Red Woods and Black Waters

Yesterday, all the things I dreaded might happen, did.

I'm sure it was because J was there. It's Murphy's Law. Things were going smoothly for me this whole time, but then there was another person along, a person who might be skeptical of Alice's rustic beauty and provocative plumbing. Skepticism is a friend of mischief. It was nothing J did, but his presence altered the delicate balance of the trailer's ecosystem, and chaos and mayhem reigned!

We slept in later than I ever do, lingered over breakfast and lying about. I'm not used to it, and kept glancing at the clock. "It's really time to go," I would say. I took a shower, hot water refreshing. When I got out, we heard something. Outside, the sewer hose was having difficulty, as the warm water sat heavy in the hose, two feet below the raised sewer hole it was supposed to flush down. I had to lift it up to allow the water to exit. That should have probably clued me in other things could go wrong. Where was the rest of the water that hadn't been able to go into the tube?

J said he wouldn't take a shower, but I convinced him he should, that it was great. He relented. I went outside to manually hold the hose up to empty the water. It wasn't working, and tiny holes were appearing along the tube. We would have to replace it before emptying our black water tank, but I had emptied two nights ago and had gone as long as four without emptying, so it should have been fine. I asked him to turn the shower water off, unhooked the sewer line, and replaced it with my bucket. The bucket is what I use for washing dishes when I am camping in the woods. Usually, a shower is too much for a 5 gallon bucket. J resumed his shower. Within a few minutes, the gas ran out, and so did the hot water. Poor thing had to rinse in icy cold mountain water.

Forgetting about the bucket, I began the dishes, knowing we had limited time before we had to check out of the camp. Sure enough, the bucket overflowed, and we had to run out and manually scoop water out of it and into the drain tube. Yuck.

I showed J how to to unhook the hoses, unjack the jacks, hitch to the car. We washed our hands one last time, closed the windows. As I was double checking everything, I saw water on the floor. I mopped it up, but more appeared. And more. It was running across the floor diagonally, escaping out the front door. Following the trail, I found it came from where you never want to see water escaping--the toilet. The black tank was overflowing. The water was clear, so it seemed the shower water had backed into the tank and we would have to empty it after all.

It was a disaster. I had to reattach the sewer hose, and rubber-glove handle it to get an angle for the waste to flow into the sewer. I only let a little fluid out at a time, so the liquid wouldn't shoot out of the tiny holes. It was vial. When that was done, we mopped and disinfected the floor. We didn't leave the campground until after 1 PM, well after check-out, feeling awful, dirty, and miserable. The cleaning solution was making my lungs burn and my heart race, and soon I felt sicker than I had in a long time (and this was the "green" cleaning solution!). We stopped to buy the replacement LP line that would enable us to have hot water again, as well as new parts for the new sewer hose. Then, we went to find lunch, but had trouble finding a place to go, to park. By then, I was too sick to eat, and ordered tacos reluctantly. A few minutes before the food arrived, J got an emergency work call and left to deal with it in the trailer. I sat in front of my food, not wanting it, and his food, getting cold. I finally boxed up both meals, paid, and went to lay down in the trailer and listen to my heart palpitations while J was frantic on the phone.

We pulled out of town at 6PM, having not yet driven any of our 125 mile daily minimum, and were generally grumpy.

So what saved us? What made the day pleasant after all, erased the terrible morning, the ruined lunch? We listened to Harry Potter together and admired the landscape. Knowing campsites would either be sketchy or full at this time of night, and not wanted to deal with the trailer in any way other than for sleep, I had us pull into an Indian Reservation (you see the influence it had on me), remembering my friend's advice that I could sleep anywhere on a reservation without trouble. We went to the Casino, open all night with parking security. All the machines were penny and nickel bets, and they were happy to let us sleep in the parking lot. There was free soda and coffee, chili cheese dogs my now-healthy body was grateful for, and we played nichael video poker. I slept better than I had in three nights.

Traditional Women's Dance

Reservations

I have not written in several days. It doesn't bother me too much, except for letting my audience down! I have been enjoying the weekend at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, at the Annual Pi-Ume-Sha Treaty Pow Wow Celebration (that's a mouthful). I only intended to stay a day and a half, but a three day Pow Wow is scheduled for you to stay all three days if you want to see the dances. There were fourteen drums around the arena, and each would take a turn playing the song for the next round of dancers. Each drum had six to twelve men hitting it simultaneously, singing in chorus. It was mesmerizing. The whole community seemed to be represented in the dancing too. There were categories even for children under four, and you would be shocked at how well they could keep the beat. There were "traditional" dances and "fancy" dances, and the songs would change sutitly between dances so that the dancers were suddenly doing a whole new set of moves, hooting out in time with the music.

There were other things that shocked me. The number of parents who seemed to still be in their mid-teens, the gang tattoos sprawling over their necks and arms. Young parents missing all their front teeth, likely from a meth-addiction. Groups of young men looking tough in the parking lot, bandanas and tattoos, occassionally being arrested and chatting with Pow Wow geusts as they were escorted out in cuffs. "See you at the Bar-B-Que tomorrow!"

Despite all this, the crowd seemed warm and friendly, and I felt safe in my trailer, sleeping among all the tents with all the families camping around the Pow Wow grounds.

Early on the second day, I befriended a man named Eldon. He had two young foster children (parents lost to meth), who seemed to follow him silently from place to place. He seemed excited to meet me, to tell me everything about himself (and he did). Then, he said, you need a tour of the reservation, and we piled into his truck and went for a drive.

Eldon pointed at every single building and house, told me when it was built and how the reservation used it, where the people who lived there worked, and how much they paid for rent. He told me the kind of details I would not tell someone touring in my town. "Here is the Parks Department where they keep all the lawnmowers to maintain the public areas." He also told me where things used to be. "This field used to be the cafeteria for the school, where I had my meals when I was boarding in this building here. (He points to a grassy area.) Now, the children use it to play tag, baseball, run around, picnic, whatever."

The place he was most proud to show me was an old church way up in the hills. His great great grandfather was a preacher there, and it was somehow still standing. The sun had baked the planks into a warm honey-color.

The girls ran around the houses, and I started showing them how my camera worked. Each time I took a picture, they ran to see how it came out. I asked them questions, asked them to imagine how things worked when this building was built. They got excited. It wasn't long before they were holding my hands as we walked around. If I had a water bottle in my hand, they would carry it to free me up to hold theirs.

Eldon took me to a bar-b-que, then appeared the next morning and took me to the museum where I saw a picture of his grandfather. The girls held me hands, took sips from my water, and sat next to me everywhere. I took pictures of them, which they loved, demanding more. When it was time to go, they hugged me, said they didn't want to let go, told me they loved me. Eldon presented me with gifts, (insisting it was the Indian way, that it would be rude to refuse or offer anything in return) a beautiful silver necklace, a beaded change bag, two miniature woven baskets, a bag of pencils, and an antique blue bottle.

Last night, I arrived at the Oregon coast. It was strange to be driving again, and very quiet. The Pacific Ocean was hidden to me, until I hiked over the high sand dunes, then wind pushing me back. It was bitterly cold, and I had the place to myself. The sun was setting and the wind was blowing the sand to carve the flesh off my bones. The Pacific, like a lover you haven't seen for a while, and rages at you for your absence.

When I got back to my trailer, settling in to read my book ("On the Road," still), the phone rang. It was Eldon, checking to see where I ended up and that I got their safely. The girls each came on and told me about their day. When I hung up, I started thinking I may have found a few more family members on my trip. No one told me that might happen.