In early spring of 2007 I decided to quit my job, sell my house along with nearly everything else that I owned, and to live out of my car while traveling the country. These are my stories (and pictures) of life on the road.
When I hurt my knee I needed some support for walking and since I didn't have a whole lot of room in my car for crutches I figured I'd just get a cane. Now I didn't figure I'd ever be needing the use of a cane for another 5o or so years so the thought of it seemed a bit odd. But considering I could barely walk and that I was using my tripod as a makeshift cane I definitely needed to do something.
I figured if I was going to be walking around with a cane I might has well get a cool cane. Thinking an antique store would be my best bet I found one in Baker City; but they only had the plain old boring kind. I bought it anyway though because I was really in need of one. It would serve it's purpose until I could find a cane that properly fit in with my coolness. You know, a cane that would allow me to hold me head high as I hobbled down the street. Even with the boring old man cane I could see the chick magnet potential as everyone was staring at me as a walked (staggered) down main street back to my car.
Later that day I drove past another antique store so I drug myself in and asked if they had any "cool" canes. The lady said that she thought she had one that would do the trick; and then she laid it on me. It was by far the coolest cane ever brought forth on the planet. Obviously this was a custom one of a kind production; it had no equal.
With awe I beheld the beautifully sculpted dragon head handle with a green marble inset in the mouth and plastic blue eyes. The lines were supple, seductive, and my hand seemed to be a perfect fit as my fingers caressed it's contours. And it didn't stop there! The cane had a fine fake mahogany finish complete with raised red dragon inspired designs on the shaft. I couldn't look away from it and I knew it had to be mine.
It was like I was in a trance! Without thinking I dropped my old man cane to the ground, threw a wad of cash on the counter, and walked out of the stored all without taking my eyes of my newfound treasure. As I put it to use I felt as though I was walking on a cloud. No, no, like I was floating on the back of a dragon as it soared through the sky. The sun glinted off the polished finish as I strolled (gimped) down the street and I knew that I was the coolest guy in town.
My knee is improving and I no longer have a use for the cane (other then ogling it) but I did take a few pictures to immortalize it and to share its beauty and wonder with the rest of the world.
I think I'm going to have to go on a diet just to recover from this trip! Jim and Karen cooked up one heck of a meal tonight and we had a couple bottles of wine to go along with it. Of course I can't forget the wonderful Marionberry ice cream for desert! I had a great time just hanging ut and talking with them on the front porch.
Tomorrow I go to work for the first time in quite a while. Though my knee is still pretty stiff and sore I'm looking forward to doing something. I hope the knee doesn't slow me down too much.
Just wanted to give a big thanks to Dusty and Kathleen for making me feel so welcome in Baker City, for giving me a nice warm place to sleep for a few nights and some truly excellent food. Not to mention the most beautiful country I've ever seen. Oh yeah, and thanks for helping me get out of the mountains after dislocating my knee!! I had a fantastic time and I hope to swing by again sometime.
I told you the mountains were right in their backyard.
I stopped for the night on the east side of Mt. Hood last night. I hadn't seen the mountain yet because it was very over cast. I was in no rush so I stopped early to relax, do some reading, and cook a good meal. I found a forest access road that took me to a good place to sleep for the night and I poked around a little on my gimpy leg. There was a nice group of flowers and when I looked closer I saw an ever nicer looking spider. Turns out it's a crab spider and they just hang out waiting for something to walk by, then they grab it with their front legs and suck it dry. Appetizing, no?
When I woke up this morning the sun was shining and after driving a little ways back to the main road I saw a dog sitting in the beach of a small pond. I figured his owner was near by but I looked and didn't see anyone in site. He was just sitting there on the beach soaking up the sun. Pretty soon I noticed he had a friend with him who also sat down not too far away and just seemed to be enjoying the sunrise. It was really odd to see two dogs just sitting their like that so nice and calm. Then a sandpiper (or some sort of shore bird) landed about 50 feet away and they both took off after it. Of course it was off the ground long before they got to it and it flew to where they'd been sitting so they chased it back to that spot before it flew off and they just say back down again. I watched them a few minutes longer and finally one of the dogs trotted off into the grass and the other followed.
Another 1/2 mile of driving got me a nice view of Mt. Hood and it was pretty impressive. I could see some clouds starting to build up on it already so I'm glad I saw it before it was covered again. I drove around the south side of the mountain before heading back up north towards Portland. As I was approaching the pass on the south side of the mountain I was driving in the sunshine. Within 20 feet of the sign indicating I was crossing over the pass to the west I hit a fog bank that I didn't drive out of for about 6 miles and I never saw the sun again until late in then afternoon. I don't know if the pass was actually acting as a dividing line in the weather or if the weather was moving in and it's just coincidence that's where I hit the line. Either way I guess it's welcome to the PNW. Thankfully the rest of the week is supposed to be pretty decent.
I arrived in Portland just in time for a BBQ at Jim's house which included some great food, great deserts, and great company. I think I'm going to get along just fine here over the next week.
Thursday afternoon was pretty much filled with driving two lane black tops west through Oregon. Since Portland isn't that far away I was in no rush so by the time 6:00 rolled around I was ready to find a place to rest for the night. I found myself passing through Mitchell and just a few miles from that is the Painted Hills. Thinking it would probably be best towards sunset I drove in to check it out.
Since I can't hike there wasn't a whole lot to do at the park. I drove around most of it (it's not real big) to get a look at the painted hills but I wasn't really in the mood to take any pictures. I found a road just outside the park that ran right next to a pond so I decided to stop there for a while. I set up a chair in the shade of a twisted Juniper tree and read for a while. It was so nice just to feel the breeze and hear the birds all around. There were a few red winged blackbirds around the edge of the pond calling on and off. Swallows were swooping all around picking off bugs and I could here the calls of unfamiliar birds farther back into the hills. There were ducks on the pond and I saw a mother leading her 10 or so ducklings around the edge of the water. About 6 times I heard a buzzing “whoosh” like a Night Hawk pulling up from one of their steep dives but every time I looked I couldn't see anything. I've never seen night hawks outside of town but about an hour later I finally saw a couple flying around and watched one go into a steep dive before pulling up and making that distinctive sound. I was glad because I thought I was going nuts and hearing things.
While I was sitting in the chair I heard something in the tree next to me. I looked over and saw what looked like the back end of a mouse just as it disappeared from sight around the tree. I could hearing it making scratching noises on the bark on other side but couldn't get a look at it. A little later I caught just a glimpse of it as it raced around the trunk on my side and then out of sight again. I watched and waited and finally it came out on the trunk where I could see it. It turned out not to be a mouse after all but a little lizard with a stumpy tail. I don't know if the tail is by design or if it got cut/bit off sometime. We sat looking at each other for a while until I went back to reading.
As the sun was setting I got back in the car and drove it to a better place to park for the night. The hills were lit up very nicely with vivid streaks of color. I saw three good sized buck deer near the creek which then bounded away and hopped a fence near the road. Everything about the evening just seemed perfect.
Sometimes it's nice not to clutter up the experience with other things. No hiking, no pictures, no nothing. Just sitting back and taking it all in, whatever comes your way.
I finally broke down this morning and went to the hospital to have my knee checked out before I left Baker City. The swelling has actually gone down a little and I'm a little more mobile then I was yesterday. But I knew I wouldn't hear the end of it from friends and family and I also didn't want to find out in 3 months that there was something I could have done at the time that would have saved me trouble down the road. I wasn't really planning on going when I woke up this morning but at 7:15 I didn't have anything to do and since the hospital was on my way into town I swung in before it got busy.
The doctor did some poking and flexing and took a few X-rays. His conclusion was that he didn't have a real firm conclusion; which is something any of us in a field that involves diagnostics realize is a simple fact of life. The X-rays showed no damage but he said with the amount of swelling something has obviously been damaged. Also, since this is the second time this knee has been dislocated (1st time was about 12 years ago) he thinks there's an underlying problem that's allowing it to occur more easily. He didn't give the impression though that there was anything pressing to be concerned about and to just keep it iced, elevated, and try to keep the weight off until it felt better. He did say though that the X-ray is very good at seeing bones but not so good at seeing any ligaments that might be damaged. He recommended that somewhere along the way I have an MRI done on the knee to get a better look at the cartilage and ligaments to see if something is out of whack there.
Although I wasn't real concerned about it I'm relieved to hear that. There still might be another problem that an MRI might catch but at least I didn't get a “we need to operate on that ASAP” response. This way I can try to work any further “repairs” into my schedule (if you can call it a schedule).
For your entertainment when I was looking through my shots from that day I found pictures that showed very well the mountain we were on when the injury occurred as well as the route we took around the lake and up the ridge to get to the car on the other side.
The line is green is when everything was peachy keen. Where it turns red is where I injured my knee. I pretty much slid from where the red starts to that rock outcropping below it. Dusty pretty much drug me down and across the remaining snow field until we reached the bottom. When we looked back at the area from across the lake we could actually see the spot where I fell and started sliding with the binoculars. I don't know if the pictures really do justice to the scale but if we'd been on the mountain in those pictures we would have appeared as nothing but a couple black specks.
I'm hanging out in Baker City the rest of the morning hoping a package will finally be showing up for me via USPS. I've been living with a bent leg on my tripod since last fall and one day in Idaho I had some free time and figured I'd try to fix it. Things went from bad to worse and now I have a tripod that only goes to about 2 1/2 feet. Thankfully much my my tripod work is done at ground level. I've ordered a new one though that looks like it should go along perfect with backpacking. It's smaller and lighter but should still have good height.
This afternoon I'll start winding my way to Portland to do some actual work next week before heading north to Washington for a 4th of July gathering with some fellow iATN members.
Dusty had to actually work on Monday so that left me with the day to myself; much of which was spent in the library using their internet connection and catching up on things. He promised me another hike on Tuesday that I wouldn't forget and he was true to his word....good and bad.
We started by driving up an incredibly steep and rocky road before parking and crossing over a saddle to look down on Rock Creek Lake. There were mountain goats all over the side of the mountains and we were able to get somewhat close to a couple of them. The scenery didn't even look real and the closer we got to the lake the more incredible it looked. We were in no rush so we stopped to do a little fishing at the lake. We didn't fish very long but we were each able to catch a couple Rainbow Trout (at least that's what I think they are from pictures I've looked at). This was the first trout I ever caught. I hooked a couple little ones on our first hike but they were both “quick releases”. I'll let you decide who caught the bigger fish.
After that we did some more hiking up the mountain in the background of the above pictures where we had a fantastic view of the Elkhorn mountains. We were overlooking bucket lake but since most of it was still frozen we decided not to hike down to do some more fishing. We had a nice little picnic up on the peak before heading back around the side of the mountain above Rock Creek Lake. We had to cross some places that were pretty steep and put me a but out of my comfort zone but we got through them just fine and now I'll look at what at first seems impassable in a different way. As we started heading back down the mountain we got to some large snow fields and we started skiing down them. When the snow is just right it's fun and easy; just like Dusty demonstrates here.
Dusty makes it seem easy, but let me tell you, it isn't. After a couple successful runs I was following Dusty down a large snow field when I felt my left knee dislocate and I fell down. As soon as I landed on my ass I started picking up a lot of speed and I got a nice little glimpse of the bottom half of my leg at quite an unnatural angle. The whole time we'd been in the mountains Dusty had been telling me if I ever started sliding to roll over on my stomach and dig in my hands and feet. That's all well and good but I remembered wondering if I'd be able to remember that little nugget of info when/if the need arose. Happily it came without thinking and I immediately rolled over on my stomach and started digging in. As I started rolling over I felt my knee pop back into place but I wasn't exactly coming to a screeching halt as I dug in. There was no way I was going to dig in my left foot so I was loosing out on some braking but I wasn't too worried because I was slowed down considerably and there was a rock out cropping below me that would stop me but not hurt me. I ended up sliding to a stop about 15 feet above the rocks spewing out a string of expletives that would put Ralphy from A Christmas Story to shame.
Dusty got my pack pulled of and helped me down to the rocks so we could size up the situation. My knee hurt like hell but at least the knee cap was back in place. We still had a couple miles to get back to the truck which included finishing the descent to the lake, going around the lake, up the side of a steep ridge, and then back down to the truck on the other side. I wasn't too optimistic about me climbing out but decided we should get a start before it started to get really stiff.
Finishing the descent to the lake proved to be the hardest part since it was mostly down the snow fields and was hard for me to cross them since I couldn't really put pressure on my left leg. When we had to cross horizontally on the snow Dusty would go ahead and stomp foot holds into the snow and them come back so I could lean on him. When we had to go down I laid on my belly and slid down. This was all slow going and finally we decided I'd just lay on my back and hold one end of a strap while Dusty pulled me across the snow. This was much faster and a bit more fun since we had to dodge rocks and trees.
Once we got to the bottom it was pretty much flat across rocks to get around the lake. We found part of a dead pine that served as a walking stick and with the help of that I was able to limp my way around. Part way around the lake we were met by a couple that were camping on the lake. They offered their assistance and I was treated to Aspirin, a grandma made cookie, and best of all....duct tape! I asked their names twice but still forgot (I suck at names), but I did get their picture.
We used the duct tape to help stiffen up the knee joint and it made a world of difference. The longer I walked the better my knee felt, which is the opposite of what I was afraid of. It was slow going but going uphill was actually pretty easy and not that painful. Going down and side hill were a little more painful but even those went all right. Once I realized that I would be able to hike out in OK condition I was back in good spirits and actually enjoyed the hike and the views.
When we got back to the house I peeled the duct tape off my pants and was astounded at what a difference it made. With the duct tape I could get along fairly well, without it it felt like I was nearly immobile and I could hardly support any weight on my left leg. The knee was swollen up badly and looked about the same when I woke up this morning, maybe even a little worse. After hobbling around the house for a while I figured out that my tripod made for a good cane substitute and helped me get around much better. I drove into town where I got a knee brace which helped a ton and I also picked up a real cane.
Let me tell you; I'm totally stylin' and profilin' as I walk down the street now. I got all the ladies starin' at me! But I think it's more of a "what's wrong with that freak type of stare".
Thankfully there's nothing I actually have to do until Monday when I go to work for a week in Portland. I'm hoping to be semi-mobile by then.
You've reached the end of the page but that's not the end of the stories. If you want to read more (and who wouldn't!?) then click on the archive links to the right hand side of the page. They're listed by month; the adventure starts in May.
The February archives aren't actually from this trip but are previous adventures I've had, which are worth reading as well.
Be sure to check out the archives below to get the whole story from the beginning.
