Elk Lake

I woke up at sunrise, checked all of the tires on the Syncro, made sure the racks were tight and said my good-byes.  Heading east through the Columbia River Gorge, I pulled off I-84 in Hood River and followed signs towards Mt. Hood and central Oregon.   After a brief stop to inspect the Palmer Glacier, I coasted down the eastern side of the Cascades into central Oregon.

Cross-referencing a moving dot on my Google maps with an out-of-date road atlas of the lower 48 given to me by mom the day I bought my Syncro, I took my time through Madras and Bend.  Stopping for coffee, photos and gas I added two hours to a prescribed four-hour trip.   Following directions texted to me the night before, I arrived at a gravel road with the national forest sign reading "Elk Lake Recreational Area."

Accelerating to the top end of second, the Syncro vibrated down the washboarded road.  Shifting to third, I reached the perfect speed and the rattling finally subsided as pines opened up to an alpine lake.  I followed the lake's east bank, dotted with the occasional sail boat and rustic cabin,  eventually coming to a parking spot behind a clustering of familiar cars.

Inspired by the last remnants of summer,  I pulled off my T-shirt, inspected the depth at the end of the dock, and back pedaled a dozen feet or so.   Taking a deep breath, I sprinted towards the water and braced for the cold.

Adirondack chairs made green for Oregon.

Glassy.

Potable water.

Thunder storms.

Heating.

Storage.

Blue.

Reflex.

Fire light.

Send me the dock.

My feet clapped against the surface as I landed with a less than ideal plunk.  Compensating for my botched dive, I dolphin kicked until my lungs burned, then surfaced with a gasp.  Making my way towards the nearby floating dock one side-stroke at a time, I heard the sound of two more dives and looked back to see Matt and Gordon following suit.  As I scrambled up the side of the dock,  the mid 70's September air never felt so good.

For half an hour or so we sat chatting and periodically jumping back into the lake.  Eventually, a storm marching up from the southeast caught our attention.

"We should head across the lake to get more water before that thunder storm gets here," Gordon said removing his arm from his knees and pointing toward the dark gray blob.

"How long have you guy's owned this place?" I asked pulling my T-shirt and fleece over my still wet head.

"Well we don't technically own it.  We have a hundred year lease."  Gordon replied, drying his hair with a towel.

"A hundred year lease?  How does that work?  What happens after a 100 years, do you just fork over the house?"

"It's a saying more than an actual time period.  Since the Forest Service owns the land, we lease it from them and built the house.  In effect, its ours.  It's legal jargon," Gordan said as he took a tug on the Mercury's ripcord and squeezed the gas line.  Taking another pull, the engine caught.

"Gotcha."

Pulling away from the dock, we headed towards the far side of the lake to fill up a few jugs with potable water from the alpine inlet. As the small 4-stroke buzzed I looked back at the distancing shoreline and the volcanic peak of Mt. Bachelor.

"One year or one hundred,  I'd take it."

Here are some more links,

Elk Lake (Picasa),

Out of Reception.

Indian Summer

As the sun sank, we made our way towards the train tracks bordering the Washington side of the Columbia River.  The smell of fermenting blackberries brought back memories of my childhood spent running around, face painted and brandishing a wrist rocket, blasting gravel and anything that moved.  Negotiating a vine the diameter of a ping-pong ball, I felt a familiar tug on my shorts and the sharp scrape of a blackberry thorn on my thigh.

"God damn it!" I moaned, grabbing the thorn and flicking it like a popcorn kernel.  "How do you get through this shit?"

"With this plank," Tim said, flipping a 12-foot plank on top of the blackberry bushes and walking across on it.  Following Tim's lead, I quickly made it through the bramble and onto the tracks.

Despite the shortening days,  temperatures in 80's made the steel tracks and black railroad ties feel like late July as we headed west a half mile towards a longtime favorite swimming hole.  Scrambling up the trail, we disregarded a no trespassing sign, emerging onto a basalt outcropping into the Columbia river.

Summer feet.

Splash.

Summer light.

A hydration bladder,  of sorts...

Boulder.

"Man it's getting darker earlier," Tim said crouching on a rock and dripping water from a jump.

"Indian Summer is in full effect," I grinned, pulling my T-shirt over my head and sliding on my flip flops.  "Let's go eat."  We were there for only twenty minutes, but that's what makes a summer swim a summer swim, even in mid September.

Here are some more links:

For daily updates, check out Out of Reception,

Swimming (Picasa).

Into the Fog

"Do you remember the movie "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer?" I asked Dan.  "Well the prospector guy in it says some shit about the fog being thicker than pea soup.  This fog certainly is,"  I said, imitating Yukon Cornelius' voice from the top of a cliff some 2oo feet above the Pacific.

Dan laughed, "Haha I remember him,  the guy with the pick....That was a horrible imitation, but you're right."

Insulated by the thick fog, the sound of an occasional Toyota pickup or RV cruising down Route 1 some 200 feet away barely registered over the pounding waves.

I took in a deep breath of salty air, "Damn it feels good to be back by the ocean."

After a month in the desert,  Dan and I cut through the Sierra Nevada and headed towards the ocean.  Stopping briefly in San Francisco, we followed Route 1 up the California coast.  Within a day, the climate changed from a dry alpine desert with frost at night to a constant 60° and foggy.  No rain, no sun, just constant moisture.

Hunting for surf breaks, we explored parks and pull offs.  Having not seen the open ocean in months, the sound of the sea and the smell of salt captivated me.  For four days we cruised north, into the fog.

Surfboards after a session north of Arcata.

Endless.

Camping Luxury.

I could live there.

Inspecting the swell.

Booties.

Free range, fog fed.

Low tide.

Weathered.

Windswept.

"This swell is sure a hell of a lot better than Maine," Dan observed "Let's see if it's even better further north."

I signaled my conjecture by grabbing the keys from my pocket and turning around.  "The mountains are great, but I could never be landlocked."

Nodding his head, Dan and I walked towards the Syncro and the promise of better waves.

Here are some more links,

Into the Fog (Picasa).

Nate Walks America

"I meet all sorts of folks from all over the world," the road worker explained, replacing his burned-out cigarette with a horseshoe of Copenhagen.   "Hell, two days ago, I met this kid that's walking across America."

"No shit?"  I said leaning out of my rolled down window somewhere along US-50 in Nevada.

"Yup.  He started out east in February,  Delaware I think.  Real nice kid, think he's For-rest Gu-mp or something. He walked through here two days ago and I gave him a Gatorade... Things are going fast today, the road should be cleared up in ten minutes," he said walking back towards the next car.

Thirty miles or so after the roadwork,  Dan and I spotted Nate walking along US-50.   Pulling onto the shoulder, we ran over to talk to him.

"Hey man, we hear that you're walking across America!" I said, striking up a conversation that lasted an hour covering topics from leaving our jobs to our roots in Maine (Nate grew up 20 minutes from where Dan and I went to school).

Nate left a comfortable job, a girlfriend and a "big TV" in late February after a year of debate.  "I just had to do it.  It got in my head and it wouldn't leave so I left..." from Delaware with a backpack, a one man tent, a few changes of clothes and enough food and water for two days trip.  Sleeping in campgrounds in the east and in parks and BLM land in the west, Nate marches 25 miles a day across the country. Once in every state, Nate takes a day off, sleeps in a hotel and catches up on emails.  To document his trip,  Nate maintains a website appropriately named Natewalksamerica.com, a Facebook page and a Twitter feed.  He has been at it for seven months.

"In Missouri, I ditched the backpack and ordered this stroller from Walmart.  I had it delivered to a store 100 miles a head.  Total life saver,  Immediately, my daily mileage went up from 15 to 25."  He's also gone through three pairs of shoes and now uses solid rubber innertubes on his Schwinn stroller to avoid flats.  Street Knowledge.

"Are you ready to finish?" Dan asked.

"No,  I love it out here.  I don't want to stop."

"You could always walk around the world," I suggested half joking.

"I have thought about that," he said grinning and scratching his head as if in deep thought.

Offering Nate a cold beer from my cooler he responded,  "No, I have made that mistake to many times.  I am permanently dehydrated and have lost a shitload of weight,  one beer would do me in."

I took his word for it, imagining the dozens of yahoos, like myself, that have offered him a beer as a token of their support.  Saying our goodbyes and exchanging contact info,  Dan and I jumped in the Syncro and hit the road.  In the rear view mirror, I watched Nate take a swig of water and started walking looking off into the rugged Nevada landscape.  Some people have it figured out, I thought to myself, shifting from first to second.

Here are some more links,

Nate Walks Across America (Picasa),

Nate Walks Across America (.com),

Whereisnate (Twitter),

Nate Walks Across America (Facebook).