was delightful (not that I have any right to complain--that's his job, after all).

Checking the board at the trailhead for any additional unknown details, I noticed a pair of reading glasses. It made me simultaneously happy and sad; sad for the person that was missing them, but happy that someone had found them along the trail and brought them back to a central point for the loser to claim them.

That detail is unfortunately significant.

I began making my way up the trail. The sign had said that the first mile and a half was an old logging road that covered private land and to "be kind," or something like that. 

After that, there was to be a fork in the trail. Head upward for a shorter distance and see Bridal Veil Falls, or take the immediately lower, but ultimately longer, higher, and steeper climb up to Lake Serene. Since I had never gotten a response from the recipient of my query, I thought I'd start with the easier one.

This might have been a mistake, because by the time I came down from the lake, I was incredibly exhausted. My legs actually shook as I demanded their movement. At the end of the day, and a couple of weeks later, I'm glad of the choices I made because having done things the other way may have resulted in my missing Bridal Veil Falls--which wouldn't do at all.

That was a nice recap, but I've gotten a little ahead of myself.

Where was I? Oh, right. Just setting out from the parking lot, heading toward the mountain on the old logging road.

There were definitely parts that seemed like it could have served at some point as a logging road since the invention of the truck, but there were other parts that seemed certainly to deviate from the road--if for no other reason than the fact that I couldn't imagine a truck EVER having been able to get through portions of the path in the last hundred years.

This is where it looks like a truck might have been able to pass through.  I don't have any pictures of the more treacherous parts of that first mile and a half, you'll just have to trust me.  Or hike it yourself.  The power is yours!

I continued onward and vaguely upward, fearing that as the path became narrower that I had somehow missed my turn and was venturing forth toward an unknown destination.  The falls?  The lake?  The summer home of the hill people?  I couldn't tell.

Footfall after footfall, step after step, my jangling keys would echo back to me in the quiet forest.  During the entirety of my outing, I believe I saw maybe two animals, not counting birds.  The first was a stealthy bugger, that I couldn't get a quality picture of.  Here is a bad picture of it, anyway.

Soon after the encounter with the slither-critter with its forked tongue, I found my forked road.  As I mentioned earlier, I took the high road and headed upward toward the falls.  Along the way I climbed across dried creek-beds, mysterious boardwalks, and apparently magical staircases.  It was awesome.

It made me a little sad how often I was wondering how much farther I had to go, but I really had nothing to gauge time or distance by.  I hadn't brought my watch, and I didn't think I had phone service up there so I was trying to conserve battery power on that.

Without much further strain or peril, I reached the falls.  They were a sight to behold (obviously).

I liked the above image for the detailed spray, but the below is more apparently from where the site's name is derived (I would guess).

Having taken a sufficient number of pictures, and felt like I had seen the site, I decided to head back down and try my hand at the next leg of the hike.  Although, I did stop to take a few pictures of the aforementioned potentially magical staircase.  In this one instance, I was really glad to be there at that particular time of day... if only for the lens flare.

It was fairly quick thereafter that I once more reached the fork in the trail.  And where I had my clever idea about figuring times.  And when I remembered just how far I still had to go.

Before heading up to the falls, I had taken a picture of the mile post.  It read 1/2 mile to the falls, 2 miles to the lake.  This meant two things to me, that my little sojourn on the high road was 1/4 the length of the low road, and that I had a time stamp on my camera from passing by the first time.  I felt obliged to take another, if only to gauge my time.  That round trip had been  55 minutes.  So, the hike up, some relax and observe time for taking in the wondrous site, and the return time.  Not too bad, right?

Then I took the other trail toward the lake, have still yet to encounter my desired log jam.  Where could it be, I wondered?  Only time would tell.

It was about this time that I started really trying to console myself with that whole theory about the better lighting.  Except for one major flaw, it would have been a sound idea.  The flaw being that the sun, regardless of how well positioned in the sky it would have been, it was behind a mountain.  That being said, there were still a few images I could salvage.. like this one of a rock with trees on top of it.  To me, it looked like a bear with antlers.

Most of my effort, however, was being devoted to maintaining my sanity and intentions as the trail switched back time after time, growing ever more treacherous and unforgiving.  At least to me, an unseasoned newbie.  I'll admit it.  I don't go hiking very often.  This was the first time I'd gone by myself, ever.  I didn't know what I was getting into.

The picture-taking tapered off.

There were a few parts where those nice boardwalks had been built, and a few more not-quite-as-magical staircases, but for the most part the trail grew narrower and rockier.  At points it made encountering other hikers a difficulty, indeed.

Effort expended was not without reward, however.  Every time I rounded a corner and saw things start to open up a little, I was convinced that the open space just had to be the lack of trees signifying the presence of a lake.  All save once, this was not the case at all.  And even that one time when there was a lake, it didn't come as a surprise because of the signage pointing it out.

This is when my own personal tragedy struck.  I write that with as much sarcasm as I can muster.  My left shoulder  had grown weary of my camera bag, so I decided to sling it around and let the strap of the bag rest on my right shoulder.  Maybe a half mile later, as I came upon this bright, open spot pictured above, I went for the sunglasses that had been hung on my shirt, the sunglasses that I had to that point thought were brought needlessly as the canopy above had done their work for them.  I reached for the sunglasses that were gone.

The horror was twofold.  I have traditionally been a bit of a spendthrift, and they were the best sunglasses I've ever owned.  Nice, big aviators that I bought on Amazon in 2005 for $15.  They were so good.  I also felt bad for littering.  

I knew I wasn't going to immediately run back down the trail hunting for them, but I figured if I didn't spend too much time up top (wherever that might have been), I could head back down and catch a glint off the frame or lenses as the sun sank with finality behind the mountain.

That being said, I soon rounded the corner and discovered, true to its name, Lake Serene.

There was also a toilet, if such it can be called.

Seriously, though.  Here's the lake.

There was also a neat rock outcropping sitting at the crown of the mountain-castle.

But what of the goal, you ask?  Well, I'm coming 'round to that.  For you see, at the end of it all, the log jam i sought served as the dam and the lake's spillway.  Observe:

About a hundred feet past the end of the logs in the picture, there's a sheer drop.

This was almost exactly the image I had wanted.  And then I turned it black and white.  Because I felt like it.

Then I turned and headed back down the mountain.  

Here's a little insight into how I was feeling from that point on:  Up to that point I had taken... 280 pictures.  From the point of actually reaching the trail again until the parking lot, I only took 5 more.  I felt miserable and just wanted to be done.  My legs shook with  the effort.  I didn't want to stop for fear I wouldn't be able to get going again.  I was tripping over rocks, I didn't find my sunglasses... I was glad that I'd been there, but I was ready to be home.

One of the five pictures however, I had the presence of mind to make sure, was of that sign post.  If you'll recall, the 1 mile round trip to the falls had taken a little less than an hour.  I rounded the corner and passed it on my way up to the lake at 3:13 pm.  Any guess what time I passed it on the way back to the parking lot?  And bear in mind that  was going way too fast on that return trip.  The time was 5:50 pm.  Nearly 3 hours.  

Now that I think about it, that doesn't seem that bad.  Huh.

The only thing that still stings is the fact that I kept my eyes peeled for my glinting sunglasses, but alas!  They didn't reveal themselves to me.  My only hope (aside from Obi-Wan Kenobi) was in some halfway decent samaritan finding them and returning them to the sign in the parking lot.  Such was not the case.

Anyway, I had a fantastic time. I'd like to return some day.  With more time, and in better shape.