Little House In The Red Station Wagon

One summer I saw half of America backwards. A greater poriton of the western United States receded from me at about 60 mph as I read the entire Laura Ingalls Wilder oeuvre from the rear-facing jump seat of a red station wagon.

We started out from Chicago. I grabbed my sister's box set of Little House books so I'd have something to read. By the time we got to Mount Rushmore I'd finished Little House In The Big Woods. The Four Stone presidents were fine and all, but I was disappointed at how small they looked from the observation deck; on TV and the movies they always appeared much bigger.

Deadwood, South Dakota, however, was an interesting town. Hey, is that the same Deadwood as the TV show? Either way, it had the grave site of some famous Western outlaw or hero, I forget who now. Maybe Wild Bill Hickcock? Someone like that. We went to a Safeway there and got a bunch of grapes which we ate in the town square as I started Little House On The Prairie.

Back in the jump seat, I skipped Farmer Boy because I didn't want to leave the Ingalls family and started On The Banks Of Plum Creek. That got me through most of Montana and Wyoming, at which point we stopped at Yellowstone National Park. Eh. We saw Old Faithful, and again I was not impressed. Much ado about nothing, really, yet there we sat with about 20 other people waiting for a bit of water to issue forth. Next.

I was well into By The Shores Of Silver Lake when we got to San Francisco. This was the middle of the summer, and it was like 48 degrees. We'd crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog, and thus I saw nothing of the bay or bridge. Laura was beginning to annoy me, however. Why couldn't she go blind? Oh well.

I enjoyed Fisherman's Wharf, and even bought a magic trick at a shop there (The Pull Apart Dove Box Vanish... it took almost half of the money I'd budgeted for the trip, but no matter). There was a lock-picking set, too, but it was too expensive ($20) so I had to pass. All the seafood looked great, but of course my step dad is even cheaper than me, so we didn't get to try any of it.

A few hundred miles and The Long Winter later, we were in Los Angeles, or rather Anaheim, where we finally got to sleep in real beds at the home of our uncle and aunt. I'd never heard of Anaheim before outside of people on game shows who were occasionally from there. Everyone was from some California town on game shows when I was growing up in the 1970s. I used to envy Californians because they got to go on game shows.

While there my mom, dad, and I also went to Universal Studios while my sister chose to go to the beach with my cousins. To this day she thinks she was gyped. She whines about these things, but did she ever have to help paw in the wheat fields or carry heavy pails of water to maw so she could make the morning biscuits like Laura did? No. So shaddup.

Back in the jump seat, we were off to San Diego as I started Little Town On The Prairie. The Ingalls family were really starting to wear thin on me by this point, but I carried on. San Diego had nothing really to offer other than Sea World, so off we went to view various aquatic mammals debasing themselves for a few pieces of herring. However, we did get to go to MEXICO while we were there (It was only later that I realized that Tijuana hardly counts as Mexico). I bought a really tasteful leather belt there; it wasn't gaudy or anything. Really.

We drove through Needles, California when it was 117 degrees Fahrenheit, and we had no air conditioning. But I didn't mind; after all, the folk who lived in the Little Town on the Prairie didn't have AC, either. I finished that book as we got to the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon? Eh. Again, TV and movies had built it up in my mind. I base most things on what I learned on TV... usually The Dick Van Dyke Show, but that's a post for another day. For the Grand Canyon, however, it was of course The Brady Bunch. And guess what? We didn't get to ride down into the canyon on donkeys. This disappointed me to no end. I at least wanted to throw a rock into the big hole, but I couldn't as I seem to remember signs saying specifically that you couldn't do this. The Grand Canyon hates 11 year old boys.

I read most of These Happy Golden Years and The First Four Years as I saw New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, and southern Illinois recede from me during the next few long days. I didn't read all of these last two, however, since the covers made them look dull and "girlie". I wanted to read about making your own smoke house, not about early marriage life. Who needs that?

We finally got home and I put the Little House books back in my sister's room. Someday I'll have to read Farmer Boy, but it won't be the same if I'm not reading it while traveling backwards in a station wagon.

Aurora Borealis

I've talked about the canoe trip I took in high school through the wilds of Cananda before on this blog. What follows is yet another anecdote from said trip.

Up where we were, about 300 miles or so north of Winnipeg, the days are long in July. I'd say it was at least 10pm before it got dark. Therefore, we didn't get to see it dark that often, since we were usually sound asleep by 9 or so. After all, we'd been up at 5am and canoed and portaged on average 30 miles before making camp, cooking, cleaning, and setting up the tents. Hell, we were lucky if we were still awake at 9pm.

Thus, we didn't get a chance to see the Northern Lights. Fred, my cousin and guide on this trip, thought we were lazy bastards because of this, and I guess he had a point. It also got kind of cold at night, so once we were in the tent we were usually in there until the morning (when we'd see hundreds of blood-gorged mosquitoes hovering around the top of the tent, but that's a story for another day).

One night, however, I woke up having to go to the bathroom and simply couldn't wait until the morning. I got out of the tent and wandered out a bit into the brush, and while standing there happened to look up.

Wow.

Later I realized it was the Northern Lights, but at the time, due to the fog in my head because of my sleepiness I thought I was in a dream, or on X or something (1). It was amazing... the whole sky sort of folded upon itself and shimmered a bit, all in complete silence... there was no wind or loon calls or water rushing. It was nothing like what I thought The Northern Lights were supposed to look like, which is another reason I didn't realize what I was looking at until much later (2). I finished and went back to sleep and promptly forgot about the whole thing by morning.

I'd really love to see that again, but fully awake this time.

(1) I'm guessing, because I've never actually tried X
(2) "much later" being several months later, when I suddenly remembered the whole thing.

Why ask why

In an answer to a query, I went on this trip because my cousin had been leading these excursions for about seven or eight years already (he still does so, but for the last 15 years or so they go up to Hudson Bay). He asked me if I wanted to go, and I could tell everyone (grandparents, aunt (his mother) were excited so I thought I better do it.

Fred has always been an outdoorsy type. He was an eagle Scout, and he won some competition when he was in high school given by National Geographic where he got to spend a couple of months on a glacier or something. That sort of thing. My great grandmother (his grandmother) always used to say that he was "more Indian than man." That used to make me laugh on so many levels, but mainly because, in her mind, I guess, Indians weren't human. She differentiated between, you know, real humans and native Americans. Now I know she didn't really believe this, but that's how is sounded.

I had a good time on the trip, but it was nothing like my grandparents and my aunt described. They had a much more romantic (and easy) view of the whole thing in their minds. And truth be told, it really wasn't that fun during the trip... it's only afterwards that you remember it being more fun than it really was... sort of like what I hear happens when you're in the army. Old vets get around the table playing bingo at the local VFW talking about the good old days while they were hip-deep in water in the jungles of New Guinea. That sort of thing.

The interesting thing is that my aunt (actually great aunt, being my grandmother's sister and all, but who's keeping score) actually went on one of Fred's canoe trips. She was all of 70. Frankly, I don't know how she did it; it was very tough and demanding. Perhaps (and this is not to diminish the accomplishment, for she was after all 70 years old) the Hudson Bay version of this trip is a bit easier. Less portages perhaps? I doubt he made her carry the canoe, either. But still, hats off to her and all that.

The aunt, by the way, was an art teacher, so she's the one who always paints the paddle for Fred (who does a new paddle each trip). Not everyone is as gifted and talented as yours truly; they must get others to do their handiwork. Heehee. ;-P

Paddle

As mentioned in another post, here's my paddle from the trip:


I still don't know why I painted a pelican; I went through a bunch of camping/nature/animal magazines, and this bird just struck me for some reason.

Oh, Canada

Almost 25 years ago now I went on a 3 week canoe trip through the wilds of Canada. It started about 200 miles north of Winnipeg, and we covered about 300 miles along the Manitoba/Ontario border. Nothing is up there... nothing... save the occasional hunting lodge about ever 40 miles or so. No roads. The hunters get there by pontoon boat, and that's how we got to the starting point, too.

We'd do about 20 miles a day on average. This is the only thing I didn't like about the trip; it was too fast-paced, like we were in the army or something, or we were trying to set some speed record. I'd much have preferred to take a leisurely pace, to enjoy the scenery. However, we did have to get to point B by a certain date to meet up with the other three groups (our main group of about 24 was broken into 4 groups of two canoes each and three people per canoe), and we had to get to site C by a certain date to get care packages that were flown in on that date, etc. But still. It was a relentless pace that required us to get up around 4:30 or 5am in order to be on the water by 6:30 or 7 (and getting up before the sun had risen guaranteed that our socks from the previous day were still soaking wet. Nothing is worse than having to put wet socks on in the morning, but we even got used to this), when we'd paddle five hours until lunch. An hour for lunch, then four or five more hours of paddling until we get to where we'd camp for the night.

"Paddling" is a misnomer, because of course not all that time we were "paddling". About half the time we were portaging... carrying canoe and supplies from one river/lake/waterway to another. Now, I had heard of portaging, but had made a couple of incorrect assumptions:

1. That the portages were short, like 50 feet, basically carrying the stuff around a rapids or waterfall or something, and

2. That two people carried the canoe.

I was wrong.

These little jaunts through mosquito-infested woods would average about half a mile, but were often two or three miles long. This may not seem like anything to those who walk a couple of blocks in the city to get your espresso and morning paper, but over rough terrain with rocky craigs, carrying either a 100 pound pack on your back with your paddle in one hand, a tent in another, OR carrying the damned canoe all by yourself balanced upon your shoulders, in 80 or 90 degree heat, being bit by mosquitoes relentlessly, often through literally two feet deep mud "paths"... it was hard.

Then, when you finally reached the next river you didn't get to rest. Oh no. We had a pace to keep up after all. No, it was back in the canoe and more paddling. The lucky one was the guy who got to sit in garbage (the middle place in the canoe between the stern and front paddlers) after a long hot portage. The garbage was responsible for navigation, of course, but that beat pounding the water.

It was beautiful scenery. Here's an example of what we saw after finishing a particularly long portage. See? Very nice. However, we couldn't really stop and look and take it all in. Instead we had to take a picture and then be on our way. What you don't see, however, is the sweat caked with dirt and dry grass that covered us here. You can't feel the mosquitoes still biting, and you can't feel the aching muscles in your legs and back. You can't feel the overpowering thirst that you can't quench until you've placed everything in the river and started paddling for a bit (at which point the garbage would simply dip a cup in the river and drink... the water was cold and the best tasting stuff I'd ever drank. Those paddling couldn't stop to use a cup, but we were taught how, after completing a paddle stroke, to quickly move the blade of the paddle to our mouths, allowing the water still on the blade to run off into our mouths... quickly, without breaking the stroke rhythm that much... before plunging the blade back into the water to continue propelling the canoe forward.

Our meals were actually very good. We'd spent the weeks before the trip preparing the food... bagging, etc. For example, Fred (my cousin, and the guy who has been doing these trips with his students for almost 30 years now) would buy brownie mix... regular Pillsbury mix, not some special camping thing... and open the box dumping the powder in a plastic bag, along with the cut-out directions. This would be tied with string, then placed in another bag, which was also tied with string. Before tying each bag we'd suck the air out of them. We did this with pudding mixes, brownies, cakes, etc. I wondered why so many desserts, but on the trail we really craved these. He knew what he was doing.

We also had some powdered eggs, powdered tomato sauce, about 6 cans of bacon, and a bunch of dehydrated stuff that he dried himself: peach pieces, ham, beef, etc, along with raisins. Then we also had plain flour and baking soda and baking powder and sugar, pasta, dried cheese... so on the trail we could actually make pizzas, or peach cobbler... whatever... using this thing that basically converted a fire to an oven. We'd pick as much fresh fruit, mainly blueberries, as we could along the way, and use this in pancakes or added to biscuits or muffins.

Lunch was always the same: "monk bread" spread with peanut butter and jelly, along with Kool-aide made with water from the lake (the kool-aid had all been pre-done prior: sugar and powder added to plastic bag; see above) and a piece of chocolate. Monk bread was sort of like this home-made granola bar that was made with oats, etc, and formed in empty paper quart milk containers. I didn't like the sounds of it, but it tasted good midday. Again, Fred knew what our bodies would crave.

All this food along with the fish we'd catch (Walleye, Northern Pike, etc) meant we ate very well. In fact I think I gained about 15 - 20 pounds on the trip, from the eating and from building muscle.

I took a lot of pictures (we all had cameras), but they're all in slide format. Yesterday I got a couple of them made into prints when I was working on an unrelated photo/video project, but I need to do all of them eventually. Until then I'll share a couple of my favorites. One is the above pic of one of the ends of a long portage. The other is a photo of my hiking boots. These are my boots after the trip. They were brand new before the trip (though I spent about a week walking all over with them to break them in). However, after probably 100 miles of hiking not to mention the constant walking through knee-deep water that we did really took its toll on them. I've black and whited the photo because I think it looks better. Someday I'll blow it up and hang it over the fireplace in my oak-walled study and gaze upon it whilst smoking a meerschaum pipe...