Nonnie's Breakfast Barn in Charleston (with a side of Charlie Tuna)

After a night's sleep at the Plainview Motel, we got up and went out in search of breakfast.

While the Plainview is officially listed as being in Coos Bay, it is actually closer to the little fishing village of Charleston, just a short drive up the road.  Nestled by the water of the bay, Charleston has the feel of a real working town, the sort of place that, while it may depend on the traffic of tourists and sport fishermen, in fact is home to commercial fishermen and the folk who provide them with goods and services.  Which is exactly what it is. There's a large commercial fleet that works out of Charleston, and the no-nonsense harbor and docks with their warehouses and tidy but utilitarian buildings bearing the patina of the sea are welcoming but purposeful. There's an RV Park (of course), a public wharf littered with the crushed and shattered shells of clams, several good seafood restaurants (including the well-known High Tide Cafe), gift shops and convenience markets, a shipyard, boat charter companies, marine suppliers, towing and salvage companies and even a golf course.

We cruised up and down the narrow streets to get the salty, work-roughened character of the place, but I'd already spotted breakfast.  It was hard to miss:  a big red barn by the side of the highway with the word B A C O N spelled out on its roof in four-foot letters.  It seemed to be speaking directly to me and I all but wrenched the wheel away from the Water Man in my hurry to steer him into the parking lot.

The Breakfast Barn has a sort of reverse-Tardis effect.  It looks huge on the outside, but inside it doesn't seem so big.  A lot of the space is taken up by the big kitchen, housed in a wing built onto the side.  The main structure has a set of stairs running right down the middle that lead to the upper floor. I don't know if there is more seating or just stacks of pancake mix and crates of syrup lurking up there.

The downstairs dining room was packed, so we wound up sitting at the counter.  The counter is not my favorite place to sit, but in this case I'm glad we did because it gave us an entertaining view of the action, which proved to be raucous and crowded with a cheer leading proprietor who believed in telling the truth but made you feel OK about it.  He paced back and forth in the narrow space between counter and kitchen pass-through, exhorting the cooks to greater effort, greeting new customers coming in the door, and alternately praising and apologizing to the room at large.

"That booth back there sucks, it's way too small!"

"I'm sorry you had to wait so long, I'm a terrible server!"

"You guys are AWESOME!"

We had to sit there awhile before we were offered coffee, and awhile after that before the always-in-motion guy behind the counter acknowledged us.  We didn't feel neglected, the place was hoppin' and so was he.  He waltzed over, promised to be right back to take our order, spun around to take an order down the counter from us, then came back to lean in and tell us, with an apologetic grin, "I gotta be honest, guys, the whole restaurant has their order in before you, so it's probably gonna be about 30 minutes before you get your food.  You guys OK with that?"

The view from the counter, looking into the kitchen where four strapping young cooks were turning out breakfast.

I'm pretty sure this was Lucas, the man who now owns Nonnie's with his wife Ashley since the couple inherited it from Ashley's grandparents a few years ago, according to the back of the menu, which tells the story of the Breakfast Barn from its beginning in the seventies up to its current incarnation.

We looked at him for a second before we burst out laughing.  You couldn't fault him for his frankness and self deprecating honesty.  We assured him we would be willing to wait, and put in our orders.  I decided on the house specialty bacon--which Lucas told me he had cut, seasoned and smoked himself--a couple of poached eggs, hash browns and the house baked sourdough toast.

While we waited for our food we watched the ever evolving show of the four guys in the kitchen cooking, the waitress flying back and forth from table to table, and Lucas greeting everyone as they came in.  "You're beautiful!" he exclaimed.  "You guys are awesome!"

The walls were covered in menus, notes, little signs, drawings, memorabilia and photos.  Hung on the wall near our spot at the counter was a calendar.  A bacon calendar.

Piled up on plates under the heat lamp were waffle boats, perfect for holding their cargo of butter and syrup, and stacks of pancakes the size of wagon wheels. I had toyed with the idea of ordering a  pancake, but I was glad I didn't. Those pancakes were thick and so big around they threatened to overflow the plate.  A single one would have probably been more than I could have handled.

We didn't time how long it took for our food to arrive.  It wasn't speedy, but perhaps it wasn't as long as half an hour. Our plates arrived piping hot, and we set to.

It's not difficult to find glowing reviews for the Breakfast Barn (including their house specialty, the homemade bacon), and it's clear this is a local favorite with a loyal clientele.  Which is why I'm a bit puzzled that I found myself slightly underwhelmed by the food.  The bacon, greatly anticipated, was a disappointment. It was certainly thick, but it was wildly salty and fatty.  Now, hold on a minute. Salt and fat are the main constituents of bacon, I know!  We bacon lovers love this about bacon!  But there has to be more. Where was the smokiness, the sweetness, the subtle complex of flavors that balance out the salt?  Even after I'd dosed my serving with maple syrup, a regular habit of mine, I couldn't get past the feeling that I was chewing a basically tasteless wad of heavily salted fat.  I thought it might be me.  Maybe I was having trouble waking up, maybe this was a style of bacon that just wasn't my cup of tea.  And that could be.  But the fact remains that I left some of it on my plate. And bacon, in my world, is like gold dust.  You just don't leave it lying around on plates.  You tuck it away in a safe place, the vault of your stomach or if absolutely necessary, a napkin or a takeaway box.  Not this time.  I soldiered on as far as I could and finally decided my taste buds had voted their conscience and would not be gainsaid.

The disappointment didn't end there.  Having recently rediscovered poached eggs, I was looking forward to them.  But the pair I got were rubbery and . . . incredibly salty.  And they had a slightly odd taste.  All I can say about the hash browns is that they were bland.  My last hope was the sourdough toast, usually a guaranteed savory win.  It wasn't bad, it was simply forgettable, with barely a hint of real sourdough taste.

It's as though the punch, the bang, the kick-it-up-a-notch flavor that you hope to find in house made food had gone missing.  The seasoning, so talked about on the menu and by the server, seemed to be nothing more than heavy salt.  Where was the mild creaminess of a poached egg, the tang of the sourdough?  I don't enjoy the sport of mean food reviews like some folks do, and that's not my purpose here.  But I have to admit that I expected more.  My portion alone was $13 before the tip (one really good thing you can say about Oregon--there's no sales tax there!), so this is not exactly cheap food.  Worth it if it had lived up to expectations, but as it is, I'm not so sure.

Still, my breakfast was no worse (and in some respects better) than some I've had at chain restaurants, and I did not go away hungry.  Perhaps I would have liked the pancakes better, or a different batch of that much vaunted homemade bacon.  In any case I don't regret trying the Breakfast Barn.  It was worth it for the atmosphere and the entertainment of watching four strapping young hotties work the grill while listening to Lucas' badinage over the roar of happy diners.  For that I'll give them Three Trees.  They are doing a bangup business, obviously satisfying a lot of folks while contributing to the local economy and keeping the long running tradition of breakfast at the big red barn going.  That's worth something.  I would give them another shot if I were in town.  You might to give them a try too if you are passing through Charleston on Cape Arago Highway and looking for traditional American fare, breakfast or lunch.

We gently walked off some of our breakfast, strolling next door to a store that sold the ubiquitous salt water taffy, plus bait and tackle, beer, deli sandwiches and other necessities of life.  We walked along the public wharf, looked over the side and down into the surprisingly clear water to the bottom, and then went across the street to Kinnee's Gifts and Shells.  I was looking for earrings and I found a pair made of sunstone, the Oregon state gemstone.  I fell in love with them but they were too spendy, so I set them down, deciding that if I couldn't stop thinking about them I'd come back for them.  I'm still thinking about them, but it was probably a good thing I exercised some restraint because though I didn't know it yet, I was going to need that cash for a new fuel pump for Goose.  I contented myself with a pair of Solmate Socks instead.

On the way out we stopped to pay our respects to Charlie Tuna.  Charleston used to be known as "Charlie Town," so Charlie is the perfect spokesperson (spokesfish?).  He's a big wooden likeness of the Starkist Tuna mascot, but he's not the first incarnation to stand in Charleston.  The earlier version, eight feet tall and carved from a solid piece of cypress, was a victim of foul play back in 2008.  A couple of idiots took him as a prank but panicked when the authorities started to close in and they couldn't get him back in their truck to hide him.  So they chain sawed him into fillets.  They were caught in the dastardly act, so there is at least some justice in this world.  Perhaps getting sawed up was a mercy of sorts, since it revealed the hidden cancer of rot and insect damage that was hollowing out Charlie's insides and would have meant a slow and undignified end.  The town held a funeral, cremated the remains and buried them near the Charleston visitor center, presumably in sight of the place where he stood for so many years. From the local NBC news affiliate story comes this priceless quote:

"Mourners are invited to share stories about Charlie, and tuna recipes."

The new incarnation of Charlie.

I liked Charleston.  I liked it a lot.

Bunking with Harry at the Plainview Motel

Last December I met someone.  The next month we were about to climb into our respective trucks so he could follow me through a tangle of urban streets he wasn't familiar with.  I had a couple of handheld radios with me and I tossed him one so we could talk to each other.  At the last minute I thought of something and said, "Hey, you gotta handle?"

He had his back to me and one foot up on the running board of his truck.  He turned his head so for a moment he stood in profile, and over his shoulder, with gravitas and just a bit of drama, said, "Just call me the Water Man."

It was one of those iconic moments that stick in your memory.  He seemed like a gunslinger or a comic book superhero, which made me laugh even while it gave me a little thrill.  It was the perfect handle for someone who'd had a career keeping the water going for whole towns, whole counties, whole valleys and mountains.  He was a hero, one who rode in with a pipe wrench to stop the precious water of the desert from running away into the sand, who jumped in flooded ditches and holes into the freezing, muddy froth to wrestle valves shut, or witched an unmarked stretch of hardpan in order to find a lost line, who worked 36-hour shifts after a tropical storm destroyed whole sections of the system and left thousands without service.

Among other things, he was also an old hot rodder who drove front door for truckers, and though that had been years ago he fell effortlessly into the lingo, talking to me over the radio like I was one of his old compadres. Mountain Kimmie, you gotta copy on the Water Man?  His voice crackled over the radio when one of us got too far ahead of the other.  I drove along with a big goofy grin on my face and a forgotten turn signal going until he gently mentioned I was about to run out of blinker fluid.

And there's a lot more to him than that.

But after driving all night on last month's trip, we were both exhausted.  Even a hero needs sleep, and we both needed sleep.  We hadn't bothered to get reservations, which might have been a tactical misstep.  There was some kind of music festival in the area, and some other kind of festival involving dunes, so the normally placid and sleepy stretch of coast was teeming with people. We had no luck finding a room on our first several tries, so we drove north and fetched up in Coos Bay.  There we got a couple of recommendations, but the first place was full and at the second one the person in the office was so downright rude that the Water Man turned and wordlessly walked out, a thunderous look on his face.

The Plainview's delightfully retro sign.

I finally resorted to one or two review sites to try and find something reasonable, and what I found was the Plainview RV Park and Motel.

We had briefly discussed bringing KD along, but she isn't built for high speed travel, and keeping her at 55 would slow us down. Also, KD was bought as a refuge for one in a time when I swore I'd never trust anybody again and so didn't need to worry about accommodating another human in there. The bed is only big enough for me and I haven't yet had a chance to do anything about that, so the sleeping arrangements were likely to be a bit primitive.  In the end we decided it was just simpler to leave her at home, which meant we didn't need the RV park side of things.

There are a lot of RV parks in the area.  You can hardly turn around without tripping over one.  Some are fairly large and seemed to have the traditional amenities, while others are small and scruffy, offering little more than minimal hookups and a place to park on the dirt.  The Plainview fell somewhere in the middle. It held a collection of beat looking rigs, most of which didn't look like they had moved for awhile, and weren't likely to be moving anytime soon. But there were trees and grass and a cheering overall feeling of effort having been put into the place, which was more than you could say about a number of other parks nearby.

The motel side seemed like it had started out life as a couple of unassuming strips of rooms facing the road, but with what must have been a lot of work, the place has been transformed into something much more.

After a full year of painting, all the buildings have been covered in murals. And they're awesome! The themes are fishing, ocean life, coastal scenes and the rugged, wooded views of coastal Oregon. It's a lot of fun just to wander around the grounds and look at the paintings. Grand, sweeping, but at the same time intimately detailed, they are a delight to explore.

There are lots of animals, a few fanciful legends, and scenery so skillfully blended into the real life background of tree covered hillsides that some of the buildings seem to disappear into the landscape.

Carport or forest canopy?  An ordinarily unlovely structure is transformed into a breathtaking part of the surrounding woods by the skillful artist who painted it. I'm still amazed by the way the painted trees seem to reach out to touch the real ones . . .or is it the other way around?

There's a sweetness to the art of the Plainview that belies its large scale.  A tender look on the face of a mermaid, a mother and baby sea lion swimming together, a joyous forward motion captured in the rendering of a fishing vessel as it leaps upon a wave.  Wandering from scene to scene and finding all the hidden gems is a tonic for the spirit.

You had to look closely, but the office appeared to be made out of an old travel trailer sandwiched into conventional construction, then covered with painted murals until the whole thing looked seamless.

Landscaping blends beautifully with the painted mermaid and her seahorse friend, and a funky old travel trailer disappears in a feat of alchemy that transforms trailer trash into art and architecture.

By the time we pulled in we were pretty loopy with exhaustion, but the first thing I noticed was that the folks manning the office were friendly, and they actually seemed glad to see us.  The good news was they had a vacancy, the bad news was it was their last room and it was part of what they called "The Duplex," actually a fully equipped unit with kitchen, huge living room, master bedroom, full size bath, and three beds, way more than we needed and of course priced accordingly.  Apologetically we were told the price was $135 a night and there was a two-night minimum since it was a weekend in the middle of the busy season.

The door to the office looks like it opens to the Captain's cabin, but those
wood planks are an example of trompe l'oeil at its best.

I'd volunteered to make the inquiries since the Water Man had had to endure such a beeotch at the last place.  I went back to where he waited in the idling truck to let him know.  Maybe it was the essentially cheerful vibe of the place, the splash of color that leaped out amidst the dark, somber pines and gray sky, or maybe it was just sheer exhaustion, but he nodded and said it would do. We hadn't really intended to stay two nights and it was just a bit more than we wanted to spend, but at the moment nothing mattered but a hot shower and sleep.

The old bloggist and travel writer of The Big Adventure would have gotten the names of the staff, taken their pictures and learned their life stories.  The current version didn't have it together that good, which is too bad because I liked those folks.  They were very down-home.  They'd obviously ridden hard through life, but they were also working hard to run the Plainview and they had the knack of how to treat their guests.  The young man who had initially greeted me told us how to find our room and said we'd be right next to Harry.  When I looked confused he said, "You know, from Harry and the Hendersons."

Oh!  That Harry!  Well, I figured that alone should earn them a tree.

Then one of the gals in the office pulled out a big, good looking map and marked it with a yellow highlighter to show us places she thought we might need.  "Here's the Walmart, that's where you can probably get stuff the cheapest.  Over here is the shore, there's no real beach there, but there's pretty water.  Down here is Shore Acres State Park.  Now, if you need anything, just come down to the office or give us a call.  Like if you need towels or anything, just call.  You got enough beds in there, you don't even have to sleep in the same one if you don't want," she finished up, laughing.  (When I saw the room her laugh made sense.)

The main room of our duplex unit with bedroom, bath and

kitchen opening to the right.

Now here's the thing.  It seemed like she really meant it.  She actually cared about making sure we found a place to get supplies we might need at the best price, had enough towels and knew where to find the local sights.   It might have been that I was feeling bruised and disconsolate after helping the Water Man deal with a sketchy bank in a creepy town and seeing the scenes of his painful past, so that a friendly word took on more weight than it otherwise would.  But I honestly can't remember when I've felt as welcome at lodging in a real-people kind of way.

We headed uphill toward the back of the property where the crown jewel of the place was waiting for us.  As promised, Harry was there to greet us.  I was infinitely cheered.

Framed by the trees of his painted world and reflected trees from ours while foreground landscaping creates a 3D composition, Harry greets us with peace and a little on the side.

I suspect it was a house that had been divided into two units and folded into the motel's inventory. Our side was on the left.  The driveway curved around to a cement pad big enough to both park on and act as patio.  There was a grassy yard big enough for kids to play in, a barbecue on the patio and a wooden picnic table with benches.  Beside the front door a gnome was happily fishing in the dark water of a mysterious forest.  The building was nestled into a stand of lush pines, so in delightful trompe l'oeil fashion, fantasy merged with reality.

The entry door opened straight into a full sized kitchen, equipped with family sized table, full fridge, stove, microwave, coffee maker, sink, and lots of cupboards.  There was basic cooking equipment, dishes and flatware, and even soap, sponge and dish towels.  The kitchen opened into a large main room with a wood stove in front of a photographic mural of aspen trees covering one wall, no less than 2 flat screen TV's, two double sized beds, plus couches, chairs and lamps.  The bedroom had a queen bed, a large closet with mirrored sliding doors, and its own TV mounted up on the wall.

And then there was the bathroom.  It too was a regular full-sized bathroom, not the abbreviated little number you find in most motel rooms.  There were big cupboards, sink and vanity, and there was a bathtub.

The four poster bath.

But what a bathtub!  At first glance it sort of looked like a four poster bed, but it was actually a very large tub with Jacuzzi jets built into a varnished wooden surround, the shower curtains hanging from wooden poles supported by posts. The instruction plaque on the wall was very amusing.  Not sure what decade that plaque had been manufactured, but it certainly wasn't this one.

We tried out the Jacuzzi but couldn't get it to do much.  The jets were weak no matter what adjustments we made, so I think that unit left it's get up and go somewhere back in the era of eighties glam rock. The real value was in the generous sized tub with two, yes two, faucets for getting it filled with the abundant hot water.  That allowed a good soak which did a lot to help out the Water Man's aches and pains.  I just wanted a fast shower to get rid of the road grime, and then we passed out on one of the many beds.

The next day we did some stuff, some of it cool and some of it not so cool.  There was firewood provided in a box next to the wood stove, real firewood, not those horrible presswood logs (bah!), and you know Mountain Kimmie had been eyeing that wood stove from the minute we got there.  It was midsummer but the weather was cool, damp and overcast, which made a fire welcome.  I had laid one out earlier in the day before we went out, so that evening I set a match to the crumpled pizza box that had been provided as starter.

The Water Man came up behind me and peered at the stove.  "Oh, it's a Lopi," he said.  He told me Lopi is a common brand of wood stove in Oregon.  "Now the trick with a Lopi," he started out, bending down preparatory to instructing me in the proper lighting technique.  I'm afraid I got a little crabby here.  "I know how to do it!" I said peevishly, elbowing him out of the way. The idea that somebody could teach Mountain Kimmie how to start fires was galling in the extreme.  He backed up with his hands in the surrender position and left me to it.

Except that the pizza box flared up for a brief moment and then fizzled out.  I found some more paper and tried again, but I knew very well that what I needed was decent kindling, and none had been provided.  My axe, sadly, had been left at home, so I couldn't split any.  I kept at it, eventually sacrificing a roll of paper towels, all the wadded up fast food bags I could find in the back of the Water Man's truck, the map from the office, and the box my new hair dryer had come in. All to no avail.  The whole mess smoldered, but it refused to really burn.

The Water Man went out for a breath of air and to look at the weather.  He asked me if I needed anything, and I told him a handful of kindling and instructions on how to work the input selector on one of the TVs would be nice so we could watch a movie from the laptop.  He said he would take a walk down to the office and see if anyone was there.  He was gone a long time.  When he came back, he brought our young man from the office.

It was pretty obvious they'd been talking motorcycles, that after they'd taken a look at one another it was only a matter of time before one of them would ask the inevitable question:  You ride?

They were talking about the Sportys they'd owned and had to sell for one reason or another.  And there it was, that understanding that passes between people who know what it is like to lose a beloved machine.  The romantically inclined among us write songs about it, but the stoic just bear it without giving any hint of the hurt, except for the look that sometimes passes between those who know the loss.

Our gallant young hotelier and biker had brought an armful of punky old chopped up fence posts and he showed me how to work the TV.  We talked for a bit (he told us to check out the door on the other unit of the duplex, assuring us that it had "a pair of hooters"), and then he went back to his duties, or possibly the dinner we might have interrupted. A storm was rolling in.  For awhile we were entertained by the boom and flash that went on directly overhead. The Water Man went to stand just outside the door and watch the play of lightening move off into the night.  I went back to messing with the stove.  I ate the remains of a box of Cheezits and tore up the box, rebuilding the ruins of my fire and salting it liberally with the fence post ends.  But I still got no joy.  In a fit of pique and humiliation, I gave up and shut the door on the wretched thing.

Can you spot the pair of hooters?

When the Water Man came back in he told me my "fire" was putting out smoke.  I wasn't surprised that it was still smoldering, but didn't have much hope for any real action.  The Water Man opened the door of the Lopi, poked once at the mess, and the facking thing burst into merry flame.  He closed the door and manfully refrained from gloating.  Gah!

By the end of our stay I felt real affection for this place, even though it wasn't perfect.  Our unit had a slightly damp, musty smell.  It's hard to keep motel rooms smelling fresh, and harder still in a damp climate with rooms that have to stay shut up most of the time, so I'm not sure what the solution is other than maybe a dehumidifier.  The carpet was getting tired (I'd love to see vinyl plank flooring installed here), and the furniture was a little beat.  This is the sort of place where comfy old down-at-heel couches and chairs are at home, but they should still be comfy. I wanted to visit a Habitat ReStore and find one of their fantastic used couches to replace the fugly one our room had. The wall between the two units was a bit thin and we could hear the drunk fisherman next door telling stories to each other, which some people might object to but which made us laugh.

Nothing at the Plainview calls for swank or polish or gloss, the magnificent murals notwithstanding. It's a rustic sort of place, and I mean that in the best way as someone who is an avowed devotee of the rustic.  A few minor repairs and upgrades, new window treatments and a fresh coat of (interior) paint in updated shades would bring this roomy unit to where it should be without compromising the funky charm.  I hate to offer criticism since it is clear so much heart and hard work have already gone into this place.  So much, in fact, that I'm sure there will be more as time and funds allow.  As it is, our duplex is the sort of space you'd want if you have a family (especially with kids) to accommodate or a group of fishermen or friends spending some time in the area. For a group this would be very economical lodging, especially if you cook your own meals (the motel asks that you not cook shellfish in the rooms due to the indelible odor it leaves, but they offer outdoor cooking facilities for this purpose and there are even reports of staff helping guests to cook up their catch, as well as providing gear and assistance if you want to go crabbing or clamming).

Lush trees and a big,kid-friendly yard make a stay in the duplex like being at a

vacation cabin.  

The Plainview gets Four Trees.  I want to give them five, and I think they deserve it. With just a bit of updating to the decor and furnishings of the unit we were in and a good airing, they'd be there. The fantastic art and subtle but effective landscaping combined with the welcoming vibe overshadow the flaws. Your mileage may vary, but if you are the unfussy sort who appreciates folks trying really hard to do something cool, who make you feel appreciated and valued as a customer, a guest, even a friend, who give life to a vision that is part workaday motel and part art gallery, then the Plainview is for you. Find them on Cape Arago Highway in Coos Bay.

I'm not sure the Water Man and I will ever come back to this area again.  We don't really want to. It has to do with the baggage of the past, a place that has been indelibly stamped with grief almost too great to bear.  In this case it is his sorrow that has tinted these roads and little towns with painful memory and loss, not mine.  But his sadness has become my sadness.  And so I shiver at the thought of going back, just as he does.  There are some places you loved once that you would rather never see again.

But if by chance we did find ourselves in Coastal Oregon again, I'm pretty sure we'd come back to the Plainview:  to be cheered by Harry and the mermaids and sea lions, whales and fishing vessels, eagles, and undersea gardens.  To be welcomed by folks who are glad to see us. Because this was a bright spot on a weary journey, a reminder that no matter how tiresome the journey may be, if you look carefully you just might find the hidden treasure.

Losses and Gains in the Light of a Blue Moon

Back in January as I was contemplating the new year, I wrote about how I was thinking 2015 might be the start of a cycle of renewal and positive change.  Perhaps I had some intuition about what was to come, or maybe I only needed to say it to bring it into being. Either way it turned out to be prophetic, because even as I wrote those words there were things in train which I was not completely aware of but which were certainly the start of something new. It's not been a lack of things to write about that has been behind the silence here.  Many, many things have happened, but I have been engaged in the business of living, and that can be a time consuming business indeed.

Someone, after scanning the previous posts, wanted to know what happened next.  I thought this was funny because he knew very well what happened next, yet he seemed to want to see it chronicled.  But how could I chronicle the last six months?  They've been crazy, mostly in a good way.  There were times in the last few years when I felt time itself was crawling, that the long months of waiting for something to happen would drive me mad.  When I look back I can see that things were happening all along, that the work of rebuilding a life worth living was continuing at a steady pace.  Then, starting in January, things sped up so that it was a bit like being shot out of a canon.  I had the best birthday of my life, visited two new countries, flew on 7 different airplanes, staggered through 4 different airports with entirely too much luggage, met 4 new family members, drove a big diesel truck, went on four wheel drive forays into the desert back country, began to learn to trust again, and drove thousands of miles for the sake of love.  And those are only the highlights, because amidst all that have been a hundred other adventures, both great and small.

I want to write about them, but finding energy and time . . .well, there's the rub.

When things went to pot almost four years ago, I was fortunate to have a good support system in place.  I had friends and family who rallied around me and bore me up  during the worst time of my life.  There were also some people I loved and trusted who, inexplicably, grew distant or were silent or even cruel.  That was extremely painful, but for every such loss there were compensations, new people who stepped in and filled the void.  Eventually I learned that this phenomenon is not uncommon.  When you go through tough times there are always going to be those around you who, for one reason or another, withdraw, or blame, or simply fail to recognize your pain.  Maybe they don't have the right information.  Maybe they are seeking an explanation for the inexplicable, or trying to avoid facing a painful truth about someone else they know and care about. The universe, however, can be bountiful, and if you seek solace you can usually find it.  

And yet.  The most loving and sympathetic of supporters cannot really know your pain unless they have been where you are.  It is in that moment, the profound relief of looking into the eyes of someone who has been through the same fire as you, that you find true consolation.  Grief shared is grief lightened.  The wordless understanding of a fellow traveler is a jewel of great price.

How do we find such people?  We can seek them, but I suspect it is serendipity that guides us to them.  I found one, and I have asked myself if it was just chance or if there was a guiding hand behind our meeting, if our stories really do share the same narrative thread that I think they do, if there really is some purpose in our telling each other our griefs and losses, the things that make us wake at four in the morning sweating with nightmares or weeping with a grief that will not let us sleep.  The answer is found in the heart.  There is a purpose and a common thread, there is a guiding principle behind our finding one another in a place we least expected to find someone we could trust.

Last month we took a flying trip up the coast to deal with some business that had to be handled in person.  It was not a happy errand or a trip we wanted to make, but it had to be done.  We had the usual agonies trying to reach escape velocity, getting mired in traffic and the gravity that always seems to make the first part of a trip so painfully slow. Finally we were free of the mess and running up the fast highway.  The weather was hot but weirdly overcast, and the big wildfire burning to the west created a towering pyrocumulonimbus cloud and a blood red sunset.

The moon rose, the famed Blue Moon, and it cast its light on the Siskiyous so that scenery that would ordinarily be shrouded in the darkness of night was outlined in silver, breathtaking in its beauty.

We turned off toward the coast, driving through a long, narrow valley bounded by tree clad mountains.  I had taken a turn at the wheel and fell into the rhythm of mountain driving, following the road as it snaked between the hillsides.  The moon lit this place too, flooding the slopes with silver light that edged toward pale gold as the moon sank lower, picking out trees and rocky outcroppings and vistas of receding summits that framed the curves of the glimmering road.  Tiny, slumbering towns sprang up in the headlights for a moment and then were left behind in the darkness. Around every curve was a fresh scene, paintings made as variations on a theme, each one only glimpsed for a moment before giving way to the next.  It was a long, deep drink from a well of heart stopping beauty, painted in silver, indigo and black. I forgot my tiredness in the silent wonder.   We stopped for a break at a little roadside park where there was a covered bridge and pit toilets.  The night air was mild and sweet, filled with the scent of pine.

The hours of the night wore away, but the moon hung as though stalled, rare and pale gold, and in the east a cool, colorless light began to spread.  Morning was coming as we drove on and on, and slowly color filled the sky on our right, turquoise and pink and yellow, flooding the mountainside with the sun's first light while on our left the moon lingered, bathing that side of the valley in titian gold even as the sun touched the trees on the opposite side.  It was coming up on 24 hours of wakefulness for me and I was very tired, but I realized that if I had not been there in that very place during those exact hours I would not have seen that amazing beauty, stunning and otherworldly in the moonlit darkness, doubly lit by moon set and sunrise at the coming of the dawn.

Flags and shreds of fog arose and drifted over the changing landscape.  We came out of the mouth of the canyon into a gray seaside town where the air was damp and chilly and filled with a peculiar, musty smell, the sweet scent of the pines gone.  Here there was the low lying vegetation of the cool coast, a maze of marshes, brackish creeks and tidal inlets.  A few miles more on a winding road and we reached the town that was our destination.  The sun was up and people moved about, but there was not a single place open for breakfast and coffee seemed an unknown commodity.  We tried to find lodging, but offices were closed or no-vacancy signs were lit.  After driving aimlessly for awhile, we ended up parking near the harbor and waiting for the restaurants to open. Breakfast, when we finally got it, was mediocre and the coffee was pale and watery.

I had heard the story of what happened in the aftermath of an appalling series of events, the suspicion and blame and heaped up injustices that made my own story pale in comparison even as I recognized the similarities.  I wanted to believe, and I did, but betrayal in one's past makes rebuilding trust difficult.  There was always the little voice in the back of my mind whispering a reminder that I had been told other stories that turned out to have had some inconvenient facts left out.  What I found in a certain little Oregon town astounded me and put my doubts to rest.  I saw evidence of the backwardness and obfuscation that had been described to me, the sketchy ethics, a bank that was like stumbling into the Bedford Falls Building and Loan just after Uncle Billy lost the money, but without that fictitious institution's underlying decency and good intentions.  The people seemed slow, dazed, and slightly inbred.

Then I stood on the site of a tragedy, looked at the mute artifacts of a violent ending, the shards of broken glass and blackened foundations, the grass growing up unmowed, a single, brilliant poppy that bloomed amid the sad wreckage of my companion's old life.  I was stunned by the reality of it, the sight of him weeping for the loss and senseless tragedy, the helplessness to turn aside a mad and plundering train of insanity and destruction driven by someone he had loved.  His tears could have been my own.  It was like looking into a mirror.

"This was my home," he said in a choked voice.  And I knew.  I understood.

I looked out to the tangled back of the property toward the hidden creek, and murmured in wonder and mostly to myself, "There was a creek running behind my house, too."

In the midst of my own grief and loss, as I had stood and regarded the fresh ashes of my own former life, people sometimes said things to comfort that only caused more pain. With the best of intentions they tried to find a perspective or a few words that would somehow make it better.  I could not tell them that their attempts at sympathy and support had been like salt in the wound.  What had I needed most in that terrible time? Not words, just understanding.  An honoring of the terribleness, an unspoken recognition of my pain.  I had needed others to know what I felt.  But that was not possible, for they had not experienced what I had experienced.

And so I knew there was nothing I could do to take away the pain of my companion.  I could help him bear it a little, but only by standing in solidarity with him in silent recognition of what had transpired, by bearing witness to the tangible evidence of the story he had told me, by seeing with my own eyes and feeling in my own heart the sorrow and loss, and by sharing that knowledge with him because I, too, had experienced something like it.

Later, after I told him how this trip had ripped the scab from my own wounds and filled me with a towering rage at those who had hurt and betrayed him and a renewed grief over my own losses, he said, "It was a mistake to take you there."

But I don't think it was a mistake.  Some things are terrible but necessary.  I could not quite put my finger on the sense of it, of what I was feeling as I stood there and looked at the scenes which I had heard described, and I wondered if there was no sense at all to any of it. But I think I was meant to see it so that I would know that yes, this did happen. It was not a fanciful tale told to me by a stranger.  It was a real account of real loss and tragedy in the life of a fellow human on a journey of his own that was, at least in part, much like my own.

Standing at the burnt out foundations of his old house, he said, "There's nothing left.  I shouldn't have come back."

Yet I think this was also a case of the terrible but necessary.  We could have finished up the official business that had forced this trip, then hastily turned tail and run back south again.  But something had compelled him to return to this part of his past for one last look, one final farewell. He had thought he would never be able to return yet he had gone there as surely as though drawn by a beacon.  Perhaps I was able to give him this one small thing, just the measure of strength he needed to face it one final time.

And so I stood silent, telling myself to be like a tall tree, a thought which came to mind because I remembered someone who once comforted me in a terrible moment by doing nothing more than standing tall and strong like a young tree I could cling to in the storm.  He had walked back and forth as he wept, a kind of desperate pacing as though he sought a doorway out of this reality, some way to escape the awful, immutable truth of what had happened.  Now he stood quiet, leaning against his truck, that steady and dependable companion in adversity who had never betrayed him or abandoned him through the most terrible times.  That good and faithful servant who had sheltered him from the rain and allowed him to ride away from ruin to the peace of the desert.

He shook his head and said, "It's time to go.  There's nothing here for me."

I took his hand and said, "Then let us shake the dust of this place from our feet, and never come here again."

He pulled the gate closed for the final time, and we left that place.

Life and the events that make it up are messy and complicated and don't always lend themselves to a smooth narrative.  And so it is here.  We actually spent time in several towns, and not all of them were as despised as the one that shall remain nameless.  The tragedy I allude to mostly took place in another community a few miles away, and the people there seemed decent and genuinely glad to see their former neighbor, pleased to see him somewhat recovered from a terrible time.  I met some of the people who had been part of my friend's story.  They had become, in a way, like characters in a book to me.  Seeing them in real life was a little like meeting  a minor celebrity.

For several reasons we ended up staying in the general area for a couple of days, which was at least one day longer than we'd intended.  There is beauty in the rugged coast here, interesting things to explore and see and do, and we tried to do a little sightseeing. We happened by a wildlife viewing area where you can look out to a community of sea lions noisily conversing and sunning themselves on a group of offshore rocks, so we stopped for a breath of fresh air and a gander at the big, goofy creatures.  You can't quite make them out in this picture, but they're out there.

We should have been grateful for the cool ocean breezes, having escaped the punishing heat of the central valley.  We should have been enjoying the fresh green and the abundant wildflowers.

Yet the overcast sky was dreary, and the coastal highway seemed lined with dingy, somewhat run down little buildings.  There seemed to be a lingering hint of damp and mold and dissolution, even in the midst of high summer, and the temps barely got out of the sixties.  I tried to appreciate the new things I was seeing, but the area, however undeservedly, was tainted by sorrow.  I was downcast after somber visits to several landmarks of a shattered past.  I found myself yearning for the desert, despite the fact that we had fled temperatures there that routinely soared into the triple digits, mornings where the low at six am is 90 degrees.  Perversely, I didn't care.  I wanted to be back in some secluded canyon, dressed in my birthday suit and turning brown in the sun.

I wanted the vastness of it, the way it is so far from everything that reminded us both of what we had lost.  I wanted to hear that voice that speaks there.  Whose voice is it? Some have heard it as the voice of God.  But if it is the voice of God, it does not tell you how to win the lottery, it does not promise you the things you desire, or offer you justice or to restore what has been taken from you.  It gives no answer to your question of, "Why?"

The voice says only one thing, and that is, 'I am."

And somehow, that is enough.

Night Shower and Hitting The Road

My time at the Slabs has come to an end.  I spent most of yesterday getting ready for my departure today.  I took breaks and time out to talk with people.  I didn’t want my last full day in Slab City to be nothing but a grind of packing and organizing, so I wasn’t as fast or efficient as I might have been.  But it’s ok.  It will all work out.

I had originally planned to leave yesterday, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to give myself one more day.  Nobody knows what next year will bring.  Will this be my last stay at the Slabs?  With that question in mind I’ve been paying more attention, trying to memorize the smell of the desert wind at night, the scatter of stars, the way the darkness makes the space out here seem endless, the sense of wildness and mystery at the edge of the firelight, and the feeling of safety in the little circle of my fellow Slabbers as we sit around the fire and tell stories.

One of the things on my to do list was to have a final shower, but somehow I never got around to it.  Then it was sunset and the fire had been started, and it was important to be there for my last night.  The last couple of nights there has been a furious firefight going on at the gunnery range on the other side of the canal as the Navy Seals train.  The chatter of automatic weapons fire is punctuated by deep, thumping booms and flurries of red tracers streaking across the horizon.  These came from teams on the ground, but there were also airships firing down at targets, streams of tracers aiming down and then ricocheting  up to make a V of flying ammo.  It was quite an entertaining show.  And it’s about time my tax dollars gave me some entertainment!   I’m told those exercises were happening less than 2 miles away from where we sat in our camp chairs, which was a sobering thought.

After most folks had gone in for the evening I excused myself and came back to KD to keep working on packing.  I’d already packed away most of the dishes and cookware.  I am concerned with keeping weight off the tongue, so I don’t leave the kitchen loaded up when I’m towing.  Those bins went into Goose, along with food I won’t be needing on the road.  I left some basic stuff so that I could still make coffee and a simple meal in the morning and on the way home, but much of it has been packed away.

I did some more work, packing my Crosley Trio stereo, and a set of multi-colored LED candles that seemed like the height of foolishness when I bought them but turned out to be loads of fun, entertaining everyone who sat at the table with improbable colors and goofy effects.  I got my clothes rounded up and put back in the duffles so they could be used as weight balancing ballast, and then I started regretting not taking that shower.  I really didn’t want to wait until morning.

Well, I didn’t have to!  KD has a light in her bathroom now, which is finally almost completely finished.

There’s hot water, and Mr. Heater will help dry me off if needed.  So I checked the water level in the tank.  Rut roh!  It was looking pretty low.  I’d already taken one shower using that tank and washed a couple loads of dishes along with the usual hand washing and random water running that happens every day.  But not to worry.  I had another 28 gallons in containers, although it meant I’d have to go out and put the aux water intake into one of them and turn the valve.  

I decided to go ahead and do it.  That way I wouldn’t have to deal with taking time to shower in the morning, as well as the time it takes to clean up and dry out the bathroom before putting it back together.  So I did.  It was my first nighttime KD shower, and it went swimmingly.  The light worked great and the water was hot.  I had 7 gallons to luxuriate in before the container was empty, but that’s more than I needed.  I feel so much better

The gunnery range is finally quiet as I write this and midnight slips by, but a long freight is rumbling off in the distance, blowing the horn at regular intervals and the sound is mournful and lonely.  There are so many posts I wanted to write.  So many things I intended to do.  I wrote some of them, some of them are still in draft form and hopefully will get put up in the next week or so.  Some of the things I wanted to do I did, but it’s a rare adventure where everything goes as planned.  But it’s OK.  I'm done packing and almost ready to hitch up, then hit the road for home.  And that will be its own adventure.