The Rona took the worlds attention for 3 months. Maybe it’s the nice weather that caused us to minimize our fear of it. The numbers are down. Things are opening back up. Will we face consequences? Likely. But we did have to get back to reality eventually.
So “normal life” isn’t normal at all. A new normal is good enough for most of us. A post-corona era. It’s not gone, but the initial reaction is definitely over in society. People are out and about. Shops are open, well some are. It feels less wrong to go out. You just act more carefully now. Masks are still on most people’s faces but that’s new normal now. Pullman was one of the first to get things opening up, Pierce county will be there by the end of the week. We never got it bad in Pullman so the real impact of opening up has ever really hit, I hope it can stay calm in Pierce county.
Things got new normal enough that over Memorial Day weekend we got visitors in the 509.
We packed in every thing you can do in a weekend in Pullman, bikes, cougar country, movie in the yard, fire pits, hiking kamiak, time at the snake river, yoga, a tea party.
I was wiped, I mean look at my mom:
Just kidding. It was awesome to have everyone together, for the first time in over five months. Although new normal meant everyone was a bit anti-touchy. Like I said, cautious is new normal. Regardless it was one of the best weekends in so long. I slept like a dead log every night this weekend.
Kamiak was in bloom:
The past week was where the corona virus really seemed to fall into the background. Protests over the entire nation took the spotlight after a Minneapolis cop killed a black man named George Floyd. The video is horrible. The country is super divided over an issue that should’ve been solved generations ago. Cities are burning. President Trump is handling it horribly and inciting violence in his tweets. People are out raged. This is the first really big social even of my young adult life. There has been other stuff similar to this, but this seems bigger and more chaotic. Videos of people fighting, getting ran over, getting maxed, shot with non lethal rounds, peoples faces getting destroyed by the rubber bullets. It’s sad, there is looting and fires. Lots of anger and confusion. People are pointing blame at each other. There is no leadership as we go through the darkest time. We are all wandering, all hurting, all sides. No one seems like they can be compassionate for the other side. Of course there are outliers.
We protested on Sunday evening. It was powerful to see how people felt.
Pullman is a little bubble within the world. It’s seems like nothing bad could happen here, although the same issues people are protesting, they happen here too. It’s a systemic issue. I dont know how to solve it. No one does. So in that respect, it’s a lot of corona. No one is sure what’s gonna happen next. We all are watching, grab your TV Guide, violence and controversy are sure to be on your program.
Doesn’t mean life is horrible though. You can still do what you love in a broken world when you’re lucky. You can skate:
This past weekend was an absolute epic. A true journey. A saga. We took off after I got off work at 1630hrs. The goal was to make it up a little bit and find a spot to camp on the St Joe in Idaho. Life would throw some curve balls at us, but that was the intention. To get a little lost, go see something we haven’t seen.
We drove up north thru ID and drove past amazing an amazing only an hour and a half from Pullman, Benewah lake. Really amazing state parks as well. All were closed to campers because of covid, they would’ve been easy spot to stop at. But the goal was to find a spot on St Joe since I’d never seen the river. We got to Saint Marie’s and headed up the St Joe. A long and wide river, it is gorgeous up there. In many ways it reminded both Chey and I of the 101 that traces the western edge of the Hood Canal. We drove this curve road for an hour or so until we were dead lost. Out of service range, no maps, no signage. No idea what lay ahead. Our phone only showed that we were not far from Montana at this point. We stopped at a bar on the side of the freeway to ask about local camping. I went in alone and I got the “you’re not from around here” look. I asked about camping but no one knew. Keeping their local spots secret I guess. I got horrible vibes from the bar and wanted to get out of there.
A couple more miles north we found ourselves in another little town, this time Chey asked for help. Of course she got it, local campground and even an invite to the local’s house if the campground was full. I still had bad vibes from the bar. Chey and I followed the locals In their trucks to the campground, we thanked them and headed in. We found an awesome spot right on the river!
But it was not meant to be, the spot was reserved. As were all the open spots. Chey wanted to go to the locals home but I wasn’t feeling any more easy since the bar and had bad taste about the area. We reluctantly drove back an hour to St Marie’s. We arrived there and are very tired. It’s prolly around 2030hrs. It would be a shame to go back to Pullman, although we did consider it for awhile cuz we were tired and hungry. I decided we should just send it and go to CDL. We had new life! An hour and 2 minutes on the GPS is like an hour and twenty when you’re in a Volkswagen van. It was nearly 2330 when we pulled into CDL. Campgrounds were packed in the middle of the woods two hours away. We were gonna find a spot to camp in a city. We tried one spot then headed for Walmart. We got there completely delirious and laughing our heads off. Only one more problem, in Idaho, it’s illegal to sleep at Walmart. There were signs all over the place. We laughed and laughed as our eyes got heavy. We made some sandwiches and started calling hotels to sleep at. Best Western it was! Chey checked us in at nearly midnight. We watched the riots on the tv and passed out.
The next day was better. I slept in until 8, Chey got breakfast. Then we went to the pool. I mean it was 70° at 8am so we had to do it. We played like little kids in a mostly empty hotel and then headed to the lake. We skated on the beach path and scoped out spots to chill for the day. Eventually a good spot was found and we drove out to it.
Laid there for many hours, made a sun shade out of our hammocks, our camp chairs, and pool noodles. It was hot, we went into the frozen water a million times just to survive. We watched the nasa mission. We played frisbee. We listened to music. It was very relaxing.
Around 6pm we thought about finding a camp site in CDL to stay one more day, but I thought maybe we should end the trip on a high note (hahaha) and just head home after a good beach day. Sounded like a good plan so we headed back south towards Moscow. I just had a little more adventure I want to do though, but because everything had been so hard to do up to this point, I only wanted to find a campsite if it was easy and I didn’t have to back track or do a ton of work to get it. We made it close to 60 miles north of Moscow when we saw a state park sign for a place we knew was open. We googled it when we passed it heading out. Only 6 miles off the road, easy enough. If there were no spots we only wasted 12 miles and would just go home. After one mile it was onto dirt roads, they got steeper and steeper and the engine temperature got higher and higher. It was 85° outside and I wasn’t moving fast as I was on the highway. I blasted up the mountain road and we got to the top where the brown park sign was and went about 100 feet past it and found this absolute gem of a spot:
This is what I was looking for along the St Joe River. Total isolation, close to nature at the camp spot. But this was way better than some camp ground. It was an obvious little spot where cars would park, but it was undoubtedly primitive and remote. Wild flowers everywhere and silence.
We made a small little fire, for we knew a storm was brewing. It was in the forecast, we were on top of a mountain, we had good seats for show that was about to begin.
A huge purple cloud came in behind us, I watched the entire valley below us disappear in a green fog in under ten seconds. One of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen in nature. The clouds rolled in an visibility was down to 25 yards or so. Rain smacked the fiberglass roof of the van and wind pushed the van side to side. It was serious rain. It was only about 8pm but it was dark and we were exhausted from the entire weekend. We started watching The Incredibles but fell asleep with all our lights on. I was dead asleep.
Around 3am, I felt Chey moving around and I barely opened my eyes and saw lighting strikes in the sky. The thunder claps were far behind so I knew they weren’t all that close. I tried my best to watch out the dark window but I was falling in and out of sleep. I would try to watch just one flash before I fell asleep. After a time I was watching three or four flashes in the same short time before I’d sleep again, but the thunder claps were following quicker so I knew the storm was closing in. It must’ve been right around 4am when I looked outside and the flash turned everything I saw white, and the clap was instantaneous with the light. So loud I could feel it in my body. My eyes were wide open now and Chey and I both sprung to our feet. There was no question we both wanted to get the hell off that mountain I threw everything off the drivers seat and the passenger seat and turned the van on. But nothing. It just cranked and cranked for 10 seconds.
Ugh. Like something out of a movie. “No, not now.” The entire van was wet on the inside of the windows so I couldn’t see outside anyways. I cranked it and said i would stop after 15 seconds. At 14 she roared to life, I couldn’t see anything as I backed out of the woods. We slowly wiggled our way through the woods trying to make it to the bottom of the hill. It was like the Indiana Jones ride and Disneyland. We were bouncing, the rain was hard as ever, the sky was lighting up every ten seconds. It was 4:15am but we were so alive.
We got down safely, turned right onto the highway and headed home for the last 60 miles. Only to find that about 15 miles in to our last leg the van was starting to slow down. I was going downhill, foot all the way on the floor, but still slowing down. I lost all power, and pulled over into a safe spot. It’s 4am, I was wearing Cheys sweatshirt inside-out. I’m wearing no pants but have a beach towel on, and here is a dead van on the side of the highway. I looked back at the engine and there is coolers and everything ontop if it. I tinker but see nothing visibly wrong, I figure maybe it’s the insane rain. We wait five minutes and take off again no problem. Volkswagen life, sometimes things fix themselves. We had only 30 miles to go and we figure we were gonna be home soon. Then the oil light came on. I pull over , there is oil. I google and the samba says I might have low oil pressure, this scares me. I don’t want to blow up the motor on a trip early in the summer. Late summer? Sure, but there’s trips to do right now! Plus can’t we just make it home after all the struggles of the weekend?
We talk about it and just figure we will risk it and get home. The van runs fine but the light is dim and showing the whole way. It made me paranoid but we make it home. We left everything in the van once we make it home and immediately we pass out in our bed. Later I consulted with some vanagon gurus who tell me this is a common issue when driving in heavy rain, nothing to worry about. But that kinda was the lesson of the whole weekend.
No campsite open? Don’t worry about it, a local might invite you to his house.
Walmart won’t let you sleep there? Don’t worry about it, there are hotels! ;)
No sunshade at the beach? Don’t worry, make one with what you have.
Camping in a lightning storm? Don’t worry, I won’t ever make that mistake again.
Life rips. Stay silly. Hug your specials. Drink water. Appreciate what’s good now, it might not be there tomorrow. And most of all, stay livin’
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