2025 wrap-up post: Year of the Snake

 I'd like to begin my annual note to myself with a grand statement such as "looking back over the past 12 months..." but realistically, the next person that reads this will be me, looking back over it in a year. So, in order to be more honest with myself, "Hey, hope 2026 was better than 2025". This year was less hopeful than last. I failed to achieve several large and small goals. My laziness and work avoidance, my petty selfishness and incompetence loom large in my vision. I want to want to help more than I want to help. And I try. But if I'm not actively thinking about how I could help more, I drag my feet, I let others step up first. It's an ugly characteristic and I want to change. I don't know how. My memory for things is cloudier. I forget people's names as soon as they're finished saying them. I get reminded of things that happened recently and feel like someone is telling me a story about someone else, even when I'm the subject. Spending time with my father-in-law, who has a form of early-onset dementia makes me feel like I'm losing my mind a little too when we follow similar conversational patterns. I repeat things people just said to me in an inquisitive way, or ask unnecessary clarifying questions to make it seem like I'm paying attention. Is it 20+ years of night shift taking its toll? Is it a sign of dementia? Is it an apathy enabled by people around me just picking up my slack? I want to retire from my job and do nothing. Well, not nothing, but every other job I look at is unappealing. So, stuff around the house I guess, little projects. Like making lists of famous people who died in the last year. Something like this one: 

David Lynch

Marianne Faithfull

Tom Robbins

Gene Hackman

David Johansen

George Foreman

Val Kilmer

Pope Francis

George Wendt

Rick Derringer

Teun deJong

Sly Stone

Brian Wilson

Michael Madsen

Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Chuck Mangione

Ozzy Osbourne

Hulk Hogan

Ryne Sandberg

Tom Lehrer

Loni Anderson

Brent Hinds

James Dobson

Giorgio Armani

Rick Davies

Charlie Kirk

Tomas Lindberg

Robert Redford

Jane Goodall

Ken Parker

Diane Keaton

Ace Frehley

Sam Rivers

Diane Ladd

Dick Cheney

Frank Gehry

Rob Reiner

Brigitte Bardot

Looking through the list of albums that came out 20 years ago was fun. It felt like a shorter list this year, but many of the albums felt more important to me somehow. 

Dark Tranquility - Character

M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us

Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

The Decemberists - Picaresque

Eels - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations

Weezer - Make Believe

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Howl

Opeth - Ghost Reveries

Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine

Many of the albums I acquired this year were year-end gifts from my wife. She found my list of music to purchase and grabbed what she could. 

The Black Angels - Phosphene Dream

The Black Angels - Passover

Alda - A Distant Fire

Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers

Santana - Abraxas (LP)

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (LP)

Dark Tranquility - Character

Rush - Moving Pictures (LP)

Nina Simone - Pastel Blues (LP)

Thelonious Monk - Plays Duke Ellington

The books I read this year were again a hodgepodge of re-reads, self-help, children's bedtime stories and graphic novels. I'm going through a lot of my old books and either tossing them, or giving them one last chance to impress me before I rid myself of their woeful stares from the shelf, decrying my neglect, my addiction to lit screens instead of the written word. 

Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind
Suzanne Collins - Girl on Fire
Peter Brown - The Wild Robot
Michael & Debi Pearl - To Train Up a Child
Dave Grohl - The Storyteller
Art Spiegelman - The Complete Maus
Suzanne Collins - Mockingjay
Craig Thompson - Habibi
Viktor E Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
Maria Von Trapp - The Story of the Trapp Family Singers
Frank Miller - Daredevil: Born Again
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale
Michael Crichton - Jurassic Park
Chaim Potok - The Chosen
Patrick Rothfuss - The Wise Man's Fear
Craig Thompson - Ginseng Roots
Anne McCaffrey - Dragonflight
Ursula LeGuin, illus. Fred Fordham - A Wizard of Earthsea
Lev Grossman - The Magicians
Anne McCaffrey - Dragonquest
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
Michael Pollan - The Botany of Desire
Ursula LeGuin - The Farthest Shore
Brandon Sanderson - The Way of Kings
George R R Martin - A Clash of Kings
Warren Ellis/John Cassaday - The Planetary Omnibus
Mari Ahokoivu - Oksi
Roald Dahl - Matilda
Kevin Leman - The Birth Order Book
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
Bill Bryson - I'm A Stranger Here Myself
Tony Lee - Outlaw: The Legend of Robin Hood
Louis Sachar - Holes
Donald Miller - Blue Like Jazz
Herbert Asbury - The Gangs of New York
David Foster Wallace - A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and other Essays
Chuck Palahniuk - Shock Induction
Craig Thompson - Blankets
Matt Emmons - The Council of Frogs
Anne Rice - Interview with the Vampire
Jordan Green - The Blue Beacon
Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Brian Michael Bendis - Ultimate Spider-Man: Omnibus

This was another big year for board game purchases, meaning I spent more money on games than I made selling them. I developed a new goal with my games. In addition to last year's goal of playing each game 10 times or selling it, I attempted to play every game I hadn't played in the last two years (i.e. 2024 or 2025). I almost made it through (Sheriff of Nottingham is sometimes tough to get to the table). The following are games I bought or received this year: 

Stockpile 

Obsession 

Dorfromantik: The Board Game

Dune

Kingsburg

Game of Thrones 

Ecologies

Shallow Regrets

Vegetable Stock 

Flamme Rouge: Peloton 

Viticulture World 

Container

Wits & Wagers Deluxe

Trains 

Ready Set Bet 

What Do You Meme To Go

Awkward Guests 

Rock Hard: 1977

I did achieve a big goal of mine for the year, which was to log 500 miles on foot. This could include hiking, running, snowshoeing or cross-country skiing. It did not include downhill skiing. I climbed St Helens again, in the winter this time (much more fun), climbed Mt Adams with my 14yo daughter, and again failed to summit Mt Hood. 

Wahkeena-Multnomah Falls loop

Pocket Creek - Nordic ski

Newell Creek Canyon

McIver Park Loop - Maple Ridge, Vortex, Riverbend trails

Multorpor Mt Loop - Summit, Powerline, and Optimator trails

Timberline to Crater Rock

Mt St Helens summit - Worm Flows trail

Run

Trillium Lake loop - Nordic ski

Run

Run

Run

Summit - Alpine ski

Champoeg State Heritage Area Loop hike

Run

Run

Silver Star Mt from Grouse Vista

Eagle Creek to Twister Falls

Run

Run

Oxbow Regional Park loop

Teacup Lake - Nordic Ski

Saddle Mt

Run

Run

Meadows - alpine ski

Run

Lyle Discovery Loop

Memaloose Hills

Beacon Rock

Run

Fanton Trail #505

Coyote Wall

Timberline to top of Palmer

Rowena Plateau

Tom McCall Point

Elk Creek to Idiot Creek

Lower Deschutes Powerline

Dog Mountain

Cook Hill

Vedanta Retreat

Manhattan Midtown walking tour

Manhattan Downtown walking tour

Manhattan Central Park walking tour

Soda Creek Falls hike

Soda Springs Trail hike

Santiam Wagon Road to House Rock

Walton Ranch viewpoint hike

Mt Adams - South Climb to Lunch Counter - Day 1

Mt Adams - Lunch Counter/summit/South Climb - Day 2

Paradise Park from Timberline Lodge

Lewis River Backpacking Day 1

Lewis River Backpacking Day 2

Lewis River Backpacking Day 3

Ape Cave

June Lake

Siouxon Creek Backpacking Day 1

Siouxon Creek Backpacking Day 2

Siouxon Creek Backpacking Day 3

Umbrella Falls, Meadows loop hike

Timothy Lake Shoreline loop

Silver Falls - Trail of Ten Falls

Ramona Falls Loop

Tillamook Head Backpacking Day 1

Tillamook Head Backpacking Day 2

Red Mountain via PCT

Mushroom foraging - Scappoose-Vernonia Hwy

Nestor Peak

Hamilton Mountain (Hardy Creek loop)

Table Mountain from Bonneville Hot Springs

Storey Burn Loop

University Falls Loop from Rogers Camp

Green Mountain Loop

Multnomah Falls hike

Dry Creek Falls + Pinnacles

Timberline to Triangle Moraine

Total miles on foot 524.4  with an elevation gain of 89,553 = 17mi straight up, over 75 activities, each averaging 7mi, 1194' elev gain or 171'/mi

This post started kind of hopeless, but looking over all the fun outside stuff we got to do, for example camping with each member of my immediate family and all of us together, fills me with inspiration for the coming year. Hey, hope 2026 was great!

Merry Christmas 2025

 

Halloween Pumpkins - 2025: Frogs Together Strong!

 

The Types of Twilight

    On a recent backpacking trip along the Oregon Coast, I learned that there are multiple phases of the everyday lessening of daylight as the Sun sets. We were looking out over the Pacific Ocean, admiring the view from atop a cliff. A lighthouse stood on a rock a little off the coast. The light from the Sun continued long after it had disappeared. This first, brightest time after sunset is called Civil twilight, and occurs when the Sun has set, but its center is at most six degrees below the horizon. On average, it lasts about 30 minutes after sunset. (Side note: it is legal to leave your car's headlights off for the first 30 minutes after sunset as well) We could still hike around and see the trail with some clarity. We found a concrete bunker that was one of the many installations the US army had built during World War II as protection from possible mainland invasion. 

    On our way back to our campsite the trail was a lot darker and a little more difficult to discern tripping hazards. I noticed a decrease in both color and visual definition. We were entering Nautical twilight. The first stars began to appear when the Sun was between six and 12 degrees below the horizon, which was still visible. The temperature began to drop noticeably. This time of year, nautical twilight lasts about 40 minutes. 

    We headed back to camp to start a fire. By the time it was joyfully crackling away, most of the daylight was gone. This was Astronomical twilight, which means the Sun was between 12 and 18 degrees below the horizon. It usually lasts around 30 minutes as well depending on the time of year. If we had a telescope along (unlikely on a backpacking trip, but who knows?) we could begin to discern galaxies and nebulae. Beyond this point it was difficult to discern when astronomical twilight ended and true night began. We were mostly staring into the fire.  

2024 wrap-up post: The Struggle To Be Real

 I'm struggling to summarize the last 12 months in a sentence. For the most part, I worked to solve old health issues and struggled with new ones. I'm getting older and my body isn't afraid to let me know it. I'm sore when I shouldn't be, my neck is always irritated, I rupture a disc in my low back just coughing. I'm outside as much as before, but I'm trying new things. I wonder if saving all my money til I'm too old to really enjoy it is a good idea. I set myself a new goal for retirement, or at least a career change in a dozen years. I started paying more attention to finances. I am becoming more myself. There are bad days, when I can't sleep and my truncated attention span keeps me from reading even two paragraphs in a book without my mind wandering, but for the most part I view my life positively. I wish I had more time during the week to see people. I wish I could pass my enthusiasm for things I love on to my children without overwhelming them. I wish for a lot of little improvements. But I'm working towards them. The death list is always an interesting project. Some of the names I haven't thought of in years. Some were my friends. This year's last entry was my cat for the last 15 years. 

Carl Weathers

Wayne Kramer

Toby Keith

Mojo Nixon

Christopher Ruppert

Fernando Venezuela

O J Simpson

Dickie Betts

Alice Munro

Bernard Hill

Steve Albini

Paul Auster

Morgan Spurlock

Willie Mays

Donald Sutherland

Shifty Shellshock

Shelley Duvall

Richard Simmons

Shannon Doherty

Naomi Pomeroy

Lou Dobbs

Bob Newhart

John Mayall

Greg Kihn

Phil Donahue

James Earl Jones

Dame Maggie Smith

Kris Kristofferson

Merry Christmas 2024

 

Halloween Pumpkin 2024 - Thundercats, Ho!

Our Band Could Have Been Your Life - a reflection on the 80s in underground music

 I've spent much of my adult life casting about for music to listen to. Without the concentration of peers common in college, the discovery of quality bands has shifted a responsibility onto my own shoulders. No longer are people bringing music to me; I have to chase it down myself. This has only recently been made more accessible due to YouTube and Bandcamp hosting almost every album I've ever heard of, or could hear of. The days of piracy via peer-to-peer servers are over for me. No longer do I have to wait to hear one song, or at best three or four from a classic album. It's all right there, available for my listening pleasure as soon as I get around to it. The pinch point has shifted from attainability to a dearth of listening time. Household projects and routine chores, even doing my taxes or processing photos have become a boon as they allow me the time to sit down, do something relatively mindless while I catch up on recent and ancient releases. Much of the time, this attempt to LISTEN TO ALL THE MUSIC has been a grab bag. I'm all over the place. Bands people have mentioned recently, bands I've written down in the last decade that people mentioned, bands that influenced bands I like, brand new bands I never would have discovered myself are now touted on websites by writers I've come to respect. Finding music is easy. But in order to find great music, I have to wade through a lot of outdated ideas, terrible budget-recording demos, endless self-indulgence. It's worth it to me though, as there are a lot of great moments out there for the taking. I just have to reach and discover them. I'm always searching for the chance to hear my favorite album, for the first time, again. 
    Michael Azerrad wrote a book called Our Band Could Be Your Life. It set the tone for a lot of later musical journalism that I've read and enjoyed of not only talking about bands, but telling their history, and why they might be important to you. There are a lot of albums/bands mentioned that didn't click either the first or the 20th time, but I'm always willing to try. The following is a list of all the recordings mentioned in the book that I listened through as I read it. I've been at it for a few years.

Black Flag - Nervous Breakdown EP
Black Flag - Jealous Again EP
Black Flag - Six Pack EP
*Black Flag - Damaged
Black Flag - My War
Black Flag - Family Man
Black Flag - Slip It In
Black Flag - Loose Nut
Black Flag - The Process of Weeding Out EP
Black Flag - In My Head
Black Flag - Who's Got the 10 1/2?
The Minutemen - Paranoid Time EP
The Minutemen - Joy EP
The Minutemen - The Punch Line
The Minutemen - What Makes a Man Start Fires?

Curiously Named Locales: Mt Defiance via Starvation Creek

Photo Credit: Wanderlust Hiker

I've spent one day a week, every week, for the last two and a half years, hiking. This has been in service of a long term goal. A few years ago as I was headed towards forty, I decided I wanted to climb Mt Hood. It felt like a good, dangerous enough, mid-life crisis for a guy like me. I met with a friend who works in mountain rescue. She assured me that I was not ready. The mountain had a season for climbing, something I would not have realized on my own. She gave me a list of hikes ranging from dilettante to brutal. I still have the hand-written list on my bookshelf. There is one remaining item on the list. Mount Defiance. Supposedly the hardest hike in the Columbia Gorge. The joke among the local mountaineering group, the Mazamas, is that you climb Mt Hood to train for Mt Defiance. 

    The name of the mountain is great, called such by an early resident of Hood River because the mountain seemed to hold onto snow well into spring in seeming defiance of the season and weather. The name of the trailhead where I intended to start also has a great name, Starvation Creek. There are competing theories on the origin of the creek's name. It is possible it was named because a group of west-bound pioneers nearly starved there. It was also once called Starveout when two passenger trains on the Union Pacific Railroad got stuck there in heavy snow sometime in the winter of 1884-1885. No one actually starved on this occasion since food was brought in from nearby Hood River by men on skis. Legend has it that the train passengers were paid $3 a day to work on digging out the trains. 

    Another hiker and I have made a pact to hike Defiance together, but our availability windows don't always line up. So here I am 130 hikes or so later, still eyeing the tallest peak in the Gorge. From down below. 

Sources:

https://wanderlusthiker.com/mount-defiance-the-hangriest-of-gorge-hikes/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Defiance_(Oregon)

https://stateparks.oregon.gov/index.cfm?do=park.profile&parkId=122

https://www.oregonhikers.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8739 (user BorntoBBrad)

Curiously Named Locales: Cape Fear, North Carolina

 I was a child when the 1991 movie Cape Fear came out. The film poster featured Robert de Niro's intense and disembodied glare floating in the waters above the name. The name struck me a sense of ominous dread. It was years before I learned that Cape Fear is a real place on the Eastern Seaboard. The view of the cape from above shows a delicate angle, nearly 90 degrees where two concave lines meet, a tiny protrusion where the Cape Fear River feeds into its estuary. It could have been gently drawn by M C Escher, yet is prominent enough that it is visible from outer space as a point along the coast where again, two great curves meet, like a child's drawing of a bird in flight. 
    The origin of the name, as with most coastline features in this series of curiously named locales, is nautical. In 1585 an English explorer called Sir Richard Grenville was sailing to Roanoke Island when his ship became trapped in a bay behind the cape. There was some concern the ship would run aground and wreck, hence the name Cape Fear. According to George Stewart, author of Names On the Land : A Historical Account of Place-Naming In the United States, it is one of the five oldest surviving place names in the USA.
A fun side note; panic grass grows near Cape Fear. That's almost as good as the trail leading to Mt Defiance in Oregon starting at Starvation Creek. Also, for flavor and a bit of retroactive justification for this series, I present to you an excerpt from George Stewart's book:

"The poetry of a name may spring from three sources. There is the romantic appeal of sonorous sound and sensuous connotation, evoked by the strange and the unknown. People who cherish a name chiefly for such reasons do not usually like to have it explained or translated. For them, the poetry is not enhanced, but vanishes, when they learn that Atchafalaya means 'long river.'

A second source of poetry is in the historical association of the places which lie close to men's hearts-in names like Virginia, Plymouth, and Concord, the shrines on our long pilgrimage. But again we must not err in thinking history something of the far past. The poetic suggestion of a name may be of recent growth-the glitter of Hollywood, the grim power of Chicago.

A third source of poetry is largely the opposite of the first. It is the poetic suggestion which springs from the inherent meaning, even though the actual event of the naming may be unknown. The United States seems particularly rich in such names — Sweet-water, Marked Tree, Lone Pine, Gunsight Hills. In this lies the charm of Cape Fear, Cape Flattery, Cape Disappointment, and Cape Foulweather; of Broken Sword, Broken Straw, and Broken Bow. These are the names which seem to have stories of life and death behind them — Roaring Run, Deadman Creek, Massacre Lake, Rabbit Hole Spring."

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Fear_(1991_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Fear_(headland)
Names on the land : a historical account of place-naming in the United States - by Stewart, George Rippey, 1967

Curiously Named Locales: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Left at Albuquerque (with Bugs) - Chuck Jones

My first introduction to the fantastically named city of Albuquerque was from a Bugs Bunny gag. He was lost, ya see, and all because of a wrong turn. 

The City of Albuquerque was named for a Spanish Duke and the area he ruled. The Spanish Alburquerque (note the additional "r") is a town in the Badajoz province of Spain. This town's name origin is not totally clear, but probably comes from the Latin "alba quercus" which translates to "white oak," quercus being the genus for oak trees.

Sources: 

The Chuck Jones Virtual Experience

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alburquerque,_Spain

Reddit - New Mexico Had Some Weird City Names

Curiously Named Locales: Little Bighorn River

The Custer Fight - Charles Marion Russell

I first remember hearing about Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn when I was in the fourth grade. At the time, I remember thinking it was a strange name, but I let it go. More recently, as I was searching for the next item for this series on strangely named places, that old nagging thought reoccurred to me, "Why would it be both a Little and a Big horn?" 

As facts would have it, the Little Bighorn River is a 138-mile tributary of the Bighorn River proper that runs from Wyoming into Montana. The Bighorn River itself is named for the mountain sheep indigenous to the area. A bit on the nose, it's true, but that branch became famous following the Battle of the Greasy Grass, commonly known by the US Army as Custer's Last Stand. In 1876, Crazy Horse fought alongside a coalition of forces that included the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes against the 7th Cavalry Regiment under George Custer. 

The river's other name, the Greasy Grass, arose from the tall grasses that grew in the riparian zone and held the morning dew. When the horses were ridden through the wet grass, the transference of moisture would cause their bellies and the moccasins of their riders to appear wet and greasy.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Bighorn_River

Curiously Named Locales: Useless Loop, Western Australia, Australia

 

Photo credit: Mark Gray markgray.com.au

    A few miles from the westernmost point on the continent of Australia, lies a solar salt farm off Shark Bay that produces what is claimed to be the purest grade of salt in the world. A closed company town, Useless Loop is the location of the Shark Bay Salt Pty Ltd. The accumulation of purified salt harvested from the shallow ocean beds is large enough that it is visible across the Bay in Denham, some 14 miles away.  In 1989, the town received an award for a preservation and relocation project for three endangered Australian mammals: the burrowing bettong, the western barred bandicoot, and the greater stick-nest rat. 

    The town takes part of its name from French explorer Henri-Louis de Saulces de Freycinet, who sailed with the Baudin expedition to Australia, which was then called New Holland. Believing that a large sandbar was blocking access for ships, de Freycinet dubbed the place Havre Inutile or Useless Harbor. The cove has since been transformed into the solar salt farm pictured above.

editor's note: while researching the Useless Loop and its salt production, I came across a unusual measurement for tons. A little further digging revealed the three types of tons:

 - a short, or USA ton which weighs 2,000 lbs

 - a metric tonne is 2,204 lbs (or 1,000 kilograms)

 - a long, or Imperial, or British ton equals 2,240 lbs

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useless_Loop,_Western_Australia
https://maps.roadtrippers.com/au/wa/attractions/useless-loop
https://www.markgray.com.au/gallery/limited-edition-prints/pastels.php

https://www.australiantraveller.com/australia/weirdest-named-places-in-australia/

https://monmouthrubber.com/what-is-the-difference-between-the-three-different-types-of-ton-short-ton-long-ton-and-metric-ton/

Curiously Named Locales: Moose Factory, Ontario, Canada

Far, far north in the province of Ontario, Canada, nestled into the Moose River, sits the town and island of Moose Factory. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Hudson Bay Company was granted a royal charter by King Charles II of England to all the lands that drained into the Hudson Bay. This land was called Prince Rupert's Land (after the King's cousin) and represents more than a third of all land in modern Canada. Two Frenchmen funded by the English set up the company in order to establish fur trading there, farther north than the previously settled trading posts, which were mostly situated near the Saint Lawrence River and primarily controlled by the French. These were mostly trading beaver pelts, but also squirrel, otter and moose. Traveling north to James Bay, the Company established several forts to trade fur with native trappers. The second of these was called Moose Fort, later changed in more pacific times to Moose Factory. In the vocabulary of the company and merchants in general, a 'factor' was a business agent in charge of buying or selling goods, and a 'factory' referred to their jurisdiction. 

    Moose Factory Island is mostly a reserve of the Moose Cree First Nation, which makes up the northern two-thirds of the island. The Cree people were historically migratory, though after Moose Fort was established, the people were exposed to European culture. The fort became the first English-speaking settlement in Ontario, which was then part of New France. The island is accessible from nearby Moosonee by boat and helicopter during the warmer seasons, and in the winter an ice road can be established over the frozen river. Historically the isolated island relied upon annual sea voyages for supplies, but in 1931, Moosonee was connected by rail to the Northern Ontario Railway.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Factory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Cree_First_Nation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Factory_Island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert%27s_Land

Curiously Named Locales: Cape Flattery, Washington

 

Photo credit: Gavin Hardcastle phototripper.com

    Statistics can be misleading. Sometimes they're just so specific that I can't help but be unimpressed. This happens a lot in sports. Here's an example: Brett Favre, Tom Brady and Jerry Rice are the only players to play in more than 300 games and don’t play the kicker position. So. When I read that Cape Flattery is the northwestern-most point of the contiguous United States, I got the same eye-rolling feeling. It isn't the northern-most and it isn't the western-most. What makes it special?

    For one thing, it's the oldest permanently named (by European colonizers) feature in the state of Washington. It was named by Captain James Cook, "discoverer" of the Hawaiian Islands. Apparently the opening north of Cape Flattery flattered Cook's crew with the idea that there might be a harbor. This was the opening of the strait of San Juan de Fuca which Cook managed to sail past on his third voyage ca. 1776. 

Painting credit: Parker McAllister

On the west side of Cape Flattery is a large, almost rectangular stone called the Fuca Pillar after Juan de
Fuca, another ancient European explorer of questionable verisimilitude. De Fuca was a Greek explorer working for the king of Spain who claimed to to have explored the Strait of Anián while searching for the fabled Northwest Passage. This strait was later renamed in his honor. On this voyage, De Fuca mentioned a large spire of rock on the western shore of Cape Flattery, though in his account, the pinnacle was recorded as being on the other side of the strait. 

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Flattery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Fuca
https://www.historylink.org/File/5035 - Kit Oldham
https://www.fototripper.com/cape-flattery-olympic-national-park/ - Gavin Hardcastle

https://spl.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15015coll5/id/165/ - Parker McAllister

2023 wrap-up post: Stumbling Towards the Unknown

 I was thinking about 2023 as a whole a few days ago. I'm not sure I accomplished anything noteworthy, but every day I feel like I'm scrambling towards an unknown goal. I'm moving as fast as I can towards... something. I'm not sure what. A realistic version of myself thinks it's Death. I learned about the Call of the Void, or as it's sometimes called High Place Phenomenon. A sort of intrusive thinking that draws your attention to how thin the line can be between what you're doing and total destruction. Oblivion. Somehow learning this was a documented pattern among humans made it easier to bear and seemed to lift the weight of what I had previously considered to be self-destructive thought. The visions I had of my own death falling from a high place seemed less realistic, though I was hiking more than I ever had, increasing the chances of this every week. This year I spent a little more time thinking about the ideal age that I had been in the past. I'm still journeying towards a better self, and some days it hurts. The following list is comprised of people who, for better or for worse, will no longer improve:

Jeff Beck

Lisa Marie Presley

David Crosby

Tom Verlaine

Raquel Welch

Gary Rossington

Dick Fosbury

Klaus Teuber

Al Jaffee

Arie deJong

Gordon Lightfoot

Tina Turner

Ted Kaczynski

Cormac McCarthy

Sinéad O'Connor

Paul Reubens

Robbie Robertson

Jimmy Buffett

Three Days on the Wildwood Trail

photo credit: Jule Gilfillan / OPB

    When I turned 40 a few years ago, I decided I needed a mid-life crisis goal. Living in Portland, OR, it's pretty easy to look around while driving and see Mt Hood. Summiting it seemed like an achievable challenge. I took a friend out to dinner who had been up it and routinely volunteered in mountain rescue. She gave me a list of trails to hike in order to train myself for the physical and mental exertion the mountain required. She also mentioned that the best time of year to go up was May and June. She said she'd be willing to climb it with me, but since it was already mid-March, this might not be the right year for it considering the gear and training I would need. 

    Starting that summer, I went out hiking every week, all year long. Sometimes it's difficult to find something nearby that I hadn't hiked recently and also within my comfort zone. 

    This last December, I decided I should walk all 30 miles of the Wildwood Trail in Forest Park. There are plenty of stories of people running it in one horrible day, but I found a blog post (here) describing a hike split into three legs. I knew I wouldn't be able to duplicate this timeline since I don't have three full days off in a row, but if I talked a friend into driving too, we could do it in heats as traverse hikes. Both drivers roll up to one trailhead, leave one car and get into the other, then drive together to the second trailhead. Once the hike is complete, they both get into the first car then drive back to the first trailhead, split up and drive home separately. This is how we used to tube rivers in the summer, so why couldn't it work for hiking?

    With my free time limited to one day a week, I decided we could do the three days over the course of several weeks during the month of December. I've done portions of the Wildwood before, but always found it a little boring compared to many of the hikes in the Columbia River Gorge or on the shoulders of Mt Hood. No waterfalls, no stunning panoramas, no dangerous river crossings, not even a talus slope to scramble across. What it does have is miles and miles of trails within a half-hour drive of the house. In the past I saved the Wildwood for those days when a high wind advisory or a blizzard made more interesting hikes unavailable. December would be perfect for this project since it's usually a rainy month in the Northwest. 

Day 1 - Wildwood Newberry trailhead to Springville Road trailhead (MI22.1) - 7.5 miles

Newberry Trailhead

    December 7, 2023: I roped my friend John into the first leg. My eldest and youngest daughters also came along. John and I used to drive the same mini-van, but of late his Sienna was moving towards retirement. When he showed up in his new Subaru, my daughters were afraid to get in, since they might get dirt on his floor mats. This might be a sort of window into what it's like growing up with me for a dad. Sometimes they'll ask permission to drink water in my car. Fault me if you think it fair, but you haven't seen the way they drink. Anyways, we parked my car at the trailhead down Springville Rd off Skyline Blvd, piled into John's new, clean, (white!) Forester and headed for the end of the line. I had decided to take the trail backwards since parking in Washington Park can be expensive, especially if you're there for six-plus hours. Once we arrived at the Newberry trailhead, the mile countdown began. It was overcast, and we had 15 minutes of pretty serious rain, but it was generally lovely weather for a vigorous walk. We weren't 200 feet down the trail before we started identifying mushrooms. First off was a tiny gash in root in the middle of the trail, full of scarlet elf cups.

Merry Christmas 2023

 

Elbow On Desk, Hand Rubbing Forehead

    During the winter, I'm frequently looking for places to walk that aren't under several inches of snow. This month, I've been trying to cover the entire Wildwood Trail in Forest Park, which is a little under 30 miles from end to end. We did the first leg last week, which ran from the end of the trail at Newberry Road to a side trail down Springville Rd, which was only about seven and a half miles on paper. By doing it in segments with more than one driver, the idea was to drop off a car at each end, so we don't have to double back. Yesterday, we had planned to do the second leg, probably from the trailhead off Springville to the Forest Lane trailhead. This would be about 11 miles, but easy enough as it looks pretty flat on the elevation change map. We were packing up to drop the kids off at school before heading out to the trail and my phone started ringing. No one calls this early. Caller ID showed Lake Oswego. I don't know anyone there. I didn't answer. It immediately started ringing again. The third time I answer. It was the Lake O police department. They said my car was running in the middle of a residential street and could I come pick it up? Nah, my car is parked right out in front of my...Fuck. I looked out the window. There was the car door handle sitting on the ground where I had parked the previous morning.

    So we dropped the very emotional kids off at school, then drove down to the address the police had given me. There she was, doors open, lights on, running strong. No door handle, paint a little scratched here and there, but otherwise externally OK. Inside were several pairs of shoes, one airpod in a case for two, a bottle of perfume, a couple bottles of water, and most of the stuff I had left in the car: a child booster seat, my sunglasses, the USB charger cable for my phone, a large Ka-Bar knife, the owner's manual, and the disassembled parts of my steering column. 

    Missing were the CDs. The Wipers - Over the Edge and a case of burned CDs that were all the mixtapes Racheous had made for me while we were dating. 

Curiously Named Locales: Matagorda, Texas

Photo credit: Matagorda Tourism

    I have a shower curtain with a map on it. Featuring most of North America, it focuses on lines formed by river channels instead of states. It's always worth investigating as I sit on my throne, doing what even the king must do for himself. One odd place name that caught my eye is Matagorda, Texas. My rudimentary knowledge of Spanish led me to a strange translation. Is this island/county really "Kill the Fat Girl"? A little research indicates that some confusion exists between the Texas State Historical Association, which translates the name as "thick brush", and the Matagorda Chamber of Commerce, which prefers "fat kill".

    According to Wikipedia,  the county is named for the canebrakes that once grew along the coast (matagorda is a Spanish word meaning "thick bush"). The Texas State Historical Association mentions that the county is crossed by the formerly flood-prone SE-bound Colorado River. 

    Per the Matagorda Chamber of Commerce, the city was named by Elias R Wightman, a surveyor who moved about 60 settlers into the area. The Chamber of Commerce mentions that the name, translated as "fat kill", refers to the abundant game and seafood, or possibly a "fat mott" which they define as a fat clump of trees. 

Sources:
Texas State Historical Association

Matagorda Chamber of Commerce

Wikipedia: Matagorda County, Texas