Vancouver to San Juan to A Bout With Reason to A Long Dash Across Montana to Mount Rushmore

Brian left early the next morning. He wanted to make it back to LA in three days so as to be able to get back to work. Thus ended an exciting chapter of my trip and the only part of it in which I have been accompanied.

The reunion that I had with my fellow adventurers in Darfur was deeply fulfilling. When you live with someone in an environment like Darfur and learn to rely on them for encouragement and strength and they on you there is a bond formed that is difficult to find elsewhere. With Andy Shaver, who was our team leader, such a bond formed and we enjoyed the closeness of it during the year we lived together. We even shared the same office room together and so our contact was constant, either in the office or the house. It was thus very hard to see him go when he finished his contract because it was an all of the sudden ending of what was so vital to my mental stability. After not having seen him for seven months it was a good thing to be with him.

Another aspect of it is that I have never known Andy outside of Darfur. To be able to see the place he calls home, meet the girl he calls honey and hang with the guys he calls hombre’s was a good thing as well.

Also with us in Darfur was a guy named Chris Rae. Chris is from Vancouver and I arrived just a week or so before he is scheduled to go work in the Congo. Perfect timing. Chris is one of those guys who has an educated conversational opinion on everything. He loves philosophy and talking with him is like reading a dictionary. Big words. Deep meanings. He arrived in Darfur in July of last year and succeeded Andy at the helm of the project.

During the time that Andy had to work Chris took me for walking tour of Vancouver. We caught a bus down to China town and walked all over it making out way down to Gas Town, the shipyards, the financial district and the beaches. Chris is a great guy to talk to and over the course of those many hours we rehashed the things we both experienced in Sudan. It was relaxing to be able to sit in the sand and watch huge boats move into the harbor and talk of the things that once gave me anxiety attacks (literally).

I was there from a Thursday to the next Tuesday and was able to spend a lot of that time writing and doing some research on things that interest me. On the whole it felt to me as if the whole pace of my trip dropped to low gear and I was content at the suddenness with which it happened. The people that form the community that Andy and Chris subscribe to are people who live and work in the nitty-gritty of the city and who have a desire to show Christ’s love to those who don’t know it. There is a strong sense of reality there and it is very attractive. When involved in conversations with the group (several of them all live in the same house together, including Andy) I felt as though we were wrestling with issues that shook the world. I was thankful for the glimpse into their life, but was ready to move on when Tuesday came. That desire to move on stemmed not from discontent with their company, but more of an anxiousness to finish my trip.

At that time I was a vagabond for two months and I suppose it was beginning to wear on me.

I’m really impressed with the US Customs checkpoints coming back into the States. I told them that I had a backpack full of drugs and loaded weapons and plans for a Jihad and they just smiled and said, “welcome to America sir.” They did give me weird glances though when the only identification I presented was my driver’s license. You should have your passport, they said. Sorry, I said.

It was only a short hop down to the ferry at Anacortes and once again I found myself headed for the island paradise found in the San Juans. What was going to be just a four day stay turned into five and a half as my hosts prodded and pleaded for me to stay on. I must say that I was sorely tempted to follow their advice and get a job on the island and stay the summer. But I am previously obligated and thus I finally tore myself away mid-day Sunday. Uncle Brian and Aunt Joanne (Brian is actually my mother’s cousin) are marvelous hosts and I really could have stayed forever.

San Juan island is fairly large and there is much to explore. Among that ‘much’ is a glacier-scarred rocky coastline with many inlets and bays inviting the roving sea-kayaker to investigate. One of the things we did was to put one of their kayaks in the water (a two -seater) and go for a two hour cruise. I was introduced completely to the deathly chill of the water on our return leg as we encountered choppy seas (referred to in this case as ‘clapotis’) and several large swells splashed up on the boat and got me wet. All in good fun.

There was a running competition between Uncle Brian and I and it took place on the ping pong table and on the dart board. At first I was bested at both but gradually began to edge my way into the victor’s circle. I still have a hard time on the ping pong table (we were having matches that were absolutely incredible) but I soon became, as the heckler on the electronic dart board says, “the undisputed champion.” It was galling for mine opponent. I wear the title with pride.

My cousins, Brian and Joanne’s daughters, were all there for a while, two of them having entered into a half-marathon being held on the island. The run was on the Sunday I departed and all that morning as they ran I rode alongside of them on my motorcycle offering cheer and good natured encouragement...very comfortable encouragement...for me at least.

The first day that I was there, we had a picnic on the shoreline and shortly after consuming our food one of the resident pods of killer whales passed by and put on a show. The males breaching and splashing and the females coming to the surface and blowing lots of air. One aspect of the males’ show was that we would watch them shoot up completely out of the water and then come down in a huge splash. Then a split second later the thud and rush of the water would reach our ears. We all enjoyed that part of it.

So far, I freely admit that my time on San Juan island has proved to be most cherished by me and it has planted in me seeds growing towards the affect of me someday becoming a northwesterner. We shall see.

The Sunday I chose to depart on was overcast and dreary. Aunt Joanne tried again to dissuade me from going saying that I couldn’t start my journey again on a day like that. However I knew that were I to stay I would probably never leave (I wouldn’t complain) and so I pushed my feelings aside and hit the road.

Ah the open road again. There is a seldom duplicated feeling that you get during the first 30 minutes of the road. Your butt is fresh, the engine roars, and the white lines flash by like Seabiscuit on the home stretch. There is simultaneously a feeling of greatness at what you’re doing and a sense of incredible smallness when vastness of the land swallows you like a drop of water in the ocean. It churns within you and gushes forth in a song, a spasm of shouting or a feeling of excitement that pushes at every seam and causes you to squeeze the handlebars till your knuckles turn white.

Then the hours click by. You shift in your seat to slowly work your way around your butt wearing out each angle in succession. Feet up on the foot pegs. One foot up, one foot down. After a stop for gas and shaking of the legs freshness is returned. The boredom of the road can last for hours sometimes, but then you hit a corner and are forced to lean, scraping the pegs at 75 miles an hour. Or the monotony is broken by the sudden stab of pain as a butterfly or a beetle collides with your leg. Then you might round a corner or come over a hill and be presented with the sprawling majesty of a rugged mountain range, or rolling grassy hills littered with great herds of cattle or giant plateaus rimmed with jagged cliffs. There is always something.

At night you cannot see the road kill. You smell it. The odor of rotting flesh left over from the merciless sun and incessant picking of scavengers is thrown like a wall across the road and it exacts a toll from anyone not employing their recycled air feature...or from each biker that passes. One of the beauties of riding is that you are almost one with your surroundings. You feel the slightest changes in temperature, you feel the gusts and puffs of an indecisive wind and you smell the earth and creatures that you pass by. The dirt clings to your face, the sun bakes your skin and the wind chaffs your hands into brawny clamps.

All that is well and good, the real challenge comes with the rain. Heading east on highway 20 from Anacortes I made for the mountain passes which would lead me to the Grand Coulee Dam and then on down to Spokane on the far side of Washington, the evergreen state. I never made it that far. The dreary clouds pushed and shoved and built themselves up against the mountain range and began to unleash their fury as I myself pushed eastward. The road I was on was quite articulated and as the rain came down in increasing strength I began to worry for my safety. I made it about 60 miles and pulled into a gas station to shake myself dry and get something warm to drink.

I had noticed the climb in elevation and steadily dropping temperatures and worried that further up the road I might meet something which would spell my demise. Two local men struck up a conversation and when they found out I was heading eastward over the pass they warned me otherwise. Talk of hail today...maybe some snow. You don’t want to go that way.

Hmmn...part of me wanted to prove them wrong. Then, the other part of me, which in the past two years hasn’t had much of an audience spoke up. All it takes is one slick patch of road and those pretty cliff-like drops you were admiring will put an end to your plans of family and love...and further adventure. Sound counsel. I turned back down the road. I supposed that I might miss these pestilent storms if tried crossing the mountains to the south and so I dropped back down to Seattle and caught I-90. It was going along swell until it stopped being so. The rain began lightly around 8pm and increased in volume. I was determined to push on knowing that once I got through the mountains I would be in the more desert-like regions of Washington. I needed to make it to Spokane.

I-90, although it passes through the mountains, offered me a much straighter path and I was less worried about the turns in the rain. However, when you can no longer see because of the thickness of the rain (it was stand room only for the water) and the ensuing darkness...continuing on becomes folly. My leather had up to that point proved useful in the rain but even it began to crack leak moisture. Again thinking of my future family I pulled into a hotel.

But I was so far behind schedule! I had half of the northern part of the United States to cross and in order to get where I wanted to go and have time to spend with the people I care about once I got there I needed to be in Billings, Montana by the next night. This would have been Monday evening (or last night from when I’m writing this). That was 767 miles away from Snoqualmie Pass, WA (55 miles east of Seattle). Very well. So be it.

One in the morning on Tuesday this weary traveler rolled into Billings having conquered the carving roads through the mountains, the desperately long straights, the stench of road kill, the spite of other drivers, the grueling imprisonment on a small seat for 14 hours and the cold of Montana nights. Grrr…

And so now I’m in Mount Rushmore nearly 400 miles of road from Billings. I’ve seen it. Didn’t buy the t-shirt. And I don’t have a picture of me in front of it. The thing is impressive, worth seeing, and I shall probably return. But now I’m sitting here writing this missive and looking forward to the morning when I shall rise early and be on my way. I have another long day ahead of me that will potentially rival my dash to Billings in length. This time it is all on flat, flat and straight South Dakota and Minnesota.

So far on this trip I have gone through: North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and am now in South Dakota. Here here.

Oh, and there should be a law against billboards.