A nap can be the highlight of a good day. Tired from exercise or chores, cool sheets, and the fuzz of a favorite stuffed bear, or two, is just the thing. No more words required. We all love a good nap.

This is a repost of an evocative interaction with a young couple in crisis. Men and women are different. Duh. We have to learn to live together and learn communication, throughout our relationships. Hopefully we gave this young couple something to remember, something to go back to in times of difficulty.

Bob:

“You don’t fu….. care about me!” It came from a young woman sitting in a car beside Turtle. “You don’t treat me like you did before. You don’t treat me the same fu….. way you did before we got married.” A young man, stood tall beside her window, hands at his sides, outer calm mirrored in his desert camouflage uniform, defending himself in an even tone. “It’s not me. It’s you,” he said.

His tone and demeanor seemed to make her even angrier. The recriminations continued, she shrill and emotional, he controlled, uncommunicative.

Claire and I looked at each other. We both had tears in our eyes. It was our twentieth anniversary, and we were witnessing the beginning of the end of a young marriage. It didn’t take words between us to know what we would do. We held hands and walked around the motorhome to them.

Claire: I was really nervous about this type of encounter; domestic disputes are one of the most dangerous calls for police, but we could tell from the vague, repetitive accusations that they had reached an impasse.

Bob: “It’s our twentieth anniversary,” I said. “And we just had to say something. We couldn’t help but overhear.” I nodded toward Turtle. “I hope you don’t mind.” He acknowledged us, “No.” She quickly put the car in reverse and said “It’s okay, I was just leaving.” But she didn’t.

I looked at him. “You don’t understand her emotions. You will when you are older, but for now, just listen. She’s hurting, and you need to hear her” And to her through the window I said, “You don’t understand why he’s so calm, so unresponsive to your hurt.” She nodded, still looking down. “He’s just doing what men are taught. We’re not supposed to show emotion. Fathers and football coaches,” I acknowledged his uniform, “the military, none of them reward a show of emotion.” I clapped him on the shoulder, there were still tears in my eyes, “When you are 66 you will know that it’s okay to cry, but not yet. I understand.”  “But you have to understand her need to see you show her your love.”

She stole a furtive look at him, her mascara left marks of her tears. “You’re being a man, and she’s being a woman.” He smiled just a tiny bit.

Claire: “It’s what men do, it’s called freezing up, it happens when they are feeling bombarded, so they just clam up. Trust me, this happens to men and women all over the world, but it just causes the women to yell more because they think they’re not being heard.”

Bob: “You gotta work together. That’s the hard part of marriage, but it’s the rewarding part too.” I turned to him. “We travel, just the two of us, on our tandem bicycle all over the world.” His eyebrows went up. “Last year we rode over the Tibetan Plateau, through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, three thousand miles.” He was really listening now; man stuff I guess. “A few years before, we went from Beijing to Istanbul.” I touched his arm. “Across Central Asia; I hope you don’t have to go there.” I didn’t expect him to be as attentive as he had become; he was really hearing what an old man (to him) had to say. “A couple doesn’t do something like that without knowing how to work together.”  I smiled at what I’d just said. “There’s nothing like it.” “But, it takes some time, and a lot of listening.”

Claire: The writer in me spoke to her: “If you aren’t able to communicate what you need, try writing it down, write what’s wrong and write what you think would fix it, but don’t give up.” She cracked the window a bit more and went back to twisting the beautiful wedding and engagement rings.

Bob: She rolled her window down further and looked up at him, he down at her. “Touch each other,” I gently insisted. They slowly reached out to touch hands and lock eyes. “We’ll go away now.”

We hurried to Turtle, threw things where they wouldn’t fall and started the engine. As we drove away, he was leaning through the window and they were kissing.

We could have gifted ourselves a cruise to Alaska, celebrated at the Captain’s table with expensive Champagne, and seen Alaskans at a safe remove. Instead, we had leftovers and box wine in Turtle in a library parking lot, and maybe, just maybe, made a difference in two young lives. No contest.

Petrified Forest National Park is an easy exit from I-40 in the wide open spaces of Northern Arizona. Perhaps it is those vast desert plains, or deep blue skies, that keep drivers focused on the road to Grand Canyon or beyond. They are missing a starkly haunting place of spectacularly colored patterned petrified logs, and not so easily seen, but just as spectacular: dinosaur remains, petroglyphs, and fossils, and the mystery that surrounds their existence here.

Recently Claire and I were lucky enough to catch a hike guided by the park paleontologist and an interpretive ranger. The short, two mile or so, hike took us away from the road and interpretive signs and into the washes and flats where dinosaurs died 225 million  years ago in the late Triassic Period. We found pieces of bone and Claire even found an intact tooth.  The stark landscape adds to the mystery and amazement of the realization that you are holding a thing that was once part of a living Stagonolepis so long ago. Nothing like science to put one’s lifespan into perspective.

Mount Mazama, once over 12,000 feet in elevation, went through a half-million years of alternating eruptions and quietude. Between seven and eight thousand years ago, Mount Mazama erupted violently numerous times, covering eight states and three Canadian provinces with six inches of ash. These eruptions produced 150 times the ash as the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980. I was around for that one, just below the summit of Mount Hood, south of St. Helens, but I don’t seem to remember Mount Mazama’s last big blow.

For the past five thousand years, Mount Mazama has been resting, and quietly creating the deepest lake in America, Crater Lake. It is the seventh deepest lake in the world at 1943 feet, and is also one of the purest in the world. Here’s hoping it stays that way until the next eruption turns it all to steam.

When will that happen? Who knows. But, it will, and so will the other Cascade Range volcanoes, and the really big one, Yellowstone. Mount St. Helens was a wake-up. There are more to come. I just hope I’m around to see another one.

Crater Lake is well worth the detour, and the best way to see it is, of course, by bicycle. Just be reasonably fit, and have serious mountain gearing. The views are worth the effort.

The Olympic Peninsula of Washington State is not as famous for sunset skies as some places, but when the sun has a little space between clouds to work with, spectacular results. Some of the best skies are late in the day in winter. It seems like winter is coming early this year (La Nina), and this evening sky gives strong hints of things to come.

Hiked a 5 mileRT/2000 ft. trail with Bob’s sister Anna Bowlds today. At the summit we watched locals float over forests and meadows and slowly guide their fascinating craft to a gentle landing far below. Looks like fun. Nice Claire photos!

In the summer of 1997 we did a Zippy (our tandem) tour of British Columbia and Alberta, 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles). Toward the end of our two months, we said goodbye to Steve Richards who’d been with us for three weeks in the mountains of Southern BC. Steve was later to finish his own trans-Canada tour. We got on the, still unfinished, Kettle Valley Railway (rail trail) bypassing Kelona and on to Penticton. The Myra-Bellevue Provincial Park is the most spectacular section of the trail, with 18 trestles and two tunnels in an 8.5 kilometer section. On this section, we met a couple who invited us to stay in their cabin near Penticon. They were obviously experts on riding the trail; they had us riding the unfinished trestles, with 6 inch spaces between cross-beams; we had to keep up quite a bit of speed to keep from shaking the fillings from our teeth, but it was fun. Unfortunately I can’t remember their names, but they might be found in the Canadian Love Story, British Columbia/Alberta section on this site.

We were heartbroken to learn that the Okanagan fires of 2003, burned most of the trestles. Originally built for the Kettle Valley Railway, to stop we Americans from stealing their silver and transporting it south across the border. Begun in 1896 and finished in 1916, it was, and still is, considered an engineering feat given the steepness of the terrain. It became part of the Trans Canada Trail after abandonment late in the last century.

After the fires, Canadians pulled together to replace the national treasures between 2004 and 2008. We decided we wanted to revisit the rail, and see the new and repaired trestles, and plotted a mountain bike ride. All access roads are gravel, and we decided to ride from the nearest paved road to save Turtle (our motorhome) wear and tear, and get in a good workout. We got what we wanted! A 2,000 foot elevation change in five miles is quite a grunt, for two motorhome travel softened cyclists. We wondered how we ever managed to get to the trail on a fully loaded Zippy. It could have to do with the reality that both of us were 13 years younger then. Damn. Hate those reminders.

The Myra rebuilt trestle section of trail has become somewhat a victim of its own success; the trailhead parking area, ¼ mile long, was filled on Sunday. The first few kilometers of the trail was crawling with cyclists and walkers, making the going slow, but we’d had our workout, and just wanted to see the trestles at leisure.

Unfortunately many of the cyclists thought the eight kilometer section of flat trail constituted their workout, and went way too fast for the crowding. Almost no one wore helmets, and tended to pass each other, and walkers, at high speed on the trestles. One unfortunate older woman cyclist was forced off the middle boards and crashed against the railing, unable to handle the cross beams. She was wearing a helmet, but hurt her shoulder and was in considerable distress. A doctor and a trail volunteer were soon on the scene with first aid. I have often observed that, contrary to popular belief, separate trails are in many cases not safer than the roads. I’ve seen too many inexperienced cyclists exceeding their skill level, probably because they feel safe on a trail. We support trails with our dollars and labor, but do suggest that beginning cyclists avoid the week-end warriors and get some experience in mid-week when the trails are quiet. If you are a regular trail user, call-out the speeders and obviously unsafe riders, you could save some proper trail user a painful crash. If you yourself feel the need for speed, get on the road and leave the trails for others.

Father and son building rock cairns, something of a tradition on the Kettle Valley Rail Trail. “I was here!”

“Is this the way to the trail mix?”

We had to leave Alaska without getting to take the Top Of The World Highway out because of a second storm caused blowout of the road in Alaska. In Whitehorse, two days later, we discovered we could have taken it had we waited one more day. Unfortunately the Alaska highway department wasn’t giving out predictions, and the first closure was for over a week.

We did enjoy a great boondock on a lake in Yukon, with a beautiful bike ride the day after, on our way to Whitehorse.

Motorhomes traveling through smoke on the Stewart Cassiar Highway in Yukon Territory

We were unsure if we would be able to travel the Stewart Cassiar Highway into British Columbia, due to ongoing forest fires. The road had been closed for a couple of weeks, but we heard rumors that they were caravaning vehicles through on some days. We were there early among the first in line. It was an interesting 50 kilometers or so, with small flames visible along the road at times, and some thick smoke. It was worth the effort.

Boondock View From Stewart Cassiar Highway

From the Stewart Cassiar Highway we took a side trip to Stewart, BC, on the Portland Canal of the Inside Passage. A fairly short mountain bike ride later got us to a grizzly bear viewing area of the Tongas National Forest in Alaska. We missed a sow grizzly by seconds. According to volunteers, something spooked her up on to the road just before our arrival. We saw her still wet paw prints in the road after we rounded a corner. I sure am glad we weren’t there when she burst out of the brush, scared for her cubs and soon to become mad at innocent us! All we saw at the site was a few bushes rustling. All this time in the far north, and not one grizzly sighting. Maybe the wet paw prints were more exciting than seeing her from the protection of a raised viewing platform.

Grizzly Bait, Spawning Salmon

On the way back to Stewart Cassiar, we boondocked just across the outlet pond of Bear Glacier. The howling, but cooling breeze off the glacier helped cool us in the 85 degree weather.

The coastal mountains and glaciers are the most spectacular we’ve seen on this trip. We could spend a long time exploring the Stewart Cassiar and surrounds. We moved on south because the forest fires, all over BC, were making mountain viewing impossible, and we didn’t want to get trapped on the Yellowhead Highway before Prince George, the only way east or south.

We’re traveling the Yellowhead Highway eastbound, looking for a smoke free passage south. We did get in a good day in Smithers, BC, and rode through bucolic farmland, met and enjoyed a few locals. Claire found her maiden name on a road sign.

Wish for us to find blue skies and sweet peaches in the Okanagan. (Yes, that’s how it’s spelled in Canada)

]]> http://newbohemians.net/goodby-alaska-hello-again-canada/feed 0