“That’s amazing!” said most folks, hearing of my sisters and I road-tripping to cheer on our mother as she raced the 800 meters and the 1500 at the international Masters meet.
I disagree with that assessment. Admirable? Definitely. Humbling? Yes. Pride-inducing? Hugely. But amazing…no. If you know my mom, Martha Klopfer, you would not be at all AMAZED at her racing. You would EXPECT it.
True to form (finishing the 1500)
Martha’s been running since the late 1960s. So have I, for that matter; our whole family formed early part of that first big Fitness Wave. But MY knees called for retirement about four years ago, in my late 50s. Hers still work just fine. My mom has literally outrun me.
Since COVID interfered with my 60th Birthday Sisters Weekend a couple of years ago, I lit on the idea of turning Mom’s race into a way to spend quality time with my sisters. So my Texas sister & I both flew to my Michigan sister, and from there we three “girls” drove down to North Carolina…
Did someone say ROAD TRIP?? Quick stop in the lovely Hocking Hills of southern Ohio
…via Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia…
Another quick stop: New River Gorge in WV (& highest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere, we learned)
…for 48 hours of family…
Family always includes dogs
…and track. While Martha did her stretches in the shade…
her fans braved a sweaty July afternoon to cheer her…
Carolina Friends School Principal Karen Cumberbatch (in CFS tee) brought family members, showing their support for one of CFS’s founders!
through the 800 meters (2 laps)…
They combined all the age groups from 70 up. The woman second from left set a world record for 75 y/o’s in the 5k the day before, 22:41!!!
When she finished (in 5:49), I was so proud I did something I almost never do: took a selfie.
But Mom? She and Dad watched the video I took of her race, then watched it again, like coach and player, and both agreed: Not enough up on my toes. Better try a different pair of shoes.
Believe me, this man would be out there too if his legs would let him.
The result, for a race less than 18 hours later and nearly twice as long: a 1500 meters in 11:06, which translates to a proportionately faster pace than the 800.
I didn’t need to take a selfie for pride this time. I had Mom with Medals.
Can I get some pancakes now?
If this were a different blog post, I might write more about my first-ever Sisters Road Trip. I might even mention the buffets we hit in West Virginia, both south- and northbound.
Or the bath I gave my hot feet in the Huron River in Ann Arbor
But this blog is about how our Amazing Mom isn’t really that amazing, in the sense that she’s trained us not to be amazed at the things she’s still able to do.
One year ago, I was soaking up the sights and sounds of Culver City on my daily walks to the campus of Antioch University for the first residency of my MFA program in Creative Writing. Mostly I was dazzled by the Southern CA flowers.
Oh, this old thing along the bike path? I just threw it on…
What I should have used as a photo was a full-blast firehose, because that’s what Residency #1 was like. Back home, I likened my new venture to a switch from hiking to rock-climbing. Not long after, I chose to step away from blogging altogether, devoting all my precious writing time to my most precious writing. Residency #2, last December, received no analysis.
But this summer, riding along that same bike path, I was stopped by a new metaphor: this rainbow tangle of flora:
Whose story is this? Everyone’s! Whee!
You gardeners will spot pink and red oleaner, scarlet bouganvillea, orange trumpet vine and blue morning glory, all rampaging joyously over a substrate of purple jacaranda. What I see? A message to stay focused on more stories than mine.
YES, I am writing a novel. YES, it requires my time. But not so much to keep me from this blog’s renewed mission to AMPLIFY voices for justice and understanding. Which is why it felt so perfect, on the same day I took that picture, that I turned on a car radio and discovered House/Full of Blackwomen.
Nighttime Procession, March 2017, Photo by Robbie Sweeney
CreativeCapital.org describes the group this way:
House/Full of Blackwomen is conjure art, the insistence movement, activated in store fronts, streets, houses, warehouses, museums, galleries and theaters of Oakland, California. House/Full began as a two-year project and morphed into an eight-year process of 15 public “episodes” which unexpectedly appeared as street processions, all night song circles, secret rituals of Black women resting and dreaming, sacred ceremonies on the track, and multi-media offerings. Black women gathered around a dining room table to recall, rage, rally and restore themselves, while creating ritual performance strategies towards shifting systemic evictions, displacements, erasure and the sex trafficking of Black women and girls: all driven by the core question, “How can we, as Black women and girls, find space to breathe, and be well in a stable home?”
Dreaming Blessing, March 2017, Photo by Robbie Sweeney
As I listened to Episode One of The Kitchen Sisters’ podcast on NPR, which describes the group’s mission, I was filled with excitement, hope, awe, empathy…and the immediate desire to share all those feelings.
So here you go! The above description, not to mention the podcast itself, says more than I could about the power of this group of 34 women. All I want to do is steer you toward them. Creative Capital says,
The final episode of HouseFull, Episode 15: this too shall pass will premiere March 4–12, 2023. Performance times, venues and details can be found here. All events are sold out, but you can sign up for the mailing list to learn about future performances and project iterations.
And me? I still have a few more days in LA. I still plan to drink from that hose–a little more carefully now, sipping the drips, letting them soak in. Or, to go back to florals, I plan to gather some individual roses as they offer themselves…
Stop and smell me.
…be they writing advice or part of the more tangled, brilliant stories around me. Please join me in discovering House/Full of Blackwomen!
Hmmm. Turns out I’m feeling a little conflicted about this getting-back-to-blogging thing.
Seriously? After just two weeks? Why?
Because…I went on a road trip.
So?
So, I’ve always blogged about my road trips! I loved sharing pictures and stories. I think I’m secretly a travel blogger at heart.
What’s wrong with that? You love travel blogs.
Yeah, but I just made a commitment to blog regularly about some of the social causes I care about…making amplification my this-is-all-I-can-do-right-now “contribution.” I can’t just interrupt that for travel photos, can I?
Why can’t you do both?
Nah. It’d be weird.
How d’you know until you try?
*sigh*
Yeah, you’re probably right. Forget I suggested it. I don’t think you could handle the balance. I mean, it’s not like you’re studying writing right now or anything…
FINE. *deep breath* Listen up, people! The Mate and I just took a 2-week discovery jaunt through Wyoming and Idaho, two states that don’t tend to support the progressive political agenda I support. But they do have three things I DO support, wholeheartedly: mountains…
…wild critters…
…and flowers:
OK so far. Now let’s see you tie that promo in with your “progressive political agenda.”
Seriously? You’re just gonna shove Dr. Edwards’ talk into your post like that, then go back to the nature pics? Who’s gonna watch it?
You’d be surprised. I think there are a ton of folks out there like me, folks who love mountains, critters & flowers just like I do, but who also want to keep educating themselves about how to be effective anti-racists, like I do. They may not get to this video right away; I didn’t. But when they have time, they might come back and learn more about “history with eyes wide open”, as Dr. Edwards says.
If you say so. Can we see some trip pics now?
Oh, twist my arm. Ahem. On our way out of Washington, The Mate and I stopped to ride our bikes in Spokane, and marvel at the majesty that is Palouse Falls.
I was SO sad that the bike path bridge was closed for construction!
Our main destination was Grand Tetons National Park. But it turns out, one of the best ways into GTNP is through this place…
Yep, the Grandmother of all NPs: Yellowstone herself
We’ve both been to Yellowstone several times over the decades, and I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t even bother taking photos of their bison and elk any more. (Here’s an old blog post to cover that.)But I COULDN’T stop taking pictures of those prismatic pools.
No diving!
No words.
As planned, we only spent a day in Yellowstone, which was so crowded we remembered why we love traveling during the shoulder seasons (not Memorial Day weekend, for goodness’ sake! Who planned this trip?!) But when we drove across the park border into the Tetons, it was time for us to sit up and take special notice. THESE mountains were something NEW, at least to us.
Nary a foothill in sight. Just a sagebrush plain and then…BAM!
After a fews days of (rather WET) camping, we moved into a motel in Jackson, finally answering the question: what’s the difference between Jackson Hole and Jackson?
Answer: Jackson’s the town……whereas Jackson Hole refers to the entire region, the valley filled by the (not pictured) Snake River.Now you know. But if you’re from Wyoming, you probably don’t give a shit what the rest of us think.
The Mate & I were very favorably impressed by two other aspects of Jackson (besides its proximity to GTNP): its community bike path system…
We saw a TON of bikes at all the public schools. Kids and parents really use these paths!
…and its bakery, Persephone. (Aren’t bakeries and bookstores the best tests of a town, really?)
Just doing research for my own employer, Holly B’s on Lopez Island! 🙂
One more way-cool thing in Jackson: this vertical, rotating greenhouse built into the side of a very tall parking garage. Never seen anything like it!
The company’s called Vertical Harvest. The lettuces looked happy!
Our most prized hike of the trip came on a day when we got up early in order to be the first on the Tetons trails, and were rewarded with a moose AND a bear, in the same video! (You’ll have to take my word for it; it’s not YouTube quality so I didn’t bother uploading.) But here’s the moose:
Not pictured…barely!…is the bear that’s actually lurking just behind and to the right of Ms. Moose
Leaving Wyoming’s western side, we passed into Idaho and took a quick tour of Craters of the Moon National Monument.
I found the dead trees as entrancing as the dead lava.
Anyone else see a monster here?
Thunderstorms were forecast, so we decided against camping and added a night to our motel in Hailey, which is the cheap(er) town 10 miles from swankier Ketchum and swankiest Sun Valley. The Mate & I were pleased to find all three towns connected by bike path…
Heading over the Wood River, which was running HIGH
...and Liza and I rode pretty much every inch of it, including up & around a ski hill.
Definitely helps that Liza’s an e-assist bike! My knees are grateful.
But it wasn’t bike paths that led Liza and I to bumble into the most amazing “superbloom” of wildflowers I’ve ever seen outside the Cascades–it was a plain ol’ dirt road.
Are you for real, Idaho?!Yes. Yes you are.
Those flowers? They followed us into the Sawtooth Wilderness, our last spate of camping right smack in the middle of the state. I mean, yes, the mountains were just as striking as the Tetons…
Still reppin’ Holly B’s!
…but the FLOWERS!!!
I didn’t know Larkspur came in so many shades of blue!
We had more adventures than pictured, of course: elk and antelope and lakes and crags. But I think you got the idea. And I want to leave you enough time to go back and dip into that lecture of Dr. Edwards’, if you feel so moved. But whether you do or not–thanks for bearing with me all this way (or moosing with me). Here–I got you flowers.
“I was a typical young Southerner, born and raised in LA—Lower Alabama.” Meet Bob Zellner.
I got to do just that, last October, when Bob and his activist wife Pamela joined my Common Power Team NC canvassing group. Over big plates of BBQ, I got to ask Bob questions about events I’d read about in his book, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek. Like the time Bob was beaten badly on the steps of the town hall of McComb, Mississippi, in a march led by Black high school students. But in the New York Times article, they called Bob “the leader” of the march–because he was the only White guy there.
You could call Bob the White counterpart of Representative John Lewis; they grew up quite close to each other in Alabama, both poor, both country–but on either side of the color line. Which explains why Bob started life from a KKK-supporting family, before becoming the first White field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s.
In Bob’s interview by Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries (History Professor at The Ohio State University, and, incidentally, brother of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries), you can hear him explain how, “That was the way you got accepted in SNCC–you go to the dangerous places and do what the people were doing.”
Bob’s a folksy guy; like a lot of Southerners, he’s not into drama. Just tells it like it was–and is. His mission today, he says, and for the rest of his life, is to tell young people: “You can be White, and you can be a Civil Rights activist, and you can survive.”
Come to think–that’s a pretty good message right there. Reading Bob’s story, not to mention rubbing shoulders with him, reminded me how ordinary these extraordinary “ACTIVISTS” can be. Maybe a teensy bit braver than I am…
I hope you listen to Bob or check out his book. Pass it on!
I’m not going to spend time talking about why I’ve stepped away from this blog for the past year. I’d rather talk about what brought me back.
Since Sandy Hook, since Trayvon, since Charlottesville, since [fill in your own moment of “whatthefuckishappeningtous”], I’ve been looking for people and ideas and groups which provide myself with hope and purpose. Along with my family; some dear friends; some small-but-mighty organizations within my community; music; nature, and writing, I found Common Power, and its educational branch, The Institute for Common Power, both of which I have written about.
For the last three years, I’ve gone deeper into action to protect and extend democracy, mostly through phone-banking and donations, but also writing letters to elected officials, and, last October, canvassing in my home state, North Carolina.
This is VA, not NC, but you get the idea–this kind of thing (photo by Charles Douglas, CP)
Dr. Williams is a History professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, and founder of their Racial Justice Initiative. It was his part of that 24 hours of teaching that got me back to Wing’s World. He talked about two “challengers,” starting with NASA’s Challenger Space Shuttle, which exploded live on TV in 1986 (which many of us remember all too well).
R.I.P. (photo courtesy Wikipedia)
Dr. Williams reminded us how Ronald Reagan went on TV to tell American children the tragedy:
“We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way democracy is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute.”
His message: Ron DeSantis, anti-“woke” Republicans–are you LISTENING? Democracy means FACING UP TO BAD STUFF. Like, you know…U.S. History.
Dr. Williams closed by talking about Muhammad Ali, of whom actor/director Ed Begley Jr. said, “Ali’s secret was that he was always the challenger.”
Ali in 1976, filming The Greatest (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
And this historian/activist then looked at the camera and asked us listeners to find ways to continue to be the challenger. To do more than what we’ve been doing to help our country be its best self.
And I thought: okay. At the very least, something I can do is to expand Dr. Williams’ message.
So in the next few weeks, I’ll be highlighting some of the talks from that incredible 24 hours. I’ll be sharing, amplifying, extolling the messages I’m absorbing about how to help our country. And if just a few of you reading this decide to do the same, consider yourselves challengers too.
When folks say, “Shit just got real,” they generally mean shit just got real for them. Clearly, shit has been real for several hundred years in this country for vast numbers of people.
(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: Dedicated to the Foot Soldiers of Birmingham Park)
But Florida, under the leadership of Ron DeSantis, just made it real for me. As a former history teacher, realizing that Florida’s new “Stop Woke Act” would penalize most of my old lesson plans was a watershed moment.
Wait–they’d be coming for me? I’m a member of the dominating caste! (FPHS graduation 2009–wish I could remember who took the photo!)
What would the Stop Woke bill do? According to the Florida ACLU:
ASSAULT ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION TRAINING:
● This bill flips the script – deeming non-discrimination trainings as a source of discrimination.
● Under this bill, employees could sue their employers for discrimination if: ○ They claimed a feeling of “discomfort” during equity and inclusion training. ○ They claimed a feeling of “guilt” for being a man after attending sexual harrassment training. ○ They claimed a feeling of anguish after attending a session on implicit bias. ○ They claimed a feeling of “psychological distress” after being taught about discrimination perpetrated against LGBTQ people by others.
So. All it takes is one disgruntled student, and that teacher might have to choose between shutting up, getting their district sued, or getting fired (the most likely option)
Even more chilling, as the Florida ACLU describes, this bill would CENSOR HONEST CONVERSATIONS, exactly the kind of conversations our country is only beginning to recognize we need:
● This bill gives the government broad censorship over honest conversations about our nation’s history and the root causes of injustice and discrimination. Teachers and employers should be free to have these tough conversations. (Can you imagine teaching ANYthing without reference to the truth of the past??? Me neither.)
● It will have a chilling effect — schools will be hesitant to create open dialogue about our country’s history of slavery, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement, LGBTQ history, and other subjects to avoid legal liability.
So, my former students–all those role plays we did, inhabiting the lives of people on either side of historical divides?
Like here: Shawnese Heyer and Emani Lemasutele, facing off as a member of the Cherokee Nation and President Andrew Jackson.
Out the window. Toast. Get out your (highly redacted) texts, kids, while I hand out the accompanying worksheets.
So…who’s ready to take this lying down?
* * *
Thought so. If you’re as outraged as I am about Florida’s assault on the truth, here’s an outlet for you.
It’s a call to conscience and to common sense. It’s a spotlight on the shameful censorship Florida is trying to instill. It’s a courageous step–I know this because the organizers are already receiving death threats in Florida.
And it’s all on Zoom, and it’s free.
If you click on the above link during any hour of the Teach-in on May 17, you can tune in to hear lectures by activists and academics–some famous names, but all folks like you and me who are horrified at the idea that truth is now under legal attack under the leadership of a governor who is running for President.
We’re all busy. On May 17, I don’t plan to sit at my computer watching speaker after speaker inspire and energize me. But I DO plan to keep my audio playing in the background of my day, and I DO plan to let the idea of a Teach-in percolate into my own days, reminding me of the power of AMPLIFICATION when it comes to justice.
In fact, I’m starting right now, with this blog post.
You know what they say: See something, say something.
I say, I stand with THESE folks. Can you join me May 17? Can you pass this along?
(Courtesy Wikimedia Commons and National Park Service)
I interrupt this blog-pause to bring you delightful literary news: Mimi Herman, one of my longest besties (’cause we’re not OLD), has just published a lively, authentic, and moving novel, set in our home state, North Carolina: The Kudzu Queen.
Oh, and that quote above? That’s from NYT best-selling novelist Lee Smith (once my 9th grade English teacher at Carolina Friends School, where Mimi & I met). You get your book blurbed by Lee Smith, you have arrived.
Got my copy! Get your own.
Some of you familiar with Southern landscapes might be thinking, “Whoa there! Kudzu? That awful introduced plant that tried to eat the South?”
Yes. That. And it’s still trying. (Photo courtesy Wikipedia)
But the dramatic irony of knowing what kudzu will become makes Mimi’s story all the more poignant, because her characters are present in kudzu’s Genesis moment, back in 1941. Why don’t I let the book’s flyleaf tell it?
Fifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T. Cullowee, the Kudzu King, arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina in 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu—claiming that it will improve the soil, feed cattle at almost no cost, even cure headaches—Mattie is ready. Mr. Cullowee is determined to sell the entire county on the future of kudzu, and organizes a kudzu festival, complete with a beauty pageant. Mattie is determined to be crowned Kudzu Queen and capture the attentions of the Kudzu King. As she learns more about Cullowee, however, she discovers that he, like the kudzu he promotes, has a dark and predatory side. When Mattie finds she is not the only one threatened, she devises a plan to bring him down. Based on historical facts, The Kudzu Queen unravels a tangle of sexuality, power, race, and kudzu through the voice of an irresistibly delightful (and mostly honest) narrator.
(image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
The choice of 1941 is not accidental. Mere months before Pearl Harbor, Mattie Watson, her family, her community, and her country are all aligned on the cusp of transformation: Mattie into womanhood; her family (and, more dramatically, that of her best friend) into a new configuration; her community into the brave new world of cultural and economic change; and her country into its 20th-century world leadership. While kudzu is a very real part of this change–Mimi’s book is thoroughly researched–it is also a perfect metaphor for the way “growth” does not automatically entail “improvement”–or at least, not without cost.
But can I step away from theme for a moment to trumpet some sweet, sweet prose? For a taste:
“The afternoon’s brightness had traveled with me, infusing the white clapboard of our house with its own light. My mother’s azaleas were enjoying their brief moment of pink glory before they subsided into wilted blossoms the color of old newspapers.” (p.88)
“…brief moment of pink glory” (image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
“Sometimes a rain will start so quietly that after a while you realize it’s been raining for some time and you dadn’t even noticed. By the time I grapsed the fact that I was crying, I’d progressed to wet hiccups.” (p. 216)
Much as I enjoy The Kudzu Queen’s active prose, I think I admire its dialogue most.
“‘How many fish are we going to catch, Aggs?’ Danny asked.
‘A million?’ she ventured.
‘At least,’ he told her. ‘I was thinking more like two million.’
She laughed, a sound I heard so rarely that I almost didn’t recognize it.
‘How many can you eat?’ he asked.
‘Six,’ she announced.
‘Excellent. That means six for you and one million, nine hundred ninety-nie thousand, nine hundred and nine-four for me me.’ Danny tugged her sleeve. ‘This your fishing outfit?'” (p. 190)
It’s hard to write too much without spoilers, so I’ll stop with this recommendation: if you want to delve deep into a time of relative innocense without a drop of mawkishness; if you want to give yourself over to that narrator Lee Smith calls “the most appealing young heroine since Scout;” if you’d read anything David Sedaris–yes, David Sedaris!–calls “funny, sad and tender,” then–ask your local bookstore to order The Kudzu Queen, or order it yourself, here.
Mimi autographing a copy for moi! (Image courtesy Cris Wiley)
Oh–I almost forgot this part! Mimi’s “day job,” while producing her own writing, is to be a Teaching Artist. She’s taught gazillion classes and workshops over the years, to writers in every decade of life. Currently, she and partner John Yewell offer tantalizing Writeaways–extended workshops in exotic European castles and other inspiring places. Take a look at the link!
Who could resist?! (Image courtesy writeaways.com)
Congratulations, buddy. And Happy Reading, everyone!
Like my new word? I was trying to find a way to describe the way The Mate and I tend to travel, and it occurred to me: pretty much all we do, wherever we are, is look for trails to walk or paths to bike (or vice-versa).
Cathedral Grove, near Port Alberni
Leaving Tofino, we drove less than 20 miles down the road to Pacific Rim National Park, a thin strip of forest and beach that runs a good length down Vancouver Island’s Wild West Coast. The hiking trails are all short, but the longest of them is run by the Nuu-chah-nulth people, whose land it occupies.
It’s hard to get The Mate to turn around for a photo.
Along with offering some moments in the best parts of the forest, the trail tries to deepen one’s awareness of that culture, like this:
If only I knew how to pronounce those words…
This totem pole along the trail is maybe the most beautiful I’ve ever beheld.
I had a hard time leaving this.
Everywhere you go in that park, signs remind you whose land you are on–a convention our US parks would do well to emulate.
That sign, by the way, greets walkers and bikers for MILES as they traverse the longest path of all: the bike path that runs the entire 20+ miles of the park. The Mate & I LIVED on this path during our camping days there, using it to move from one beach or hiking trail to the next. And, given the number of poop-piles we counted, the local bears live on this path too!
Does the bear shit in the woods? Actually, no…not when there’s pavement available. (Not sure why someone placed a rock on this batch)
Of course we didn’t spend ALL our camping time on the move.
Not when there’s giant fungus to groove on! (foot included just for scale)
I’m not a “beach person” in the sense of lying on them for hours, but give me a beach with tidepools and I’m good–at least till the next mealtime! 🙂 PRNP has some AMAZING rocks and tide pools.
This one comes with its own window.
In one pool, I was amazed to discover an eating-sized fish who appeared trapped, as if in an aquarium. I vowed to come back next morning to try to save him if the tide hadn’t come in far enough…
Hang in there, dude!
…only to discover him, to my chagrin, still there…along with an even larger buddy…both of them attached through the gills by a nylon line, and the fisherman who’d caught them still trying to augment his catch. Apparently he was using this tide pool as his bucket to stash his fish, even overnight!
[Not pictured: pathetic caught fish in tide pool. I’m a terrible hypocrite; I just like to eat ’em.]
Seriously, though, I can’t say enough about this part of Canada. Come for the big trees…
…stay for the big trees at sunset!
Leaving the Wild West (regretfully), we moved slowly back through the center of the island, spending the night in Port Alberni. Not much pathing nor trailing there–but I did fall deeply in love with their bakery. If you want to know more about this very blue-collar town at the far end of the LOOOONG inlet which bisects the west coast, let me refer you to my friends’ blog–they do a good bit more than pathing and trailing when they travel.
[Not pictured: Port Alberni. Nothing really grabbed me there, visually; probably due to lack of trails & paths.]
On the way out, however, we walked in the Cathedral Grove (pictured at top), and later stopped at Little Qualicum Falls Provincial Park, where we vowed to come back sometime and camp. Here’s why.
Any salmon in there?
Luckily, we’d already had our leaping-salmon experience the week before at Stamp River, because…
Yeah, no.
…these falls were not exactly leap-able. Ridiculously gorgeous, yes. We had some of our best “trailing” around this river, seeing its falls from all angles.
Our final stop was Lake Cowichan, where I’d attempted to take The Mate on last fall’s ill-fated Mystery Birthday Trip (see previous post). The Trans Canada Trail runs through there, so we had high hopes of pathing it on our bikes.
But it was closed for construction. So we had to make do with the lake.
Oh darn.
Lake Cowichan looked even better from above, although the trail itself led mostly through the scruffy results of clearcutting.
The scenery finally got pretty just about when we were ready to turn around. Oh well.
We spent our final Vancouver Island night near Nanaimo, where we’d be boarding the ferry next morning. Yes, we did manage to find a couple more trails & paths nearby, but by this time we were starting to feel all that mileage in our legs. So we kept the walks short, and fell gratefully into the bed which took up our entire tiny room in this adorable pub/hotel.
Did I order the poutine for dinner? Yes I did.
We arrived home to find the Cascade skies still hazy with wildfire smoke. Happy as I am to be reunited with Maya the Malamute, I’ll end with this photo from the ferry back to the Canadian mainland, because…
[not pictured: the orcas we saw splashing along the way]
…see all those mountains out there? Can you imagine how many paths and trails they’re hoarding?
Thanks, Canada. With or without the doggone excuse, we’ll be back, eh?
After coming to grips with our sweet Maya’s need for intensive training to ease her reactivity to other dogs, the Mate and I booked her a two-week stay with local dog whisperer Stephanie Vallejo (highly recommended, but get in line: she’s very much in demand!). Then we looked at each other.
“You thinking what I’m thinking? If our dog is already being cared for…”
Washington State Ferries hasn’t resumed its service to Sidney, British Columbia, so we had to take the long way round. Oh darn.
Our first stop was the town of Sooke, just west of Victoria, where most tourists go. We’re not really into cities–particularly very Anglophile cities like Victoria immediately following the death of the Queen. Plus Sooke is known for its glorious rail-trail, the Galloping Goose, which the Mate & I have been eager to try out.
You can see why.
“The Goose” stretches 55 kilometers, much of which is as gorgeous as this part (where I saw a bear the next day). With a few exceptions, it’s perfectly level, and includes fun little additions like…some VERY high trestle bridges…
Don’t look down
…mixed forests, and shoreline, like this part fronted by what Canadians call Arbutus, and we call Madrona (or Madrone, in California).
Beautiful, eh
From Sooke we headed back toward Victoria, then followed the main highway north to not-quite-halfway up this INCREDIBLY big island, where we entered its mountainous middle. I was on a mission. I wanted to see bears, and leaping salmon. Maybe even together!
I got my wish. Sorry about the poor zoom quality on my phone.
That bear’s two cubs showed up a moment later, but I took a video of them instead of stills, so you just have to imagine. Were we nervous about the bears being only one river away from our campsite? Well…we would have been, had the ranger not assured us that these particular bears had been coming every evening, checking for fish and leaving, without seeming to care about crossing over.
Good enough for us to sleep well. We happened to know that the fish were just downriver…
…nope, further downriver…
…where the BIG falls are, summoning the energy to leap. As with the bears, I took videos of the salmon doing their thing and forgot to take stills. But if you look very closely…
VERY closely!
…you can see them massing in the canyon just below the falls. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Several specials. Getting ready for the big push. (But they also have a fish ladder to fall back on, in case they give up after 80 or 90 tries.)
Our next night of camping was on Sproat Lake, where the scenery was nice but not breathtaking. However, following my nose and some truly baffling maps, I stumbled upon one of the most magical waterfall pools I’ve ever encountered.
Did I skinny dip? Are you kidding? Of COURSE.
What’s weird is, I accessed this place via an ugly logging road under a power line, then had to climb down a bluff using a VERY scary rope “ladder”–to find this lil’ piece of Narnia waiting below.
Oh, and then climb back up again.
Good job, Vancouver Island–make us work a little for your treasures.
One of our two weeks is now behind us, and The Mate and I are at the end of the world, or what feels like it: the towns of Ucluelet and Tofino, one at each end of a peninsula hanging off the Big Island.
Image courtesy of VisitTofino.ca
Tofino’s where the kayak photo came from. “But Gretchen,” you may ask, “don’t you already live on an island? Why would you vacation somewhere so similar to your regular ol’ life?”
Could this photo have been taken in the San Juan Islands? Possibly.
But my answer is:
Nothing “regular” about THIS…
…or THIS: the First Nations village of Opitsat, which our kayak guide told us was the oldest continuously-inhabited settlement in North America, dating back at least 5,000 years (but more likely, he had learned, 10,000). Seeing it gave me goose bumps. (again–apologies for poor zoom lens)
The background snowy peaks of the mountains in Strathcona Provincial Park are just…extra.
And I’ll let Ucluelet speak for itself:
Just a teensy bit wilder than where I live.And so are the trees.
One more thing The Mate and I are really enjoying about this part of B.C.: its quirkiness. For example, our rented room is in the lower part of this…structure?
Home, sweet whatever you want to call this.
And their official control-your-dogs-at-the-beach signs are hilarious:
Wait, did somebody say Good Dog? Oh, we sure hope so. But meanwhile–thanks for the vacation, Maya! See you in a week!
What? Shag carpeting could be coming back. You never know.
Now, Gretchen seems a little frustrated with me these days…keeps muttering stuff like, “Omigod, MORE fur?!!” and “Why NOW? You’re just gonna grow this fluff right back next month!”
Whatever. As long as I get to lick something while she’s torturing me like this.
But I think the real reason she’s so uptight is, she NEVER sheds. That hooman of mine has had exactly TWO “haircuts” (what hoomans call shedding) in her entire life. She told me that herself.
She got her first one when she was 15 (that’s 2 in dog years).
Yep, just a pup
She kept the same “look” for the next ten years, slowly letting her fur–I mean hair–grow long again.
No more shedding, but sometimes she wore things on her head. Hoomans are weird.
Then, ten years after her first shed, she shed just the top–I mean, got it cut. She calls this her “bangs.”
I don’t get why she calls ’em that. They don’t seem very loud to me.
For the next 35 years, Gretchen only shed the teensiest bits of fur. Like this:
Seriously?!
But NOW, 35 years (that’s 5, in dog!) after shedding cutting her “bangs,” Gretchen’s decided to stop even THAT amount of shedding. She’s letting her top fur grow out.
It ain’t pretty.
Yeah, good luck with that.
What I want to know is, why’s she all hot and bothered about MY fur when it takes her 35 years to make up her mind to deal with her own?
Hmph.
When it comes to fur–how can she possibly compete with me?
I guess she’s just jealous. Yep–that must be it. Poor thing.
Wing's World 