Day 46: The Transporter

 Rolled out of bed for a dentist appointment this morning.  After, worked to get Jen and the kids (sans Betty) into the car. Why?

During a midnight feeding, I discovered that our local Titan Arum was in bloom.

We went to see a flower.

What?

The Titan Arum is the world's largest flower, and it's also fairly endangered. Our local college (WSU Vancouver) has one. Actually, it has 4. Due to a "watering mishap" many years ago, the poor thing exploded from overwatering and grew into 4 clones in the same pot.

 

 

 

This flower is called the "corpse flower". When it blooms, it supposedly emits an unmistakable and strong odor of rotting flesh (thus summoning flies, its main pollinator).

This 4-way one is fun because you can see all 4 stages of its lifecycle-- 

1) all the way under the ground. 

2) A single leaf (yes, that big 15-foot palmy thing is ONE leaf)

3) A gigantic flower

4) Seeds

So, we dropped everything to see the flower because it started blooming at 4 PM yesterday and only blooms for about 24 hours. Full disclosure, the thing wasn't VERY open anymore, and didn't stink anymore. Apparently that's only when it begins blooming. Too bad.

Nevertheless, when you get a chance to see a Corpse Flower, drop everything and go.

We grabbed some Grimace Shakes afterwards (meh), and then it was time for me to spend all day in the car.

I drove to Wilsonville to swap back nephew Garrett's 4Runner for our Flex.

Then out to Pacific City to pick up Betty who has been having the time of her life at her cousins' house.

...I got a call from Garrett about a half hour after leaving his house-- I left my wallet in his 4Runner. Yikes, now my plans for picking up lunch and maybe some car snacks were ruined.

Without something to drink or munch on, I got pretty sleepy on the way to the coast. I ended up taking a half hour nap off the side of the road somewhere in the coast range.

By the time I got to Pacific City, I think the cousins were pretty done with Betty, but she sure had a great time. Betty's stuff was all packed and ready by the door. Glenn and Megan are so sweet to take Betty in for the week. That was super awesome. Betty lost a tooth today, then LOST it in the yard. Betty was super upset and a bit traumatized that we were driving away from the house without that tooth. How would the tooth fairy EVER get it?

Leaving the house, I asked Betty if she had gone to the beach this week. She said they had never even offered, but she wished they had. [leaving our house 4 days ago, Betty was whining, "I don't wanna go to the beach". hmm.] So, 30 seconds later, Betty and I were at the beach. 

It was sunny and warm, but super windy. We still had fun. I got to splash my feet in the water. We made a sand-mountain. Ran around a bit. Then took off for home.

Betty whinily asked me questions all the way home as my patience slowly wore away.... but I love her and she's cute.

We rendezvoused with Garrett on the way home and, with cash in hand, got Jersey Mike's subs.

Then home at 8 PM to bottle and snuggle Ida. That was a long day on the road.

Day 45: Lookout, farewell.

 Today began as yesterday-- with a beautiful sunrise. 

The morning sun cast a magical glow on everything in our surroundings. It was sad that we had to (eventually) leave it today.

There was a bit more reading and napping, but the morning was mostly spent packing, hauling everything back to the car, and drinking in the last of the amazing views.

a pile of diapers to pack out.

 

One last snuggle/feeding before we go.

 

A farewell selfie with the tυoʞoo⅃ ɘɘγT

...and a farewell selfie with the view.

By 10:30, we were packed up and out. Ready for our long, long, long drive home. We bumped back down the hill, white-knuckled. Took us a few hours to reach civilization.

I learned that the area we were staying in was part of the 1994 Tyee Burn, and was one of the largest wildfires in the state of Washington. Things are recovering nicely, but there aren't a lot of trees at the top of that mountain.

We took some time to communicate with our kids, and some time to feed and change Ida.

There was a lot of one person driving while the other slept today. We saw this alongside the road in Satus Pass:

Either someone was making lemonade using a gallon of distilled water, or that's the biggest trucker bomb I've ever seen. There's got to be a story behind that. That's not someone running late or not finding a rest stop in an emergency, that's a gallon of pee. Imagine the planning and foresight it would take to fill a gallon with urine while driving. Somebody had to plan ahead to get that gallon bottle, had to manage it and hold onto it for several days until it was full, and had to make sure it didn't spill or slosh the whole time, then had to find the right place to jettison it alongside the road. An awful lot of thought and planning went into that. Eww. Just stop and use the toilet already.

Late in the afternoon, we stopped at Washington's Stonehenge. Jen said that in 20 years of living in the northwest and hearing about it, she'd never been there. So, we fixed that.

henged.

Washington Stonehenge isn't that impressive as far as henges go, but it was a beautiful day in a beautiful location, so we got lots of pictures of Mt. Hood, barges on the river, trains, and a beautiful valley.

Finally, after Subway in Hood River [side note: Hood River is a hard place to find food after-hours], we made it home by 10 PM. Long day. Edgar and Sabrina about pounced on Ida. We'll reunite with Betty tomorrow.

Day 44: Fire, Lookout!

 Ida slept from bedtime to almost dawn. That's a record, I think. Oddly enough, Jen had no trouble with the mattresses in the fire lookout, but I had a hard time being comfortable and getting my temperature right. It made me sleepy all day.

The pre-dawn was beautiful in 360 degrees. When the sun finally came up at 5:07, it was a red egg on the eastern horizon.

 

Our day was beautiful. The fire lookout gets a little airless with the altitude and 3 people breathing inside (plus the occasional propane lantern and citronella candle eating oxygen too). Anyway, I spent most of today outside on the porch surrounding the lookout. At least when I could.

At 7 AM, I spotted a fire.

No, really. There was a plume of smoke.

see it?

I looked up a quick youtube video on how to use the Fire Finder in the middle of the room. The fire was at bearing 146.6 degrees. With that information in mind, I called 9-1-1. It was a bit awkward, but I think I did OK. I gave them the bearing. My estimate was that the fire was about a mile east or southeast of Ardenvoir, Washington. 

9-1-1 informed me that there were lots of reports of lightning-related fires this morning, and they would collate this call with all the others to make sure I wasn't reporting something that had already been reported.

By 11 or so, the smoke stopped. I want to assume that brave firefighters nipped that particular blaze in the bud.

So, not super exciting, but I got to play the part of a hero. Jen and Ida slept through most of it, although I did have to poke Jen and wake her up to show her the smoke.

With no other fires spotted, the rest of the day was left to reading, napping, and caring for Ida.

I kept trying to escape the airless lookout. We could open a window, but...

You could almost tell the time of day from the bugs that were outside. This mountaintop is apparently covered in bugs. Not too many birds or predators... just bugs.

Dawn belonged to the flies-that-look-and-sound-like-bees-but-they're-actually-flies. Early morning brought the winged ants, which had a colony in the shingles of the lookout roof. I had a group of 4 fall on me at once while outside reading.

winged ants, from inside.

There was a large colony of ladybugs that lived near Jen's bed. They got so plentiful in the lookout that you could open the screen door, bang it so the ladybugs fell off, and close it again and (barely) reduce the number of bugs inside.

One of many ladybugs living in LO-516.

By noon, it was mosquitoes, and we had to be careful what we let in the lookout. We had repellent and citronella candles, so we weren't unprepared.

 

 

Early afternoon brought cooling, wind, more thunderstorms, and a break from the bugs. 

Some fun adventures from our day-- Ida outdrank what Jen could produce using her pump, so we had to heat up some refrigerated milk from the cooler. Improvising, I warmed up the cold, cold ziplock of milk in my armpit. Brr. I don't recommend it. Once the milk was finally a drinkable temperature, Ida drank it all. I swear she grew during this trip. She looks less like a new-newborn. Less teeny-tiny. She's still small, but I can see some chub in her face. She has a tiny bit of muscle control. She's growing up. That's kinda sad, but also good for my sleep deprivation.

We kept our phones on airplane mode to save battery most of the time, but we did communicate with the kids. Edgar and Sabrina did OK on their own. Jen ordered Jimmy Johns subs delivery for them tonight. (Apparently they didn't get their order right). 

Betty is having a super fun time with cousins. She keeps sending us weird things like this:

 

I got to use the loo-with-a-view. 

Jen even saw a rainbow when she pooped!

The camping directions strictly say this terlet is only for poop. There's not enough capacity here to pee in the toilet. Despite it being early in the season, the thing was almost full up. I won't share Jen's story without her permission about how she managed to do #1 in the wilderness, but I think she's cool and I admire her adaptability.

We played some guitar together and worked on writing a song.

Jen's phone lit up with a Fire Weather Warning for the entire central washington area. Despite being a little spooked, we decided to stay the course, thinking that if there WERE a fire, we'd be the first to know about it anyways.... right?

We played some Ticket to Ride and eventually settled down for the night. Again, much of the day was spent reading on the wrap-around porch of the fire lookout, caring for Ida, napping, and repeating.

It was a very good day.

Day 43: On Top of the World

Wow what a day. On top of the world. 

First, some cute looks in the hotel room. Watched a few Columbo and Murder, She Wrote reruns on the hotel TV during overnight and morning feedings. Ida was awake for a 2 hour stretch last night bookended by two 4-hour stretches of sleep. This is beginning to look more structured and doable for the future (which is good, because I return to work next week). 

Next, a visit to Aunt Mary and Uncle Johnny's grave. Aunt Mary was like a grandma to me and raised my dad for several years. She was quite a character.

We also visited my Carmichael Grandparents' old home and Aunt Mary's old home. There wasn't much (new) to see at Carmichaels, but Aunt Mary's looked different. All the tall trees were gone from both places, which was weird.  I honestly thought Aunt Mary's house was beyond repair, but there it is, all neutral-grey and modernized-looking:

Her cherry orchard hasn't been plowed under into endless subdivisions, but it's oddly empty. I wonder what the future holds there.

There was a family living in her daughter Jessie's old house/trailer on the property, with a little kid in diapers running around playing in the old barn that I used to play in / got frequently scolded for playing in because it was old and unsafe 40 years ago. Out of respect for families of shirtless kids I didn't post a picture.

The sunnyslope area of Wenatchee was all torn up, so it took us a long time to travel very short distances, but we eventually picked up some fast food and took it to Ohme Gardens for a picnic.

This was my first visit to Ohme Gardens. It was beautiful.  A little slice of heaven in eastern washington. We walked Ida all around. There was a big brushfire on the hill south of Wenatchee.

From there, it was time to climb the mountain to our true destination for the weekend. We may have taken a wrong turn at some point, but we got to visit the very (erm, brief) town of Brief that was directly below our destination.

We had a downpour hit during our trip. These turkeys found a safe place to shelter:

After about an hour of windy paved roads, we hit the last 4 miles of bumpy dirt roads. This is why we brought the 4WD vehicle. I'd never gone off-roading to such a degree. It was kind of a white-knuckle affair, where I had to keep enough momentum to keep rolling forward over all the loose rocks while keeping the car from bouncing off the road. We listened to Sting to help keep calm over those white-knuckle roads. Baby slept through all of it, so it must have been a success.

Home away from home.

Our royal steed.

The view up from the Entiat valley. The lookout is barely visible at the top of the center peak.

The view from the top down to that same spot.

So this is our home for the next two days, the Tyee Lookout. Years ago, I heard about staying in fire lookouts. and I've been trying since before we had kids to secure one. It's taken 14+ years, but I finally got one, and when was it available? When baby was 6 weeks old. So, we made the best of it. Having all 6 of us trapped in a 14x14 room was not a great idea, especially with several of our kids' fear of heights, etc. So, we made arrangements and made it a Jen+Alex+Ida trip.

Upon arrival, we were astounded by the views. This is amazing. We did have to schlep our gear up the equivalent of a few flights of stairs from the car, but that's the price you pay for staying on top of a mountain. There's no electricity or water, and the cell service is iffy, but this is amazing.

A 360 degree view. I'm breathing heavy because of the high altitude and the carrying the gear to the top of the mountain.

By the time we gout our gear loaded in, there were several small thunderstorms in the hills around us. Nothing ever got really close, and this place is really wired up with a lightning rod and several grounding cables, so I THINK we're safe. It was cool to see lightning, and things cleared up by sunset.

We settled in for the night, played a little guitar, and learned a new card game, but mostly sat snuggling Ida and dazedly looking out the window at the storms rolling past.

 

What a great place.