Elf Sternberg

The Drive

Omaha and I had arranged to go mountain biking for our anniversary. We love camping and mountain biking, and the weather had finally decided to be kind and give us a sunny weekend. That whole "we lied about how bad the weather is in Seattle?" We lied again: the weather here has been awful. Only last weekend did it warm up enough, and provide enough sun, to be called "Spring." Otherwise, it's Junuary.

Our trip was supposed to be over two days, but Omaha caught Kouryou-chan's cold from the week before and it was only Saturday morning that she was over it enough to go. We had packed most of our stuff Friday evening in the hopes her cold would fade, and Saturday we went for it.

The ferry ride over was fun, although the bomb-sniffing dog that circled my car wasn't too reassuring.

We drove through Bainbridge, and the drive was fine except for the Hood Canal bridge being open, which delayed us about half an hour. As we got closer and closer to our destination-- a little wild resort area halfway between Port Angeles and Forks, the setting for Stephanie Meyer's execrable Twilight series, the tourism got more annoying: "Welcome Twilight Fans!" read one motel sign. A diner promised "Bella Eats Here! We have Bloodshakes and Werewolf Fries!"

We passed by some unlikely sights. A prefab hut, little more than a ship's container with a door and an external HVAC, in the middle of an unpaved plot of scragland, advertised "XXX Movies! Magazines! Novelties! Firewood!" Sure enough, in front of it were dozens of small piles of firewood, ready for camping. Another was "Maria's Mexican Restaurant" with a small billboard outside reading "Check out our German dishes!"

We passed by another set of small signs, "Foresters plant trees / for future generations / to have wood products / and fine recreation!" But there was no "Burma Shave" at the end. I felt so disappointed.

The Ride

We reached the trailhead about 1:00pm, and headed out. At first, we weren't convinced it was the trail. It didn't look like a railbed, it looked like a technical-2 single-track with some mud. Easy stuff. It got harder, with rocks, and then it got to Crescent Lake, where the trail was at times narrow and edging up to the lakeside, sometimes high, sometimes low, and often with a steep fall to the water.

At one point, we stopped to get water and all these pretty blue moths swirled around us. They really loved our gloves, for some reason, lighting on both my blue and Omaha's grey; I'm not sure what in the gloves was so damn attractive, but it was very strange. (Bonus photo: Blue-white moths on Omaha's glove.)

We rode about four miles when we reached the actual railbed, which had been paved with bicycle-friendly rubber-recycle pave. We were advised not to take the dirt road that paralleled it, as the bridge was out. We later saw that bridge, and sure enough it was unfinished.

We stopped twice to talk with hikers along the way. One couple was from the area, told us about which road to take after the bridge-out, and generally were very kind with their information. I asked if he was embarrassed about the Twilight stuff. He shrugged. "I have a vampire slide in presentations I give," he said, telling me he sold nutritional supplements. "We joke about it. Hey, they're tourists, they bring money."

After four more miles, we decided to head back. That was the easy part, as we'd been going uphill almost the entire way. I just coasted back to the place where the railbed ended and the rough trail began. Omaha and I plunged back into the woods, and soon we found ourselves lakeside again.

Over the Edge

As we rode along a particularly tricky part, the trail narrowed at a place about 6 meters above the lake, with a 60° slope of sharp, broken shale going down to the water. A large rock from the slope above had fallen into the trail, and I decided I had more room to the right, closer to the water.

Maybe, but not enough. I hesitated going around the rock, the front tire lost traction. I knew already the bike was going to go so I tried to leap off, but already the back tire had caught up and was also slipping down the hill. I went over.

I fell maybe two meters and landed on my shins, screaming the whole way down. I tumbled once, hitting my right shoulder, then slid down on my backside, feet-first, stopping only when one shoe hit the water. Then the bicycle hit me in the back of the head, went over me, and sailed into the lake.

I lay there, surprised to be fully conscious, and did an assessment. Arms worked. Thumbs and fingers moved without noticeable pain. The legs, too.

I stood up.

Another couple, hikers, had seen the accident and come running to help. "Your bike! It's going down."

I turned and grabbed it. By this time I was so pleased at being relatively uninjured that I just picked it up, put it onto dry land, grabbed the water bottle and took a swig.

Omaha was not amused. She yelled at me that I was being an idiot for rescuing my bike, for not paying attention to the profuse bleeding on my left knee, and in general for going around the wrong side of the rock, all the while she was picking her way down the cliff-side to join me.

With much bickering, I convinced her to hand the bike up to the couple at the top of the ridge, then we both climbed up, using a tree a few meters south of where I'd fallen as support. She wanted to leave the bike lakeside until she was sure I was fine.

I wasn't that fine. A follow-up assessment was that I had lacerations and abrasions on both shins, on my ass (can Elf legitimately write, "Damn, my ass hurts so much this week" without the audience getting the wrong impression?) right where buttocks meet thighs, and my right arm. And contusions just about everywhere. The worst was the left knee, where I had a deep cut bleeding quite a bit.

Even scarier, when we looked at my helmet: a seven-centimeter gash right at the back of the skull, about a half-cm deep. That could have been my head. Always ride with a helmet, kids.

We cleaned the wounds and bandaged me up with the first-aid kit, applying butterflies and "fingertip" bandages for ad-hock butterflies to the knee, and gauze-and-tape to the abrasions. Then we kept riding.

We saw this awesome cave mouth on the way back. A closer inspection revealed that it wasn't a natural formation, but a raw tunnel built back during World War I in order to connect a rail line that brought timber down from the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula. It was never finished.

Although I was aching and sore, we pushed on, completing the last two miles of the trip, and made it back to the trailhead where we had parked the car.

And so, to eat and sleep

We packed up and headed down to the Elwha campground, where we set up our new two-person tent. We put down the footprint-- a layer of plastic meant to protect the tent proper from sharp rocks-- and then set up the framework before adding the tent body. After struggling to match the instructions with the actual work, Omaha looked inside to see if maybe we'd assembled it upside down. "Elf? Where's the floor?"

I looked. There was no floor. We looked twice before realizing we'd assembled the rainfly, not the tent. A quick disassembly and we were back in business, this time with a proper tent, an assembled rainfly. The tent was nice, an REI half-dome that I paid extra for, but it had been worth it: this tent has two egresses, one for each occupant.

The campsite was lined with wild raspberries, all of which were too unripe to eat.

I fetched firewood and Omaha set up the fire, and then we assembled our dinner: Chicken Foil, or Hobo Chicken, which is basically raw boneless chicken, a handful of vegetables, a handful of sliced potatoes, and some milk or cream soup, packed into a watertight foil packet, shaken, and cooked in a fire. Delicious.

We cleaned up. There were signs everywhere that this was bear country. I replaced straining bandages, especially the ones on my high-traffic knee that kept pulling at my leg hairs (ouch!), sponged-bathed off all the blood, and then we went to bed. By then, everything had scabbed over. It looked like I would live.

I must have fallen asleep almost instantly.

Saturday, we had our usual morning routine of breakfast and Kouryou-chan's dance class. While that went on, Omaha took Yamaraashi-chan out for clothes shopping, since the kidlet was running out of pants and shirts that fit her. I was dispatched home to put together a picnic basket, since our plan was to head out to Flaming Geyser state park and spend the day there.

After unrolling the drop-off routine, picking up Kouryou-chan and the Omaha and Yamaraashi-chan, we all drove out to the park, passing by lovely bucolic scenes of horses and buffalo grazing idly on the long grasses before reaching the park. Flaming Geyser is one of the state's oldest parks; it's been around since 1933, and it's also one of the parks on the chopping block for state maintenance funds. Lisakit thinks that's because, as one of the state's oldest parks, as well as one of the many working parks with a trout hatchery on it for local fisherman, even if the state defunds much of it there'll still be people willing to come and operate the hatchery and fields. There's no money for repairing the trails, however, and the state recently pulled its regular trash service for a "pack in, pack out" policy.

After a lovely lunch in the park's main field, during which park rangers circulated about on mountain bikes– and since when are rangers armed?–, the family sang Happy Birthday to me and then, much at the kids' insistence, we went out to see the eponymous Flaming Geyser. A note says that it used to be as much as three feet tall, but activity with digging and mining in the area has reduced it to less than one.

We then did the half-mile hike along the back ridge. I did the whole thing barefoot, which was kinda fun, although there were a few places where the trail had been graveled and that hurt my feet. Lisakit was a bit winded by the time we got down off the ridge, and I walked back with the girls to get the car, leaving Omaha and Lisa time to talk.

On the way home, we stopped by the valley butcher, who sold us elk burger and buffalo burger meat, as well as some local thick-cut bacon, which I'm looking forward to eating for lunch tomorrow.

I used the gronud buffalo to make sloppy joes when we got home, which were yummy, and gave both women vigorous footrubs. Yamaraashi-chan was dispatched to her mother's house for the evening, since tomorrow would be mother's day, and the rest of us settled down to a quiet evening. Omaha and Kouryou-chan played video games, Lisa eventually tottered back home, I cleaned up the kitchen. That was it, nothing more than domesticity run rampant. A nice, quiet birthday celebration doing the things that I like to do: hang out with my family, cook, and keep quiet.

It was a mixed bag weekend. Saturday, Omaha, Kouryou-chan and I did the monthly groundskeeping shift at Kouryou-chan's school. We're getting a little fed up that there are parents who come to do the big, dramatic things, like installing a new tiled walkway between the elementary school and the gymnasium, or building a new crawl-through tunnel in the toddler playground, but nobody shows up for the basic maintenence like weeding, cleaning gutters, or raking the parking lot, yet those are the things that make the school keep running. (The economist has an article on the broken windows theory with experimental results demonstrating that "a disordered state encourages the violation of norms.")

We had exactly one extra volunteer show up this time. He did great, even pulled the stump on an ivy that was murdering the fence. We cut that ivy back in mid-summer, and already it had grown another 24 feet or so up the fenceline.

Kouryou-chan had rehearsals, and when she got home she showed us the dance moves they were teaching her in ballet. It was lovely. I spent the evening being a lazy bum, playing video games and letting Kouryou-chan kibitz over my shoulder.

Sunday, I made waffles with a new (used) waffle maker I'd picked up from the Salvation Army for $2.50. It made great Belgian waffles, huge things, each of which was more than any one of us could eat. I think next time I'm going to have to break them up into quarters or something. After that I had a ton of chores to take care of, like four loads of laundry and cleaning the kitchen and so forth. Ordinary stuff.

I did it all in rapid order because I was supposed to go hiking that afternoon with a friend along Nebo Trail. That's the same trail that Omaha, Kouryou-chan and I biked on earlier this year, and as we walked we went by the Midway Wastewater Treatment Plant, where she noticed something odd. The way the barbed wire on the top of the fence is arranged, it points inward. It's not trying to keep people out, it's trying to keep something in. That with the blocky, almost Half-Life-like layout of buildings and the constant, burning methane-control flame at one end makes it seem surreal, even spooky.

We ended up back at a park where we watched the sun go down. You'd think sunset would be relaxing, but no, every fifteen minutes before sunset a guy with a bullhorn stands on the beach and shouts, "We're locking the gates in 15 minutes," or whatever time it is. And they do; they lock the gates at sunset, and according to one older gentleman who warned me to take the announcement seriously, you'll be charged $50 per car to get out afterward. That's ridiculous.

After dropping my friend off at her home, I went home to find Omaha a little frazzled. Kouryou-chan had been a disaster; Yamaraashi-chan is at her mother's house, the neighbor kids don't come out much on Sundays (being Christian fundamentalist nativists at all). A bored nine-year-old is a dangerous thing. They'd gone shopping for clothes and then had the worst experience at a Jack in the Box. Omaha may blog about it on her blog later, but basically it came down to the crew not caring at all and the person behind the counter knowing only enough English for her script.

I made comfort food: grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Point Reyes Blue Cheese is just not strong enough to be prominent in a grilled cheese sandwich, although it is absolutely delicious by itself. Maybe the heating squelches the flavor or something.