CROSSING OVER

Through my windshield driving down into the Continental Divide Basin desert

Dearest Readers,

My journey West is done. I’m here in Portland two weeks now, but I must relate a turning point before I plunge into stories of my new life and new city.

There was a moment on my trip when I felt I had reached a crossing over.  It seemed sacred and momentous, as though I had driven through a doorway into a wide new reality. Something inside my Self stirred when I crossed the Continental Divide seven miles outside Rawlins Wyoming, and dove down into the Great Continental Divide Basin. I wrote about it in my travel blog on Day 7. http://interwovenheart.blogspot.com/2015/10/day-8peacham-to-portlandogden-utah.html

The desert is not a welcoming landscape, but it offers deliverance.  Ask any of the early Christian “Desert Fathers”, or our own Henry David Thoreau who used isolation in nature to find the essence of the self. (Thoreau’s Walden, an experiment in living deliberately alone in the woods, exerted a big influence on me.) 

The desert surrounds – flat, exposed, dusty. The Rockies shimmered that day, faintly blue and tantalizing on the far horizon. I was my own Moses on the mountaintop glimpsing the future.

 

Rawlins WY roughnecks' pickups wait to start the day in the oil fields

Before dawn that morning I walked out of my hotel in Rawlins, Wyoming surrounded by a dense cold fog. Pickups in the parking lot created fuzzy pools of headlights, waiting for the “roughnecks” inside to finish their big breakfasts and head out to the oil fields for their day of dirty and dangerous work. It was another world. Me and my little dog were the outsiders. Yet we were a part of it all.

I began to remember my dreams for the first time in over ten years. In dream number 1, I am athletic, pioneering, and the originator of a big idea to organize and find financing for the colossal task of building a bike route for women across the USA from Miami to Seattle.  The second night I discover a new planet in the sky. I see the entire round shape, and can discern the intricate detail of patches of sagebrush growing all over its surface. These dreams are vivid, memorable and more continue each night.

 

Me in the creative spirit in my new bedroom (wonderful window shade behind).

The imaginative self is bursting inside my unremarkable body-self. I sense a wellspring bubbling within that will be the source of different ideas for creative artworks. Right now all I can do is open my eyes, and that is not hard. Whatever this new direction will be, I feel very attuned to this place and time.

Strange seed spinners on a vine (or droopy bush)

So much has changed around me. The flowers, trees and bushes delight me in the odd shapes of unfamiliar species. 

Dark-eyed Junco-"Oregon Junco"

Western Scrub Jay-Jreeeet! (rising)

Western variants of juncos, chickadees and jays fly with familiar crows and sparrows. 

I bought Stokes Field Guide to Birds Western Region in New Seasons Natural Market yesterday. Can’t wait to use it. 

Coffee shops brew outstanding coffee, but none so far offer a regular cup of decaf. I know now to order a decaf Americano that they create on the spot. (more expensive however). I’m meeting neighbors and learning all about my grandson Henry, and the wonderful lives of my daughter Ayla and her partner Joel.

Henry next to his artwork in my new studio

Ayla on the right with her friend and business partner Lola on left

Joel on the right with Henry and Etta James in my kitchen

More to come beyond this threshold!-

My little house in Portland_kitchen on left, studio right_bedroom and bath beyond.

DAY 11_PEACHAM TO PORTLAND_MADE IT!

Dearest Readers,

Coming into Portland on I-84 on the old Oregon Train merged with the Lewis and Clark Trail

Attendant Alex pumps my gas_self-serve is against the law in Oregon!

Ta-Da! After a final fill-up in Pendleton Oregon, I arrived in Portland at last, driving yesterday into town in a driving rain. I'm still in bed today at 10:30....I need the rest.

Here are two final photos. one of  me with my daughter, Ayla (Joel is taking the picture) and one of my grandson Henry and I in my new apartment...a former 2-car garage converted beautifully into my new place.

Ayla, Cecelia and traveling frog, Wai, in my apt. in Portland OR

Cecelia and Henry in Portland Oregon on Sunday afternoon_10.25.2015

Thanks to all for coming along for the ride!

DAY 10–PEACHAM TO PORTLAND–PENDLETON OR

8 am Pacific Time. Pendleton OR

I’m in Oregon people! Due to reach Portland and my loving daughter and her family this afternoon!

 

Snake River crossing from Idaho to OREGON!

Yesterday I crossed the Snake River from Idaho to Oregon, like the nearly 50,000 pioneers who travelled the old Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s. I transitioned to Pacific Time and made a mental note per a road sign, that Etta and I had crossed the 45^th Parallel, meaning we were situated half way between the Equator and the North Pole. 

The landscape changed as well, morphing from the beef cattle and corn agriculture of the flatland desert around Boise, to treeless hills, and gradually to fully forested tall pine peaks as we drove further into the state, hugging the Washington border along I-84. 

Flat desert out of Boise becomes hilly

A steep treeless mountain pass in Huntington Oregon near the Snake River

Another steep pass with blobs of naked mountains (except for sagebrush)

At last tall evergreens and Fall-yellow tamaracks on the Scenic Blue Mtn corridor of I-84 near La Grande OR

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Deadman Pass was a slow climb for me and a steep descent, but the valley below in the basin of the Rockies opened up like the Promised Land. I can only imagine what those early emigrants felt at the sight, after so much struggle for a better life.

 

Good coffee at last!

This is Paula, first day barista at the Starbucks inside the Safeway supermarket in Baker City OR. I was so delighted to get a good cup of coffee! The brew on my journey was generally terrible…weak, tepid, tasteless or non- existent. (I admit to being a coffee snob!)

I’d also like to introduce you to Alexander the Great on the right, and his partner (I did not get his name) at their Chocolate Shop in downtown Pendleton. A bicyclist saw me staring in the shop window and said, ”Believe me, that place is the best”. All the chocolate treats on sale were made on site, organic and yummy. I tried a cold creamy chocolate drink, and bought a can of the ingredients with his homemade recipe.

What an amazing place-Pendleton Oregon with it's revitalized downtown!

It has statues to rodeo riders and pioneers, like George Fletcher above, African-American 2nd place Champion Bronco Rider of the World_1911.

a bronze statue commemorating Stella Darby, a madam of the “Cozy Rooms” in the first half of the last century:

Etta james and Madam Stella Darby

and a statue to Kathleen McClintock, the Roundup Rodeo pageant queen in 1929 for being the face of all the women who supported those cowboy events:

Well, it’s time to head out for the final 210 miles to Portland. This will be a bittersweet end to the journey. I’ve had fun, not drudgery along the way. 

Only bad part...I slammed my thumb in the car door trying to feed Etta quickly in a Utah parking lot squeezed next to a pickup trying to exit his space...not bad!

DAY 9–PEACHAM TO PORTLAND–BOISE IDAHO

Dearest Readers,

At the Great Salt Lake

This is Wai again, the hairy green frog creature temporarily loaned to me by Becky Jensen at the Peacham Library. Wai means water in the Maori language of New Zealand, I’m told, where he began his traveling life. He and my arm are stretched out by a northern bay of the Great Salt Lake near Willard, UT. Promontory Point juts out in the far distance behind us, blocking the larger view of the lake.

Great Ogden Mtn with a suburb nestled below

Goodbye to the great Ogden Mountain God with a frost in the morning air. 

Hello to more desert landscapes:

mountain passes with no services:

Descending Rattlesnake Pass-still in Utah

and a scary slew of caution signs today near the Idaho border, warning of the following disasters in these words:

“Frequent High Winds. Occasional Blinding Dust Storms”. “Wildfire Alert: Cellular #FIRE”. Moderate Fire Danger Today (on a sign-gauge with a moveable arrow), and Deer Migration Crossing Area–10 miles.

Deer migration crossing and various possible disasters area

Luckily there were no deer yesterday and the day was sunny and mild.

Moving right along at 65 mph into Idaho

Idaho has its own Hulk of a Mountain Being flaunting its size and beauty on the desert floor:

Lovely desert Rocky Mtn. near Holbrook, Idaho

but the dry surroundings flattened out again, and were planted with corn and crops with the help of lots of irrigation I’m sure:

Desert agriculture in Heyburn in southern Idaho

My friends the Rocky Mountains rose again on the horizon as I pulled into Boise:

On to Pendleton, Oregon today, my last 300 mile stopping point before the final jaunt to Portland tomorrow on Sunday, October 25^th.  Is it possible that this inspirational trip is nearly over?