Shakin' the dust off

Florence Oregon lighthouse (courtesy shutterstock)

The eclipse trip Big Ag and I took recently was good in many ways, but one of the biggest reasons is that it shook the dust off me. When you are comfortable and happy in your routines, it's easy for them to become a rut, and taking a trip of any length (farther than the grocery store, anyway) enlarges your perspective again to where you not only appreciate where you've traveled to, but you also appreciate home more, once you get back.

In short, sometimes you have to be someplace else in order to re-learn how to be here. "Here" as in the present, wherever that takes place.

When I was in my 20's, I was seized with a chronic restlessness that caused me to travel all the time. I backpacked through Europe for months. I traveled cross country for several weeks on an Amtrak pass, did 10 day back country trips up Mt. Whitney and the high Sierras. If bigger trips failed to materialize I got in my car, alone, and drove to Santa Barbara, Joshua Tree, or Palm Springs for the weekend. 

In truth, I was driven to travel because I lived in shitty places I usually could not wait to get away from, in that grand wasteland known as 1980's Los Angeles.

Of course I could not wait to get away from my dingy apartment, with the view of the parking lot and the neighbors with the loud television. When we're young we may not know much, but we recognize when we're in a place we need to escape from.

But the thing about growing up is that eventually, you hopefully become successful and end up living in a home and a place you love -- one the younger you would have loved to vacation in. Big soaking tub? Check. Marvelous view? Check. Pretty bathroom, sans mold and cockroaches? Double check. And so you stay put more. You put down roots because you're finally in good soil. But like any house plant, it's possible to get root bound and dusty and need to be freed from your pot and shaken up a bit once in awhile.

This trip to see the eclipse and the Oregon coast reminded me that yes, I do live in paradise compared to where I came from. But there are other paradises that need to be explored, too. The Oregon paradise we drove through had pine forests, lighthouses, wide open beaches and random beach towns with great breweries. And I remembered that paradise is found all over the planet, if we're willing to travel to meet it where it lives. 

And sure enough, I returned from our vacation calmer, more in the moment, and happier. Sometimes you just need to shake the dust loose and move around a bit to realize that deep roots are advantageous in some ways, yes, but not if they make you incapable of being anyplace else.

Mañana

I will can them...mañana.

Don't know if I've mentioned it, but when my family had our DNA analyzed, it revealed my mother's side of the family comes from Northern Europe and my father's side from the Mediterranean/Middle East. 

While it's kind of a cool combination, I also think it means I have a constant war going on inside me, between my Scots work ethic and my Mediterranean "mañana mentality." The latter phrase, while it has a Spanish-sounding name, is actually an attitude which occurs not just in sunny Spain, but throughout Southern Europe and the Middle East. (You can tell this because if you visit someplace in the region, like the Acropolis in Greece and they have scaffolds up and are working on restoring it, when your friends visit the same spot 30 years later, the same scaffolding is still up and the place looks exactly the same. True story. I'm sure they're getting to it soon. Really.)  

Who knows, maybe it took the Israelites 40 years to get to the Promised Land because they figured they could always "just go tomorrow." Makes sense to me.

To that slack-y end, I've decided my summers spent slaving over a hot water bath canner are over. This year I'm experimenting with freezing my tomatoes first, then canning them once autumn and cooler temperatures set in and it doesn't feel like my entire being is on fire if I stand in front of the canner.

I'm not sure why I didn't try this years ago. Probably because my Scots ancestors were nagging inside my head to be productive and task-oriented and hard-working. What do they know? The other half of my DNA decided this was, in fact, torture, and that while canning is all well and good, it should not be done if you have any hope of trying to keep the house cool. Which the inner Scots, not surprisingly,  agreed with, since it involved saving money and being thrifty with electricity and all that.

And so into the freezer goes the tomato bounty of summer. And onto the sofa goes me and my 46 chromosomes, with a cold beer and an authorized permission slip of sorts from both sides of my ancestry to put tomato canning off for now. 

It's nice when we can all agree on something.

The Spokane Word

Me and a moose.

We are back at home, resettling ourselves after our trip to Spokane. Travel these days is an enormous hassle, but if you can put up with the long TSA lines and sitting in an aluminum can with no wi-fi or food which is hurled 36,000 feet into the sky for a few hours, the perspective and sights are worth it. 

When I was in my 20's, I was a travel addict, flying all over the world. But this was in the era of decent airline meals (you were always fed), movies, cocktails and comfortable seating. As Big Ag said to me when we got on our plane, "It's not the Pan Am Era anymore, honey." Yes, and we are the worse for it, folks.

From south....

to north. And back again.

Big Ag and I were technically on a reconnaissance mission to the northern areas of Washington and Idaho to see if we might like it enough to retire there. I'm grateful we had five days there to scout around and see the sights; it gave us more than a tourist's eye for the towns we went through. Plus we have a couple of friends who have moved there who we met for breakfasts who helped us navigate some of the terra nova.

So could we live there? Absolutely. Will we live there? Quite probably, sometime in the next decade or so. Minimum three years, maximum 10. Having lived in California for most of my life, I was astonished at just how much more affordable, how much more green, how much friendlier and how beautiful the area was. Of course we'll be going back a couple more times, in other seasons, to see what we think, but for now our views are positive.

A stop at Big Ag's house of worship.

Big Ag was astonished at the sight of ammo sitting in easy reach out on the shelves of Cabelas (in California, it's kept under lock and key and you have to ask for it). How ironic that despite the well-armed population (Idaho allows you to carry weapons if you wish) I never felt safer. Folks in this part of the country are treated as adults and seem to live up to what's expected of them. Sure, they may have a gun in holster on their hip, but they are also friendly, helpful and really go out of their way to be courteous.

Downtown Spokane, however, is a hot mess. Lovely hotels and some good restaurants, but a homeless population that makes parts of it look like Downtown Portland. Lots of young, able-bodied, sane people living in their own society in a collection of homeless hotels, getting three square meals and hanging around on the sidewalk with their friends when they aren't eating or sleeping.

They don't seem to ever leave downtown at all, but seeing it makes me see a possible connection between the Holster Set and the fact that the northern parts of both Washington and Idaho are the prepping capital of the nation. Perhaps it's not the teeming masses coming out of San Francisco and Seattle they fear, but those coming out of downtown Spokane itself.

Coeur d'Alene lake. Preppers, turn north here.

So between deep philosophical conversations about the differences in culture here and looking around at real estate, we also had a lovely Sunday brunch at the historic Davenport Hotel, walked beside Lake Coeur d'Alene, checked out the Spokane Valley Mall. (Our Central Coast has no mall, which I can live with, but also no Macy's, which is difficult when you're buying clothes and don't want to shop in either Kohl's or the $300-and-up spendy boutiques downtown. I wasn't going to miss a chance to do a little shopping!) We also spent a lovely morning in the beautiful Manito Gardens in Spokane.

Brunch in the Marie Antoinette Room at The Davenport

The beautiful Manito Gardens.

The pond at Manito Gardens.

So what's next for us? For now, a return to regular life. The beautiful thing about travel is that you have new eyes when you come home. I was conscious that we have a beautiful home and a great property which may not be our forever home, but is a pretty great place for now. But, you know, pioneer blood and all that still has me looking north and dreaming of someday.

Nothing wrong with that.