Live Love Loiter

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I’m staying at my buddy Matt’s house right now. Of my good friends, he’s the one I’ve known longest. Matt, an opportunist if ever there was one, couldn’t help himself one day in our seventh grade Social Studies class. He had been laboriously extracting an enormous booger from deep within his sinuses. Finally it broke free, but before propelling it across the room with a mighty flick (Matt was renowned for mighty flicks), he elbowed me and held his finger out so I could admire his treasure in all of its splendor. My jaw dropped wide open at the sight of such a monumental specimen. I find it difficult to say what happened next but If you recall that Matt is an opportunist, and renowned for mighty flicks, and that my mouth was hanging wide open, you’ll figure it out. Our relationship was a bit rocky there for a bit, but I finally found it in my heart to forgive him. Now I’m at his house in Seattle. If he were here I’d make him breakfast in bed as a sign of the everlasting covenant of peace between us. He’d love my toe-jam omelets; I season them with the perfect amount of dandruff. Anyway that punk ran off to Florida to visit family. Something about prior plans. Hogwash.

Jeremy flew home for the weekend for his family’s reunion and the celebration of his grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary. So I’m loitering in Seattle, a bit lonely but far from sleepless. I’ve been trying to use my time wisely: gearing up for cold weather in Alaska, beginning work on what I hope will one day develop into a book, and researching ways to get across the giant pond you’ve seen in the upper left hand corner of your map.

Last time I wrote from the rugged coastline of Southern Oregon. Lots has happened since then, let me fill you in. A week ago Friday we continued our drive up the coast. We passed the sea lion caves (you may confidently use your powers of deduction to figure out what we saw there), and a handful of quaint harbor towns before reaching Lincoln City. I took the wheel in Lincoln City and soon thereafter applied sufficient clockwise torque to alter our course inland towards Portland.

Between the coast and Portland we stopped only twice: once for a $3.99 lunch special at a Chinese place, and a second time to buy some tires from some friendly Turkish guys who convinced us we were getting a bargain. They did sweeten the deal by putting us in touch with their cousin who sails the Mediterranean. I left them half a quart of black berries I had picked the previous evening, partly out of good will, and partly hoping they’d go ahead and put in a good word for us with the Mediterranean cousin.

Portland required our attention for three reasons: One reason was male, but the other two were female (I hope my use of the past tense hasn’t confused anyone, the three “reasons” intend to maintain their respective genders indefinitely). Bryan and I worked together at Camp Wawona in Yosemite. We arrived at his house a bit late for the 13 mile hike he had planned, but we grabbed lights and decided to do it anyway. Hiking fast we could theoretically finish before midnight, but it’s impossible to hike fast when three different species of wild berries team up to distract you. We managed to summit Silver Star mountain just in time to watch the sun set. The glowing panorama included views of four of the Northwest’s most famous peaks: Hood, Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier (I named the last batch of pictures prior to learning how to spell “Rainier”). Normally it would be impossible to see that many peaks, and often none would be seen, but we were blessed with especially clear weather.

On the return hike Jeremy walked fast and got ahead, but retreated briskly and explained he thought we should walk together since he had just seen a bear cub. I was impressed with his calm demeanor since he had likely been very close to the cubs protective mother. Bryan and I still awarded Jeremy partial bravery points when his bear turned out to be a porcupine.

The two other reasons for going to Portland go by Lauren and Bonnie. Friday night had been an adventure in the mountains, but Saturday night was a social adventure. Several months had passed since friends at college had mentioned there was a cute girl named Lauren living in Portland. They had given me her number so I decided to call and ask for a date. It’s rough to get your courage up to call someone, and then get their voicemail instead of them. I wanted to talk to her in person. It was something like committing to bungee jumping, but at a surprise moment. “Ready Bjorn?”… ” Yeah, I think so.”… “Nevermind not yet.”… “dang it.” After several rounds of this my nerves were fully bewildered. Just about the time I started expecting to get her voicemail, she answered.

Lauren seemed pretty sceptical, but said if she could bring a friend (of course this was fine with Jeremy) we could go to the John Mayer concert. The concert was near George, Washington (they would name their town that) at an outdoor venue called the Gorge Amphitheater. Matt brought a group of friends from Seattle so we met them there. Our seats were a very long way from the stage, but my date was quite resourceful. She brought along a pair of binoculars. John Mayer himself was still kinda hard to make out with the binoculars, but if you used them to look at the jumbo-tron screen you could get a pretty good idea of what was going on. It can be hard to chat at a concert, but it was easy for us, we were far enough away it was almost like not even being at a concert. All the fun none of the hassle! I can’t speak for everyone, but I had a great time.

After the concert we said goodbye to the girls. They had driven their own car in order to avoid aligning their fates with people like us. They headed for a hotel and we followed Matt a few miles to a climbing area where we laid down to sleep in the dirt. As I gazed up at the night sky one of the brightest shooting stars I’ve ever seen burst into view. Matt didn’t see it but I told him about it and he suggested, since he’s been looking for employment, that I use my wish to get him a job. I’m not superstitious so this seemed silly, but just in case there was something to it I went ahead and wished aloud, “I wish there to be a Subway at the exit where we get back on the main road tomorrow.”

In the morning we climbed some picturesque volcanic rock before loading up to head for Seattle. We were starving by the time we got out to the main road. There was only one restaurant at that exit: a Subway. I had a footlong…. It was soooooo good.

-Bjorn2BWild