Land of Milk and Plenty
Leaving the mountains for the deserts of Western Washington, I came upon apple orchards skirting the rivers that didn't burn and were now laden with midsummer apples. Most were too green for eating, but I picked three barrels full to make applesauce, vinegar and cider with. I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Besides, Danny and Lanie loved them and they made excellent treats. Charlie took one bite and decided apples weren't for him--too sour. Threw the one he bit into to the ground, and looked at me with a scowl as if to say, "What did you give that to me for?"
More and more, Charlie gave me the companionship that another human would have. We became quite close and stayed very close, sensing the danger he was in alone. And, I relied on him to sense danger before I did. Whenever we were at camp and he became a little agitated, I knew there were predators that he could smell, see or hear that I couldn't. If he climbed up on the truck I knew it was a ground animal and if he crawled under the truck I knew it was a raptor. I laughed when he would duck under the truck every time a vulture flew over. He wasn't dead yet. I did worry and made sure I kept a close eye on him at all times. Coyotes were the biggest worry and I had to shoot a couple who tried to creep in on him.
The desert in Idaho and Washington was not the same as I remembered from my youth. Porous volcanic ash deposited over millions of years from the Cascade Range to the west. What made the desert was not only light annual rainfall. Any rain that fell seeped quickly into the ground. While the volcanic soil was wonderful for crops like apples and potatoes, in many areas, even grass couldn't grow.
But this desert was no longer dry and barren. With increased rainfall and all of the dust deposited during the two apocalyptic winters, grass and trees sprouted where none had for millions of years. The new growth gave the desert dwellers much more food and transformed the dry western United States into something quite remarkable, a terraforming of the land with much more vegetation. Still, the summers were long and hot with droughts only relieved by heavy, gully washing, storms. So, more and more, I encountered washouts, mudslides and avalanches on the mountain roads, making progress slow, either using winches or having to detour around problems altogether. While the truck could go great distances in a short while on the interstates, backcountry highways were slow going. Some impassable.
Returning to I-90 near Spokane, I saw smoke from a tremendous meltdown taking place at the Columbia River Nuclear Power Station to the south. Thankfully, the prevailing winds were taking that fallout to the east through some of the lands that I had already traversed. I elected to take I-90 to Seattle. But, when I got into the foothills leading up to the pass to Seattle, it was blocked by a major landslide. I backtracked and took I-82 south until it veered east directly towards that meltdown. Countering, I picked up US 97 through the desert south until I got to I-84 and the Columbia River. Hoping for an easy run downriver to Portland, I didn't. Once again, half of the cliffside had fallen into the river and blocked my way as well as damming the river, creating a reservoir that lapped at the freeway that was once high on the mountainside above it.
Backtracking again, I took US 197 to 97 and looked for a way to get over the Cascade Range. Smoke that I saw to the west was from the volcanoes. Both Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson were smoking. I hoped that I wasn't running into a serious volcano eruption.
When I reached Warm Springs, I checked it out. Another possible wintering spot where I wouldn't have to put up a lot of wood to burn with natural heat from the ground. The springs weren't much and were very mineralized like those in Yellowstone. Not a very likely place to stay, especially in the shadow of reawakening volcanoes.
Finally, when I reached US 20, I took it up over the high pass between Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters. From the top of the pass there was a tower built of lava rock. I climbed to the top with my rifle. There were viewing windows lining up with nearby volcanoes. I scoped them out. The two that were smoking seemed ominous, but I didn't feel in immediate danger. Below us were tracks in the lava of wagons that crossed over the pass in the mid-1800s on the Oregon Trail. We had come so far from wagon travel only to fail so badly. Descending into the greener side of the range I found that some of the rain forest had not burned and I saw pristine waterfalls on either side of the road cascading magically with rainbows in the late afternoon sun.
At nightfall, I pulled off at a natural rest area where a stream flowed by. I saw tail fins in the water and recognized salmon swimming upstream to spawn. I tried to catch them with artificial bait, but they weren't hungry in their quest. I got out a large treble hook, and, in no time at all, had snagged three fifteen pounders. Charlie was curious about the fish and happy to share eating them that night. With no way or time to smoke the fish, I staked them out on the boards I had placed on the trailer for drying meat and fish.
In the middle of the night, Charlie suddenly became agitated and it woke me up. It wasn't long before I felt something banging on the trailer that I could feel all the way in the sleeper. I also heard growling and knew what it was. By that time I had acquired cans of bear spray containing nothing more than cayenne pepper. It was painful to the eyes and nose, but otherwise harmless to the bear or the environment. I found that hornet spray was even more effective, but it was petroleum-based and corroded its cans in time.
I stepped outside on the passenger side door and saw clearly in the moonlight a very large black bear pounding on the side of the trailer and trying to reach the fish drying. I was within range, so let fly a spray about 15 feet toward the bear's head. He let out a yowl, shook his head violently from side to side as he fell back off the trailer and rolled up on his feet again running as fast as he could away. The next morning after breakfast, I snagged three more salmon and left two of them on the bank for the bear when we left. Vultures were already circling and jays were already on the fish. He had company eating his tribute.
Soon, we descended to the Willamette Valley floor. The late summer feral harvest was ripening fast. Boysenberries lined the road sides, blackening them with their abundance. There weren't enough bears or birds to eat them all. Charlie and I pitched in and ate our fill. I filled tins with them that I found in farmyards, hoping to make jam from them before they went rancid. The trees had riper apples. I regretted picking so many back in Washington. There were grapes, plums, apricots, peaches and cherries. All of these had returned from the fire scorched trees unattended by humans and were now there for the taking. Danny and Lanie were in goat heaven. Several times, I had to stop the truck and let Charlie out because he got sick eating all that fruit like an undisciplined child. I even came close to having cherritis from eating so many.
I drove into Eugene. After spending some time scavenging through ruined businesses, I got some big pots, Mason jars, and everything I needed to can some fruits and vegetables that I found in the abandoned gardens and orchards. I built some fires out in the street with lumber that hadn't burned and canned large quantities of the fruit that I knew would spoil in a few days in the heat. It took me a week but it was worth it because I didn't know when I would be back this way again. The trailer was filling up. I had fans rigged running off the solar panels, but the only way to keep the trailer cool was to be moving.
I checked out the road to the coast and it was open all the way to Florence. As I crested the coastal range I saw the Pacific again, its blue waters sparkling in the sun. Unfortunately, there was no beach. The ocean was probably a few feet higher than when I was last at Camp Pendleton and its waves were crashing right up to where the coastal front came down to the sea. What little beach there had been worn from the cliffs above, was gone.
The dunes were still there, but there were no tracks on their beautifully windswept slopes. There were rusted out hulks of dune buggies around, but nothing that was serviceable. A mile or two down the road the dunes had completely engulfed 101. Driving north on 101, I was blocked a few miles up the road by a landslide. There was no going to California that way.
Cooled by the ocean breezes and frequent storms, I chilled there for a couple of days until it was time to move on. I backtracked to Eugene and took I-5 south.
