Walls and Gates and more Walls

I, at first, thought Palm Springs, Palm Desert, and the other towns in this area, were lovely.  But, they have not passed the test of time.  Not only do I have to be pounded by the stupid trump wall, but this area is all about walls and gates and security and more walls.  What the wealthy haven’t figured out is if they’d stop flaunting their hoarded goods, they would not be so vulnerable to theft and vandalism.  

Any way, the prominent streets are boulevards — four lanes, often with a landscaped median and lined with one wall after another.  At first, I even though the landscaping was lovely.  But that too has failed the test of time.  The plants are uninspired, the maintenance looks like someone took a blowtorch to the gardens, and I’ve never seen so many poorly pruned trees in my life.  I won’t even mention green lawns and water wasting.

Plus everything is sterile.  Few people occupy the sidewalks and bike lanes, and in the stores and on the roads, the friendly quotient is way down.

Boy, oh boy, do I miss Langley — our funky, friendly, beautiful town.  A community that is mostly “real” and a community made up of loving, intelligent, community-minded folks.  And we’re not hiding from the world but opening our arms wide for all people — rich, poor, old, young, black, white, and brown.  We grow fruits and vegetables and beautiful free-flowing gardens.  We honor the sea and its inhabitants and we love the forest and its inhabitants.  Most of us care for one another in ways that are community events, like Hearts & Hammers.  Other times kind acts are hidden from view, but the generosity flows freely.  We have environmental treasurers and people treasurers all coming together to create beauty and community.   I Love Langley!

Here is a sampling of walls and gates and more walls...

                                                                             ~~~

         Living in sterile man-made environments that are disconnected from nature should
                                                      be expected to lead to sickness.

                                                                      Steven Magee

Summer Catch Up

Where have I been?   

Clearly, missing from my Thistleadventure blog for quite a spell.  I have not been in Thistle writing mode for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of health issues.   Plus I was blocked because of password problems, and it took my dear daughter-in-law, Yessi, to figure it out.

As some of you know, but probably not all of you, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in the fall of 2017.  It had metastasized with growths in my liver and lungs and was also showing up, in a more minor ways, in other spots in my intestinal tract.  It was too deep in the liver to remove with surgery or radiation.  So, I’m on the chemotherapy path of hold-it-back to pick up time to live a bit more life.  My energy is way down, the chemo side effects bothersome, but still I’m getting out and about and enjoying life, between treatments.  

This past summer we made a number of small Thistle trips, like Keystone, close to home on Whidbey Island, for one or two nights.  The North Cascades snagged us as well, as did Lake Chelan and the Olympia area.                                            

                                         
                         


Lake Chelan was fun, sharing the trip with friends, very cold, but very beautiful.

                                    

                             

A trip down to the Olympia area for the Senior Olympic Games, saw Ed receiving two gold metals for race walking.

                                                      

At the end of August I decided I didn’t want to give up my past few years of riding the years of my birthday.  So I did it again, cancer or not.  We camped at Keystone on Whidbey Island, and I rode my birth years. This year I took three days, rather than doing the ride in one, and rode on my new e-bike, but still I rode 78 miles, with lots of support from my family and friends, grinning the entire way.    A wonderful birthday celebration!

We also managed to get to Lopez Island to visit friends and enjoy a kayak spin.

Tiny outings, but wonderful to be thistleadventuring once again. My doctors are impressed and not worried about the fatigue I experience after a ride.  

The summer trips will be local this year, grabbing a day here and there between treatments, but home is a glorious place to be too, so it’s a wonderful combo of good options.    

It’s interesting to note the changes in one’s philosophy when hit with the news of inoperable, metastasized cancer.  Suddenly the small things in life are more important and each day takes on a significance not quite recognized when the end of life was less in view.  I’ve had a truly wonderful life, for which I’m grateful.  

Summer is now over, and we really truly are on another thistleadventure.  Stay tuned.  More postings coming from the SW where we are spending the winter.

~~~

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments

Of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at a time of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King

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Whidbey Island Summer

A summer right here on Whidbey Island, a summer at home, is unfolding…

Too often it seems to have fun, one is expected to be somewhere other than home.  Flying away to far off lands or driving to exotic places is how to explore and find adventure.   Or, so goes the common story line.  Telling a friend you are staying home for the summer too often is met with words of regret.  "Oh, we're sorry, too bad you have nothing planned for your summer vacation." 

Although we love our Thistle adventures, we also love our close to home explorations.   Despite the push-pull between staying put or another Thistle adventure, we don't think it's possible to make a bad decision.   

Our summer at home, with family and friends will be delightful as well as restful.  Our activities somewhat predictable, but predictability can be just the ticket on occasion.  Although we will not refer to our at-home activities as "adventures" we also will not relegate them to the trash heap of boring.  

Family, always a delight, will be high on our list of "time delightfully spent"…

Yessi, Fran, Brad, Ed

Thistle will rest in the driveway, perhaps a little too much, but we will definitely venture out on short outings, even setting our sights on the not-so-distant, but in a foreign land, Vancouver Island.  We also have visions of more deeply exploring Lake Chelan, the North Cascades and hiking on the ocean beaches…

Digging Brad and Yessi's Klepper out of storage and going for a sail sounds perfect…

And, as always, a bunch of riding is on the agenda.  This year we will repeat a past year's island explorations by again riding all the connecting roads on Whidbey Island…   

Each day we will try to be more like our pup, Benton -- enjoying every minute whether sleeping in the garden or romping on the beach.  Dogs are the prefect creatures to teach us to be happily in the moment…

Plus, what could be more beautiful than our summer garden.  Our Airbnb guests think they are in paradise, and so should we…

So yes, a summer at home is what's happening this year.  A summer of slow, lazy, happy days on a beautiful island in the Pacific Northwest.   And to enhance our at-home enjoyment we have an outdoor bedroom.  Upstairs, in the building housing our office and carport, that we call the barn, is a recently installed Murphy bed high above the garden…

~~~

"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration."

~  Ansel Adams

No More Excuses

Our traveling involves sitting long hours in Thistle. Idle. Sedentary. The under-exercied-bodies-of-the-elderly we all face as we age, cannot be left untended. Exercise becomes more...much more...important as the years advance. I have been suffering sciatic pain on this trip so I need, at the very least, daily bending, moving and walking to relieve this bothersome issue. Ed is suffering no such pain, but he's motivated to keep active.

Osteoporosis has also decided to plague me. Exercise to counter this little obstacle suddenly became a high priority. Before leaving town on our most recent trip, both Ed and I went to a physical therapist for help in devising a traveling exercise program. Resistance straps were added to our existing, but inconsistent, exercises of walking, hiking, biking and stretching.

The straps are easy to tote, being light and small, and can be used almost anywhere. In the photos above, the campground we were staying at was quite helpful with the poles they provided, but the doors or bike rack on Thistle, a small tree, a street sign, or a children's playground are all workable too.

Biking has for years been our exercise of choice, but it is surprising how many barriers can spring up to keep us off our bikes -- narrow, shoulder-less roads; too much traffic; rain and cold; hills too steep; days too short. We need and want biking to continue, but to be one choice of many, both for convenience and to round out our exercise program.

Ed race walks, we both walk about camp, to see the sights or to walk the dog, and we hike. At home, gardening is added to the exercise program as well. An additional activity, high on our physical therapist's list, and as yet untouched, is swimming. We very nicely use logistics as a barrier here too because, like with biking, the obstacles can seem insurmountable. Little head problems like, "Yikes, that river is flowing straight off the snow fields."

Hitting the big three: strength, cardio and flexibility, is our goal both on the road and at home. No matter where we are though, my hurdles come more from lax motivation than real obsacles. Sometimes it is entirely too easy to simply make another cup of coffee or read the next chapter.

Procrastination is a huge problem and one I'm suffering from at this moment. Ed is out race walking. So no more excuses. I'm off to exercise!

~~~

"The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it."

~ Jordan Belford

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Nez Perce

Dripping wet from a rainy bike ride along the Lewiston dikes, we needed hot showers more than anything in the world. Instead, in the parking lot, we stripped down and hung our wet biking clothes on the small clothes line overhead in Thistle's head. Finding the toilet, or managing to brush our teeth, was a wander through dripping jackets and soggy socks slapping us in the face. It was a wet, stinky, steamy mess.

Thistle needed cleaning, dumping and a refilled water tank, and we still wanted showers, so we splurged and pulled into our first full-fee campground of the trip -- Hell's Gate State Campground in Idaho on the edge of the Snake River.* Awww, Hot showers! On an at-home-scale the showers would have been a one, maybe. After many days on the road they were not top notch, but darn fine. The next morning was the beginning of a wonderful day as we stepped out into the world with shower-clean bodies.

A memory jog from our friend, Greg, that his cousin lives in Clarkston, led us to a coffee date with Deanna and Parker. Having only met once previously, about 40+ years earlier, we were delighted to spend time with them again.

As well as biking the paths along the dikes in both Clarkston and Lewiston, we explored the east side of the Snake River along Highway 209 to Heller's Bar, where we camped for one night among the fishing crowd. Our bicycles on the back of Thistle looked strangely out of place in this parking-lot fishing village. Despite our weird appearance we were invited to share a campfire with neighboring folks. We love how camping breaks down barriers, but not all barriers it appears. Over the campfire, conversation turned to fishing, well, duh, and we learned that the fishermen here were made up of three groups -- the flyers, bobbers and sinkers, and although they all looked the same to us, they were all clustered within their fishing preference group. Marge pointed her finger and said "the flyers are up there on that hill, the sinkers are over there, and we're the bobbers here in this area."

After three days of Lewiston/Clarkston exploration we were ready to continue south on 95, but before we got very far, we stopped at the Nez Perce National Historical Park Museum and Visitor Center where everything changed. After enjoying the museum and a delightful conversation with the ranger, at his suggestion we changed our route to Highway 12 and then Scenic Byway 13 following the Clearwater River. It's been one of those "wow" drives as we've passed through the Nez Perce well-marked historic and archeological lands as well as inspiring geological splendor.

With late afternoon approaching we started thinking about a place to stay and could see on the map little tents east of 13, along Highway 14. And here we are! Camped at Castle Creek National Forest Campground -- just us with an entire campground to ourselves and more wow scenes.

Trees are loaded with Spanish Moss...

This morning we continue on up the road to Golden, the first of two towns on this highway. Population not posted. We'll give it a 10, which is a generous guess based on the two houses we spotted. These photos represent the business district...

High up in the Clearwater Mountains, at road's end, is Elk City. We didn't drive to the end but Wikipedia tells us it is an old mining town. Current population 200 folks.

~~~

"…there ain’t no journey what don’t change you some."

~ David Mitchell

*This managed to drive our campground expenses for this trip up to a total of $55.14 for 18 days. Our average is now $3.06 per night, not bad but this hot-shower-weakness-splurge did damage our record a bit.

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"The Sky is Falling"

Traveling this country is always a surprise, and finding first class towns is rare enough to be a delight. Two towns in the past two days have impressed us as excellent places to visit -- Sandpoint and Coeur d'alene, Idaho. Both are full of life...pubs, coffee shops, upscale boutiques, restaurants, art galleries, book stores, amazing biking and walking paths, and at their core top notch parks, beaches, and libraries.

Sandpoint...

Fun street art

Many miles of biking and walking pathways

Beautiful sandy beach and park right in the center of town

Lots of city trees

Coeur d'alene...

Tubbs Hill within the city

Many blocks of city park and biking-walking paths along Lake Coeur d'alene next to the city

Beautiful people places! Well, that is, beautiful people places according to my criteria. What about the people who think coffee from a can tastes better than a latte? Or can't locate the work clothes they need in the maze of stylish outdoor wear? Or get plenty of exercise doing physical labor and don't need, and definitely don't want to pay for, fancy parks and pathways?

Outside each of these upscale urban boundaries, rural ideals reign. A tug-of-war of conflicting values has been set in play. The divide is understandable but the intensity is puzzling. As we drive, Ed and I ponder how on the one hand folks talk about this great nation and on the other hand deride it, pointing fingers to their chosen villains. This divide is all the more apparent in this political season where fear and anger are openly provoked and displayed.

As I was writing this blog posting, I stumbled across this quote, pushing discontent, being touted by the Green Party:

"We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy." ~ Chris Hedge

Really? Is our country, our world, really this horrid? Yes we have corrections to make, serious ones, but to declare every profession is destroying that for which they stand is as destructive as declaring there is a boogyman on every corner. Every good progressive can see the flaws in the conservative fear and hate messages, but are we able to acknowledge the same flaws in our own? Serious critical thinking is required to sort out the truth from the hyperbole, and that is not easy, but we must because Chicken Little's "The Sky is Falling" philosophy is not serving us well.

Without being insipid with "can't we all get alone" or "let's all be happy" or "everyone means well" could we perhaps agree to put Chicken Little aside and walk a common road toward inclusion...to make our shared goal a world that works for everyone.

~~~

"Today, the drumbeat has become a cacophony. The generation that has experienced more peace, freedom, leisure time, education, medicine, travel, movies, mobile phones and massages than any generation in history is lapping up gloom at every opportunity. In an airport bookshop recently, I paused at the Current Affairs section and looked down the shelves. There were books by Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Al Franken, Al Gore, John Gray, Naomi Klein, George Monbiot and Michael Moore, which all argued to a greater or lesser degree that (a) the world is a terrible place; (b) it’s getting worse; (c) it’s mostly the fault of commerce; and (d) a turning point has been reached. I did not see a single optimistic book."

~ Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist

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