We said goodbye to Seattle about 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, I think. (Already I’m losing track of the days.) About 30 minutes north, we stopped at a Fred Meyer store in Everett to make last-minute supplies and grocery purchases. (For all you East Coasters, Fred Meyer stores are a lot like mini-WalMarts–pretty much all of the same supplies, but with fewer options of each.) Traveling as far west as Albuquerque in a small plane meant that we had limited weight and space restrictions, so “essentials” like folding chairs, dishware, and even bulky pillows were not included in our take-off plans. We had restricted ourselves to 50 lbs. each for clothes and personal items (including laptops and electronics), and then 50 lbs. for “community” items such as tools for any eventuality, blankets, pots and pans, and so forth. We managed to come in at about 40 lbs. each and an additional 40 lbs. for the rest, for a total of 120 lbs., well under the weight of an assumed 150-lb. back-seat passenger. Because weight and density altitude make it difficult to land in emergency situations, we wanted to be sure we could take off on shorter runways; though we never needed a longer runway, it gave us some measure of reassurance to know we were prepared.

Fred Meyer turned out to have pretty much everything we anticipated needing–but since our camper was as yet sight unseen and not tested, we held off on anything that might need refrigeration. (Isn’t it handy that red wine doesn’t need refrigeration? I think so.) This was our last chance to make purchases on the mainland–after this, we were going to be paying island prices. We ended up getting more cans of beans than Elliott imagined, and a lot of rice and pasta to tide us over. (I am eagerly awaiting the farmers’ market in Eastsound on Saturday.)

We made it to the ferry with almost two hours to spare and indulged in reading our books and people watching as we waited to drive onto the ship. The ferry was amazingly clean and calm, though we had a few moments of consternation when the loudspeaker announced, “Would the owners of the black Audi A6 with New Mexico plates please disable your car alarm.” Car alarm? We have a car alarm? By the time we got there with the key, the alarm had stopped, but we stayed with the car the rest of the journey to shore.

We landed on Orcas Island without further incident, and drove the few miles to Gordy’s Garage, where Randy Davis met us with the keys to our “new” 1976 American Clipper RV.

Leaving Ontario, the chief delight for scenery on the road was the windmill farms. They stood on the ridges, sometimes in sentinel solitude, sometimes in rows, sometimes in various sizes, tall medium and small, like those sticker families you see pasted on the rear windows of minivans, depicting the families inside. Wind power is the most pragmatically practical you could ask for; the winged machines that gather it are elegantly beautiful, and yet it amazes me that many people protest that wind farms are a blight on the land and sea-scape. People ought to realize how many smokestacks and gutted coal mountains those whirly-gigs replace.

We did take a sidetrip to North Bend to see the falls, and take snapshots of ourselves outside the “Twin Peaks” diner. Alas, the place was mobbed, and seemed to be functioning with a single waitress and no busboys. It seemed unfair to burden the poor woman with yet two more plates of cherry pie to fetch, so we skipped the pie, and drove on.

Seattle’s traffic rivals D.C. Now, about Kendra:

Kendra is our friend in Seattle. She’s been a teacher and a librarian all her life, until retiring just this past summer. She was the first friend I made in Houston, Texas, when I arrived there fresh from my air force stint. She was an important part of the story of Ann and I becoming Us. And we hadn’t seen her for something like twenty years. Long story short, friendships like that rekindle instantly. Your kindred spirits will fall in with you, “get you” and “be gotten by you” in the blink of an eye, even after all those years. It was wonderful seeing her.

She has a friend, Dale, who was cleaning up after a yard sale that day, and invited us to pick anything that was left over to furnish our camper. We found towels, sheets, a pillow case and pillows, and even a spare blanket to feather our yet “unseen” nest for the Orcas stay. Dale was moving away from a home she’d lived in for more than twenty years, and clearly loved. She gave us a tour, talking about the place; the fireplace insert, and garden plants. She had herself dug out a huge pond, almost four feet deep, lined it and fashioned a water course with a circulating pump to aerate the water, and all for the purpose of helping to reestablish frog populations.She had grown up in the same neighborhood, and noted how the frogs she’d remembered were vanishing. The frogs had been dying off from pesticide use and other pollutants. They are an indicator species, canaries in the coal mine of our environment, which provide an early warning when the toxicity is rising. With its lily pads, ferns, flowering water plants, and wriggling tadpoles, it was the most beautiful pond you could ask for.

Dale is hoping the new owners will take care of her pond. Me, too…

Elliott has always loved hiking in the desert, so I was looking forward to seeing its appeal through his eyes when we finally got to the West Texas/New Mexico area. Mother Nature, however, had other ideas.  Still, the green desert–unusually verdant for the season–had a stark beauty to it that made me think, “I could live here.” I loved the traditional architecture and the way New Mexico has adapted Mexican and Indian heritages, especially with regard to food (always a happy trigger for me). I could definitely see the attraction.

Then we found our way to a small community just west of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, overlooking the Rocky Mountains. Deer bedded down a few hundred feet away, horses and wild turkeys roamed the area, and I once again thought, “Maybe I could live here.” (Note: I have no intention of moving, but this is a game I play with myself wherever I go. I have no idea why. The grass is always greener syndrome, maybe.) The peace and quiet was soothing after four days on the move. It had a different beauty from the desert, more in keeping with my Midwest and East Coast sense of wilderness. I kept my eyes open for elk, but apparently they’ve moved further upland during the summer.

Driving through the canyon country (which I hadn’t seen since I was maybe twelve years old, competing four? five? probably not six? younger siblings for a view), with nary a homesite in view, I could imagine how the pioneers felt as they crossed the country. I wondered what it would be like to live that far from civilization. I could do it, I figured, though it might be difficult living that far from neighbors, so I added “for a while,” and then, “but maybe not in winter.” Windmill farms occasionally dotted the landscape, and I found myself mesmerized by their gracefulness and purpose. There should be more windmills in the world. “Blowin’ in the Wind” kept tumbling through my brain. We made a brief stop at the waterfalls in North Bend, then headed into the city.

Seattle was amazing, even though we were there for less than a day.  Definitely on my come-back-to list. The overpass parks were such a good use of space, I wish we’d had more time to explore them. More greenspace, fewer cars–thought admittedly it’s ironic that such a thought occurred to me from a car, traversing 3000 miles to volunteer for two months in a different greenspace. Seattle gets far less snow than I had thought, but the traffic jams? I could live without them. Still, I could–yes–live there. I find myself torn between the energy and life of a city, and the relaxing pace and peace of the country. After a hike around the city down to Lake Washington, Kendra and Rod took us to an old Hudson factory for dinner. We hadn’t seen Kendra for about 20 years, but felt like it hadn’t been nearly that long (and of course we hadn’t aged a bit!) and catching up was fun. I held my tongue and never mentioned leather coats and flashing (Ooops!).*

We took the ferry from Anacortes, Washington, to Orcas Island, after a stop at a Fred Meyer store north of Seattle to stock up on unperishables and supplies. We weren’t sure if the refrigerator would work (and it doesn’t appear to–a problem to solve another day), so we held off on fresh vegetables and anything that required refrigeration.

Orcas Island is full of tiny touristy villages surrounded by state parks, and we’ll probably head to a staging campground in the park tonight. We hadn’t been here more than a couple hours before Michel, one of our park coordinators, came over to greet us and make sure we had everything we needed. Julia, our other coordinator, called this morning to verify we had everything too–we feel very welcomed, indeed.

We’re off in a bit to find a part for the water system so that we can have actual connected water (it will make life much easier) as opposed to hose water, and get that system working before rainfall.

We’re settling into the RV–right off the departure end of the local airport–and I can easily see us here for the next couple of months. I could live here, yes indeedy.

*A story for another time…

While it’s helpful to know that the journey began by air, the more interesting travels have waited for us to drive. I’m writing with Ann next to me at the wheel of a borrowed Audi station wagon, and we are rolling north of Moab, Utah. Today’s plan is to get somewhere north of Boise before we run out of steam.

The car belongs to our good friends Bill and Sharon who live in Placitas, New Mexico. They put us up as we arrived in Albuquerque. Our Piper airplane is now tied down at Double Eagle, where it will spend the rest of the summer. We dined at El Pinto, where the red and green chile pepper dishes are sublimely transcendent. This was New Mexican haute cuisine, not to be confused with paltry Tex-Mex hasheries. El Pinto has dozens of tables, many on open verandas adjoining the native gardens. The surrounding mountains were draped in rumbling storms, with a hint of distant rain scent mixing it up with our spicy dishes.

Bill and Sharon have a mountain retreat some 4 hours north and west of Placitas, in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and they treated us to a night’s stay there after our day in Placitas. This cabin home is sited atop a wooded ridge facing the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. We saw a flock of wild turkeys, herds of deer and horses, rabbits, a humming bird, and a lizard. Sharon boiled up a spicy spaghetti and salad dinner. I think pasta is just about the best food to bond friendships. The next morning, we awoke to colorful hot air balloons soaring over the valley between us and the distant mountains.

We departed Pagosa Springs and made our way to Mesa Verda National Park. At the park we concentrated on seeing the Spruce Tree House archaeological ruins, and also hiking the Petroglyph loop trail. Mesa Verde is a much larger park than we had imagined, requiring a 20+ mile drive simply to get from the gate to our chosen destination within the park. And I re-discovered what a mile can be while hiking, compared to a flat mile jogged back home in Georgia. It took something close to three hours to hike along the canyon walls above Spruce Tree house, where smaller dwellings could be found high above the trail, and a wall of rock carvings some 700-800 years old can be studied.

From Mesa Verde we made our way to Moab, Utah, but those notes will wait until next time…

Onward!

So, it came to pass last April that Ann heard through the grapevine that a state park on Orcas Island, in the San Juan Islands of the Pacific northwest was in need of resident volunteers in August and September. To her utter astonishment, when she asked me if I thought this would be a good idea, I said yes.

We are now enroute to our job, having flown from Georgia to Albuquerque, and on to Colorado by car. Tomorrow morning we will see Mesa Verde, and hope to sleep near Provo, Utah by nightfall.