What’s good? What’s bad? Those are questions that would be hard for me to answer for you or you for me. So, let’s start the story off with a journey over the mountains to Spokane. We are on our way to the “Big City” to get some biking gear from our good friends at REI and…of course…take the scenic route to get some awesome roadside photographs. I needed some larger, warm biking clothes. This has been a rough year for my weight. Well actually, the year didn’t have anything to do with it. It all had to do with what I put into my mouth and what I didn’t put between my legs (I’ll explain later; “bare” with me).
Off we go with the Super Sube (our Subaru Outback) packed with my camera gear, a tripod, three Dutch ovens…two 10s and one 8…stuff to make a nice breakfast of homemade buttermilk biscuits, bacon, eggs, and…you know what…I just remembered…I didn’t bring any butter. Nope, not for the biscuits. The dry mixture with the cut-in butter was already made up. I forgot the butter to keep them dudes from sticking on the inside of that oven and the eggs from sticking when I cooked them. Hu? Well…there’s that (too). The one thing I knew we didn’t have was my garbage can lids. I used to have two tin garbage can lids that I’d set upside down to hold my charcoal briquettes and set my Dutch oven in when I cooked. They worked GREAT. Got them years ago at the local feed store as clearance items. We were looking for ways to save space as we packed for our move from our last home to our new home. Little did I know when putting them in the recycle bin, that metal garbage can lids are only sold with their accompanying garbage cans. I needed the lid for a 20 gallon can but not the can itself. Those cans are like $35 each…not too bad for the purpose they serve but I didn’t need a garbage can, I just needed the lid. Alas, I did find just the lids online for $6.99…and $15 for shipping. I need at least two. But then there’s that perspective of spending $14 on two lids and spending that much more on the shipping. I get it; I just don’t like it. I added four to my cart last week…I just can’t seem to click “buy now” and spend nearly $43 on four metal lids. Isn’t it strange how I avoid $45 on four lids but will drop $45 on a single memory card, or even more on a photography filter, or while out at the pub? And without a thought? Anyway, I digress.
Back to my story. We headed out…me, my wife, son, and our two Aussies. First, south on the 95 and eventually off a road that I had programed into my Google map just that morning. Don’t tell anyone but I used the work computer during a quick 15-minute margin in a day last week to research a route to take the family on this scenic journey to Spokane, Washington. From the maps on the computer screen, the road looked paved. Along the way was a place marked for snowboarding. Not that we were going snowboarding in mid-September, but if there’s a place marked on the map for snowboarding, the route must be doable in the late summer, right? Snowboarding…mountain roads…snow…if folks can get through there in the winter, they should be able to get through there in the late summer.
We traveled just as the light was starting to turn the sky that deep, dark blue color where the stars began to disappear one by one. The cool, 40-something degree morning was dawning. It was much too late to head out for a dedicated roadside photo journey and still much too early for the family’s preference on starting the day. The dogs didn’t care. This was a road trip; there ain’t no early…or late for them when it comes to road trips or just a car ride in general.
Daylight came quickly as we passed through town and on to the bridge over the lake. The smoke from a few north-of-us-fires was thick and filtered the distant shores from view just so but we could still make out the hill tops and shoreline. You could smell the smoke in the air. Sort of a campfire but not a campfire smell that found its way into the cab of the car despite the rolled-up windows. A few miles later, we were making our turn right and then the problem…the car ‘bing-ed’ a dashboard message, “low tire pressure.” We were about to head into the great unknown where there was little hope for passersby or cell phone service. We needed to reroute a bit and look for air.
Google Maps has this thing it does when you miss a turn; it will start “rerouting” and attempt to find a different route from the one you had originally programmed. It’s rare we hear, “make a U turn.” When we know we need to detour, we usually ignore Google’s persistent reroute attempts and drive forward to our new, unplanned goal. Then, we let Google return to navigating from our new starting point. We have learned not to put too much faith in Google’s rerouting directions, but still we didn’t check Google’s new suggestions. There’s been times where we have been rerouted to a different turn miles down the way or it’ll send you straight for some ungoshly distance until a loop-back route is found and you end up at the same turn that a simple turn-around would have solved 45-minutes earlier. We’ve been down both “reroutes.” First, “how in the world has this amazing road existed without us knowing about it?” And second, “we must have died and are now on an endless road to nowhere.” Anyway, we looked for a good turn out to check the tires. Thinking myself the manly-man, I try to keep a tire gauge in the car’s glove compartment. And, after a bit of unsuccessful searching and a bit of doubt in my manhood for lack of preparation and the pending embarrassment of not having brought along the little tire gauge, there it was…hidden in the bottom of the glove compartment. I had noticed the car was pulling a bit right and this kinda made sense…kinda.
About 20 PSI was the reading on the right front tire. Considering we were about to enter the deep nether regions of a rocky and wooded land that padded the northwestern border of Idaho and northeastern border of Washington, this was a bit concerning; the whole day’s events hinged on 12 PSI of air pressure. At first, I thought that it’ll be okay; it’ll all work out. No worries. I like to say, “No worries.” It’s an easy message of imagined confidence and wishful faith that conveys my imagined state of living life without worries (I do like kidding myself). I figure I could “Bob Marley” my way through a flat tire, “This is my message to you-ou-ou.”
You know those moments where you know something is not quite right, but your entire plan is about to implode, and you look at reality thinking you are just seeing things wrong. It’s one of those, “I’ll ignore reason and reality and make it up as I go…no worries. ‘Cause every little thing is gonna be alright.”
Stranded families on mountain roads that never make it home are stories for TV; we are not the kind of family that experiences dramatic events; but then again…what family expects to experience a life-long case of PTSD after being lost in the great big wilderness…there’s sasquatches out there! Hey, “have you ever seen a baby pigeon?”
We usually make a mental note that, “next time we need to be more prepared and have a full-size spare. But, for now, we’ll ignore the fact that we are going to be miles from home on an unknown mountain road with a low tire and a doughnut spare. By the way, when have I checked on that? Oh, I remember…NEVER!
We rerouted toward a small community about 15 minutes away to see if we could find air and muted Google’s persistent pleas to turn, “in 1000 feet…”
Those back roads on the way to the little town max at 45-miles per hour and that’s a good thing; the deer seem brave and bold during these early morning hours. Acres and acres of green ground with forested protection and still they migrate into the roads along with the turkeys and ground squirrels. The chawbacon driving his good ‘ol pickup truck behind us was mighty close to our tail end as we stuck to the posted speed limit. The road turned and bent and then…STOP! Around a bend, three deer were just standing there in the road. I slowed the car as quickly as anyone could slow 3,700 pounds of plastic and gasketed metal parts on rolling wheels. There’s that feeling of watching something you’re about to hit with the front of your car and still being focused on the impending “BANG!” to the rear of the car from the driver behind you. There was no “BANG!” My hope was that the doo-doo head behind us would notice the reason for our sharp stop as not being an antagonizing demonstration of aggravation; it was too early in the morning for a battle with an alpha male’s ego.
You know, some folks really need to become acquainted with that Newton fella. I sure ‘nuf didn’t want this guy to learn that seemingly simple concept by the back bumper of my car.
Still the three deer just stood there staring at us. The first smart deer just pranced off. A second deer just kept looking at us. And the third deer must have gotten her ruminant undies in a wad, raised up on her hind legs and starting hoof-ing at the second deer like grade school boys fighting on a playground just swinging their arms aimlessly as they squint and look away. It was like the third deer was mad and tried hitting the second deer for our crashing their in-the-middle-of-the-road deer shindig, “I told you we shouldn’t party in the highway!” After a bit of a stare-down, the two deer pranced off along with their turkey companions (I didn’t mention their accompanying foul friends).
We traveled forward with our truck friend following but now at a more comfortable distance. The smoke seemed to be thicker in the air, but it was “behaving” differently. We’d drive and pass into little thick pockets of white cloud-puffs that looked like ethereal beings floating aimlessly and then jumping at the front of the car. Later, we realized that the thicker pockets were really bits of mist from a nearby river we had driven upon. The winding road led us to a short bridge with the remanence of another bridge to the left. The black and wooden, stubby posts with a few cross beams poked up from the still water with a defined contrast against the back lit mirrored water surface. The gentle mist filtered the backlight from the orange-tinted sky. Out of habit, I started looking for a turnout; this was a scene I would never pass by without photographing. But the moment would surely be ruined if I returned to a car with the passenger side front wheel sitting on its rim. We proceeded to find similar scenes and I vowed to return later on our way back or maybe tomorrow; maybe the light would be the same (I knew better). Still onward with the low tire to find air.
The small town was still sleeping during this early hour except for one gas station. We got lucky…AIR! A buck-twenty-five and the red box came to life. None of the other three tires needed air, but we checked them all anyway. After getting all the tires to 32 PSI, I had the wife turn the worrisome tire at a sharp angle and back up slowly so I could see the tread clearly and make sure there was nothing sticking in that tire. Nothing. Hum…aside from small stones in the tread, nothing at all. Back in the car, I grabbed the phone, hit that small map icon, and then “start.” The blue line appeared and off we went to our mountains along, what seemed to be, the same path I’d initially programmed with the forced stops-along-the-way to carefully create a route that didn’t send us back down to the quickest, most-boring, highway routes. We’d let it do that on the way back home.
The sun was coming up above the first hill and “in 1000 feet turn left…” And we did. 25mph around the lake and the hairpin turns. Then, at the end of the pavement, was a homestead-looking spot with its home, out buildings, and lots and lots of fences. A large “stop” sign sat on the ground leaning against something like a sawhorse and some old fella standing off near the home…his home? I don’t know. He just looked at us. No wave. No smile. No nothing but an old-cantankerous face that told us exactly what he was thinking. “Who do you think you are?! You all are not allowed to go down my public access.” But there was this big, red sign and we did what comes naturally at a stop sign. We stopped. There were no crossroads, just his fences and animals, his upside-down smile, and his home-like structure. Still, he looked at us and we at him. It was a stalemate of only a second or two and then, I just drove on. That’s when my son said from the back seat, “He’s yelling at us!” The windows were up, and I didn’t hear the ol’ boy; we just kept on going.
That road twisted and turned farther and farther up into those mountains. Farther we drove with the preprogrammed Google “guiding” our little arrow to follow the blue line. We had long-since left cell service.
The day’s light was now harsh and quite contrasty with the sun high in the clear sky but not over a clear landscape. Smoke was thick and the haze gave the hills and mountains layers and depth but absolutely no color. When we stopped every now and again, I used my “little” camera to take a few hand-held shots of the scene. Maybe there’s something there; we’ll see. On farther we went…following the blue line…but I thought this road was paved. Humm?
This is in the middle of … it seems… nowhere, rough and deep in the woods. The road was covered in larger rocks and pieces of wood that when avoiding, the tire would hit another piece just right to clunk it under the car with that worrisome “pludunk!” We’re not lost; there’s a blue line on our screen. But we were back in the wild and the only thing keeping that blue line on that screen with our progressing arrow was what had been saved back when we hit “start.” So, it was weird when my wife’s phone chime began announcing incoming text messages. Being a roadside photographer and venturing into these back areas as often as I do, your paradigm of time shifts a bit and the world kinda goes back in time the farther you travel. Common sounds like phone text chimes usually aren’t heard on these back road trips until after hitting pavement again and realizing you’ve not been back to 1978.
Chime! Chime! Chime! Maybe the cell phone signal from a distant tower was being bumped from some electromagnetic anomaly and then being fed to our phones as the frequency was driven by the smoke and twisting about by some signal miracle? Na. There had to be a “real” reason for the cell reception… and around a bend came the “ohhhh” moment…across a dip and a swell and up a steep hill…it was a structure that looked to me to be a large (and scary) road support that we’d eventually need to brave to get over that mountain. My wife, “No, that’s a resort.” Maybe from the other direction the building would appear to be normal but from this side of the mountain, it appeared like someone must have just flown over and dropped those structures here in the middle of where-ever-we-are. Either way, the surprise cell service was likely towers set to “feed” the guests that venture to that resort spot…but how do they get there? From this way? That was not reasonable. It had to be from the other way. Now there was hope for the road on the other side of the resort to be smooth and scenic…and hopefully less smoke.
Still up and up, we went with the phone chiming the messages from a group text about what the kids were going to do after church tomorrow. We didn’t think about the route. We had a blue line on the screen and signs of civilization; we kept on keeping on. There was never a thought, “is this the right way?” It was just the way.
Google has lied to us before, and in a big way. Ever been directed by Google Maps and taken an almost new Subaru Outback on an ATV trail? Sure, you have; it’s common. The sounds of protruding tree limbs tips make as they scrape down the sides of the car as you squeeze down a “blue line” that Google insists is a road… Good times!
Still onward as we continued to the “turn left.”
We got to the left turn and paused. The left turn didn’t seem as well “groomed” as the right turn. Seems there was the first question during the trip, “is this right?” And when I asked, “is this right?” I meant, “Why is she sending us left?” The right turn led to a seemingly better road. It was wider. No grass in the wheel well middle. Left proceeded into the woods and away from the mountain’s side. It looked rutted and bushy. But Google said, “turn left.” Left it was and no sooner did we turn to find a gate cross bar across the road…we didn’t check to see if it was locked. We just thought, “Google is lying! Again! We’ll go back and take that right turn; it will be okay.”
The right turn took us north and higher and smokier into the wild. But we needed to go southwest…not north. Left was west…but mountains have sides…we just needed to continue north to get to the west side. When we turned right, our blue line turned gray, and “rerouting” persisted; we must have lost our resort signal.
The right turn only initially looked better groomed…it soon became narrowed, treacherous, and squeezed between the rock face of the mountain and the drop to no return on the right. As long as no one met us coming the other way, we could progress; there was no way but backwards for one of us if we met an oncoming vehicle. No worries. We’d not seen a soul since meeting the grumpy homesteader.
The day was warming up. It wasn’t hot by any means but definitely okay to go short sleeves and roll the windows down.
Now, I have to say. My son is not a bug kind of kid. He’s not a wimp…he’s a big kid with a big heart and both are getting bigger every day. Keep my secret and don’t tell him, but he could probably “take me” at this point. So, we’re riding along on this gravel mountain road with a wall of rock on the left and a sheer fall to death on the right, and he just freaks out. I’m talking he loses his ever-lovin’ mind! He was sitting on the right side of the back seat behind his mamma. He goes from calm and collective and seemingly enjoying his view of the vast smoke-covered wilderness…and then…all of a sudden, he’s in the small area on top of the two dogs behind me, “Get it off! Get it off! It’s on me! It’s on me! Get it off!” I am looking at him in the rearview mirror and the facial expression… You know that face? It’s the freeze-frame face of the guy on the picture the theme park’s roller coaster camera catches just as the rollercoaster car is about to plunge down that first, steep drop. And this face is LIVE! You’d expect this face if we were falling down the right cliff-to-the-valley-below, but…
His jaw is pulled into his chest, his left arm is holding on to the back of my seat and his right onto the back seat with his butt atop two dogs. He’s looking down at his chest area and screaming “Get it off!!” My seat is twisting and torquing madly under his grip. The car itself shakes. I almost ran into the mountain and overcompensated to almost run us off the cliff. We had 10 near death experiences in 10 seconds and he still, “get it off! Get it off!”
“What? What is it!!”
“Get it off! It’s on me; it’s on me!!”
His mother is trying to turn around and see what is attacking her son and I am trying to keep the car on the road-like surface we have been driving on.
Get it off! Get it off!! Stop! Stop!
I got the car stopped and the stirred dust from the roadbed drifted forward and filled the car’s cab. He sat frozen in his position looking down at his chest.
“What is it?” His mother gets out to help him in the back seat.
“A cricket! There’s a cricket on me!!”
“Holy heck boy! A cricket?!?!”
His mother did save him from the terrible cricket attack with her “weapon” being a tissue she coached the cricket to “ride on” as she let it go outside of the car. We progressed without saying a word with the only sounds being the tires on the dirt road and the occasional snort of the dual doggy noses taking in the smells through the back window.
It wasn’t a mile later and I was about to pop; I just couldn’t hold it in. I tried, mind you, but it was just too much. I laughed so hard I made a sound like a braying donkey choking on water on a hot day. “A cricket!” I couldn’t contain myself. The tears flowed and nearly blinded me as we squeezed down this mercurial mountain switch backing carriageway.
“What?” He sat there looking back at me all indignant-like in the rear-view mirror.
I couldn’t answer; the whole scene was just too funny.
“It was a cricket; it was on me. Why was it on me?” It was like he felt that the cricket had a motive of sorts. Maybe it was the heat of the moment, the cricket caught a pearl and rode the dragon’s wings! It could be possible the cricket had found his human cricket whisperer who knew all of cricketdom’s needs and desires as well as being sympathetic to this specific cricket’s needs. “AS IF!” Travis thought that cricket saw him passing by and specifically jumped from whatever surface it was resting on with the full, conscious intent to rip Travis to shreds by using its little, tiniest grass-cutting mandibulate parts.
“It was a cricket. They jump and by luck…” I tried to reason with the poor boy, but he rejected the randomness of it all.
“No! That wasn’t lucky. It was on me. A cricket…it was on me, and it wouldn’t get off.”
“Wouldn’t get off?”
His mother patted my leg setting the boundary letting me know she was ending the conversation…for me anyway.
“Well, it wasn’t a cricket. It was a grasshopper and they do look more scarry.” She is our loving and ever-empathetic, wonderful mamma. She was helping her poor son through his terrible ordeal.
A reaction like that was a bit too much for a cricket; but for a grasshopper… Well then; that’s another story.
Onward we traveled all in silence (though myself trying to keep from laughing and wiping the mud that formed around my eyes from my laugh-tears mixing with the road dust that had stirred up). Just around the right turn we had taken, the road started migrating left. During the cricket-ordeal…I mean grasshopper ordeal, we must have found that resort signal again; we had our blue line back and our slowly migrating arrow. The windows were still down with the boy sitting in the middle of the back seat to reduce his chance of an airborne grasshopper attack.
From the back seat, he leaned forward and took a closer look at the dash’s screen and broke the silence, “It looks like a loop.”
“What? A loop?”
“The road ahead. A loop. It’s sending us on a loop.” He was pointing at the console and the blue line that represented the road in front of us and it looked like a tiny lasso sending us forward ever farther only to find ourselves heading back in this same direction.
We’re 30-something miles into this deal. And 30-miles in a car really isn’t that big a deal. But the handy dandy Super Sube’s average miles per hour was telling us that we’ve been clocking an average of 14 miles per hour…that’s how fast I ride my bicycle. 30 miles at 14 miles per hour…you can do the math. We could progress and ignore Google’s obvious lies. Maybe she was trying to get us to loop back to that “left turn.” Or maybe the road ahead in this direction does just keep on keeping on but on a longer route to Spokane. Maybe Google was trying to tell us to turn around for the shorter route. She knows the shorter way but she’s not too savvy on where the locked gates are. But, if we ignore her, will she reroute farther ahead? Or, will we end up somewhere in Canada? Or we could just turn around; we were going to have to loop back anyway. I wanted to drive forward. But it was late morning and none of us had eaten; we’d still not found a place to cook our Dutch oven breakfast. I’da progressed farther. But I was out-voted…we turned around at an area just big enough before the road started back north.
Rerouting, rerouting, rerouting… This “rerouting” continued as we arrived back at the turn that we found the closed gate at. We again must have “grabbed” the towers on the far hill that fed the phone a few bytes of data and Google said we should go this way. It was now a right turn. “Turn right.”
If the road on the other side of this gate was the way, our next turn was 1.2 miles away. Truth be known, it was a bit hopeful. The twisted line on the monitors that represented the road we were on looked a bit like a badly varicosed vein. The road past that 1.2 miles looked much less zigzag-ey and turn-ey.
Back at the gate, I got out and checked it this time. The gate arm extended from the right-of-the-road hinge to a left-of-the-road metal drum-like structure with a metal cap. I pulled up on the cap, and it rose a bit then hit resistance with a bell-like call. The cap and its shaft below was like a make-shift railroad spike that went through the gate arm’s loop on the end and into the drum-like structure it rested on. Under this 18” inch bell-like structure was an opening that was a bit too dark to feel assured of reaching my hand up in. Using my left hand, I reached up and pulled on the cap until it “rang the bell” then down again. I could see under and into the bell’s dark shadowed innards. A wiggling lock hooked to the bottom of the shaft prevented the shaft from running through the top freely. I checked and…yep. The lock was engaged. The gate was indeed locked.
This gate is keeping us from reaching the next turn “1.2 miles away.” It was right there on the Google map; the blue line stretched in front of our little arrow and past the locked gate to freedom and likely a bathroom at that resort. The embankment to the right, hinged-side of the gate was only wide enough to let a few 2-wheeled-riding folks go by, though I started contemplating the possibility of taking a full Subaru Outback on that 60-something degree, upward turned sloped spot around the gate’s hinge. My wife’s contemptible expression spoke volumes with the summary consolidating to a clear, “FORGET IT!” My shoulders sank; my head dropped. Truth be known, she owns 51% of our little family’s stock options. I was outvoted…again. And now we had to go all the way back. We were going to have to pass back by Grumpy, the set-up-my-own-stop-sign homesteader. I really didn’t want to hear, “I tried to stop and tell you…” Maybe he wasn’t trying to tell us you “can’t” go this way. Maybe he was trying to tell us that we “shouldn’t” go this way. Maybe he wasn’t grumpy; maybe I just was a bit too dismissive. But, aren’t we men usually “programed” that way or am I the only one? I usually don’t expect “You shouldn’t.” I expect, “You can’t.” Then, I am like, “Watch me!” This usually ends up with an “I told you so.” *Scoff!*
We turned around. Back down to a sign post we had passed earlier that read, “State Line” so my son could get out and stand in two states at the same time (he’ll say that I am lying to you, and it was my idea to stop and stand in two states at the same time but don’t listen to him). His mamma trotted off to a hidden area for some reason or another and the dogs with their trailing leashes just walked around sniffing stuff and constantly getting yelled at, “No! There’s nothing there to eat! What are you eating?! Spit that out. Stop it!”
We’d made it almost to the grumpy homesteader’s home and the road now following a creek to the right. There was a bridge across that I had not seen when we’d come this way earlier. I stopped to take a gander. “No, daddy. Just keep going.”
“But there’s a sign across the creek.” The bridge was about 40 yards long and very single lane. There wasn’t even enough room for a person to pass the car during the crossing. A sign across the creek said, “Logging Trucks.” What does that mean?
I just kept going and the objections came quickly. “Daddy no! It’s not going to work, and we are going to have to turn around anyway.” After a few more of my “let’s just see what’s around this bend” pleas, we did turn back to the bridge and were met by a gigantic piece of earth moving equipment turning and twisting on the far shore in preparation for what looked like was a bridge crossing. No way that grater was going to make it across that narrow bridge. Needless to say, the driver was twisting that machine to line it up in determination. We had no choice but to back up to the road’s edge at our side of the bridge and get out of the way.
You know those moments when you think you are only 87.34% sure you are doing nothing wrong? This was one of those moments. Was I supposed to be here or was I in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the grader operator was passing us, my hand was up in a submissive wave of just-please-keep-moving-along-I-don’t-want-to-deal-with-you apology, he looked at me and pulled his radio handset and…who knows what he said and to whom he said it to? The wave-like gesture he returned told me clearly that we were not welcomed on his public access road. Must a been related to the grumpy homesteader.
Across the bridge we went and through his bit of stirred up dust. Shortly, a full-sized pickup truck was coming the other way. Seemed he was getting close to the middle of the dirt road and a bit too uncomfortable toward our side, but maybe my misinterpretation. Was he trying to get our attention? Who knows, I just smiled and waved, smiled and waved.
Eventually we found ourselves down the hill, back to the homestead, and on the back side of the leaning stop sign. No old fella nearby but we still drove below 10mph. Slow enough to keep him from getting madder at us and fast enough to keep him from catching up to us if he’d been lurking low waiting on our return and decided to chase us on foot or a bicycle or something…old coot.
“He wasn’t waving us down, he had his arms up like he was mad at us,” my son said about his demeanor that we’d met earlier.
Either way, we had traveled over 60 miles at around 14 mph and were happy to be back on pavement and headed toward Spokane. Pavement was nice but all together boring here in the middle of the day with the smokey, colorless, contrasty light. Didn’t matter, it was late and we were all hungry. We wanted to stop and make some Dutch oven breakfast but the possibility of finding a spot diminished after each turn down side roads in exploration. Parks were few and then there was the smoke in the air. What grief would we get from some park-dweller who felt our 20-something charcoal briquets would turn the air “more smokey.” My wife already had Googled a route leading us to the nearest kid-friendly, dog-friendly, grumpy photographer-friendly craft beer spot in Spokane.
“Barks” comes up. Not from the dogs in the back seat, but a restaurant in Spokane to stop and eat.
My wife loves dogs…more than me she does. And that’s okay. I am not willing to grow that much hair, crap in the yard, and never complain about anything. Though the begging for cookies and the occasional slobbery kiss have already been checked off on the list.
Spokane, to me, seems big, dry, and there’s a whole array of buildings from different times. Some areas were old and seemingly forgotten by care and other areas felt fresh and new looking with modern cobble and young, tree-line roads. Just like any other city in America. And we ain’t judging; nope and nope! Spokane has its share of craft beer joints, and we are A-OK with that. Plus, we know a few musicians in Spokane…Spokane will be a destination for some years to come that’s for sure.
At Barks we found a nice corner patio table to tuck the dogs back into and behind us for a bit. We usually order our beer and when our glasses are at about ½ glass full (see…”half full”…I can be a positive person), we order the food and the second beer. The 2nd beer usually comes out much sooner than the food. Once the food comes out, I am done with beer. There’s just something about that; beer is a before-food thing to us. Weird? Hey, to each his (or her) own. My amber, her porter, and his lemonade came out while we waited, and I took a few photographs. The food was delicious, and the beer was very okie dokie. The dogs behaved very well. But, alas, it was not our breakfast we’d been hoping for and, after the bill of $95 (with tip)…we sure wished for that breakfast we’d planned and packed for.
At this point, it seems like a bad trip. But, what is good? What is bad? We did make it to Spokane safe and sound neither having ran off a mountain road, ran over deer around blind bends, or succumbed to the torture and eventual consumption by a hungry cricket. We had been sitting in the shade on a patio drinking good beer (the son with his lemonade) and someone else cooking our food. The temperature outside was a comfortable 75-80 degrees with a gentle breeze. Gentle enough to keep the flies off us but letting the bees buzz the boy for entomophobic entertainment. And I captured a few images of the scene while walking around taking pub pics and getting ready to post photos of my beer to Untapped, Facebook, and Instagram (yeah…I am one of those people). Our front tire still sported 32 PSI. REI was only a couple of miles down the way (where I did end up finding most of what I was looking for).
Then came the bill. How did we spend $80 ($95 after tip) on a brunch?? Regret started to set in…but…consider this…what if the gate-gods had let us through that gate there on the mountain? We watch our coal fires awfully close when cooking outdoors and have always contained our fire. We keep a fire extinguisher with us and contain the coals on a metal surface that is easy enough to hold water (we had enough with us) to completely drown the coals before we left. But remember, I didn’t have my makeshift cooking surfaces (the metal garbage can lids) and … I didn’t have any butter (just remembered that when I started my tale). What if…oh my goodness…what if? Truth be told, I was a bit apprehensive with my outdoor cooking plans when we made it up there in those woods and after seeing how dry things were. What if we’d been the ones to add to the smoky air? What if?
We finished our beer and then our meal. We finished our REI shopping (I got my jacket and leg “jacket” so I can ride to work in the mornings and not freeze [hence the bicycle’s location…between the legs…get it? No? Okay…bad joke…moving on]). And we headed home.
After crossing back into Idaho (again), an ACE Hardware sat on the left side of the road there and just past the bridge. I said to my wife, “I wonder if they have garbage can lids?”
“Go see.” She said.
I walked in and headed toward the back looking down each of the isles to the right. There they were…the metal garbage cans. Six 20-gallon cans with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and…dang it! 6 lids. I looked all about searching for a possible 7th lid. Maybe there’s one there somewhere. If I keep looking…maybe one will appear. Up and down and behind me I searched. A lady with a name tag walks over, “Can I help?”
“I wish I could find just a garbage can lid. No can, just a lid.”
“Yeah, they all only are sold with the cans.” Her voice sounded like she was sharing in my disappointment as we both stared at the silver containers stacked one-inside-another near the barcode-less lids. She looked back at me, “But, you know. I think there are some in the back without a can.” She held up one index finger in a just-wait-right-here motion and off she went.
She returned from the back, “Yeah, there are six of them. The manager says you can have two if you want.”
“How much?”
Her hand waves as she turns her head slightly with pursed lips, “Nothin’. There yours if you want them.”
I didn’t really need six lids but I wanted six…because I felt they were so hard to find, I wanted even more. There is this thing I do where I keep things that no longer have a useful function in my life. It could be said that I have a propensity to gather more than I will ever need even if I live to be 100. My wife says I have too many pieces of cast iron. But what does she know? That’s like saying you have got too much air to breathe, or your bank account has too much money. After all, two is one and one is none, right? My motto is “three for me!” Here, I was intrigued at the possibility of walking away with 6 lids and living the rest of my life as a garbage can lid-independent outdoor cast iron chef. “What will you take for all six? And I don’t expect you to just give them to me. How much to take them all off your hands?”
She returns from speaking with the manager. “How does $20 sound.”
I said that sounded very good and almost got a bit giddy as she came back with a box of…four. But what is good and what is bad? “Here, we only had the four. The manager said it was too complicated to ring up. There yours.”
A bit of back-and-forth, make-mamma-proud insistence on paying something for them ended up with the manager insisting otherwise. So, in an attempt to show my thanks, I bought something…a three-color-Neapolitan coconut bar I’d been eyeballing while waiting for the lids to come from the back. I hadn’t had one of these treats since I was a kid.
The same four lids (similar) still sit in my online cart…and you know…those free lids saved us a good portion of what our delicious brunch and beer cost us earlier.
So, what is good and what is bad?
Planning, packing, and heading out with a picture in my head of the perfect day to come, that’s where I always start. And, when things don’t go the way I planned, I start with the “if onlys.” It’s natural to think that I know better…or is it? I like to think that I am sure of the outcomes of my bellyaching, “If onlys.”
“If only our tire pressure didn’t read low…” Maybe we’d followed my original route into those mountains and the whole day would have worked out nice and dandy. Sure…maybe. But what for the three deer and their “foul” friends? That tailgating “Bubba” sure was “hinting” that our driving the posted speed limit was less-than-acceptable to his driving preferences.
“If only that gate wasn’t locked, we would have…” We would have “what?” What would we have done if that gate wasn’t locked? I like to think I know what would have happened, but there’s no way to know. I do know that we likely would not have enjoyed our time on that patio drinking those frosted glasses of fermented barley pop and eating our delicious food. We’d likely had stopped for our cast iron Dutch oven cooking…that I forgot my butter for. I would have tried making those biscuits and eggs and ended up digging our stuck food from the inside of that pot. And to clean that pot…OH! The humanity!!
“If only Google Maps would have sent us in the right direction in the first place…maybe we’d have made it over that mountain” unscathed and fully intact. I can tell you this truth: returning home unscathed after each trip to the wilderness…or even a quick trip to the grocery store…is my “expectation.” Still, I do know that not everyone who gets up and puts their shirt on that morning is the one removing that shirt at the end of the day. What if one thing had gone differently as we attempted to get over that mountain?
“If only all of our plans had turned out.” Maybe, we’d been on that mountain a bit longer…maybe on the way back home we’d passed that ACE Hardware a little later and after they’d closed? Sure, I’d have gotten some garbage can lids eventually, but then again…a story about receiving an order from Amazon sure isn’t as interesting.
Not all things that seem bad are bad. And sometimes what seems good may not be so good. What’s good? What’s bad? Those are questions that would be hard for me to answer for you or you for me. What I am starting to learn is that what I think is a bad experience may have just rerouted me towards a very good experience. And, what if what I think as being a bad experience may just have rerouted me away from something worse? I am sure…that at some time in my life…there has been an occurrence that altered the course of my day in such a way that if…IF…I would have gotten my way I would forever be less than I am right now…or maybe no longer here on this God’s green earth.
I can’t tell the future; I don’t have that power. My “If only’s” are just my imagined outcome and would never be the actual outcome. I am trying to take it as it comes with “trying” being the key word; what else can I do?
At the end of the day, we made it home…all five of us…safe and sound. We had our full tummies, four free garbage can lids, some photographs and memories to share, and I had a coconut Neapolitan candy bar (no…I didn’t share…don’t judge me).
I will have to say…the most wonderful thing did happen that day…we all had each other and a home to come back to. It was a good day!
Who knows what’s bad and what’s good? Sometimes what seems bad only is because we don’t really know what other outcomes could have been presented to us. Sometimes, we walk away with our lip pushed out really far and get all huffy at what we didn’t get instead of looking at what we did get. I’ve been guilty of wishing for what I think will make me happy instead of being happy with the wonderful things I already have.
What about you?