Falls

27 October, 2012

Petaluma, California

After a night at the Highlander Motel, on the outskirts of Mountain Home, Idaho, we set our sights for Oregon.

The topography of Idaho was a bit like that of the high plains, with wide vast valleys between the mountain ranges.  In the crisp, cool air of late October, it felt like I could see for a hundred miles.  The mountains, with their snow-capped peaks receded to the outer limits of view, and ultimately, the suggestion of a memory.

This is a land of many waterfalls, along the Snake River, which flows into Oregon.  A kind pair of travelers from British Columbia had recommended a motel in Bliss, which proved to be the Jupiter Inn, and full.  As I entered the premises to verify the No Vacancy sign was correct, I discovered a similar sign on the office window, and satisfied, began to leave to resume our search for lodging.  An attentive man opened the window, and suggested a couple of prime properties in the next town.  When I suggested that I was looking for an economy, dog- friendly room, he got on the phone and found us one, writing down the pertinent numbers, and reserving the room for us.

We crossed into Oregon in Ontario, and followed the signs for the Oregon Trail Interpretative Center. Our Winnebago-traveling neighbors in Utah had recommended a visit here, and I felt compelled to honor their suggestion. 

The Center lies a few miles off the highway, among ranches and pastures in what is irrefutably cowboy country.  I found an equipment museum, or perhaps cemetery on the way, outside of Baker City, which was impeccably organized and comprised a history of machinery from 1870’s mining trains to 1960’s painted-up school buses.  We found the exit for the Center and began ascending a long narrow lane to the parking area.

As I was filming a panorama of the mountains to the South and West of the parking area, Kaya was exploring the trail, a section of the original Oregon Trail, where one in ten people did not survive the crossing.

Kaya saw a girl get out of a car and come to the rail overlooking the trail, and from 100 yards away, made a beeline towards her.  Kaya’s into female energy, as we have a dearth of it at home, and can detect the dog-friendly woman from a seemingly unaware distance.  The girl was excited and embraced this large friendly bear, and then agreed to shoot a few stills of us with the mountains in the background, to use as a Christmas card.

I accidentally managed to enter the Interpretative Center through the back door, only to find friendly and helpful people at the welcome desk, where I mentioned having left my dog in the car.  As I wrapped up my first hour of careful reading about these road-hardened emigrants, and was beginning to canvas the other exhibits, worrying about checking on Kaya, I was approached by the first guard I had met.

“Did you say you had a dog here?”

It seems Kaya had decamped the vehicle and begun circumnavigating the facility in ever decreasing radii to determine the location and welfare of her boy.  Nothing compares to the unconditional love of a dog, even if it occasionally results in getting busted.

The guard was friendly about it, revealing that this was an aggravated charge, with precedent established by a woman having left a dog tied in a parking area earlier in the year. Said dog bit a tourist, and followed that up by biting the director of the Center, who went to personally investigate.  I decided not to play the Companion Animal Card and we confusedly left the Center by a different road than we arrived, a romantic planning gesture to the Oregon Trail, I believe, and went into Baker City seeking sustenance.

I spied a café with outdoor seating, and parked around the corner, noticing old brickwork and a chute into a dumpster, indicating renovations underway.  We rounded the block and I reviewed the menu, tied my horse to a table, and went inside to investigate.  I was rewarded with a Stratocaster and a Les Paul in glass cases on the wall, and after reconnoitering with the instruments, confirmed that Kaya was welcome outdoors, and ordered a sandwich and a beer.

My Aunt Jean had asked me a couple of days before if traveling across the country was similar to traveling in Central America, and I had replied, “No. The changes are more gradual.”  Here, outside Baker City, I experienced a sensation that was straight out of Costa Rica, that I had traveled in time back to the heyday of the cowboy, or vaquero.  The open ranges and occasional ranch, the sand, the cactus, the timelessness of the prairie grass, had all conspired to take me across these perceived barriers into the Land of the Spaghetti Western, a metaphor that is so wrong at so many levels….

After lunch at the Corner Brick, we again rounded the block to grab a camera, and before we could begin touring this small time-capsule of a city, I saw a worker from the renovation project.  I asked if the history of the old building was known, and Robert Anders replied, “It was a saloon and brothel, built in 1890. The old elevator still works. Would you like to see it?”  He proceeded to explain that he was remodeling the building, which he had purchased for $120k, into a gallery and a home.  I had seen some of his work in the window of the gallery, on the first floor, on our first pass.

Robert is an artist, a metalsmith, a printmaker, a builder and a gentleman.  He gave a comprehensive tour and listened with amusement when I described making windows from scratch with the salvaged douglas fir from the beams at the Skyline Ski Lodge.  He told me he had asked the Marvin Window Company for a proposal to replace the windows, six-foot tall arch-head beauties with weeping glass. I suggested the proposal would be worth more than he paid for the building.  He agreed.

After hours enjoying the central blocks of Baker City in the setting sun, we headed south into the Malheur National Forest, to make camp for the night.

Arriving at the bad hour of 7:30, I was looking over the information sign for the campground when a jacked-up jeep pulled up and some friendly elk hunters recommended the site, offering to help light the way to set up the tent.  I demurred, yet set up the tent in the truck headlights, careful to keep the motor running, started a fire and settled back with a cold beverage.

Shortly afterwards, Kaya and I went up to thank our new neighbors for their offer of help, and were treated to a cultural awakening: These guys made their jeeps and guns from scratch, and one of them, Jeff, was an expert woodcarver, carrying some of his pieces in a metal box in his pocket.

The first one he pulled out was a watch chain, a complete circle, cut from a single piece of wood.  Then he showed me a butterfly that hinged at the wings, a small elk sculpture, and photographs of larger pieces.

The evening wore into a telling of tall tales, mushroom clouds at the burn pile vs. acetylene-powered potato cannons, when I asked if they had ever heard of the Dukes of Hazzard.  Suddenly, in newfound silence, to utterly rapt attention, I explained how Ben Jones, who played the Cooter Davenport character in the popular series, before being elected to two sessions as a congressman, hosted the Hazzard Homecoming each Summer in my native Rappahannock County, Virginia.

It was as if the Messiah had appeared on a can of Billy Beer.

I sent Ben an email to tell him how the conversation had unfurled, and how I never expected to ride his cuffs in the glory of the Dukes, but never heard back.  I left my contact information with one of Jeff and Stan’s nephews, but would not expect to hear back until the summer, if ever.