What Lies at the Bottom of the Lake

In Sri Lanka, they drive on the left-side of the road. In Egypt, the right. Knowing this, we decided to sell our right-hand drive car in Colombo before we moved. But it was going to be easier to buy a car in the United States and ship it to Egypt than it would be to buy a car in Cairo. 

On our second day in Spokane, we bought a used Subaru Ascent. For the past four years, we drove a small Ford EcoSport. The car fit our family well four years ago, but as the kids grew, the car got smaller. A lot smaller. By the end of our time in Sri Lanka, the three kids were crammed into the back seat, leaving no room for friends or anyone else. I figured with three rows of seats, they would have more and wouldn't fight as much, but this hasn't proven to be the case. Now they just fight over who has to sit in the 'way-way back'. 

Buying a car saved us thousands in rental car fees over the summer. But that savings was about to come to an end. When I called up the shipping company to arrange for them to pick up the car in Cheney, they told me it would cost $7,000 to ship the car, much more than I was originally told it would.  

But it would be half that if we shipped the car from Washington, D.C. I received the news by e-mail Thursday morning. I spent most of the morning freaking out. When I finished freaking out, I came up with a plan. 

I would drive the car across the country. 

We were scheduled to fly from Spokane to Washington, D.C. early Saturday morning, arriving to Dulles around four in the afternoon. A quick search of Google Maps told me it would take about 36 hours to make the trip, not counting gas and rest stops. I quickly packed my two bags and loaded the bike boxes and a few other pieces of luggage into the car so Elise and the kids wouldn't have to check them. Elise's mom packed a bag of snacks that would sustain me across 11 states and I borrowed a road atlas from her dad. After a few entirety too-hasty goodbyes, I left Cheney at four in the afternoon. I did the math in my head, constantly recalculating after every bathroom break, fill up, or coffee stop; I could sleep for seven hours and still make it to D.C. in time to check into our temporary corporate housing apartment, drop off the bike boxes, and pick Elise and the kids up at Dulles airport by the time they landed and collected their luggage. 

How was the drive?

Honestly? A blur. 

The mountains in Montana are beautiful. I drove too fast through Montana. The Starbucks in Missoula closes at 7:30. I pulled into Missoula at eight, so had to drink McDonald's coffee. With only seven hours of sleep, the plan was to drive as much as I could the first night, so I could get a solid four or five hours the second. I never got drowsy.

Lightning flashed overhead in South Dakota, brilliant streaks that slashed and sliced open the sky, illuminating the prairie like a strobe light, ions dancing off the bolts of lightning until they dissolved in the electrified air. Mazzy Star 'Fade Into You' played on the radio. My downloaded music mix lasted 24 hours. 

I pulled over in a rest area for two hours after driving around a doe parked on the divided yellow line. It didn't look real. It never turned its head and seemed to lack color under the car's headlights. Elise had warned me about deer multiple, multiple times, so after seeing one, though I wasn't sleepy, I parked at the edge of the rest area from 1:00 to 3:00 a.m. I wrapped myself in Peter's thermal blanket and stretched myself over the center console, putting one foot on the dashboard and one foot in the passenger foot well. I dozed off for half an hour, but mostly stared through the windshield at the interminable darkness, willing dawn to come. 

In Wisconsin, severe thunderstorm warnings across unfamiliar counties and towns bleated over the radio like so many distressed sheep. Families attending a county fair were encouraged to seek shelter, and a robotic voice warned of a barrage of damaging hail. The dark clouds swirled ominously in the sky as the sunset through sheets of far-off rain. By the time I reached the outskirts of Chicago, the thunderstorms struck.

Between Chicago and Gary, Indiana I took a shower and slept for five hours at a Quality Inn after finding five previous hotels lacking a vacancy. When I woke a little before five, I thought I smelled smoke, only to later realize a urine stench emanated from the couch. I quickly changed, packed, and left unceremoniously. 

By this time, it was Saturday morning, and Elise and the kids would be making their way to catch their 5:00 a.m. flight from Spokane. I soon received a text message from Elise informing me the gate agent wouldn't let them check their luggage, claiming they were late despite the fact they'd been waiting in line at the gate for an hour. After much back and forth, they were finally rebooked on Alaska Airways, arriving at Dulles close to midnight, six hours later than their original flight, buying me time. 

File under all things happen for a reason: A monster storm would attack the D.C. area right when they're original flight was scheduled to land. That flight was diverted to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Had they been on that flight, I don't know what we would have done. 

Meanwhile, I descended into the Cuyahoga Valley, still mostly unimpressed by Ohio. 

It was less interesting to traverse from one end of the country to the other than I thought it would be. The states have more in common than not. I only saw gas stations and fast food chains, though, so perhaps comparisons aren't entirely possible from such a small sample. Pickup trucks with MAGA flags flapping behind them in South Dakota became Teslas and Porsche Cayennes in Pennsylvania. I thought then that, perhaps, there could be something to the Midwest, meeting in the middle. 

As I came down I-270, within an hour of my destination, the aforementioned thunderstorm struck, whipping wind across eight lanes of traffic, ripping branches from trees and throwing them onto the shoulder. Lighting fingered the surrounding hills, towns, and forests, as though violently tickling it, that one uncle that plays too rough. Beastie Boys 'Sabotage' came on the radio. I turned it up as loud as it would go and screamed at the top of my lungs. 

So, there. Take that. 

I look back at pictures I took of Peter and Sam fishing in the early morning hours at Fish Lake, mist coming off the flaccid water, at the beginning of the summer, when we had it all laid out before us, all the delicious possibility of summer. I wanted to go back there. To do it all over again. I don't know what I would do differently but I do wish I had it all to do over again. 

The roots in Sri Lanka grew deep into the dirt. And when we pulled them up, whole chunks of earth and soil came up with them. I didn't immediately understand that at first, but now I do. I planned our summer without fully appreciating everything that we would be feeling, without knowing how much mourning, grief, and sadness there would be. I probably could never have known, but if I suspected, it may have been a much different plan, one in which we didn't have to pretend how much change, anxiety, and unfamiliarity was really swirling around us. 

What would I have done differently? Could I have done anything differently? I don't know. I don't think so. Elise and I tell the kids when they mess up, you can't go back and change the past. You can only do the next right thing. When you make a bad decision, the only thing you can do is try to make a better decision next time. 

To feel regret wouldn't be fair to Elise, to everyone who went so far out of their way to host us, or to everyone who worked so hard to make us feel safe, comfortable, and loved. I rarely feel regret. Almost never. I can wish things had gone smoother, that our transition would have been easier without expressing regret. I'm coming to understand the summer couldn't have been anything other than what it was. That no matter what we did or where we went, it would have been tinged with sadness, with grief, with loss. And that's okay. 

There were no fish at the bottom of Fish Lake that morning. Sam would go on to catch brook trout in the Olympic Mountains, but we didn't catch anything that frosty morning in mid-June. We did leave behind a little of our anger, of our grief, of our sadness at the bottom of that lake. Sunk it below the mirrored surface to the muddy bottom and drowned it. We left it in the Pacific waves off the beach in Tofino and on the Sol Duc trails. We left it in between blueberry bushes, on middle school tracks, and in the wheat fields. 

We won't be able to get rid of all of it. I want to keep some. But the summer was about putting some of it away so we could move on. 

Blueberry Fields Forever

One of the perennial stops during our summer visit to Ma and Granddad's house is a trip to a pick-your-own farm at Greenbluff, a farming community north of Spokane. 

I initially expressed reluctance in going. I thought (mistakenly) perhaps the kids had outgrown picking berries from the bush or vine. It maybe seemed like an activity for toddlers, something to do to fill the day or tire them out before nap time. But I played along and found myself pleasantly surprised to find neither the kids nor myself outgrew the simple fun. 

Despite the woman two rows over sharing everything that was going wrong in her life with her picking companion, it was uncannily quiet. The only sound besides the occasional passing jetliner was the woman, her constant stream of misery sometimes garbled by the wind or the sussuration of the leaves on a blueberry bush. I thought there was maybe an unspoken rule to maintain the quiet, like at the library, but I supposed not. I did feel bad for her though. After she recounted the horrors of navigating the complications on a recent visit to a dying relative in the hospital, Elise overhead her tell her picking companion, "I don't mind being alone; I just never thought it would be so lonely." 

We "accidently" picked $50 worth of fresh blueberries, over 15 pounds. I eat fresh blueberries every morning now, so I don't mind. Especially, knowing I may not to get to eat fresh blueberries in Egypt. 

Bruce Lee Night

Our swing of the western half of Washington State, took us from Seattle for three nights to Olympic National Park for three nights to Bellingham for three nights and back to Seattle.  

On that last night in Seattle we had tickets to go see the Sounders play Dallas FC to a 1-1 tie. It also happened to be Bruce Lee night.  

Hiking the Olympic Peninsula, Part Two - Sol Duc to Deer Lake

The following day, we set right back out. This time, deciding to go big. We hiked 12 miles, to Deer Lake and back, gaining 2,000 feet of elevation. 

Afterwards, we took a soak in the hot spring, then decided against dinner at the lodge. We bought the last five single-serving, microwaveable mac n cheese and supplemented them with some left over rigatoni noodles and a pack of hotdogs. 

Hiking the Olympic Peninsula, Part One - Sol Duc to Mink Lake

We spent three nights in Seattle before heading back into the wilderness. 

We stayed in a cabin at Olympic National Park next to the Sol Duc Hot Springs. The cabin had two full beds and a small kitchenette and was very rustic; the camper van was outfitted better. The two full beds wouldn't fit all five of us as two queen-sized mattresses might of, so the boys took turns sleeping on the hard carpet in between the two beds. The kitchenette was a little shy on silverware; we had three forks and one spoon for the five of us. The pillows were good, though, and we didn't come for the luxury accommodations. 

We came to hike. We visited the park last summer but (because we were in the camper van and on the move) we didn't get to go on the hikes we wanted to. The kids wanted to come back. And though we didn't do the hike-in camping they had their sights set on, we were able to go on two longer hikes to test our mettle. 

The first day we hiked six miles from Sol Duc up to Mink Lake. Once there, we spent about three hours at the top. Sam hooked several brook trout. Pete and Clem took turns, too, while Elise and I read and snoozed in the sun. 

Vancouver Island by Camper Van, Part Six - Strangers in a Strange Land

On the drive back from Tofino, we stopped at a rock outcropping alongside the highway, perched over crystal clear rapids.  We pulled over -- along with several others -- to take a dip in the snow melt, stripping down to our underwear, before moving further down the highway.

The last morning was, perhaps surprising in some ways, the best. We spent the last night squeezed into one room of a Days Inn a six-minute drive from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal just outside of Victoria, B.C.  After a very long drive from Tofino, we ordered take out Pizza Hut, waited 20 minutes in the abandoned parking lot, then took the pizzas to the room. 

We woke early the next morning to catch our ferry back to the mainland.  The occupants of 170 vehicles descended upon the café at once, two queues that wrapped around the boat.  The full-service café was impressive, like Dennys in its size and scope, Denver omelets, its own version of a Grand Slam with cripy bacon and sausage patties, and Belgian waffles covered in snowy peaks of fluffy, cloud-like whipped cream, as pure and white as freshly driven snow. 

Clementine and I waited while Elise and the boys grabbed a table in the crowded dining area. The boat rocked under our feet as we navigated the narrow passage between Galiano and Mayne Islands and entered the wider -- and windier -- Strait of Georgia. 

There were a few 'never agains' on this trip. Though this was our fourth trip in the camper van -- our home away from home -- we still learn something new every trip. 

We drove. A lot. Vancouver Island is big. Much bigger than I think either Elise or I anticipated. It wasn't too much driving, per se, but we moved campsites every day except our last two days in Tofino. So, while no trip between campsites was extraordinarily long, the cumulative driving was significant.  

Next time (and despite whatever I write here, there will be a next time), we will endeavor to pick one or two sites and stay for several days. Rather, than skim the surface of several different parts of a geography, we will do a deep dive into one or two special destinations. 

There are so many unknowns in our life.  In order to survive we've had to embrace a very high degree of ambiguity. We have some -- but not total -- control over where we will move to, what our house and school will be like, who we will reach out to and befriend or who will reach out to us. The only constant seemed to be home, America. But even that, now, is inconstant and as the kids grow older, no two summers will look alike. What used to be more or less the same, our trips back to the U.S. are changing, too. Places change. People age. Favorite restaurants close. New ones open. So, even now the summers in America are also unknown and we become aliens in our own land, so different no one can relate to us. They don't even know what questions to ask. 

The camper van is always the same, the one place we can control, our touchstone, the one place we can come back to as ourselves, if even changed, from one year to the next. 

Vancouver Island by Camper Van, Part Five - Surfing Tofino, B.C.

It is clear now the first five days of the trip were all prelude to Tofino. 

We stayed at Surf Grove on the shores of the Pacific for two days that should have been seven. It was there we hit our groove. 

Tofino was AWESOME. So cool and so much fun. We bought local clams and cooked them on the camp stove, ate tacos, drank great beer, and surfed in the 50 degree F water (wetsuits a must!).