Danger Vacation and Peppernuts

Do I start with the assembly of  36 boxes of walk-in closet or do I start with our recent Spring Break travels? The former sounds like torture compared to the latter but trust it, they each had their moments.

I'll start with Spring Break.  Our original plan for Spring Break was to drive the Winnie B to Yosemite National Park.  It was an ambitious plan that turned into a foolish plan after our RV nearly drove itself off a mountain pass on a recent ski outing outside Seattle.

We decided to take a "safe" trip, stick closer to home until we were confident the Winnie was no longer an imminent threat to our wellbeing.  Instead of hauling 17+ hours down to Yosemite, we would drive a mere 8 hours to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.

Seven hours of the drive passed with no problems; the engine kept running the entire time AND I was able to steer!  I had relaxed considerably by the time our GPS told us it was time to turn off the interstate and onto a sweet little country road called Tiller Trail Highway.

It was nice to be off the freeway and back into nature.  Tiller Trail was all trees, a winding little thing but nothing I couldn't handle.

It's funny how bodies work, how keen they are to sense danger before you consciously realize you're in danger.  At first it was a slight prickle on the back of my neck -- "is this road narrowing a bit?" I wondered to myself.  I also had a sense of being really high. I felt it in my gut before I saw it with my eyes.

The curves in the road were getting so severe, I was unable to look at anything but them. I called Alex up to the front.  "Alex?  This road is getting a little weird, can you come help me for a minute?"  Alex moseyed up to the front and I soon heard a sharp intake of breath.  Then he said, in a voice I could tell he was keeping measured for my comfort, "Yeah.... so....you can feel free to slow down here if you'd like."

Alex doesn't worry about danger much.  There have been many situations where I thought we were going to die and he was like, "What's the big deal, freakazoid, everything's fine."  But in that moment he was tense, and I could tell he was tense, which told me our situation was a precarious one indeed.

I said, "Tell me how bad it is" and Alex replied, "Well, we're up on a cliff kind of thing and there's no shoulder and no guard rail."  I gripped the wheel a little more tightly, "OK, how far down?"  and Alex said, "I'll give it to you in meters so it's not so scary.  It's about 50."  Oh God, I know what meters are. We are going to die.

I didn't lose my cool.  At least not outwardly.  My internal dialogue was a little negative, though, and may have involved the fact Winnie had just suffered a catastrophic electrical problem a couple weeks prior and oh my god, they probably didn't fix her correctly because the entire world is full of idiots and they are very likely some of them.

There was no choice but to keep plodding along and ignore the people piling up behind me on the road.  I drove much of Tiller Trail in the middle of the two lanes because our lane alongside the cliff was too narrow to accommodate our girth.  All I could do was pray no car would come around the hairpin turns from the opposite direction.  We got so lucky none ever did.

It took almost an hour to clear all fifteen miles of Tiller Trail Highway.  We eventually rolled into our campground slightly unhinged but unharmed.  I was contemplating a shot of whiskey when we checked in with the campground host.  I told the gentleman working there, who was sporting a perfect handlebar mustache by the way, "We just took the worst road to get here." His eyes grew wide and he said, "Oh no, did you take Tiller?" When I said "yes" he reached out to touch my arm in a comforting way and put his other hand to his mouth in horror.

We camped next to a guy named Glen, a marijuana growing libertarian from Northern California.  He and his wife recently moved into their RV full time because "property taxes are bullshit."  Glen was chatty, leapt out of his RV immediately upon our arrival to ask if we needed help.  I soon began to suspect living in an RV full time has been lonely for Glen.  If he saw us leave our rig, he was soon out of his rig, too, talking our ears off about whatever was on his mind.  And trust it, Glen has lots of things on his mind.

We began sneaking quietly out of the RV and hiding around the sides of it to avoid those inescapable chats -- that is, unless we needed a question answered.  Since there was no cell phone service nor wifi, he became our Google.

Me: How long do you think the hike is from the campground to the lake?
Al:  I bet Glen knows.

*Alex goes outside, just stands outside our door doing nothing for five seconds*
*Glen leaps out of his RV*

Al:  Oh hey there, Glen, how long is the hike from the campground to the lake?
Glen: That's about 3.5 miles round-trip.  Hey, did I tell you taxes are stupid?
Al:  You sure did, Glen.

Glen didn't want us to go.  He stayed with us throughout the entire breaking camp process, including dumping the sewer line.  Dumping your sewer line is a bit....personal.... so it's possible Glen and I have a difference in opinion about boundaries and personal space.

When we left, I swear Glen cried.  He and his wife waved enthusiastically as we drove off.  Just before, Glen had dug through his RV and returned with peacock feathers and quartz crystals for both our kids. He's a good dude, that Glen.  I hope he finds lots of people to chat with for the rest of his property tax-free and weed-full life.

In more recent events, Lucien just ran into the room to tell me he wants a pet rabbit.
He's already chosen a name -- Peppernuts.
Peppernuts the rabbit.
Then he ran back out again.

Whatever the hell that was.

Keep being yourself, kid.

And hell no on the rabbit thing.

Our Spring Break travels not only nearly killed us on Tiller Trail and brought us to Glen, they also took us to the uniquely wild Crater Lake National Park.  Crater Lake was formed thousands of years ago when a volcano erupted and then caved in on itself, forming a large deep crater.  The heavy snowfall and rain of the area eventually filled the crater with pristine, clear, and extremely blue water. No water flows into Crater Lake, no water flows out.  It is all perfectly purely contained and it takes your breath away.

Did you notice Coco isn't in those pictures?  And related, do you see the tense clench of our jaws? Coco was melting down ten feet away because her socks were wet on account of walking through snow so she'd decided to give up on life. 

She sat over there on that wall and cried and repeatedly asked when we were leaving in a high-pitched squealing voice.

Ahh, making family memories.

The second half of our vacation found us back in Bend, Oregon, one of my favorite towns in this region of the country.  Our campground was fancy, even had a place for the kids to rent movies, which is how we came to enjoy Mulan in the woods.  We didn't realize at first but we had accidentally turned on the outside speakers along with the inside speakers (we're still learning all the buttons on that thing), which meant our immediate neighbors were forced to enjoy Mulan, too. 

I like to imagine the expressions on their faces when the song "Be a Man" exploded from the Winnie B and suddenly split the silence of forest.  

The grand finale of Spring Break was a bluebird ski day up at Mount Bachelor.  The area had received fourteen inches of snow the night before, which is a ton for Spring, and the morning had dawned with a blue sky.  We could not wait to get up there.

The drive up Mount Bachelor was a little hairy.  That's an understatement; the drive was a yeti.  It began nicely enough, roads were clear, dry, and bare down near our campground but with each mile our situation grew a little more dire.  It soon became apparent they had not plowed the road up to Mount Bachelor.  Why the hell didn't they do that. 

For the last nine miles up to the resort, I was driving Winnie B through deep snow.  The only thing that kept me anchored to the earth were the tracks of the handful of people who'd made it up before me. I kept the Winnie as firmly in those tracks as I could and swore a lot under my breath.  Why is it scary every time I get in this damn thing.

The drive was a tricky balance between going fast enough to keep a giant heavy vehicle moving uphill in snow and going slow enough to keep control of the thing in slippery conditions.  I can't believe we made it.  By the time we did (and I emerged once again shaken and looking for whiskey shots in the parking lot) we had another trail of people stuck behind us.  I felt terrible knowing I held many people back from their perfect bluebird ski morning.

One of the people stuck behind me screeched up next to us in the parking lot.  The woman in the passenger seat jumped out and ran at me with arms wide, yelling, "Great job, honey, that was some hella impressive driving you just pulled out!"  She shook my hand, said she and her husband were behind us cheering the entire way, "Come on, girl, you can do it!  You can do it!  Keep going, baby!" They agreed it was total bullshit the road hadn't been plowed given the volume of people headed up the mountain for a glorious end to the ski season. 

Alex and I shook off the terror and soon got overexcited about the new snowfall.  We immediately took the chairlift up to the very top of the mountain, an exposed area that cannot be reached by slope grooming equipment so was still covered in over a foot of very fresh powder.  Alex and I are not powder skiers.  I hate powder, have no idea why we went up there.  I guess we had visions of looking like this --

But proper ski form goes out the window when you're stuck in powder and don't have the skills to be there.  You barely move through the heaviness of the stuff (a toddler learning to walk could have passed me on that slope), you catch weird edges, you look like a graceless idiot.  I didn't look like that guy above.  At one point my feet were about six feet apart from each other and my arms were clutching poles at strange angles from my body.  

Like lookin' in a mirror.  Uncanny.

The best part was when Alex got frustrated, said, "to hell with it" and tried to ski faster. He hit a jump he hadn't seen until he was on top of it and landed face first in many inches of fresh powder.  At least all that fluffy stuff broke his fall.

It's official. We are not powder people.

We're home safe now.  We saw some beautiful places and had some laughs on our most recent RV trip but I think Lucien's face sums up how we felt about much of it -- 

Next time I'd like to write about the closet.  A closet post!  A closet post!  I think everyone agrees that sounds very exciting.

MJ

"Tiller Trail of Tears"

MJ, 2016

Ski legs

What's the first thing you think of when you hear the words "Spring Break"?

That's right -- Oregon!

We spent the week of Spring Break skiing Mount Bachelor outside Bend, Oregon.  The most important thing to know about Mount Bachelor, aside from the fact it's a gorgeous volcano with great spring skiing conditions, is every Mount Bachelor employee has a different answer to any question you might ask.  The key is to keep asking people until you get the answer you want.

For instance, after asking if we could rent our package-deal equipment earlier than anticipated, one employee replied, "No way, step back, rule breaker," another said, "I have no idea" and continued staring dreamily into space but the third said, "You bet!  Come on over and let's get you suited up." And that's what we did.

Alex and I no longer own ski equipment so we had to rent, which is always a bummer.  Ski rental equipment is the worst.  The skis are never well waxed, which will sometimes give you the sensation of skiing through glue and rubber bands.  Your eyes may widen with concern when the dreadlocked white man behind the rental counter hands you your rental poles.  "Did you just put those through a wood chipper?" you'll ask but the real question is, are they really still poles?  Or are they now just a loosely attached collection of dings, dents, and scratches?

You'll envision all the people who have held those poles before you and obviously wiped out in spectacular fashion.  You will hope the fault lies in the crappy abilities of the skiers themselves and not bad pole juju.

Ski boots by their nature are never going to be comfortwear.  They're heavy and bulky and give you the grace and ease of movement of a Transformer.  The omniprescent sound in a ski resort is the *clunk clunk clunk* as people sidestep down staircases made intentionally wide to accommodate a skier's comically limited maneuverability.

That's all awkward enough but the difficulties are magnified in rental boots.  You might as well shove your foot into a cement block that is both way too rigid yet always loose.  The boot buckles will be worn and tired and no longer serious about their jobs; they will weakly grasp the other side of your boot but will regularly bust open when they can't take it anymore. By lunch you will have bruises on your tibias.

I haven't skied in a handful of years and much has changed.  For instance, skis are now short.  When the adorable (adorable!) rental guy from Santiago, Chile, handed me my skis, I looked at him suspiciously and asked, "That's it?  Where's the rest of 'em?"  They looked like kid skis -- except once I saw my kids' skis I realized they'd gotten shorter, too, and are now approximately the same length as pencils.

He laughed and said, "How long has it been since you skied?" I said it had been a long time, since back when ski lengths were normal.  He told me I would love the new length because it makes it so easy to turn I would barely need my poles.  I said, "good, because I don't have a whole lot of faith in those mangled things."

I assembled myself.  As I *clunk clunk clunk*ed my way out the door, I looked over my shoulder at adorable Chile guy and called, "I can't wait to try out my magic skis!"  Then, not looking where I was going, I ran into a pole in the middle of the room and had to stand there for a minute rubbing the side of my head.  Adorable Chile guy waved and looked encouraging but he was probably thinking, "She seems nice. I should go visit her in the hospital later when she inevitably winds up there."

Other than the skis, skiing remains much the same as I remember.  The chairlift ride is thrilling as your legs dangle high in the air.  The sound of the chairlift is the same --a vibrating hum, accompanied by a rubbery squeaky squeaky when you pass through the wheels of a support pole.  Dismount is still a challenge as you navigate around the newbies who just bit the dust in front of you.

Our first run was painful -- my form was weak and my unhappy rental boots barely hanging in there.  I can't say I noticed an ease of turning on my mini skis but it's been so long, I can't remember what it felt like to turn before.  As slightly awkward as that first run was,  both Alex and I were hooked on skiing again by the time we reached the bottom.  Alex got immediately back in line for the chairlift and called over his shoulder, "I forgot how much fun this is!"  Our next runs showed quickly improving forms and increased confidence. We were soon skiing like the wind, as we were both raised to do.

I'm standing on top of a volcano!  YEEAAAH

Alex and I, as in all areas of our lives, have very different styles when it comes to skiing.  I like to stop several times during the course of a run.  I rest my legs, look around, watch other skiers, appreciate the view.  Alex, however, has a mission and that is to WIN and BEAT THE MOUNTAIN.  He skis down a mountain like if he doesn't beat some arbitrary time record, the mountain is going to be taken away from him.  Then he's immediately in line again, while I'm still halfway up counting the snowflakes on the front of my jacket and giggling alone.

Alex and I weren't always so different.  The years have changed us both, in that we're each becoming stronger caricatures of what have always been our core selves.  It usually works well, having our strengths lie in different areas, but when it comes to skiing it just means we get separated a lot.  I'd ski down to a fork in the slope and be stymied -- "Well which way did he go?  Why the hell didn't he stop?" -- then I'd shrug, continue on my way and call his cell phone when I reached the bottom.  He would inevitably be on the other side of the mountain so we would take a few runs solo, work our way towards the middle, meet again, high five.

That's actually a great summary of our marriage in general -- we're on the same mountain but each doing our own thing, and sometimes we meet up for what inevitably become our favorite runs.

The weather was incredible, the snow soft, the crowds minimal.  My happy place became the sunny bar terrace where I would have a beer at the end of the day and watch my kids finish their lessons on the bunny slope.  Coco got so frustrated by her repeated falls she sometimes stayed face down on the snow and pounded it with her tiny fists for awhile.  It's OK, girl, we've all been there.

Our final day of skiing was a different weather story.  It was foggy followed by sleet and snow with zero visibility on the mountain.  Alex and I did a few runs in complete whiteout conditions.  I skied on Al's heels, stared at his back and yelled, "Don't you dare take off without me again!" The darkish blob of his jacket was the only object keeping me anchored to the earth.

We would still get back on the chairlift after each wet, miserable, scary run.  To love skiing is to be gripped with an irrational fervor.  We would suggest another run hoping conditions had improved up top (they hadn't).  We hunkered down on the chairlift with our faces tucked into our jackets to avoid being pelted with the sharp ice chips flying out of the sky.  We would then make our way slowly down the run using our gut instincts or, in a pinch, echolocation.

The kids are really the best part of our ski vacation.  We started with two kids afraid of skiing and left with two skiers.  Lucien, especially, has taken a shine to it and improved dramatically in his few days on skis.  He's now overconfident and trash talking, "Oh yeah? You think you can ski?  You can't ski, I can ski. Watch this and weep, sucker!" *fall* 

We stopped in Portland for a night before coming home to Seattle.  Portland is still Portland -- delightfully weird and filled to the brim with hipsters. While perusing the open air market, we overheard people say head-scratching Portland things like --

 "I hand painted the design on this t-shirt.  I wanted it to be like a man, but also like a fish.  And I wanted him to wear a tie.  It's a classy fish man." 

and from the sleepy-voiced man wearing knee-high socks and sandals --

"I knit these socks myself from vegan fiber."  

The latter comment begs the question.... vegan fiber?  I get it's not wool, but aren't other basic fibers vegan?  Like cotton?  Have I stumbled into an episode of Portlandia?

 delightful wares for sale in Portland

In a spontaneous happy turn of events, Alex agreed to entertain the kids for the evening so I could go out with Supermodel Neighbor, my beautiful man friend who moved from Seattle to Portland last year.  In an even happier turn of events, he brought along two of his friends who are also male models.  I went out with three male models.  Nothing to complain about there.

All three are quick to point out they don't do much modeling anymore and it's not how they define themselves.  That's totally true and I respect that, but I'm still going to call them male models because it makes my life seem more glamorous and exciting than it is (she says as she packs the banana into the dinosaur lunch box).

Our night out in Portland involved a performance by Michael Hurley, a seventy-something-year-old folk singer I've seen perform before, also with Supermodel Neighbor, back in Seattle. There were many beers.  In the later hours we craved late-night junk food and found it in the form of fries covered in cheese and Russian dressing. It was not my favorite combination.

going out with male models can make you feel short

The conversation was boozy and may or may not have included me agreeing to be a surrogate for their experimental three-man-made baby.  There was also some speculation as to how many cows a person could eat in a year.  Also lots of talk of pork.  Bottom line -- if you have the opportunity to go out with three male models, you should do so.  If you want to find some, you'll be able to identify them in the wild by their knit beanies.

Go, Coco, Go

Returning from vacation sucks,
MJ