The Journey Part 42

LOUISE

My two friends, mentioned earlier, Mary and Judy, hanging with me and Maggie, talking about this and that, serious matters of life sprinkled with the totally inane, when Mary suddenly points behind me, to the next campsite, and says “Oh my God, there’s an elk right next to us,” and sure enough, a rather large elk (you don’t realize how big they are until you are up close and personal), was at that moment trying to figure out how to get into the food supplies left by the campers, who were off running errands in a nearby town.

It was actually fascinating to watch.  The elk rifled through a bag of chips and bread, and then figured out how to open a tote, which was also filled with “camping food.”  Marshmallows a’flyin’, potato chips, more bread, popcorn, Doritos, it was like a fast-food orgy, and neighboring campers were out, in force, shooting videos of it all.

Someone figured it might be a good idea to notify the park rangers, since this elk easily weighed 500-pounds, at least, but the rangers said “oh yes, we know about her, nothing much we can do,” and so that was that, the elk munched and munched, and the campers filmed and filmed, and still, fifteen minutes after the elk departed, while I type this account, the campers have not returned to their site.

I can hardly wait for them to get back.

Mary named the elk Louise.  No particular reason, but we all agreed it was a fine name for that particular elk.

P.S. the elk came back, this time from the other direction, and headed for us. I kid you not. Maggie was barking her head off, not sure what she thought she was going to do against a 500-animal, and another dog nearby was barking; there were at least ten people standing nearby, yelling shoo, like it was some damn fly or mouse, and the elk just kept strolling in our direction.

We had a face off and eventually the elk, which seemed bored with the whole matter, walked past our campsite, past the site next to ours, the one she earlier destroyed, walked into the forest and was gone.

I will pay very close attention, in the future, when I see a “Beware of Elk” sign along the highway.

Mary is the silliest of the two; Judy the academic.  Mary is sarcastic, like me; Judy the quiet audience as Mary and I banter and debate and discuss many of the hot-button topics of today’s world, but when Judy speaks, you know it is well-deliberated and will be beyond intelligent.

Normally, the idea of sitting and talking for hours would send shivers down my spine, me not being the best at sociable conversations, but Mary and Judy are extremely easy to talk to, to laugh with, and to find comfort in.  I think I had forgotten how much I loved conversing with people I really enjoy. It has been refreshing, and it was sorely needed by me.  As stated earlier, I really do need people; although I don’t always appear to, and if you are an introvert, you will understand that immediately.

I am going to miss them when they leave tomorrow.

The hike they will be starting tomorrow is called the Oregon Coastal Trail, and it is 400-miles from the Columbia River to the California border.  It requires a great amount of beach hiking, it visits dozens of small coastal towns, and it in no way resembles the Pacific Crest Trail with regards to elevation gains.

Still, it is four-hundred miles, and I wonder, without any malice at all in my question, how many of you reading this could hike four-hundred miles with a twenty-pound pack on your back. I do not say that in a disparaging way, but simply to point out that most people have no concept what it is like, how huge an undertaking it is, to take on a physical challenge like any thru hike presents.

Anyway, having already done five-hundred miles of the PCT, and finding themselves in a wait-and-see situation regarding snow in the Sierra, they have chosen to hike an alternate four-hundred miles rather than go home for a month and relax.

Color me impressed!

WALKING IN THE FOOTPRINTS OF HISTORY

This next section will forever brand me as a nerd, although I suspect that had already happened a very long time ago.

I am spending the night, again, at a rest area called Dismal Nitch.  To shorten a very long history lesson, it is where Lewis & Clark sought shelter from a fierce storm, huddled on the banks of the Columbia River, sheltered somewhat from the winds in a slight depression in the cliff walls.

I take Maggie for a walk, and I am walking where Lewis & Clark walked over two hundred years ago.  And you would not believe how much that excites me.  To my way of thinking, the journey taken by the Corps of Discovery ranks right up there in the Top Ten all-time of human adventures, and you can quote me on that. What they accomplished is almost worthy of Ripley’s Believe it or Not, it was that incredible and, if I’m not mistaken, they only suffered one death in their band of men, and that because of a medical emergency completely unrelated to the dangerous mission.

I could ramble on for a long time on this one topic, but let me just say this: In this time of our history, when so many people are so quick to condemn and ridicule and belittle people, and events, in the news and on social media, I just wish more time was spent marveling at what our ancestors did to pave the way for us.  Lewis & Clark, and the tens-of-thousands who came before them, and after them, are our history and our guiding lights, and what they accomplished, without computers or modern machinery or even a how-to manual, is almost beyond belief.

Or maybe I’m just a nerd and that’s all there is to that discussion.

CLINGING TO THE PAST, OR BOLDLY FORGING AHEAD

I have spent a fair amount of time now in the vicinity of Chinook, Ilwaco, and Long Beach, Washington, three towns/cities which are within thirteen miles of each other, three cities which have the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean in common, three cities which had common histories and considerably different outcomes.

Salmon was king back at the turn of the century, circa 1900, and Chinook and Ilwaco rode that fishing industry for all they could, reaping riches as the salmon swam by the millions out of the Pacific Ocean into the Columbia.  Huge fish canning companies dotted the landscape back then, and charter fishing boats racked up profits by the millions.  Long Beach, on the other hand, was a sleepy little village with very little history and smaller hope for a future, just another coastal town with very little going for it other than an unspoiled beach.

And then the salmon numbers dwindled greatly, and the canning companies closed, and the boats stopped heading out to sea, and fast-forward to 2023 and the only one of the three cities flourishing is that sleepy little village, Long Beach.  The village leaders recognized what they had, saw the need for a vacation town for hard-working middle-class Washingtonians, and played the only card they had . . . and became a very successful tourist mecca in this state.  Meantime, Chinook has a population of 460, Ilwaco a population of 1,100, and there isn’t a sign of prosperity to be found in those two cities.

Those types of things interest me as I travel around. How did a particular area reach its current status? What were they once? What decisions were oops, and what decisions were keepers?

And what is life like now for the residents? How do they like what has become of their town?  What would they change about it? Anything?

More proof that this writer is most likely a hopeless nerd, with no hope of ever being one of the cool kids.

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

Written in 1964, this song by Simon & Garfunkel was, in part, the inspiration for my upcoming solo journey.

I say in part. If you’ve been following along, you know the other portions of inspiration.

Do you know the song? The lyrics? Do you know what the song is referring to?  Interestingly, at least to me, it was written long before the computer and social media, and yet it was written to decry the fact that at the time of the writing, people were moving further and further away from meaningful discussions and that would lead, ultimately, to a civilization unable to really communicate on anything more than a surface level.

Sound familiar?

“and the people bowed and prayed, to the neon god they made.”

And now, the very real possibility that AI will replace many human jobs.

Please, don’t get me wrong. I love Facebook and emailing. They allow me to, at the very least, stay in contact with long-lost friends, and to maintain contact with online friends, and I think that is wonderful.  However, that kind of communication is sorely lacking. It cannot express facial communication. It cannot express the nuances of language only achieved through the spoken word. It cannot communicate tone of voice and true emotion.

Nothing, in my humble opinion, can replace a face-to-face meeting with another human being, and that is one very important reason why I want my “meeting America one handshake at a time” crusade to spread wings and fly. I want to do my part in preserving what I think is vitally important for mankind, the actual sharing of information and emotions and feelings through the spoken word.

I find myself using emojis more and more often.  They are expressive, correct? They are fun, correct?  But for me, they are also convenient.  After all, I’m a busy man, or at least I tell myself, at times, that I am busy and I must hurry through emails and comments because, well, I have things I need to do.  And so I use an emoji and hell, everyone does, right, what’s the harm, right?

Go back to what I just said. I use emojis, at times, because I am a busy man and I need to hurry through my communications because I have things to do.

Are you laughing yet?  I’m not. It disgusts me.  How could anything be more important, in my current life, than communicating with family and friends? Why do I feel the need to rush through that and toss out a clever emoji?  Or abbreviate phrases, like LOL, or  LMAO, and my goodness, can you get any more impersonal than tossing out acronyms?

I just watched the video of Disturbed covering this song on YouTube.

I cried.

What’s next for us as a civilization? How are we going to shorthand conversations and correspondence, in the future, because we are all busy people? What clever way of saying what we mean in the fewest number of words will we learn next week?

I need to make a concerted effort, starting tomorrow, to really communicate, online, and stop with this ridiculous ruse that I am a busy man with important things to do. I have nothing to do other than breathe, travel, take care of my dog, and meet people.  Period. End of discussion.

“And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

No one dared

Disturb the sound of silence”