Adventure 147: Stage One Rocket: Maryhill Revisited

Riding High.

"On the road again, I guess I'll just get on the road again..." Thanks Willie, I think we will. The Wily Cager, alias Stumpy, who through the miraculous regeneration of recreated facts now has a full complement of toes and fingers, and I left Spokane this morning about 9:40. After bucking a headwind (9 MPG), we arrived at MaryHill State Park around 2:30 P.M. As is customary this time of year, the park is about a fifth full. After setting up, we wandered down the road to the Maryhill Fruit stand where we bought two just off the tree Red Delicious apples, two soon to be ripe peaches, a sweet onion, an acorn squash, and a couple of fresh peppers. The wind was howling loud enough to flap the Cager's pants. If she would have had ear protection, she would have looked like a flight line sailor directing F-16s  on an aircraft carrier. So we didn't ride. Instead, we watched the episode of NCIS we missed last night because of Soup Night. For the uninitiated, Soup Night is something we've done for over a decade. I make soup (Potato/Kale last night), Judy makes bread (Rosemary Walnut), and we invite the neighborhood. We started Soup Night to get to know our neighbors, and it's been wildly successful. Last night we had about forty people. A restaurant sized pot of soup was consumed, along with a bit of wine, and several sweet treats, which the neighbors brought. For tonight's dinner, we had the last batch of our favorite summer meal: Cherry Tomato Pasta. We love the dish, which is made especially good with garden tomatoes, fresh basil, and a Walla Walla Sweet onion. For  dessert, we shared one of the made from scratch chocolate cupcakes that managed to hide itself inside our cupboard last night.  And woe is me, the Cager beat me by one point in the opening game of this year's cribbage series. I think I lost on a scurrilous move when she took two points for a thirty-one plus another for last card (That's the way the Cager rolls). To make it interesting, we're playing for $$$$ this trip (One dollar a point; Five dollars a game). I currently owe her $6. This is the first night of stage one of our three week trip, which will end with us storing Fric and Frac in San Jose, California until we return in mid January of 2015. Needless to say, life is good, especially today.

 Who knew oil could flow up hill? Warren Buffet!

 A view of our new bedroom in Frac 2.0.

 The dining area seen from the new bedroom.

 Fric and Frac (2.0) snuggling into site #10 at Maryhill State Park.

 The rear bedroom as seen from outside.

 A view of the hills as they rise from the Columbia River to create the gorge. Stunning!

 The local apple/peach orchard is less than a mile away.

  Cherry Tomato Pasta and our frivolous game.

Bonus Coverage: I spent last week riding a bicycle in Vermont with my buddy, Ed. This was my sixth trip to Vermont, which is a special place. Judy usually comes with me, but she attended her fiftieth high school reunion instead. I missed her, but the Vermont countryside helped distract me. See for yourself.

Vermont ain't flat.

 White churches anchor each tiny village.

 Covered bridges dot the countryside.

And tiny schoolhouses hide amid the dells, like this one in Pettengill, circa 1869.

Vermont 2014 as seen through my prism (Go there as soon as you can!). 

My buddy, Ed Drouin's mantra is that everyone sees life through their own prism. Touring on a bicycle affords me time to gaze through mine. I like to think, and Vermont makes me think like an existentialist. I get all myopic like Henry David Thoreau watching an ant hill, all cosmic like Ralph Waldo Emerson preaching ‘Oversoul’, and all mystical like Emily Dickinson contemplating “…great pain.” Vermont cleanses my heart as if I am cleaning my closet of unused clothes-clothes that no longer fit or clothes no longer in style. Vermont frees me to shed layers of myself. I let every ray of light see me, every floating leaf caress me, every colorful hillside entice me, every arduous ascent encourage me, and every rapid downhill thrill me. Vermont also gives me a sense of the natural world. It centers me. I remember part of a quote I read on a poster on the wall of some country store somewhere. It suggested that Vermonters are caught by miraculous surprise every fall when the colors suddenly burst from the hillside. I get it. I’m constantly stunned by the array of ever changing color as the shifting light chases through the trees, and the ghostly presence of the nineteenth century lurking beneath the eaves, and the sweet and not so sweet smells of the forest and the dairy farms. There are quaint homes, dilapidated barns, country stores, and white churches. There are creeks, rocks, the sky, and the hills. But there are also the small sights like a solid shard of granite poking its speckled gray nose up through the hard packed dirt. Like a sentinel, it’s there to fight for its place, ever ready to bend its snout into a tire just to educate an inattentive cyclist. It flatly states,  “I, too, am a part of the land; respect me.” Vermont is rugged land, a glorious land that affirms the wonder of creation and the glory of America. It holds itself apart, resisting the scars of urban blight, thereby respecting the miracles of nature. Vermonters guard their rural sanctuary zealously. I’m glad they do because my spirit is refreshed every time I visit. In his famous poem, Robert Frost noted that life is uncertain, that choices matter, that the road diverges into the equally fair, and like Ed says, we look down the path into the underbrush as far as we can. When I press my own prism to my eye, I see the comfort of friendship (Thanks, Ed), the power of self, and that life is good, especially today. TW

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...