Wide open spaces

When I'm not doing after-hours volunteer work at local animal hospitals, I sometimes make time for the humans in my life. This weekend, that meant taking a trip to Portland, Oregon, where friends of the blog Josh and Kalli were being married.

My own contempt for the state of Oregon was apparently overlooked during the wedding planning process. Also surely unbeknownst to the future newlyweds, the 4th of July was scheduled to occur over the weekend. Nevertheless, I decided to make a road trip out of the deal, and explore the outdoors a little along the way. My foolproof itinerary called for me to drive halfway to Portland on Friday afternoon, camp on the California side of the state line, make the remainder of the trip Saturday morning, and then burst into the wedding venue dramatically as the ceremony was starting.

Everything went exactly according to plan for the first 15 minutes of the journey. Then, barely across the Bay Bridge, I became entangled - for three hours - in a traffic standstill caused by an accident and lane closures a little further down the highway.

I slogged my way through, well after I'd exhausted my vocabulary of curse words and frustrated hand gestures. The next 320 miles or so went much more smoothly. My destination for the night was Klamath National Forest, where I'd be setting up a campsite alongside something called Beaver Creek. As the descending sun urged me on, I sped along Interstate 5, unprepared for the breathtaking stretches of CA-263 and CA-96 that would usher me into the forest.

Beaver Creek Campground is a well-hidden affair, and only supports a handful of campers. Fortunately for me, one open site remained at the time of my arrival. One of the other inhabitants of the campground, an elderly fellow who used a cane to get around, stopped by and offered some pleasantries, and then segued nicely into a remembrance of past camping trips when he'd seen rattlesnakes on the stone slabs near where I'd be sleeping. Armed with this reassuring information, I settled in for the night, serenaded by the rushing of the creek and the crackles of the campfires of others.

I packed up and left early the next morning, satisfied with beating the odds of a snake attack for as long as I had. Out in the world, sunrise was penetrating into the canyon that the Klamath River cuts through the neighboring mountains. The drive along Highway 96, and later on 263, is accompanied on one side by the river's sparkling blue water, and on the other by a hillside of granite and marble. The smell of pine needles is heavy in the air, and on this morning, July heat already gripped the landscape like a coat of fresh paint.

Later that day, after stopping in Salem (don't go, by the way) to watch the Spain-Paraguay World Cup match, I found myself in Portland. Several hours after that, I ate some rhubarb pie.

On Sunday, I celebrated Independence Day by gaining my independence from Oregon. As I passed the "Welcome to California" sign that afternoon, I was reminded that this weekend marks the end of a third year living in the Golden State. I thought back to the first time I saw that sign, and the role that the allure of the unknown played in my coming here.

This weekend, I was asked a familiar question: When are you coming back to Seattle? Because it's not usually cool to answer a question with a poem, I responded simply that I'd love to return, but that I have no immediate plans. However, Robert Frost once wrote what I consider a more elegant response:

I do not see why I should e'er turn back,

Or those should not set forth upon my track

To overtake me, who should miss me here

And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew -

Only more sure of all I thought was true.