STORIES 2005

"And he who sat there appeared like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that looked like an emerald!!! "---rev 43

Imagine participating in a Special Friends Meeting For Tsunamis! Oh, maybe you better not.

"What is that you're wearing on your head?" someone asked me, after the silence and the queries, in the dry, tolerant way of Quakers.

I touched the sparkling silver crown made of paper. "Oh!" I laughed. "It's left over from the Eagles last night!" No one else....no one in The Dalles, in Hood River, in Portland was wearing a crown like that....or any crown at all. "It's symbolic," I said.

Galveston, TX. December 2004. Coke! I needed coke! I staggered over to the gift shop in the lobby of the Moody Gardens Resort and Conference Center Hotel. In the summer, the halls would be teeming with visitors lured by the beach and the three mystical ecology pyramids. But now the sky was grey against the pink and blue geomety, and the rates were down. I pulled a diet cola out of the cooler and handed the cashier a couple of ones.

"Wheh's George? Track dis bill? What's all dis writin'?" asked the clerk, a pale woman in her 60s with hair like a darkening marshmallow.

"It's sort of a game you play on the internet. If you find one of these, you enter it. You can make maps and stuff of where people find 'em." I explained. It would be the last substantial thing said during the next ten minutes.

"I dont have much use for de intahnet. But my sister...my sister is retahed and she stays on the intahnet ALL DE TIME. She gets up at six and dunt go to bed until two! She dunt wash dishes but maybe once a week or clean or anyting! [clip] She plays dis game ALL DE TIME. Dey have dese villages. You pick yoah roll...mastah, slave, free person...." Hmmm! De clerk was speaking in the dirty rice drawl of the bayous! Did they have 'gators in this game? SNAP!!!!

"Must not be on a dial-up. Is she married?" I asked.

"YES!! Her husband stays in de bedroom with HIS computer...and the daughtah stays in HER room and plays...she's a CHRISTIAN....so she has a Christian master. [clip] I tell her it int natural, she dunt talk to REAL people!!! She tells me 'You waste all this time running aroun' bars and drinkin' all night.' I tell her at least I am with REAL people...dose people on de compuda you dont even know who dey are! [clip!] And THEN she says her master is callin' and she has to get back on the compuda!!"

"Huh! So where's this master guy from?"

"Oregon, I think. Boring! Can you imagine doing one thing all the time by yuaself like dat? I mean, I go off for three days and play de slots, I'm bored, I'm through!!"

New Years, 2004....I put on my black shirt and my black brocade slacks from Fred Meyer and my tiny purple zip up jacket from a Portland yard sale and my old green LL Bean coat and I was off. I walked past Albertsons and Rite Aid and Burger King, crossed the street, and then walked past the now empty National Guard Armory and Dennys. I turned the corner and walked up half a block bordering the ball park and then into the crowded parking lot. Look at all the pick-ups! I opened the door and walked in.

"Here, I got this receipt," I told the doormen, who were stationed at a puffy portable bar.

"OK! Now all we need to see is eight dollars."

The receipt was my application for membership in the F.O.E. Auxiliary.

My decision to join the Fraternal Order of Eagles Auxiliary had been a weird but emotional one. My grandfather, George Homsher Hayward, had been a member of Aerie #666 in Richmond, Indiana! But in truth, I was interested because The Eagles is a real hoppin' spot. Earlier in the day, I'd buzzed my way in, leaving Ian in the car obliviously quoting facts from "The Alaska Almanac." In the smoky haze I could make out a magical cluster of neon beer signs on my left, and a dancefloor on my right, vast as a Saskatchewan wheat field. I walked up to the bar, and waited while the bartender poured a Miller Lite for a wheat farmer to my left. Then, I asked about joining the Eagles.

The bartenders hair, I recall, was blonde and poofy, like a roasted marshmallow. She was about my age. She said, "Men, women, anyone can join. Fill out this application. I'll be pleased to sponsor you! I won the #1 sponsorship award last year!"

Now, however, midnite was approaching. I looked around.

"WOW! What a lot of cowboy hats!!" I said to myself. But people of all types were there, dancing to the rock-country coverband or sitting at tables doing almost nothing. I milled around through the cheerful murk. At the back was a NO MINORS pool room, where a woman in black glasses and a red satin evening gown was making a fruitful shot. To the front a NO MINORS Keno room, where a lone dark man was staring at a screen. And what was this? Another room, with a kitchen!

"You can go on back there!" a man said.

Whoa! What a spread! Chips and salsa, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cold cuts and cheese, bread and what's this? BARBECUE TRISCUITS!! I loaded a plate with cheese and carrots and triscuits! What a bonanza!

Then I stepped up to the long, cozy bar.

"Can you make a sloe gin fizz?" I asked.

"Uh...I've never made one. It's just sloe gin and soda, isnt it?" asked the young woman on duty, scrambling for the manual.

"Dunno," I said. "I havent had one in 20 years. But I think maybe a lemon...."

"Hey, Todd, how do you make a sloe gin fizz?"

Bald Todd came over. "It's sloe gin, soda water, and sweet and sour." She began pouring a jigger of red sticky gin in a short glass.

"That will be $2.50," she said. Two fifty???? "Hey, how's come you get to have all these George bills?"

"I make 'em," I said. "If you make 'em, you can have as many as you can afford."

I put on a silver cardboard crown and sat on a black naugahyde stool to watch the dancers on the polished birch floor. How festive! Old white haired people, the woman in silver lame, dancing to rock!! Haha!!! Oops...maybe they were my age. Three young women in sweats were line dancing. A frail-looking man with a weak chin, waist length hair, and a black Harley jacket cut fine trails with a pretty blonde in a black cocktail dress. I began to explore again and read the old auxiliary charter from 1938. By the billiard room, a gent grabbed my arm lightly,

"Hey, I need a pool partner."

"I'm sorry, I dont play pool very well," I smirked.

"Oh well....hey, I need a pool partner!" he said to a huge breasted woman in lace and tight jeans.

"I dont play worth s--t!!!" she laughed. But then she got up to play pool. I guess she actually knew how!

Suddenly, a man with a rattail in a black tuxedo mounted the stage. "5-4-3-2-1!!!" he counted. Then about 40% of the audience blew their silver paper horns and rattled their noisemakers. That included me! The bass player jumped down and kissed his girl in a big swoon! Someone pulled the cord on three bags of balloons, and they skittered and bounced along the floor...until the dancers popped them. The band struck up the chilling chords of "Takin' Care of Business!!!" and it was as if the floor itself danced in the neon from all those pretty beer signs reflected from a huge rented mirror ball!

I left, walking home past styrofoam patches of 2 day old snow. At 9th and Cherry Heights, the lights of a City of The Dalles Police car revealed the unsteady owner of a silver Toyota sedan bearing Washington Plates and a SUPPORT OUR TROOPS magnet. On my left, the lights of an illegal firework lit the low clouds in the night sky like tiny stars.

&*&*&*&*&*&

The Dalles, January 2005: "Hi" I said"...my mother used to drink whiskey sours! So maybe it's time for me to try one..."

The bartender at the FOE Eagles Aerie 2126 poured out a huge jigger of rich brown whiskey . Her face glowed like a ripe peach beneath the sunny neon Budweiser sign. I picked up the squat glass glass and snowy napkin and found my way to a table by the dance floor. Several grey-haired couples were twisting to a karyoke version of the old classic "Let's Twist Again Baby Like We Did Last Summer!!!"

"Whoa...that guy's got a good voice!" I thought, as the karyokeist crooned on.

"She wore blue velvet

And like blue velvet were her eyes.... "

Wow!!!!

I pulled the December issue of Astronomy out of my coat pocket and began to read "The Ice Planet Past Pluto." I topped this off with "Big Venus Type Planets Attached To Stars Outside of the Solar System." These planets rotate around their stars in less than a week or so and make them wobble!!! Maybe someday someone catch one in transit, like they did with Venus!!!!

Suddenly a voice said"Remember, in New Zealand, how you thought no one would ever speak to you except for us bracelets? And then how suddenly they wouldnt shut up? Maybe that will happen here."

I thought, "Back to the jewelry box for you!"

+++

Rotorua, New Zealand, August 2004: By the time the ferry carried her and her Toyota camper van back from Picton to Wellington, from the South to the North Island on the long northward journey to the Aukland Airport, things had begun to change. Here in the Hutt Valley, in Ekatahuna, in Hastings, waitresses, desk clerks, customers, and random individuals clamored to pierce her armor with stories, opinions, and facts.

"We can't make a go of this motel. We just lease it from the Chinese and they charge a fortune."

"Look, that disposable camera costs more than the suitcase you're buying!"

"My boyfriend is flying to Italy for a motorcycle convention, but I dont think we all can afford to go!"

"Go to the Polynesian spa in Rotorua, sweetheart!!."

And so she drove north past the great crater lake at Taupo, and back through the geothermal valley where she'd hiked in wonder only a week and a half earlier. She took out her map of Rotorua, and located the Polynesian Spa, with its enticing rock pool as pictured in the brochure called "Rotorua, Geothermal Paradise!!" So many missed turns!!! But wow, there it was ahead, and with a special on at the Lake Plaza Hotel as well. What luxury for this, her last night!! She parked and dove into the Polynesian Spa building.

"ROCK POOL CLOSED FOR WINTER REPAIRS" said a sign.

OH NO!!!! She looked at the neat indoor pool and she looked at the price for a dip. She went back out to her camper van and located Cosy Cottage Holiday Park (famous for its naturally heated tent spaces) on the map. So many missed turns!!! Would she run out of petrol?

[to be continued]

!_!_!_!_

Snow Day On I-84!!!

Boyd dismounted from his battered green pickup...which today had been transformed to a little snowplow....into the barren grey and white of midafternoon. He hardly looked at Wa-Na-Pa, the long,cold street that served as the main, barely throbbing aorta of Cascade Locks, Oregon. Deftly, he turned the door handle of the Salmon Pub. Inside, framed against the old pine paneling, the bartender was stoking the fire with cleaved oak logs. It was warm and homey as the Sunset magazines that lay sleepily on the mantle.

"Yep...no big deal," he commented to the bartender. "Back when I lived in Minnesota..."

A lone woman sat at a table by the window, eating a salmon burger. She was thinking about her now-chilled box of CDs and her husband's 4 wheel drive Subaru with huge spikes protruding from the tires. No big deal, she was thinking. Back when she lived in Minnesota....

"You'd think it would be easier for some of those people to just drive through town," she told the bartender.

"Lots of traffic out there?" the bartender (who was a woman) replied.

"Yeah...and it's going so slowly."

"It gets better once you get on towards Hood River." (You pronounce Hood River "Hood RI-ver," sort of like "Moon RI-ver.")

"Yeah...well...I live in The Dalles (you pronounce this "The Dalls" and not something stupid like "The Dallies")and I drove in to Portland this morning, and now I'm driving back. Everyboday was going so slow!" She'd just swung the station wagon off the bare pavement of the right lane and passed at 65 over the gravely ice; the old grey Suburu was the Jaguar, the jetfighter of icy roads. "The worst part was Portland. You'd look out the window and see cars beside you just covered with sheets of ice." Each vehicle a lovely waterfall! Each leaf of grass a thick rod of glass~~

"Most people who do go through only stop a moment," the barista continued. "Then they get on to where they're going. They were scared to go last night, and now they are in a hurry to get where they are going. There are a lotta people out there from Idaho trying to get back. But they're going right into the storm we had yesterday."

"Trying to outrun it...but they cant." the woman said.

"No, they can't. One couple said they needed to drive up a 7 mile dirt road north of Lewiston. Wondered if they would have a problem. Well...yeah!!!"

Suddenly, a Jeep pulled up at the icy curb. The door openen and a couple walked into the building.

"I'd like a Cloud Cap, and she wants a soda and lime," a thin young man with blond hair told the bartender.

The woman at the window wondered what a Cloud Cap was. Then she began to recall the semis as they chained up for the Bonneville Curves, half on the shoulder and half in the right lane, she supposed. In the whiteness you could not tell where the roadway began.

~_~_~_~_~_

www.bookcrossing.com

Fuddruckers in Lake Oswego! I crept sheepishly through the vacuuous white rooms. Over to my left were some tomatoes, lettuce, and salsa. But I wasn't looking for vegetables, I was searching for people....people I didnt even know!!!

"Oh, why dont I just drive back home!" I whimpered. You may not believe it, but I am a very shy person!

In the second cavernous room, a thin woman with lively glowing eyes sat pointing to a cardboard sign which read "BOOKCROSSING"

BINGO!!!!

I walked over to the table.

"Actually, I was looking for wheresgeorge.com." I said.

The people....maybe ten in all....at the table looked at me blankly. Then a shorter and plumper woman said hesitantly, "My husband is a georger. REX!!!!"

I turned 90 degrees and stared at a goateed man in a dark leather vest. "Rex??!?!" I said. It didnt ring a cashregister.

"Twigman," she said.

"TWIGMAN!!!!" I gasped, drawing in my breath. I was face to face with the #1 wheresgeorge devotee in Oregon!!! You wonder that no one was asking for his autograph!! If they only knew!!!

"Sit down." he said, pulling a chair over.

"This FAQ card will explain it all to you!" explained the thin nonplussed woman from behind her stack of books. "You enter the ISBN of the book on our internet site and that establishes a file. You print out the FREE BOOK!!! and stick it inside or on the front...that's what these other little stickers are for, I just love these...and then you leave the book somewhere...that's what you're really supposed to do. But we're just trading them right now. Then when someone gets the book, they enter number on the web site and there is a space for comments." She turned to the man on my left. "You're new arent you?"

"Yes," he said. "I'm into geocaching."

"You ever find books in geocaches? Dollar bills?" asked TWIGMAN. Twigman constructs twig furniture for a hobby, that's where he got his name.

"You sure do!" said the man from behind his stack of books.

"What's your secret?" I asked Twigman.

"I use ones and fives for everything. I'm nice to the people at the bank," he said.

"You might like this book..." someone interjected, hurling towards me a copy of that meaningful book with all the water on the cover with an eye staring down at it.

"No...I really dont read much fiction. But my son does. He likes fantasy..." Where were the John McPhee titles when you needed them?

"This book is what you want!" said a blonde from Washougal excitedly. "A friend of mine wrote it!!! It's about a couple who travels around in time using a Volkswagen Rabbit."

I walked up to the counter.

"Can I help you?" asked the barista.

"Wow...I havent been to a Fuddruckers in years. I dont eat meat...I'm looking for something that I can eat...."

"We have gardenburgers," she said cheerfully.

"Great!" I said. "That and a large drink." I got my diet pepsi from the fountain and walked back to the table.

"What's the ethics of people trading bills?" I asked Twigman.

"Well....where people have gotten into trouble is when they sit around a table and trade a bunch of bills and then they report them on the site. That's cheating! But if you and I just exchanged a bill and then spent them, that would be OK. I would be willing to do that." He handed me a crisp Little Soldier stamped in multicolor ink. It looked like the dollar I had found months ago at Fred Meyer.

"TWIGMAN," the name on the profile had said when I entered the bill into the website.

"I just write on mine," I said, handing him a JUDITH original.

"Judith!" yelled the counterman.

I picked up my burger, then piled it high with lettuce, tomatoes and onions. Then I added steak sauce. It had been years since I had put steak sauce on a sandwich.

~~~~~~~~~

Handy Map White Salmon

Vancouver Washougal Stevenson Bingen Lyle Dallesport

-----------WA 14-------------------------------------------------------------------------

===I====I==========I=I=The Columbia==I=================I==EAST>

---------I84---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Portland Troutdale Cascade Locks Hood River The Dalles

(Not to scale) I-dam or bridge

January, 2005. We stumble, here at the mouth of the Klickitat, across the Union Pacific tracks, down over sharp flint-grey lava rocks, and past steel-grey Firestones filled with styrofoam, faded shotgun shells, and milkjug bobbers, to the cold winter strand of the Great Columbia River. We run out on four pronged bird tracks and two halved deer tracks, across the muds of the empty bed of the Columbia, until we are almost half way across. If you just extend you arm, you can almost touch an aid to navigation! The trite winter cold races below my fleece and sweater, but Erin traces her name into the sand and yells

"Take my picture!"

She removes her shoes and wades farther in the grey water, upstream towards Mosier and Bingen. If she just extends her hand a little more, she can touch snags of old conifers that have newly risen out of nowhere, like tombstones of dead lumberjacks....no, like tombstones of Hanford employees. Then she turns and walks north, back towards the WA14 bridge over the Klickitat, towards Lyle, Washington, and the old red car. Between us, a fat white seagull swoops and turns, so close I can almost feel it. A couple with a baby near the summer shore raise an orange kite. Across the river, on I-84, a yellow Oregon school bus races east.

October, 2004. It was just last October that the red car and I were racing east ourselves, but on the parallel and more colorful 2 laned Washington 14. I was just about halfway from the putrid smoke of the paper plant at Washougal to the massive power TransFormers of Bonneville Dam, where everything is really curvy and forested. Suddenly, on the shoulder of the road right up against the guardrail, there appeared a young couple with their thumbs out! Oh no! There was no shoulder at all here on this curve! I screeched to a halt right there on the roadway. They hesitated, perplexed, and then raced to the car, she sliding the side door open and he entering the front passenger seat.

"Where you headed?" I asked.

"Bingen," said the man. Bingen was (and still is) about 30 miles east along the highway.

"Well...that's fine then! But better get a move on! There's a huge semi barrelling down the road just behind us!" I looked in the rear view. Yikes! The massive transport vehicle from Boise was hard astern, and soon we would be squashed! We accelerated very rapidly indeed!

"Yeah," said the man pleasantly. "They like to go down this road real fast!"

They were both young, thin,and blond. I couldnt see the woman, but she was very pretty and wore a stocking cap. The man was white as snow with shoulder length brown hair and a goatee. He wore a black leather jacket and blue jeans, and sported a gold ring in one ear.

"Hey, look out there at that boat!" he said.

"Is that one of those 10 day cruise boats that goes from Astoria to Pasco?" I asked.

"No! That's a private vessel!"

"Like a yacht?"

"Yeah....and I was right up by it once. They're real rich. Me and my brother was out fishing one time and we ran outa gas. That boat was right there and she come up by us and we said, hey man, we're outa gas! So they threw us down a couple of oars! Keep 'em! they said. Like you think they'd do something better than that."

"Huh!" I said. "Where was that?"

"Stevenson. We grew up in Stevenson," he said.

Suddenly, big flashing lights came up behind me. GASP!!! A Skamania County Sheriff's vehicle passed like lightning in the left lane.

"Hey," I said. "Look over there! The cops are pulling someone over!" I swerved to avoid the unlucky goose and its preditor

"Yeah, hey, the cops, that's someone I like to avoid. I got into a lot of trouble in high school back in Stevenson. Made a lot of mistakes...."

"Huh!" I said.

We passed Bonneville Dam (Which I had accidently crossed in the red Windstar in November of 2000 when I took a wrong turn at the visitor center, cant do that now!!!) and soon we were on the slow main street of Stevenson. On our left was the Skamania County Courthouse, on our right, the Big River Grill. (All of this is WIFIed as part of the rural WIFI project!!! The whole downtown of Stevenson, Washington!!!!)

No police came out to greet the blond man.

The next fifteen miles went so fast!

Then suddenly, at the Mouth of the Little White Salmon River, an unusual renegade auto appeared in the westbound lane! It was a bright yellow 1953 Buick Roadmaster with red flames dancing up the sides! There was chrome trim all over!

"Hey man! I know the guy who owns that car. Ha! I put the engine in that thing!!" said the blond man.

"Wow! I'm impressed!" I said.

"Tommy knows almost everyone around here!" the tiny woman laughed admiringly. These were to be the only words that she would speak during the trip.

Soon the town of Bingen appeared above the dashboard. Bingen is just downhill from White Salmon.... in more ways than one!

"Where was it that y'all wanted to be let off?" I asked. Chip's Bar & Grill was on our right.

"Well, actually just through....on the other side of town. You know where Big River Asphalt is?"

"Uh...you know, I KNOW I've seen the sign."

"Yeah, I'll show it to you. She's had some problems with them. We've got something we've got to settle with them." he said.

"Huh!" I said.

Just as he said, Big River Asphalt appeared.

"Well, good luck!" I said as I left them off.

=-=-=-=-=-=

FEBRUARY 2005

Murdock Washington! A Tandem Windsurfing and Welfare Paradise, braced leisurely between the Klickitat Hills and The Mighty Columbia! One sunny blue afternoon in February, you might see a man not so much older than you drive up the Murdock Mini-Mart in a red Toyota pick-up with topper. His beard is long and white, his kinky hair is drawn back into a pony-tail, and he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt as a harbringer of spring. There he is at the Kassa! (this is Finnish for "cashier.")

"Can I get three of those heavily fried fish fillets?" he asks, and pulls out his checkbook to pay, musing over his financial records. "Dang! I paid five hundred and forty six dollars this month for drugs!"

The clerk angles all three out of the case at once, as if he were netting goldfish from a tank. "Yeah, I know my grandfather paid six hundred and eighty this month."

"And I got insurance, too...that was MY part! I guess it just depends on how much ya wanna live," says the customer.

"Isnt that the truth," says the cashier.

The next customer flops twelve ones and a 44 oz fountain diet pepsi on the counter.

"Truck driver came in here and says he finds those bills all over the place, places like Michigan," he tells her.

"Somebody found one of these I spent here in Montana," she answers.

"Well...that's a fair ways," he says, emerging as the victor.

Rotorua, New Zealand! A third of a world away from Murdock along the Ring Of Fire...and at the fork side of The Pacific Plate! In this August winter, white mist smokes upward like wizard breath at every hollow in the elfland terrain and hisses in the cold sky. Dwaerves? Faeries? Daemons? Each boiling stream gurgles with the sulfurous steam of Hades! Each wayside inn offers its own sizzling pool to weary guests.

I stepped down from my rented Toyota van camper and surveyed the Cozy Cottage Campground. Squish! In the New Zealand summer, the tent sites were advertised as naturally heated. Now with their ample skin of winter rain, they simmered. I threw a few towels around my new tropical swimsuit and sloshed my way to the Hot Pool....actually one of several. The biggest one was empty, except for hot water. What exactly does a hot pool look like? Like many in New Zealand, this one looked like a gigantic concrete minnow tank, like the one at Hakkala's Sporting Goods in Park Rapids, MN. Or like....my mind floated back to my Alabama childhood, to the basement of the Valley Christian Church. Clutched in my hand was my coloring of "Daniel In the Lions Den."

"That's where they DUNK them," said my father. SCOTCH BAPTISTS! Camel-ites they call them!!"

"Dunk them?" I asked. Someone had had the smart idea to send me to Sunday School here, though no one in my family really cared about religion, particularly my father. In the end, in his early 70s, he would grow to depend on the Saturday Senior Lunch for social contact. Elderly Valley Christians would be forced by southern politeness to hear endless facts and stories from the National Geographic flow like pipe smoke and blue cheese from his encyclopediac brain.

I distowled and settled into the hot sulfurous water. I looked up....alone beneath the black southern sky and tiny white stars scattered like frost! A tree fern brushed against my shoulder. The door opened! The couple, clothed in the fading plumpness of their late 60s, I'd seen before. Oh no! It was the maintenance man and his wife!

"You're from America, arent you?" he asked, easing himself into the tub.

"We were in America last year," said his wife. "We went to New York City!"

"We were all over," said the man. "We were going to rent a car, but then we saw a tour."

"We took the English tour. They had a German tour as well, and a French tour."

"We met people from all over the world..."

How lucky these people were to know each others next beat, like the two sides of one heart.

"We have been all over. We've been to Europe and Australia."

"And Egypt. If you never go anywhere else, go to Egypt. The Pyramids are just amazing."

"They were all built with slave labor."

"We went with a under-30 tour. They had spaces they needed to fill."

"No one minded."

"Do you know the man I admire the most? Winston Churchill!"

<clip>

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

1.One minute everything was normal and then the phone rang. Suddenly I was ear to ear with someone I hadnt heard from in twenty years. That's the rule that I should have learned from my parents.

"I havent seen that old goat in twenty years," my father would say.

"I remember we used to go dancing there twenty years ago," my mother would say.

But I do truly think the last time I actually spoke with my college pal Marianne was in....well, maybe it was 1987. Oops! For all these years she has been an attorney with legal aid in Des Moines.

"I'm going to Sweden in March," I said. "Up over the Arctic Circle to Kiruna and then..."

"To Narvik in Norway...." she completed my sentence. Omnsicient? Then my memory returned like buzzing bees flocking to the hive. The unsteady bee dance in my head said this

"Huh! I forgot you went on Scandinavian Foreign Study. Where did you go?"

"Yes, I surely did. I stayed in Bergen and then we took a tour up to Narvik. Then we stayed with families in Copenhagen. My family hated me because I was a hippie. I had 2 pairs of ripped bell-bottoms and weird friends like Jim Ridker...no, I guess he wasnt along. She told me that my family evidently was one of some means as I was doing this, and that I should write them and tell them to send me some suitable clothes."

"You? I thought you were the most reliable and adult of all my friends. What's your daughter doing now? Is she going to Earlham?"

"No, she wouldnt go. She's at Beloit. She was home at Christmas and after a week, we both couldnt wait for her to leave. I want my life back!"

"I'll have to wait a long time to get MY life back," I said.

"But she's told us that she isnt coming home spring break. She's going to Quebec with a French student. I have no idea who he is. They're going to visit a couple people he met in a train station in France. They didnt have any money,so he gave them some for the train." She laughed. "She's going with some guy I dont know to visit some people who were broke in a train station. Isnt that scary?"

"Huh!" I said.

"You were in England Foreign Study, right? I remember that you were indignant when they didnt want to let you take your pick-ax on the plane. You loved your pick-ax!!"

My rock hammer? The luckless bees buzzed, but would form no picture. When could that have been?

"That was before they even had any security at the airports!" I said.

2. "I think we should go to the State Cheerleading Competition in Portland on Saturday," said Ian. "We've been number one in the 3A, now I'd like to see what we do as a 4A." The Dalles Wahtonka High School had been thrown up over the limit by a controversial consolidation. What other high school had two names, two team names (the Eagle Indians)and two mascot seals? It was embarassing!!

"I bet you like cheerleaders! I bet you like GIRLS! I bet you have a GIRLFRIEND!!!" accused Erin.

"No," snarked Ian. "Sure I like girls! I like boys too."

"E-Yoooo!!" said Erin. "You like BOYS!!!!"

"I like EVERYONE, Erin! Except for a couple people."

"Huh!" I said.

"Kevin. I hate Kevin. He's irritating. I like to think he has a screw loose a quarter turn.I like to think he's not really that dumb. He's just pretending. I like to think that!"

"Jag hatar Kevin!" I said, practicing.

Wow! I'd never realized how nicely rap music lends itself to Cheerleading routines. Team after team of white and Asian Valley Girls showed us how they dance MTV-style in the suburban Portland and Willamette Valley 'Hoods. Lake Oswego! Troutdale! Eugene! Boring!

"Those girls on that team look like ostriches!" exclaimed Erin. "It's disgusting how they wiggle their butts."

No better handsprings could be seen in a Brazillian Two Ring Circus, and no better pyramids in an Iraqi prison....until they fell! On every team, someone would fall or at least shake with unsteadiness. Except one...the huge WILSON HIGH SCHOOL from Portland!! This no nonsense 17 member troop rolled like a well-oiled green tank patrol.

We were left speechless. Then I said, "Well, good thing we're not competing against them. We're a 4A (Small)." I glanced down at the little blue six member team from Grants Pass and breathed a sigh.

Suddenly, the MC announced "Next up in 4A small....THE DALLES WAHTONKA!"

The three dumb blondes ahead of us stretched for a look.

"What color are their shoes?" asked the one with the baby and the nicely laundered thong.

"They're GOLD! They're GLITTERING!!!" gasped the one on her left, her eyelids sagging with mascara.

Suddenly, the music began for The Little Eaglets.

"VIVA LAS VEGAS!!!!!" Oh no! But what can you expect from a school that churns out several musicals each year? L'il Abner....How To Suceed in Business...Oklahoma!

The ten little Indians bounced like perfect springs across the gym! They stacked 3 High like a display of fine ruby and topaz jewelry and did not waver once!

"They're going to win," said Ian.

And they did!

@*@*@**@*

"Ha!" said the large blonde woman as she fingered her glass of Miller Lite. "This will be nothing. I was a member of The Rainbow Girls and Eastern Star. They were tough! We had to wear evening gowns to the initiation."

"What's Eastern Star?" asked the younger blond woman. She was dressed in black and through her left eyebrow and through her nose she wore the most delicate of silver rings. Like the older blonde, she resembled a Viking warrior.

"Masons!" said the other woman.

I stared off across the vacuous, silent dancefloor of the Eagles Aerie and contemplated our fate. Soon we would become full-fledged Eaglets and be issued....our own keycards! I thought of the five women at the table, all dressed in lovely evening gowns. Instead, we wore Nice Trousers.

The conversation slipped off of masonry. The older blonde woman, by trade the Manager of The Oregon Trail Close-Out Center, said "We're almost moved over to Dallesport...we got between 2 and a half and three acres...our fourwheelers and our Harleys, our boat...they're moved over there already. Wide open spaces over there!!!" She turned to me and said "You look pretty calm!"

"That's because I'm petrified," I said, flashing geology terms at her. I fingered my grandfathers ring. I wasn't really petrified, either literally or figuratively, but the last thing I wanted to say here was "After going through Prelims, everything is a breeze."

"Say, do you all know each other?" I asked. The colors on the neon Budweiser sign seemed so pale in the windowless daylight.

The ample brunette chuckled. "Yeah, we do! I'm Sandra, and this is my daughter Tanya. And this is my friend Darlene, but we didnt know either one of us that the other was coming! Ha ha! And this is my ex-mother in law May. We all live together in Dallesport! Can you imagine living with your ex-mother-in law!!!" May was the only wiry woman in the group and she had bright, quick eyes.

"I WAS living on The Coast," said May.

"We went to visit her in Lincoln City, and the place was CRAWLING with cockroaches!" said Sandra.

"You said you couldnt even sleep in your bed, you were sleeping in the recliner and still they were dripping down from the ceiling onto you like water!" said Tanya.

"There were even cockroaches in the microwave and in the refrigerator!" added Sandra. "We got a U-Haul and moved her out right away!"

Suddenly a woman with curly hair and a blue vest...it looked alot like the one Erin had for Campfire!... opened the door to the room where on New Years Eve I had gobled down bar-b-cue tricuits.

"Where's the other gals?" she asked. "They said there were seven of you!"

"Uh..." we said.

"I'll check at the bar!" she said. She walked over and came back with another gal in tow.

"Look who I found!" she said. Where was the other one? We would never know.

What happens inside the exalted door to the kitchen room? That I cannot tell. But here is what Eagles believe in

GOD

COUNTRY

HOME

I have learned that everyone sees things through different eyes. But how could you look westward along the Columbia at sunset and not love America? Support Our Troops...bring them home.

"Can I get a Scotch and Soda?" I asked the bartender. I'd meant to go home direct, but felt I'd earned the icy glass.

"You can come sit with us," said Sandra. She and her daughter had ordered another round of Miller. The two elderly women at the table were drinking coffee. Tanya lit a cigarette.

"She"...she said indicating one of the older women..."said that we'd have to ride donkeys!!"

The older woman smiled faintly and began to tell us some of the rules. "Well...did you know that you cant sign in a man as a guest...you cant sign in your boyfriend. You have to ask one of the guys inside to do it. They know which ones not to let in...the ones that start fights."

"Huh!" said Tanya.

!)!)!)

January 2005-The American West begins on the back road between Mosier and The Dalles. At the snap of a finger, a desperate hand will lose its fading grasp on the cool dark world of the Portlandista and find itself holding a bright expansive winter.

We drive the old red Windstar south up Mosier Creek. We turn at the place the asphalt roads come together like brances on old apple trees, driving up past orchards and small farms. Up and up, past the Mosier Trailer Resort...soon there are no houses...soon there is no pavement, only dry gravel. Below us, to the West, there is the Oregon of your dreams, dark green conifers spead across the Cascades like moss on smooth jagged rocks, like tastefully clipped beard hairs in the neck crotch of a bird-watcher, one silver pebble, a food crum of a cabin in all our vista. We pull over half on the roadway...there is no boundary and no one will care. Erin grabs the new digital camera, snapping the sky, the sun, and the mountains, then turns to the black winter ghosts of scrub oaks above us. This is where the West begins. This is the line.

We drive upwards on Vensel Road, sometimes through scrub, sometimes through forest, but now past patches of snow. We look over to the isolated ranch on our right.

"Isnt that where we saw those dogs running in the field last week?"

"Yes, and look, their tracks are still there in the snow!" The sun had drilled their pawprints to bare soil and dead grass. Just last week, Emma had been sitting where I am now.

"Oh my!" she had said as the road turned steep and narrow, the back wheels spitting gravel out into the past.

"Look at those dogs running!" Erin had said to Baby Victor, his warm dark eyes like big chestnuts in his tiny head.

Suddenly, the sound of samba rhythm!

"Here, you answer it." I hand the phone to Erin.

We turn left onto Chenoweth Creek Road with its brown wood fences and cattle grate.

"Look! Ahead! A deer!" says Erin.

Deja vu! I stop.

"He will run," says Erin. But he doesnt...not yet. I pull out the camera. We take photos of the dust on the our windshield and the road

ahead of us. The deer has antlers like big dead oak trees, and he's figiting. Then I remember the telefoto feature. Voila! A big deer,

captured on electrons!

"He's going to hop!" says Erin. And he does...right over the barbed wire!

^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^

Montreal! How this internet espresso-lain city tempts fate! One night, I casually glanced at the advertisements on my confusing city

map. My eyes were rivited on these words

VEGETARIAN CAFE

I wrapped myself in my new pink parka (inspired by "Legally Blonde") and set out au pieds north on St. Denis, into the Latin Quarter.

VOILA! on my left, there it was. I opened the door...

"Bonjour Madame! Comment va tu ce soir!" said the lady at the door.

"Just me..." I said, clueless. Having spent my high school FTA service grading tests for Mlle. Stange's "Francais avec Alabama

Dipthongs" class, I could read almost everything in Montral, but didnt understand a word that anyone said.

"We have a vegetarian buffet here. There are three tables, hot, cold, and desserts. You seat yourself...it's all NON-SMOKING!" I drew in my breath.

"That's great!" I said. No joke! Almost in tears, I piled my Lumi-arc plate p high at the hot and cold buffets. Theres nothing better than

a huge transparent plate of tofu products and a bottle of ale with a lumberjack on the label, eh!! It was much later when I tumbled out

again into the charming frigid night.

"Avez-vous un peu d'argent pour moi, s'il vous plait, je suis si froid!" said a young man sitting on the sidewalk. He was wrapped in a

blanket.

"Uh...Je ne peut parlez le francais," I said, using the second person plural instead of the infinitive to sound stupid and ignorant.

"You have any of ze spare change?" he repeated.

In fact, I went to the Veggie Palace the next day, too, for Sunday lunch. Then I walked back to the hotel and retrieved my backpack and the bright blue Chinese suitcase I'd bought in New Zealand for US$9.

"How do I get to the airport bus?" I asked.

"It's a long way. You better take the subway," said the desk clerk.

Not me! Subways are for wimps!

I set out along the Rue Pomme de Terre, a 35 pound pack on my back, dragging a cheap busted suitcase behind me. What happened was that Northwest Airlines baggage smashed it on the way to YUL, but I didnt know that until I got it to the hotel and tried to extend the handle. It jammed halfway, wouldnt go up nor down and the plastic cross-brace was busted as well. So hence I walked at an odd, lowered angle so I could pull the case on the icy sidewalks. How weird I must have looked!

Lucky the station only twenty or so blocks! There it was, just ahead!!...uh.....

"It USED to be here," someone explained. "To get to the NEW bus station, you take this subway line, and then ask...." OH NO! The

hotel clerk had sent me to the train station!!!

Screw Northwest Orient, should I just take a fast train to Vancouver? At this point, I had no time to toy with questions and uncertainty. I walked out to the grim brown cold front of the station and stared at the line of cabs. A cab? I'd never taken a cab on my own...in The

Dalles, "a cab" means the woman with a battered blue Voyager who takes welfare recipients to Fred Meyer for groceries! How far would I sink!

I settled into the back seat as the driver, a robust man in a tired black jacket, wound up his mouth.

"Where are you going?" he asked. What a loaded question!

"Back to Oregon." I said.

"Do you know Serbo-Croatia?" Of course I did. "I was a foreign diplomat from the former Yugoslavia before the war, but when it broke out I stayed here. I was first in the US, but I applied for a job teaching English and they would not hire me...English and water polo. So now I am driving a cab. I was a championship water polo player. You would think I could find a job."

"Water polo..." I said.

"Not so much played here, but they do have water polo in Portland. How do you like Montreal? You should visit New Brunswick, it is lovely there, have you been there."

"No....but I think British Columbia is really nice!" I said.

"British Columbia! Ha...an American State!"

"Ha ha..." I said.

"You know, Canada should all become American states. There was a survey made and 30% of the people unprompted said that Canada should join the US. Why not! Canada has to do do what the US says on major policy anyway. You look at Trudeau, he was a master at this, going to visit Castro, making like he was defying the US, and then on something that made a difference missles for example, he did just what the Us wanted him to....We should have the voice...we should be able to vote."

"Maybe Bush wouldnt have been elected." This was his cue to say the right thing.

"Maybe the Republicans wouldnt have let the Canadians join. Because the Canadians would have voted for Kerry. You should visit Croatia. It is perfectly safe now that the war is over. Slovenia, Montenegro...Things are cheap and they have the big houses they rent out..."

And then I WAS looking at Trudeau, and at Northwest Orient.

%^%^%^%^

MARCH 2005

Finland, March 2005.....I sat inside my new little Toyota Yaris as the man from the little rental firm filled out the form.

"I'm having trouble writing...I think the pen is frozen," he said in his beautiful, characteristic accent.

"Here's one from AmericInn," I said. I'd just recently stolen it in Wadena, Minnesota.

"You'll love driving this little car," he said. "It has little spikes on the tires, so you wont slip around on the road."

Fueled by one hour of sleep and five drinks on the flight from Seattle to Kopenhavn, I drove north. I drove and drove, past skiers and snomobile festivals and ice fishers, the revisited Finnish roads now almost as familar to me as Highway 51. After an hour, I stopped at a Huoltoasema Cafe (that's finnish for gas station...) and ate an open faced salmon sandwich, a cardemon pullaa roll, and drank dark, harmless home beer. I drove past the City of Lahti, the sky now dark against the shining earth. I took a wrong turn, towards Mikkeli. Suddenly on my left, vasemalle, an affordable place to stay...The Pine Tree Motel! "Dance Hall Special!!" said the sign on the side of the building. You dont see this too often!

"I'm looking for a room!" I said to the desk clerk. The middle aged woman stared at me...you're not in Helsinki anymore sugar! "Uh...huonee," I said dumbly. "Huone!!" she nodded. That's Finnish for "room."

"Kuinka paljon maksaa?" I asked, mustering my tired memory. When would I get to Sweden where the word for "room" is "rum"? Jag vill få ett rum...zzzzz..................clunk. Ah, Sweden of my dreams!

"Viisi kymmente viisi euroa," she said, holding up an 8 1/2 X 11 plastic sign and pointing for emphasis. 55 euros. This doesnt seem like a lot, but the exchange rate sucks!

"OK!!!" I said....but what was this lippu..."ticket" on my bill? I turned and headed for the door. What was this huge room off the lobby...why, it was a dance floor! Why...it was as big as the dance floor at the F.O.E. Eagles Lodge and there was loud music, too! Suddenly, a little blond elflike man appeared at the threshhold, all clad in a black jogging suit.

"Tansitko minun kanssa, ehkä vain kymmente minutia?" said the little elf mildly...this means something like will you dance with me for about 10 minutes.

"Uh....minun suomi on paha!" I said. This means something like "My Finnish sucks!" I sped on outwards to my room. I really wanted to see what my bed looked like, close up!

But like it or not....fate and that wrong turn had trapped me in Finnish Humppa Dancehall Hell!!!

The room was bountiful....2 beds and a couch! Beyond the room, beyond the balcony churned the waters of frozen Lake Peru, the snowy shore and the solid waters merging in white like the duvet and pillow on my bed....zzzz.....cider, pear cider. My eyes popped open like a breakfast toaster. I put on my Swedish Clogs and slid on back to the lobby.

"Saisinko sideri?" I asked the young bartender.

"Do you want ice with that?" he answered.

Any other night than Friday they would have had a real band, but just like the Eagles, this was Friday and that meant KARYOKE!!! Oh no!

"NYT me soittamme RHUMBA!!!!" the dj would say, and one of the four guys at the front table would take the mike and sing some rumba song in Finnish. Then another one would sing an insipid pop tune, or some great Russian flavored humppa classic. Humppa, in case you dont know, is Finnish for polka, you know, oom-paa, but I think rather it is an all-encompassing term for nuevo Lawrence Welk.

At best, 5 or 6 couples would be dancing at one time, but paucity was balanced by enthusiasm! There was even a guy dancing in a wheel chair, the kind you see people playing basket ball in!!!

Finally, after 2 pear ciders without ice..

"It's 5 euros now, it is no longer Happy Hour," said the barista....

I decided to call it quits. I walked back across the dancefloor.

"Ja nyt me soittamme valssi!" the dj was saying. Some of the singers were pretty good, but this one sounded like a dying road-kill reindeer.

"This is the music of the people, true folk music!" I muttered, as if in a dream. The room lights sparkled magically like Christmas.

Suddenly, the little elf man appeared again!!!!

"Minun suomi on paha!" I said again!!!

"Mista asut....oletko saksalainen, venalainen???" Was I a Russian tourist?

"Olen amerikalainen," I mumbled, as he followed me out the door into the cold March evening. He pointed at his Toyota Landcruiser, and, beckoning me, opened the cold steel right rear door.

"Huh?" I said.

The elf pulled a fifth of scotch out of the back seat. "Upea drinkii!!" he said.

I shook my head. "Olen liian vasynyt," I said. This means "I am too tired." Maybe I could be enchanted at a later time when I was awake.

"Naw...." he said, following me with the bottle of booze.

"Olen vasynyt," I repeated. I'm tired. My feet crackling on the ice underfoot, I turned the key to the pine door of my room and went inside, alone.

@#@#@#@#

Last week, for Spring Break, Ian and I flew to Houston to help Emma move back to Bryan. Frankly, Ian and I would have preferred to vacation in Maui, but we had a great time visiting Emma and Victor (Wee Erin was at a spring break camp at the Campfire Camp they call Namanu having a rip roaring time, so dont feel sorry for HER!!!). We also attended the 10th Anniversary Celebration of our old Radio station, KEOS community radio. Anyway, the story starts as I pull out of a Best Western (Truck Parking Available!) in Navasota, 20 miles south of Bryan at 550 am to fly home via the 70 mile distant Houston airport....our rental vehicle is a behemuth jet black 17mpg Jeep 4wd SUV...bumped "up" from a sub-compact!!! Right-O!!!

TEXAS, March 2005...We'd started out in the peach grey light of dawn, the headlights of the darth vader jeep brightly lit, but quickly the savanna became morning green, yaupon and scrub oak confetti like a Casa Ole margarita or my side-kick bottle of diet mountain dew. My daughter's friend's half-brother's pregnant wife had told me I cant take the tequila, but at Casa Ole they make them out of champagne. And I told her I always like going there because they have that avocado dip with the salsa.

Ahead of me, the miles ride on, northeast, why was I going north east? Anderson...and straight ahead to Huntsville. Oh *(&*( I am on the wrong road .and so I turn back to Navasota, where we staid the night in a curry motel. We'd staid till 545 to have continental breakfast with 2 husky truckers, their diesels firing up in the lot. The milk's right there in the refrigerator, one had told me. I searched for tea, but there was no hot water, no tea bags, just three pots of coffee. Texas, its Texas, I told my self. My memory of Texas...particularly of how to get to the airport from Bryan...is now foggy as a Brazos morning, smoggy as the Houston landscape, smoky as a BP refinery explosion.

To my left, 1774, shortcut south to Plantersville. The narrow black road seems to twist on forever through yaupon (Ilex vomitorium) and sticky cow pasture but the story does end.

The pretty woman next to me is eighteen, and is flying back from Clearwater, Florida with her mom and brother. It rained the whole time. She tells me I'm going to Texas Christian University this fall, and when we went to look at it, we drove for three weeks on a road trip. We went through Denver. The rockies were beautiful. I was raised in Portland, but I wanted to try something different.

Will you miss your friends?

Not so much...just my few best friends. But I am a Christian and most of the people I know from school just say they are Christians, it is only skin deep. They smoke and drink and party. But who I will miss most is my mom. She is really a great person and my best friend. The woman on my right is in college in Lake Charles. She is going home to Portland to see her family. She is wearing spaghetti straps and on her waist there is a tattoo. She calls her dad on her cell phone and says we are about to take off. I zip up my fleece, even though I am starting to sizzle in the pre-take off heat, so that she will not see my black Nightwish Tshirt. It says Touring Around This Planet Hell 2004.

We are waiting for two unaccompanied minors who were directed to the wrong gate. Then we will take off and we will see mount hood sticking through white clouds like an icing nozzle, three hours in the future.

Ian, I will say through two seats of separation, there is Mount Hood.

*(*(*(*(*

Finland, March 2005 In the last days of my trip, I finally found peace across long white Finnish days. It was if I were a dying woman, struggling to live to the fullest before I ended my days in one final snowy dawn. What I did these last couple of days was drive around a lot aimlessly until I figured out something exceptional to do...tiny Yares with mega km/l are particularly suited for this...and then I'd pull into gas stations and have a pullaa and Pepsi max every so often. Then towards evening I would try without avail to find suitable lodging for a couple hours, until finally fate led me to somewhere weird, and then I'd have a dinner consisting of however they fixed salmon there and a pear cider or three. A lot of people don't want to live this way, but I find it pretty metro chic!

In early March, the daylight in Finland and Sweden builds to about 12 hours, but the sun hangs low, a rising pendulum in the icy sky, its yellow light dimly skimming the surface of cold white snow. In the waning hours of Saturday afternoon, I began my lodging search in the wooden buildings of Vanha Rauma, Old Town Rauma, on the west coast. I then turned south but changed my mind.

"Hameenlina..." I said to myself. I would go see the old castle there. It was something to do. And so I began a soonly dark journey halfway across southern Finland towards the city of Tampere.

"WHOA!!!" I said to my telephone. "NOKIA!!! I'm in the town of NOKIA! You're home, boy!"

"Better take a photo," he said.

"I need a better phone for that!" I snarled back.

I did, then we drove on to the spa resort they call "Rantasipi Eden," thinking maybe they had a hot tub. Ranta Sipi is Finnish for Shore Hotel Chain, and Eden is self explanatory. "Welcome to Eden!" Thedazzlingly opulently lit Eden arose like a gleaming royal diadem ofsticky Las Vegas in the New Finland, a bloated cruise ship obscenely anchored in Ketchikan, a rock candy mountain covered with ice cream and swarming with big Finnish ants.

"ARGH!!!! USCH!!!!"

I figured the hot tub was swarming with upscale insects as well. Iturned back into the cold Finnish forest.

Finally, I found the town of Hameenlinna. This means "Hame's Castle." There it was, the castle, right across the river! But where were the humppa motels!?! Sure, the downtown areas were arock with club goers and nice bars, but where would I park...? And just where WERE the hotels? I loved these mysteries...

"I am sorry, we are completely booked!" said the desk clerk at the chainette built to look like a castle.

Not looking back, I drove off, on the cold, dark route to Lahti. But before I had gotten but a few Kilometers, I saw the sign, and I knew I had been led....led by fate!

[to be continued]

April 2005

The Dalles West Exit, I-84! I was late for my show, but nonetheless felt compelled to pull over. "I got my stuff in the front here...can you perhaps sit in the back? Where are you going?" I said.

The lean, bearded, grey-haired man climbed in. "Portland," he said.

"So am I," I said.

"My name's Rick Watson. I'm going to Vancouver to visit my step daughter. She's a single mom with 2 kids. They dont call me grandpa...they call me grandpaPA!!! I just got out of the hospital here with a heart attack. I was sitting in Denney's having a cup of coffee and POW! I fell over and they called the ambulance. The nurses were really nice...people are really nice here.

"Wow...how old are you?" I asked.

"Fifty four. "

I asked him where he was from.

"From Missouri originally. But I was living in Mississippi. See what happened was that my second wife ran off with a black man. Plus I had this new van conversion and she ran it into a tree six times intentionally. Fourteen thousand dollars. So I hitched up here. Wow It's so green out there."

"It will be before it dries up in the summer."

Rick was a moving man by profession, working for the top moving companies and driving the big vans. He was wearing an ALLIED STORAGE cap, big yellow letters. He had even moved the president of coca-cola from the east coast to Seattle. I wont tell the story in public.

"A moving van is almost never overweight," he said. Wow that was a new fact.! "the most I ever weighed was 38,000 pounds." Now his vertebrae were deteriorating and he couldnt lift anything.

"I had a job setting up trade shows in Vegas for about six months. You'd set 'em up and then you wouldnt have anything to do for 3 days. Drove me nuts. I had a friend out there laid down behind one of the casinos and ended up with a hundred scorpion bites...laid down in a scorpion nest. Died."

"Huh!" I said.

"You'll like it here," I said.

"Yeah...I like the west coast. I hate the east coast. I hate New York. People there never took driving lessons. I was on this bridge once in New York and it took 2 hours just to get across it. I like Connecticut, though! This one company I worked for, out of Dallas, the manager Jim Wallace had a Thanksgiving spread up at their warehouse in Connecticut...every food imaginable. You had to wear a tie and your pants had to be pressed, and you had to wax the floor of your truck!"

"How classy," I said.

The miles wore on, but Rick's mouth was fluid. Soon we were in

Troutdale, flodgate to the Rose City.

"My first wife, we had 2 sets of twins...out in California. My first son lived in Fresno. He was throwing snowballs at some skinheads and one of them took an iron bar and bashed his head in eight times. Then he stabbed him six. Bashed his brains out, killed him. It was in all the papers...the three guys that did it got the death sentence. It really tore me up."

I gasped. "How old was he?"

"Nineteen." He started to cry softly.

"Wow," I said and thought of Ian. "When was this?"

"About a year ago," he said. "I got a couple of friends who are bikers and who're in jail and they said, "Look Rick, don't worry,

we'll take care of them. We'll fix it."

#####

This time last week, we were in Southern Finland! We were looking for lodging in Southern Finland and had passed up the Ratasipi Eden...but listen, I was hedging...

Here are some strange facts

1) The shape of the sum total of human suffering is like your spouse's job. It's a black hole, stretching on forever in time, sucking in anything it can find.

2) Back in the 60s, someone, probably a guy, came up with the fact that wearing cute clothes and decorating your home with beautiful things was sinful, shallow, and part of the military industrial complex. Hence you spent years wearing faded brown flannel shirts and patched bell-bottoms and later went on to REI fleece vests. This guy, you would discover during the late 90s, was color blind and had absolutely no interest in visual aesthetics and had owned a televison for years. In actual fact, buying a pink satin blouse at St Vinnies uses less of the earth's resources than buying a cheap chinese t-shirt at Rite-Aid.

3) The conclusion is, briefly, that probably what you should do is what you can for other people, then go out

and party. There's no reason for you to get sucked into that black hole, because to do so just makes the black hole bigger.

4) And my confession is that I lied. The reason I didnt stay at EDEN wasnt that it was disgustingly commercial. It was because I thought they probably didnt have any vacancies.

But all this philosophical Finnish stuff will have to wait till next week.

===

The Dalles, April 2004, 930 pm--Damn! My key card to the Eagles Lodge didnt do a thing. I rang the bell. Someone buzzed me in.

Over by the bar, a half dozen sleezeballs of various genders were pouring Bud down their throats.

"Ha ha!! You're not his wife!?" one of them said to me with a slosh, his chubby tatoos gleaming. "He was supposed to be home 2 hours ago...haha!"

"No, I'm not," I said. Almost five years here in The Dalles, you start to feel like you know what to say.

I said to the bartender, "This thing doesnt work."

"They expired March 31st."

"Can I buy a new one from you then?" I asked.

I've always been afraid of martinis, but recently I've felt able to take the challenge, out of desperation, I guess. It's like the step from marijuana to meth.

"You want regular or with vodka...?"

"Regular," I said. "I've already had the one with vodka."

"You want that up or on the rocks?"

"Uh....up, I guess."

"I'm just trying to figure out what glass to use." He pulled a margarita glass of the shelf. "I dont think you want gin. You didnt like that gin and tonic last week."

"Oh...vodka, I guess," I said. He seemed to think I was a little weird. "I usually just drink margaritas," I apologized.

"This isnt a margarita," he warned. "It's a martini." Huh! The bartender poured about a cup of vodka in his silver shaker."Uh...let me look that up. Two seventy-five."

"We need to get some Mexicans in here...do a Cinqo de Mayo..once you get the ball rolling those Mexicans join up like crazy...."

"You got a taxi out there Bill?" asked the bartender. Taxi????!?!?

"Uh...yeah...I aint drivin' home!" said Bill, spilling a wave of Miller Lite onto the carpet.

"I'll give him a ride," said Shane, his tattoos flashing.

"Did you know some Mexicans arent from Mexico?" said some 0ther guy.

"This isnt like the last one I had. The other one tasted musty," I said, looking up from The Oregonian. That's the Portland paper. The lead article was about how there is more acid rain here in The Columbia Gorge than in Pittsburg. The room was starting to spin. I chomped down on an olive.

"That's because they put too much vermouth in it. This one is DRY. The drier the martini, the better it is...just a drop of vermouth. I know...I've been a bartender for 30 years."

"You know how to make a cosmopolitan?" I asked. I'd tried at the Eagles before and gotten a blank stare. Sex on the Beach si...Cosmo, no.

"Sure....that's easy! Sweet and sour...cranberry juice....real popular in Portland...."

"I'll get one next time, then." I said.

"I used to work at a martini bar in Portland." he said, beginning to warm up. A martini bar?!??! "Lemon drops...cosmopolitans...all sorts of martinis." He mentioned a liqueur I'd never heard of. "But this is mainly an older peoples bar. We dont have a lot of that stuff."

"I had a chocolate martini in Baldwins Saloon once."

"Yeah! Creme de cacao! We've got that!"

&&&&&&CALIFORNIA PARTY WEEKEND!!!!

The world begins to change like a vortex chameleon the minute you step down the Alaska/Horizon into that plane. Slowly, clearcuts still in spring powdered with what looks like cleanser, lone pines abandoned by fate poking up above them like them like tiny versions of the brushes you use for cleaning out the back of your refrigerator....NO NO, STOP THE IMAGERY!!!!

Ian and I boarded the small Horizon Air plane bound for San Jose without incident. Imagine,in just 1 3/4 hours, we would land in CALIFORNIA and PARTY WEEKEND!!! In the next 36 hours, we would meet some wonderful people and we would also have a great time....

Party Stop 1. "We offer complimentary ale or wine to folks over 21," said the magazine in the seat pocket. Must be a misprint!

"Beer or wine?" the stewardess asked, making the ninth sweep of the aisle, swaying a 2 gallon bottle in each hand. "This, by the way, is a witty partnership between vinyards and breweries who need advertising, and Alaska Horizon, who is striving to numb passengers into believing the plane was not 45 minutes late as is habitually the case," the stewardess did not say.

I am so proud of the west coast and its urban chic uniqueness!!! Free corn chips and amber ale!!

Out the window, the scrubbrush like mountains and increasingly dry forests gave way to crew cut maquis, and then to golf courses rolling beneath like green beans boiling in a kettle. Imagine going to bed with a lumberjack and waking with a Greek restaurant owner!

"I think we're late, Ian!" Outside our rental car, rain was dripping down like a lazy sprinkler in the oily dark. We sped southwest across the lethal Santa Cruz Hills. If it were morning, they would shine like green velvet.

"WOW! Why couldnt they have the dinner at that cute roadhouse?" I asked. "We would be there already!

"Flares...wonder where the state troopers are going?" I asked.

"Wonder how that car got up on its side like that?" Ian asked.

Party Stop 2. Soon we would arrive at La Crepe Delicieuse, site of our first party. I would recognize them by their photos....BCDiver, CA Dreamer, Gremlin, and Todd. I'd met them on the internet as words, as pseudonyms of Bill Trackers and now here they would be humans, Californians! We would sit down at an oblong table and order cokes and crepes. Ian would roll his eyes at first, but in the end leave enchanted. I would briefly close mine...zzzz....BONK! too much LaConner Supreme!

Someone would pull out a huge stack of dollar bills...time to trade!!!!

But even more stunning, BCD would pull out his cellophane encased 1935 Abe, the serial numbers printed in red.

"I got this in a STRAP from the BANK!" he would say.

When I was young, would I have seen these old fives as a matter of course?

www.wheresgeorge.com

[To be continued, not to be confused with Finland To Be Continued.]

Party #3

Night had fallen on Paradise, otherwise known as the stretch of Washington State 14 between Washougal and North Bonneville. Far to the south side of the road, the lights of the big Oregon interstate reflected into the oily dark waters of the Columbia as if lakers in the memory Port of Duluth, the clatter of holds filling with grain and iron ore. Her ability to write as she traveled waxed and waned. She stared at the double yellow line before her on the empty black road. Black and yellow stretched lines of mutated bees. The black and yellow line reflected as the schoolbus traveling along it. Giant bees disembarking from a Skamania County School District bus and crossing the double yellow line, in the night. It was time to write about the woman from Oregon.

The woman from Oregon sat in the cool sunshine in the rear of her friend's home in Santa Cruz. One of the guests said

"A lot of people havent been here before. They say 'What a pretty, cozy house!' But they didnt see it before, they dont know how far it's come."

She could remember the house four years ago, four years back into a hundred sixty. House warming party...This was a cause for celebration indeed!

Invisible, she sat and ate pot luck food that would run in shifts, salads and cakes in musical plates, guests in musical chairs, bands in musical tupans and gaidas. As a woman from Oregon, she could do this, eyes, ears and mouth filling with others' life as if they were a bathroom sponge.

"Yeah, I did live out in Colorado for a while, but I came back. I wanted to live in a blue state. The interior of America has difficulty seeing things as they are."

"I dont see how anyone can see how things are from within America. When I lived in Spain, you saw what was really going on in Iraq. You saw how many babies were being killed."

"Spain pulled out didnt they? Voted out."

"Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see what happens in the British elections."

The Woman from Oregon went in to get some brie and crackers and then came back out again. The climate had changed.

"What is that bush? Someone said it is a camelia, but I think it's a rose," said a woman.

"It has leaves that are characteristic of the family Rosaceae," the Oregonian offered in a credible but somehow goofy manner.

Most of the guests had some other reason to be in Santa Cruz on Saturday. Most likely they even lived there...hence this was just one car in the ferris wheel of Saturday; if each person were a piece of string, then this moment would be a large complex knot....one knot on the vast net. An Oregon woman, or a relative from down the coast, would, on the other hand, be as a strand of discarded fishing line caught in a tangle on the otherwise orderly net.

"There's sixty people here!" said a young woman to the hostess. What a big knot!

"We know her from years ago, before she was married," a woman told her when she asked.

"Wow...I wonder what it would be like to have so many friends," answered the woman from Oregon, who was becoming more reclusive as time went on.

In the evening, the musical bands played and sang, and people danced. The room, in fact, was filled with people who knew her friend from folk dancing. She tried for the easy ones...she'd given up hope of dancing even in strict repetition without explicit instructions from a Caller. It was between two of these Balkan line dances that she said to her son

"That man looks like Eric at Sacred Harp."

"What?" said the tall man. Oops!

"We sing Sacred Harp," she explained. "You look like one of the Tenors."

"Sacred Harp? I LOVE Sacred Harp! Do they still do that? I sang it as a child, south of Fresno."

"You were a Primitive Baptist?" she asked.

"Pentecostalist. That's why I became a bohemian when I grew up! Ha ha ha!"

"Pentecostalist? But it was a capella?"

"Well...they do it in a square, but we sang in regular rows...but a capella yes. It was one of the finest experiences I ever had, to have the spirit of god...the love of god pouring from you...filling the room as you sang. And that's about the same way I feel about dancing now."

Junkie! she almost said. "Huh!"

"If you'll excuse me now, I need to dance!" he laughed.

9898989

By night, The Dalles and its companion Dallesport, WA are clothed in basic black, the streetlights and signs of Johnny's Café and the RECREATION BOWLING center like diamonds and beads on a crepe cocktail dress, the Great Columbia crawling between them like a black satin scarf or a large licorice snake...slithering up....strangling the inhabitants in refuse from Hanford way upstream....

Gary the Bartender is reluctant to suggest anything. I've told him my plan...to discover what metro chic mixed drinks taste like, but I can tell he thinks I'm addled. Lucky he's older and thus more addled than me...a retired owner of two bars in Portland. He intended to move someplace like Maui or Florida, but instead he came to visit his sister in Dallesport and stayed, lured by Beaver Paradise.

"White Russian. Vodka, kahlua, and half and half...some folks put in a little coke, makes it sweeter. They call that a Colorado Bulldog."

"I think I'll just take the white russian this time....that's a lot of kahlua there...."

He pauses dryly and says abruptly..

"San Francisco...we called it a San Francisco. One night we were drinking these and we decided to drive to San Francisco."

"From where? Portland?"

"Portland. It was only nine hours. We were there in time for brunch. We ate brunch in San Francisco."

A day and a half after that, The Dalles held its annual Clean Up Day. I saw the full pick-ups lined up alongside the National Guard Armory and knew this was my one opportunity.

"Hey guys, let's get rid of the old bathroom plumbing that's sitting beside the driveway!"

No one moved. I didnt dare suggest we get rid of the toilet sitting by the garage in full view of the street. What is it about men that they want so badly to retain old plumbing? But finally my enthusiasm was infectious. Soon the back of my red Windstar was filled with refuse pipes.

"How about that old fiberglass shower stall? The aluminum frame for the door?" Oops...must be reusable!!!

"Can I go?" said Erin. And so we went. Pick-ups containing brush, Christmas trees (some folks here still have their lights up!), old mattresses and dead tires...and others just containing things most people would sell at garage sales jostled for position.

"Wow! I just feel like plucking that lamp out of the pick up ahead of us!" said Erin.

"Wow!" I said. "That stuff is almost NEW!"

Soon we were at the head of the line. "You got plumbing back there...you a plumber?" said the hefty Dalles Disposal Service Employee.

"No," I said.

"You just cut the pipes up and hauled 'em out...ha ha ha!" he said.

"I'm not reponsible," I repeated.

"Ha ha ha!" he said.

We turned into the armory. Huge refuse and recycling trucks moved in and out two a minute, like giant noisy dinosaurs, the place was so busy!

"They must hate being here on Saturday." said Erin.

"I bet they're just happy not to be in Iraq!" I said.

"You got metal there...turn left behind that pick up! And here's a recycling leaflet and over there is the Use and Reuse things [remember the lamp?] and the Lions Club has *** free*** HOT DOGS inside too!" said the guy after we made the turn. And, we would later learn, pastries, doughnuts, bananas, cokes....

At the metal area, two men pulled out our plumbing and stacked it with old school desks, high chairs, and unidentifiable twisted chunks of metal. Shortly thereafter, a big duckbill picked it up and chunked everything in a truck. We turned and parked, then looked at the Reuse area. Immediately I knew we were in trouble at home.

"Look at those baskets!" said Erin."I can use those to sort those herbs,"

"Look at those benches!" I said.

"Isnt that cute! The lid lifts up!" exclaimed a National Guardswoman. This is what The Guard SHOULD be doing!

"I can use one in my office and one in the bathroom!" I said.

That evening, Ian and I went to Fred Meyer for groceries.

"Sheaf Stout and milk? You're not going to mix those, are you? Ha ha ha!" said the checkout clerk.

"No..." I said.

****

"Weekend Rates at the Palace"...Rural Hameenlinna, Finland March 2005

Some of my recent writing is influenced by a book I read in February by Dan Kennedy.

Writing about conversations is almost like cheating. People say what they say and you just remember it. If you can remember it, it's probably interesting and usually, but not always, silly enough to entertain readers. I will have to remember that if I ever become a real writer. Otherwise, you have to remember what you were saying to yourself. Imagine a volcanic eruption, molten magma flying around like a shook up catsup bottle. Or even more fascinating, terminal moraines in southern Finland, ice knocking over mastadons and stuff. But maybe when all that's going on, you're thinking about what pretty blond hair that guy had who was getting out of that old Volvo wagon back in Jokkmokk and how you'd like to meet him, over and over in different scenarios. Madame, han sade, det var så dålig att när min bils dörr oppnade, slåg jag dig. Ah! Men du är så vacker! Jag ska köpa dig frukost! Och så vidare. Pretty boring, huh. Well, there arent a lot of conversations here in southern Finland , just a lot of snö, or as the locals say, paljon lunta.

[förtsatte....continued] She drove the little red car past lights on Finnish snow...where was she going? She knew from the Lonely Planet that the sign led to a conference center. The yellow lights reflected like butterscotch and Kahlua on the March ice. It was not what she expected, none of the thoughts of concrete hotels or modern wooden lodges rattling in her head were valid. Ahead of her stood an immense brick estate she had seen once...just once...in Ireland.

There were no more signs. She and the red car passed through the first brick and metal gate, into an oblong courtyard. She wondered if she had invaded a private club, and if the hunting hounds would come for her soon. She parked by the huge wooden castle door, where two men in suits...dukes and earls she thought...stood talking in the cold Finnish evening. She pulled on the door.

"How do I..." she said to herself in English.

"Push," said one of the men.

And it was thus that she came to stay the night in the Vanajan Linna...Vanaja's Castle...you can see it right here!

http//www.vanajanlinna.fi/portal/english..and do look, because it is incredible!!!

Somewhere way above her was a ceiling! And to the left, the polished wood of the Reception Desk. She braced herself. "I'm looking for a room," she said.

"Yes, we have rooms," said the young woman.

"Um..." she said. "How much are they?"

An angel swept across her. "The same as a room at the Holiday Inn Express, had your president not jacked up the exchange rate so high," is what she heard in her head.

Very briefly, Vanajan Linna had been built as a magnificent hunting lodge in the1920 by a wealthy doctor and investor named Carl Wilhelm Rosenlew. Fazer, Svinhufvud and Mannerheim had visited here! Then by fate, it had become a conference center run by one of the many Finnish hotel chain. She cruised the darkly plush and lofty lobby, suddenly hungry. The vast main dining room was occupied by a group based in a Norwegian tour bus who were being forced to eat prime rib. But the softly wooden paneled pub...it was the most elegant pub in all of Finland! The old parquet floors on which Fazer and Svinhufvud (Finland's second president) had stood chatting were clothed in rugs from Persia. Modern-day guests in metro chic cocktail attire were eating right there in front of the elegantly mirrored and stocked bar, seated in carved walnut chairs! You can see the pub on the web page that says "Only the best is good enough."

"Uh...where is it here that I can eat dinner," she asked at the desk. Surely there was a snack bar somewhere.

"In the pub...yes! I'll have a table prepared for you at once!" said the other clerk. The American woman followed her into the bar, and to a table. The clerk motioned for a waitress.

"Can I get you a drink?" asked the waitress.

"Could I have a glass of white wine?" she said. "No.." she laughed. "A Glass of pear cider, please." The waitress held the bottle in a white napkin as she poured.

But wait...wasn't there a five year old rolling on the floor? And by the door...werent those two women wearing sweatsuits? And those people in tuxedos and satin and sequens...and dreadlocks! Why...they were part of a WEDDING PARTY!!!

She was so glad to be back in Finland, land of beauty and mystery. It was almost as weird and multifaceted as Portland!

)_)_))_

April, 2005: What a delightful surprise! This year, The Scarlet Begonias...our cell of The Red Hat Society...would be launching a float in the Cherry festival Parade! I immediately replied to say that Erin and I would LOVE to ride on it. We started planning our red and purple spring costumes days in advance!!! And when that day came...Saturday to be exact, we proudly marched right over to the staging area behind Albertsons to hop on!

"Dad gave me this umbrella....and it's a ducks head!" exclaimed Erin, who was wearing one of those renfest dresses that come from India, in ambivalence.

We climbed on...and off...we'd been told to be there an hour ahead of the parade, and it was pretty darn wet!

"Do you know this is the first year that it has rained during the parade?" said the lady whos hat had been modified from one she'd got in a party shop in Portland. The original hat was a cross between Uncle Sam and the Mad Hatter. How damp of us! The crepe paper on the poles was bleeding and the red lace was hanging limp!

I got down and walked around, while Erin sat and chatter underneath her duck's bill. The Young Republicans had cut huge elephants out of cardboard or plywood, sure, but WE were far glitzier!! "Wanna see a Cherry Palooza!" someone commented. I walked back and climbed back up onto the float, a cleverly disguised farm trailer hauled by a RED truck, not an easy task in a slinky purple velvet gown! I sat down on my hay bale. Suddenly, the mayor appeared with a couple cherry red cylinders!

"You win!" he said. We'd won the Mayor's Trophy!!!

A clown came by and said "You know what. They have spring water in bottles now!" Well, there was a SPRING on the bottom of his water bottle.

A woman came by with a big yellow ribbon. "You've won second place!" she said. A woman dressed as a red and purple jestor put the ribbon on her trident.

I said to myself, "Why not let the kids win?"

Someone said, "Did you see that great paper dragon that Canton Wok has?"

Finally, we, the 74th entrant, began to move....past new John Deeres standing fallow, belly dancers standing...standing, past firemen ready for action, past soggy rodeo queens mounted on bored mares. We turned out onto 6th Street, past Burger King, Rite Aid, Fred Meyer, Taco Time. The rain had stopped, but all along the route, the parade watchers were chisled into shining grey pavement. A middle aged man with flippers for hands waved to us. Suddenly, we crossed into the Mill Creek valley, where everything was green. Across in Washington, the hills looked as verdant as Ireland....as the back of a dollar bill. Soon, we would be downtown!

"Huh!" said Erin. "Eduardo saw me."

"At least you were on a float."

"With a bunch of old ladies!" she said.

Afterwards, someone said, "Come to our house for cake!" That was where the float had been built, only two blocks from our house. Erin and I changed into civilian clothing and walked over.

WOW!!! "That's the house that says "NOT IN OUR TOWN" and used to say "BUSH" in the window." I commented. The NOT IN OUR TOWN refers to the porno shop just over the city limits from the new Home Depot. Someone once said that one quarter of the applicants for jobs at the Home Depot failed the drug test. We sat down in the living room, on the couch and gazed at the collection of beer steins.

"Where's Princess?" one woman asked.

"Princess is right over there!" said the elderly Bush supporter. She motioned to a white plastic cube on the bookshelf, faced with canine photographs. "Princess died," she said bluntly. "We miss her so much!"

Erin whispered to me, "I hated that dog! I'd walk down the street and she would run along the fence and bark at me and she wouldnt stop. Yap yap yap!!!"

_)))_)_)_)___)_

Now in spring, the tender green leaves of the trees along Gorge are like firework Cascades of confetti and stoplights, and all of them say GO! That's what Ian and I were doing Sunday, going right along east on WA14 past the grimly beautiful pulp plant in Washougal, its vast smoke against the sky like the dream clouds of heaven. Our mission was to track down WIFI, and our weapon was my new Inspiron 600m computer, its shining 2 tone case so neatly reflecting the rich blue of the Cascadian sky and the grey of the Washougalian....well, Washougal in general. People outside the Pacific Northwest will recognize Washougal from...well, its name. Just imagine the name, grey Washwater or something. Or where they have all those petroleum refineries south of Houston.

"Detect any wireless connections here in Washougal?" I asked.

"No," said Ian, returning to his new copy of 1635b, which is one of those books where modern West Virginans drop through a time warp to 17th century Germany.

I shrugged. "Only 20 miles to Stevenson," I said. I knew that the entire downtown of Stevenson, Washington was wired, due to an experiment of the Rural WIFIfication Program. And...I knew a pime location for hooking up would be the Big River Grill, with its fine array of Northwest Ales and Stouts!!! So we drove along, over hill and dale, around Cape Horn where the Columbia cuts through at the apex of the Cascades and past the town of Skamania. At the sign for Skamania Lodge, I mumbled excitedly:

"Ian, put down your Dungeon and Dragons Guide To Orks and open up the Inspiron!" This was real life!

"Nothing here!" he said, as we passed that little lake on the outskirts of town."...no wait...there are four available connections!"

"Whoa!"

"But this one needs a password. We definitely need to pull in somewhere downtown."

The Big River Grill appeared to our right. I slid into a parking place.

"Two for dinner?" asked the waitress.

"Actually," I apologized, "we're just here to try out the wireless on my new computer!" I said. "So we only want to order a small amount, as we have already eaten lunch."

"By all means!" the bartender said excitedly. "You dont have to order anything...we're not renting space here! This table here should be best for your reception!"

"Well...Ian, want anything?"

"A rootbeer would be OK with me," he said, opening the computer with a wild look in his eyes.

I looked at the beer menu...Guiness, Deschutes, Full Sail...."I'll have an IPA Stout," I said. Made in Stevenson itself, and modeled after the local expresso.

"And...I said, how about cheesecake...dont know how well that will go together...Ian, cheesecake?"

"Sounds good to me!" said Ian, stridently zeroing in on the Downtown WIFIification option.

"I'll go back and look," said the bartender....<clip>..."marionberry drizzled with dark chocolate?"

"Sounds good to me!" said Ian, zeroing in on the "The Sims Discussion List."

"Are you really happy there? Or would you like the large booth by the window?" asked the bartender.

I love this place. I love Stevenson, even though it's a drab rainy small town. I wish I lived here. Here we were in a dimly lit grill where Portlandista metro-chic meets the vast green human nothingness of the Mighty Cascades and a huge collection of license plates on the wall. All around us, happy tourists and residents were dining on salmon and wine. And we had found our first WIFI, no strings attached!

&&&&Wow....what I remember most from television is some science fiction shows.

1. A twilight zone where a whole town was catapulted to an isolated nowhere.

2. Lathes of Heaven, where some guy was able to change the course of the word by what he dreamed or thought, and it ended up he was asleep in an

atomic holocaust.

3. A futuristic show where the world was overpopulated and everyone lived in little cubicles...and then someone escaped out of the death chute!
&&&&

++++

***Min Resa Till Sverige 2005

Sverige! Jag hade precis kört över gränsen. Den första skylten hade sagt "Inget att Deklarera" eller "Varor att Deklarera." Jag undrade om någon satt inne i gränsstationen, och väntade på någon smugglade olaglig sprit. Den andra Skylten låg precis till höger om vägen. Det sa "Du kör för fort!" Ja, jag var så glad att jag kunde läsa svenska och inte behövde att översätta! Men bara fyra ord...

Jag började att lyssna på radio. Ja, det var riktigt. I intellektuella Sverige är radion underbar! Rösten sa, "Det där låten kommer från Portland, Oregon...Pink Martini!!!" Tyvärr, hörde jag sällan bra musik därefter. I stället, fanns det många tråkiga, svåra saker på radio. Till exempel, "Skolbussarna är för långa i Norrbotten! Många är tolv meter nu!" Jag skulle helst lyssna på RADIO CITY, som i södra Finland. "Soitamme rockia ja sportia!" Vi spelar rock och sport. Men jag hörde bara bra musik på Finlands högre RADIO CITY. Det var så svårt att lyssna och alltid försoka att forstå Svensk radio.

Jag hyrde en liten röd bil i Vanta, Finland. Det var en ny Toyota Yaris. Den här ekonomiska bilen drog inte mycket bensin, så det kostade bara lite mer att köra än min Windstar. Nu åkte vi genom Kalix, snön liknade glasyr bredvid vägen. Vid Töre, svängde vi till höger och köpte en Pepsi Max på en bensinstation. Den här kalla bruna läsken var mitt eget drivmedel! Lyckligtvis, behövde Rödbil ingen bensin. Vi fortsatte mot norr på E10. Den här vägen var mycket isig. Jag har så mycket tur att jag hade fått en bil med dubbar på hjulen! Agenten i Vanta hade sagt, "Du kommer att tykar om körande den här bilen. Den har däcken på hjulen!" Visst.

I början fanns det hus och stugor bredvid landsvägen, och plana vita sjör också. Sedan blev en tredje viktig skylt synlig till höger....POLCIRKELN!!! Vi stoppade emellertid inte.

Vi såg den populära gula affären Tank@Mat och beslutade att bromsa in. Där fick jag en annan läsk och en bulle. Sedan reste vi igen. Vi började att se bara en väldig skog genom Rödbils genomskinliga fönster. Vi såg stora och små trad och mycket snö, och var mindre glada att vara i Sverige! Med min oturlig och ensamma bil! Vi såg inte en annan finsk bil i Sverige.

"Olen iloinen että olen erikoinen!" sa min bil. Hon var glad att vara mer speciell än de svenska bilarna!

Till slut kom vi fram till Kiruna, Järn Stad, Lapplands isigs drottning. Man kunde se den enorma järngruvan som ligger söder om den lilla stan. Den såg ut som en stor kaka med vit glasyr. Bredvid den vita kakan fanns Kirunas sjö. Vi köpte bensin och ett avslagen laxsmörgås. Kassan accepterade inte mitt visakort, för nummerkoden fungerade inte i Sverige. Jag betalade med kronor. Jag var lite arg. "Jag hatar Kiruna!" skrek jag tyst. "Kanske ska vi åka till Norge nu..."

Den nya vägen från Kiruna till Narvik i Norge följer den gamla järnvägen som blev byggd för bära järnmalmen från Kiruna till Nordsjön. Ursprungligen hade jag planerat åka tåg, men jag trodde... kanske skulle jag ofta önska att vila och röra den kalla luften. Så Rödbil och jag följde järnvägen över den vackra fjällen och två gånger mötte vi det snabba blåa tåget. När vi lämnade Kiruna, fanns det många gröna träd, men snart blev de buskar. De stora granarna verkade bekantare än de nakna buskearna. De senare liknade gamla skelett....väl kusligare! Jag hade kört över fjällen till Mo i Rana för fyra år sedan, och det hade varit samma på sommaren. Bredvid vägen låg en stor sjö, Törne Träsk. Boken som jag fick gratis i Kiruna säger att den här resan över bergen är den vackraste åkturen i sverige. Jag vet inte, men den var mycket trevlig! Bredvid vägen fanns några städer som var mindre än Kiruna. Jag tror att de härdiga människorna som bor här är samiska. Det fanns två skidorter också och jag började att undra varför jag inte hade tagit med gamla finska skidor. Därför att min bil var så liten!

Berget blev högre...men inte verkligen brantare...och landskapet verkade tröstlösare. Till sist kom vi fram till gränsen. Det fanns ingenting där med utantag av skylterna och ett litet tomt tullskjul. Jag önskade att jag hade en mobiltelefon! Jag kom ihåg att du kan se hyddor på de stora fjällen i Norge. Dit kan du gå om du har en fruktansvärd kris. Det fanns endast några få bilar på vägen nu. Norge är annorlunda. Det är ett strängare land än Sverige redan som i sommar. Oceanen...eller verkligen fjorden...låg bara ca 15 kilometer från Norges gräns! Men den här slingrande vägen var brantare än Sveriges. Jag tänkte på Vancouver Ö. Jag tog till vänster och snart var vi i Narvik. Himlen var mörk nu. Jag försökte att hitta ett billigt hotell eller en vandrarhem. Jag körde genom den beige tunneln till närbelägna Ankenes, men hittade inget hotell. Jag åkte tillbaka och fick ett rum på The Radisson, som var mycket fint. Det var det dyraste rummet på min resa! Jag parkarade Rödbil framför dörren. Det fanns inte många bilar här. Jag åt middag på hotellpuben och sedan gick jag runt Narvik. Vädret var varmare än i Sverige och stjärnorna var ljusare. Jag kom ihåg Österrike, för gatorna var branta! Jag gick tillbaka igenoch klättrade upp sex trappor. "Fyr mar trappa," sa en gammal man till mej på norska, skrattande. Jag kunde förstå svenska nu då jag var i Norge! Jag kunde läs deras norska märken också!

Jag vaknade mitt i natten, dreglande. Nej...min mun smakade salt. Min läpp var gjorde ont, därför att de var så torra och sprack. Jag tvättade mig och somnade igen.

På morgonen, såg jag att det hade snöat. Och det höll på och snöade. Nej, himlen var blå nu! Jag plockade upp min kamera så att jag kunde fotografera vackra Narvik. Men himlen var vit nu! Alla var vita!

"Tror du att det kommer att upphöra att snöa?" frågde jag den unga receptionisten.

"I don't know, you can never tell here in Narvik," sa hon, uttråkad.

"Jag måste lämna Norge nu!" tänkte jag. Det var enklet till jag började att köra över fjällen. Men på grinden fanns det fem bilar, två skåpbilar, en buss, och en stor dansk lastbil som var köade upp. Skylten sa på norska, "Vänta på att snöplogen skall komma!" Därför väntade vi. Sedan kom många bilar från öster, och den stora gula plogen vände. Vi foljde efter. Himlen och vägen och fjällen var alla vita! Den kalixa plogen åkte för fort! Vi stoppade en gång, för det fanns en bärgningsbil, som höll på och bogserade en stor lastbil. Men snart var vi vid gränsen. Sverige steg upp framför mig som den klara solen. Plogen försvann och vi var ensamma. Jag svängde till den roda skidorten Riksgränsen för att köpa lite mat. Det fanns många människor där rande deras skidor eller snowboards. De var våta och röda och ganska ohövliga! Jag stannade igen på en annan skidort som hette Björkliden och tittade på min e-post på deras dator. Sedan körde jag igen, tillbaka genom Akkanationalparken och "Tornedalen." Ibland var vädret klart nu, och då verkade sammanställningen av den stora blåa himlen, de kalla gråa molnen, snön som socker, och den fina flytande dimman över den frusna sjön verkligen vacker. Man kunde bara känna sig ensam. Men jag hade tur...jag var inte ensam för i stället hade jag Finskrödbil!!! När vi kom nära Kiruna, såg jag igen de höga vindkraftverkan och fotograferade dem. Jag försökte att fotografera solljuset, men lyckades inte så bra.

Sedan hälsade vi på det berömdt Ishotellet nära Jukkäsjärvi. Den är ett finskt namn som betyder Jukkäs Sjö. De flesta av människorna där var unga, och många var amerikanska! Nu hörde jag människor som verkligen kunde tala engelska! De trodde att jag var en annan gäst och hälsade mig som en god vännina!

Allting där utom presentffären är byggat av is. Det finns en kall vit teater där man kan sätta sig och titta på Shakespeares kalla pjäser. Man kan hyra en hundsläde och åka runt omkring på den fogliga älven. Man kan också använda en röd spark att åka på!

Det finns tjugofem tusand glada invånare i Kiruna själva! Stan är svensk, men omgivande städer är finska och området är samiskt! Jag bodde där på Yellow House Vandrarhemmet. Jag hade ett eget stort rum, med en soffa och en bekväm fåtölj! Men det fanns bara ett badrum på det gamla gula husets andra våning. I det här rummet fann ett badkar som var underbart, för jag tycker om inte att duscha. I källaren fanns det en modern tvättmaskin och en torktumlare, som jag använde. Nu behövde jag inte att köpa några nya rena kläder! Det var verkligen trevligt!

Innan jag lade kläderna i tvättmaskinen gick jag för att äta middag. Medan jag promenerade genom stan verkade vädret att bli mycket kallare. Jag tror att det var den starka vinden, för då hade temperaturen ute sjunkit bara två eller tre grader. Det var ännu eftermiddagen och ganska ljust ute. Affärerna höll just nu på och stängde. Jag gick in ett litet varuhus, och försökte att hitta en bok om Sveriges geologi. Den enda boken som jag såg hade bara ett kapitel om Sverige, och hade publicerats många gånger Jag tror att förfataren hade skrivit det här mästerverket vid 1960 ...intespeciellt aktuellt!! Jag tänkte efter tande ut den användbara kartan, för den värdelösa boken var inte billig. Jag hittade träskor av trä som var billigare än böcker. Emellertid köpte jag ingenting. Jag hade inte lust att spendera pengar. Jag gick runt omkring i Kirunas centrum och beslutade att pröva en pizzarestaurang bredvid gymet. Från mitt bord kunde jag se de skinande människorna som badade i poolen! Några cycklade på plats. Jag fick den vegetariska pastan. "Vad är det här då?" frågade jag mig. Det var ananas! Vad. Hur kusligt! Jag drack en päroncider som alltid. Nej en gång serverade de mig päron-och ananascider någonstans...Finland?

"Hur är din mat?" frågade den unga servitrisen.

"Intressant!" sa jag.

Vädret var fortfarande fruktansvärt. Jag gick till mitt varma trevliga rum och tändde lilla ljusen i fönstren.

Efter frukosten, fotograferade jag gruvan, sedan började jag köra söderut genom Lappland till Jokkmokk och sedan Vilhemina. I efterhand önskade jag att vi hade rest mer i Lappland. Om jag hade planerat bättre, skulle jag ha rest till Rovaniemi och Kirkenes och sedan till Kiruna.

De flesta av Lapplands invånare är träd och de alla visade den röda bilen på den tomma vägerna till Gällivare. Jag körde om en långsam Shell tankbil och en långsammare bil som bogserade stockar på ett släp...en timmerbil! Bredvid vägen såg jag ett ljusbrunt djur.

Titta! "Där är en älg, Sveriges största djur !" Nej...vad är det för djur...det där djuret är...tässä on iso pora!...en stor ren! Underbart!

Många renar bo i Lappland! Tio minuter senare hade jag avgjort att titta på några vackra gröna träd ett ögenblick. När jag igen tittade på vägen fanns det två renar tio meter framför mig. Vi bromsade snabbt och Saaben bakom oss bromsade också. De söta djuren tittade på oss och gick sakta bort. De var som stora hundar. Det här hände två gånger, med olika renar!

Efter vi lämnade Gällivare såg jag att bilen visade mig hur många kilometer som jag kunde åka utan att tanka mer bensin. Usch! Jag hade inte nog. Vi hade tur för den lilla dator hade fel. Vi forsökte att tanka i Porjus, men det fanns bara en automat och vår PIN fungerade inte. Rödbil tankade i Jokkmokk och jag drack en Pepsi Max och sedan var vi glada resenärer igen. Vi ville bo omkring Vilhelmina, men svängde fel till vänster. Tyvärr var vi på vägen till kusten. Det verkade varmare och snart fanns det fler människor och hus. Då var jag ledsen, men jag körde inte tillbaka. Slutigen var vi nära Bottenviken vid Skellefteå. Genom stan var det mycket buller och färvirring.

Vi åkte söderut på E4:an. Jag tänkte efter en färja till Gotland, när jag aldrig hade varit. Men det var två långa resor. Jag visste inte. På vintern finns det inte så mycket att göra i det här området. Jag undrade om jag kunde hyra skidor. I vilket fall som helst, behövde jag en plats att bo. Kanske kunde jag åka färjan från Umeå till Vaasa och bo hos Tropicalanda som hade en underbar swimmingpool. Men den enda båten hade redan gått. Jag ville bara ha ett billigt motellrum. Jag började att söka efter ett rum vid Örnsköldsvik, när jag frågade på ett stort hotell...."Har du ett rum?"

"I'm sorry, we are totally booked!" De verkade mycket brittiska. Jag såg flera hotell i centrumet utan en parkeringplats. Några i resehandboken kunde jag inte hitta. Vi körde tillbaka till E4:an. Nu blev det mörkt ute. Det fanns mycket byggnader på vägen. En gång såg jag en skylt som annonserade ett hotell, men jag kunde inte hitta en avfart. Vid Dockstra fanns ett märk, men jag förstod inte att man måste gå in i hos Dockstra Bar och fråga. Det var sent och jag kände mig ensam med de stora bländande ljusen fråm eurolastbilarna. Det närbelägena King Eriks Hotellet var mörkare än himlen med undantag av kylskåpet! Jag knackade på dörren, men ingen hörde. Återigen på vägen, såg jag ljus på vägen framför mig, som kom från en väldig bro! Och jag mindes ett hotell som mina barn och jag hade sett bredvid bron för sex år sedan. Jag hade försökt att bo på hotellet, men det var på sommaren och hotellet hade varit fullt. Var ligger det...bilen och jag körde upp och upp! Till sist såg jag en byggnad, men inget skylt. Två unga kvinnor stod och rökte på den isiga svarta parkeringplatsen. Jag frågade, "Finns det en hotell här någonstans"...och den enda svarade, "Ja, det ligger precis här." Vi gick in i den moderna byggnaden, och jag skrev in mig och parkerade bilen. Sedan gick jag till baren och sa "Kan jag få ett glas päron cider!" Jag fick en smörgås från glasdeliskåpet och tog ut salamin. Sedan åt och drack jag. Nu var det nästan midnatt. Kvinnorna pratade med mig på engelska. Den ena tog fjärrkontrollen och frågade, "Bryr du dig om jag byter kanal?" Jag svarade att jag inte brydde mig. "Nu har vi amerikansk TV. Sex and the City!" Jag hade aldrig sett det här TV-programmet, för jag ägde inte en TV. De sa att de alltid lyssnade på amerikansk TV för det var den bästa. "Mer och mer," sa den ena kvinna.

Jag tog min kamera och gick till fönstren för att fotografera den stora bron. Den var så stor att jag inte kunde fotografera hela bron. Det var också mörkt ute och man kunde bara se ljusen. "It is magnificent!" sa den äldre kvinna. Ja...Höga Kusten Bron är världens sjunde längsta hängbro! På morgonen gick jag till turistbyrån i samma byggnad. Här läste jag om Höga Kusten. Under istiden fanns här den tjockaste (3 km) isen i Europa. Vikten orsakade att landet sjönk 800m. Landet håller på och stiger högre nu! Många gamla vikar och stränder är på de höga bergen nu. Det är väl intressant. Jag reste runt omkring Höge Kusten och Docksta och fotograferade en vik och flera berg med stränder, men jag tror att det är enklare att göra på sommaren.

Jag började tänka på Sundsvall. Ian, Erin och jag hade bott på skidorten där för fem år sedan. Det var på sommaren och priset var billigt. Vi promenerade på spåren där de åkte skidor på vintern. Då hade de här spåren god belysning. (För det mesta bodde vi inne i ett tält nära Bottenviken.) Vi hade en bastu i vårt trevliga rum i hotellet! Jag kunde se Sundsvalls ljus somsken på den gråa och rosa himlen under hela nätten. Det är roligt, för i Sundsvall finns det bara två eller tre timmar som verkligen är nätt på sommaren. Nu när det var mars och det fanns snö var det dock ganska långa dager, trodde jag att det där hotellet Södra Berget var mycket populärt.

När Rödbil och jag kom fram till Timra nära Sundsvall, såg jag en skylt på ett shoppingcentrum där det stod "IKEA". Vadå ... vi svängde av från E4:an och in på shoppingcentrums parkeringplats. Många shoppare höll på och handlade! Jag gick in i den enorma och fulla IKEA affären. Jag trodde priserna var billiga och vill åka till affären i Seattle nu. De hade ett fullständigt kök som jag tyckte om, och jag tror att det är portabelt. Kanske har du en sommarstuga utan kök. Du kan använda det där köket. (Du behöver installera några rörledningar, antar jag.) Jag hade tur, får jag kunde inte få någonting som det hem på planet! Jag fotografade en kvinna av en händelse och hon började att le och tala hastigt till mig på svenska. Därfär bestämde jag mif för att gå in i gallerian. Det fanns två trappor. En trappa upp fanns det en tråkig skoaffär med tråkiga skor och inga träskor. Det verkar konstigt men i Sverige hade ingen träskor på vinter. Kanske var det därför att det är för kallt och de tar dem på sig i huset. I Oregon har vi alltid traskor! Så jag handlade inget. Jag gick in i bokhandeln. Jag kunde inte hitta några böcker om geologi eller botanik...vad heter de svenska träden och skogarna och stenarna? Som om de bryr sig om det! Men jag köpte två uttalslexikon som var billiga och ganska tunga. De kostade 129.00 kr per styck. "Jag ska ta med en bok hem till en vännina,"sade jag till mig själv. På nedre botton var den Macdonalds Restaurang. Den var full...många människor ville äta paha amerikalaiset hampurlaiset...dåliga amerikanska hamburgare. Den där restaurang är inte ett vegetariskt café. Jag trodde inte att jag ville äta med dem.

Jag hälsade Rödbil igen och svängde till höger. Vi åkte längs den vita linjen och över den grå asfalten. Vårebs blek sol hängde alltid låg på den vita himlen, och när vi körde, ligger solen alltid på höger sida. Ja...det var eftermiddagen! Jag undrade vad vi ville göra. Jag ville inte resa till Finland just nu. Ett annan skylt visade oss det nästa äventyret.. Falun! Jag mindes Falun för fem år sedan...då var det så kul! Var Falucentrum likadant under snö? Vi svängde till höger och in i STÖRST AFFÄR I CENTRAL SVERIGEs parkeringplats. Men det fanns bara livsmedel och kinesiskt skräp i den här affären. De hade inga träskor.

Man måste köra bort från kusten, det är uppenbart, för att komma fram till Falun i Dalarna. I Bollnäs fanns det mycket trafik, men snart stod för de mesta klippig skog bredvid vägen. Jag följde den felaktiga vägen vid Viksjöfors, men vände helt om. Snart var vi i Falun! År 1999...då hade vi använt en tältplats bredvid skidorten och simmat i den stora olympiapoolen. Erin hade älskat den roliga kanan. Det var för kallt nu att sova i ett tält. Alla var annorlunda i Falun nu. I centrum fanns det inte en festival med mycket musik, mycket fin päroncider och en berusad, klappande folkmassa! Där fanns det bara den svarta natten, den vita snön och flera berusada människor nu. Jag kom ihåg det CITY HOTELL som hade varit HOTELLET! Alla musikerna hade sovit där...en eller två timmar! De höll på och spelade alltid i lobbyn. Jag hade spelat in dem på min MD spelare. Jag tror jag har den fina finska musikeren Kimmo Pohjonen som spelar dragspel! Michelle Delfino, som arbetade med Northside Records då, hade bjudit in oss också att titta på Oysterbands special akustisk show. Så många minnen var här! Det fanns tyvärr inga musiker i lobbyn nu. All musik låg på dansgolvet en trappa upp. DÅN..DÅN...DÅN!!! Receptionisten berättar för mig att hon kanske kunde hitta på ett bord där, men jag svarade att jag ville gå till centrum.

Jag gick två tvärgator och hittade en irländsk pub. Bartendern var mörk och kom från Mellanöstern. Jag frågade, "Kan jag äta middag här" och han svarade, "Ja," Männen gav mig en matsedel. Den lilla baren var full, men det fanns flera tomma bord. En blond kvinna satt och drack ett glass vin vid bordet bredvid. "Har ni ett gott svenkst mörkt öl?" frågade jag. Han sa att han skulle be ena till mig. Jag berättade för bartendern att jag åt varken kött eller kyckling. Han sa, "Pröva den här öringen." Jag sa, "Vad är det för fisk" och han sa "Den är en rödfisk". Vi höll på och talade engelska, och jag trodde att han hade sagt "råttafisk"! Det där namnet verkade väl motbjudande. "RÅTTFISK?" frågade Jag. "Ja, rödfisk". Det fanns bara den här fisken på matsedeln! Var det karp? När han serverade mig, förstod jag att min fisk var som lax!

Sedan gick jag tillbaka och frågade receptionisten, "Vad är det korrekta ordet, Faluns centrum eller Falu centrum?" och hon svarade "Både."

På morgenen serverade hotellet en stor frukost för det fanns många affärsmänniskor där. Kanske är de viktigare än turister! Hotellet hade ett litet rum med en dator med internet och e-post gratis...det kallades ett affärscentrum eller business center. Sedan gick jag ut och hittade Faluns (eller "Falu") mycket intressant museum, som heter "Dalarnas Museum," för Falun ligger i landskapet Dalarna. Förut har det här ordet betytt lite. Nu kunde jag forstå Dal+ar+na! Jag var så intellegent!! Det var som The+ Dall+es, där mitt hus låg! Visst! Det fanns många intressanta saker inne i de här museumen. De bästen var den minimalisa förevisningen som visade fotografier som var porträtt från 1900-talets tidigare del. De var stora nya svartavita kopior, men de var dock mycket fina och så detaljerad! Det den ena gamla mannen som hade på sig glasögen, som har ena linsen rakt. Han hade dem alltid på sig, för han var gammal och fattig. Och det fanns foton med vackra barn och glada kvinnor. Och man kan se gamla folkmusikinstrument som kohorn, spelpipor och säckpipor...och fioler. Museumen har flera rum med gamla möbler. Och du kan se gamla folkdräkter.

Jag gick och hämtade Rödbil på Hotellet, och vi började vår resa till färjan. Vi beslutade att vi ville åka till Åland och att vi inte ville köra in i Stockholm. Tyvärr hade vi inga tidtabeller! (Sist lärde jag mig att den stora färjen från Stockholm till Åbo via Mariehamn avgår klockan tjugo. Men den färjan kommer till Mariehamn tre! Vår färja kom fram dit halv elva!) Vi bestämde oss för att resa från Kapellskär. Min pojke och jag hade använ den här hamnen år 2000, när vi reste från Tyskland till Finland och körde längs med det Östersjön. Vi såg zigenare på tältplatsen! Rödbil och jag åkte genom Borlange, Sala och Uppsala. Vädret var det värmaste här och snön började att smälta. Jag tror att det var vid tre eller fyra ute. Vid Sala tankade jag Rödbil och gick in i butiken. Dagens rätt var kött så jag tog en smörgås med ansjovis