FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2021
IN OUR SECOND YEAR NOW.
Day #4 of hearty, and joyful howling on Sherwood brought to you by the Sherwood Howlers.
TONIGHT I AM HOWLING FOR THE SIMPLE JOY OF IT.
Emily and I have visited with our kids and are headed home. I am filled with joy and cheer.
Watch the hell out people. I am on the loose.
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AMERICAN TRAVELS
Day #8 – #12.
Butte, MT to Corvallis, MT
From various viewing points in and around Butte, which sits just on the west side of the Continental Divide of the Rocky Mountains, one can see five mountain ranges, the Flint Creek Range to the northwest, the Anaconda-Pintler Range to the west, the Pioneer Mountains to the southwest, the Highlands Range to the south, and the Tobacco Root Mountains to the southeast.
Not to get too technical but what the hell, Butte also sits on the Boulder Batholith, a large plug of igneous rock that formed from cooled magma deep in the Earth’s crust. At the surface, the batholith is exposed as granite visible as the boulders and striking rock formations found throughout the area. The batholith is also the host rock for the rich mineralized deposits that led to the mining boom in Butte and the area during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
And finally, for geology lovers, Butte’s river basins have headwater tributaries of the Clark Fork River, which flows west through Missoula, Montana, on into Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille, and finally to the Columbia River.
A couple of other interesting Butte facts.
Under Butte, experts guess that, stretched out, existing mine tunnels built in the mid to late 19th century, would reach somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 tunnel miles!
The Berkeley Pit, bordering Butte to the northeast, is an open pit copper mine that ran from 1955 until 1982. Since then it has slowly filled with water which caused minerals present in the rock to dissolve and form a highly acidic brew, and I isn’t talking about good beer.
Today, the Berkeley Pit is one of the largest contaminated bodies of water in the world, with over 40 billion gallons of metals-rich, acidic water just itching to leach into the Butte area water supply, which should make for some very interesting genetic human mutations.
Think zombie apocalypse.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) manages the Berkley Pit as a Superfund environmental hazard, and just like everyone else, the EPA hasn’t a clue what to do about it.
Yes, there is a cost to large scale environmental exploitation, one that is often realized late in the game.
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We left our pet friendly La Quinta in Butte and traveled northwest on I-90 to Deer Lodge (3,111), home of the Montana State Prison, which houses cattle rustlers, bandits, marijuana offenders, and cowboys who insist on wearing their cowboy hats in inappropriate ways.
On to Drummond (309), Clinton (1,200), and other small towns and finally to Corvallis (976), home to Suzette’s Organics, a very fine Filipino restaurant run by, guess who, Suzette, a proud partner of local organic farmers. Boy, was the eating good. We met Suzette and she is a rock star.
Corvallis is also home to the world famous and acclaimed nurse practitioner, Sarah (Talley) Rhinehart, daughter of Stephen Earl Talley and wife of Chad Rhinehart, organic farmer, and beer brewer extraordinaire. Chad wears his cowboy hat correctly so has not had to do time in Deer Lodge.
Over the course of the next few days, until April 9, we were very lucky indeed to visit with Sarah and Chad, the first visit with them in almost two years. And it only took driving 3,800 miles to get it done.
Actual hugs all around.
We got some business done, ate very fine food, marveled at the stunning snow covered Bitterroot Mountains to the west and the Sapphire Mountains to the east, watched dozens of hawks soar high and free over the clear Montana sky, saw tom turkeys spread their feathers in gaudy, glorious, flamboyant mating displays and defiantly march around and strut their stuff in an attempt to impress the ladies. I know that routine well.
We spied mothers and chick ring-neck pheasants running about beak snatching bug delicacies in snow squaws and high wind.
We visited the 2,800 acre Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge, situated along the Bitterroot River, which Chad fishes often.
About 242 species of birds visit the refuge annually, which they share with 37 mammal and 17 reptiles and amphibians species. About 100 bird species nest there. We saw many new arrivals, including various Grebes, Great Blue Herons, Tundra Swans, Wigeons, Canvasbacks, various Mergansers, and Ospreys.
And more importantly, we did some “chicken watching” with Sarah.
A good time was had by all.
On Thursday evening, 7PM EST, I zoomed into the Skipping Rock Brewery in Staunton to conduct a good old Sherwood Howling in a life celebration for Jason Swats, the son of Gary Swats, a man I have known and admired for 60 years. He and his wife Helen, and surviving son Casey were there with many friends and family members to celebrate Jason’s time on Earth and wish him well in heaven, his latest stop to eternity. About 150 earthlings at Skipping Rock howled their heads off to spur Jason on to heaven’s doors, which were wide open for him.
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On Friday, April 9, (day #11 of our adventure) sadly enough, we said our good byes to Sarah and Chad. But sadness was dampened post haste thanks to Sarah’s excellent breakfast of bacon, eggs, and the best sweet potato, sourdough, yogurt, and cinnamon pancakes in Montana, which fueled us up for the next part of our “See the Kids” western trip.
And away we went, to see kid #2, Henry (Hank) Talley and his companion, the marvelous Anya Sacks.
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Corvallis, MT to Bellingham, WA
We sped away back to Missoula, to pick up I-90 and travel past Montana towns Superior (702), St. Regis (210), and Haugan (24). We crossed 4,725 foot high Look Out Pass on the Idaho state line, with 15 foot snow packs on either roadside, and traveled past Mullan (692), Wallace (848), Kellogg (2,120) and Coeur d’ Alene (52,414).
In 1910 a fire near Wallace burned more than 3,000,000 acres of timber. Fire fighters saved Wallace, but 85 of them lost their lives in the effort. The area around Wallace is known as Silver Valley, where over a fifty year period, prospectors gathered more than 1.2 billion ounces of silver out of hundreds of mines including Hecla’s Lucky Friday Mine,
Coeur d’Alene, named after the graceful hunter-gatherer Coeur d’Alene people, who lived along the rivers and lakes from eastern Washington to Montana, where for thousands of years they followed seasonal cycles, gathered nature’s largess by hunting, fishing, and foraging for other delicacies, and never once found it necessary to mine copper, smelt ore, and create an acidic noisome soup of toxic chemicals for someone else to clean up.
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After a Coeur d’Alene dog park visit, we fly by Spokane (217,353) anxious to get back into rural America and continue ever westward on the 60, 000 square mile igneous basaltic flood plain, the Columbia Plateau, that covers parts Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, cut into two parts by the mighty and majestic Columbia River.
Over a period of 10 to 15 million years, a long time ago, according to some people’s fitbits, the Earth belched out lava flow after lava flow, each that spread out over the area, accumulating to a thickness of more than 6,000 feet. As the magma surfaced it created vast empty subterranean cavities which could not support the weight of the Earth’s crust and all that newly added lava. So the crust sank or subsided as the geologists say, producing a large, slightly depressed lava plateau.
The lava filled stream valleys, forming dams that in turn caused natural impoundments or lakes. Some of the lava flows changed the course of the ancient Columbia River, which, over millions of more years cut the plateau in half, forming the splendid Columbia River gorge.
Much later, and I mean much later, the Nez Perce, Flathead, Kutenai, Palus, Coeur D’Alene, Cayuse, and Kalispell indigenous people, all that shared similar languages, cultures, religions, and diets, lived and died on the Columbia Plateau.
Today, Anglo-Saxon folk irrigate the land and grow thousands of acres of potatoes, peas, wheat, alfalfa, various grasses, grapes, apples, cherries, and Tumbleweed – lots of Tumbleweed or Russian Thistle, an invasive species of Eurasian origin that somehow became the symbol of the American west. This is how:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQc5gDXQGIs
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Onward we go ever westward, for a date with Kay and Randy, owners of the Sprague Motel and RV Park, in Sprague, Washington (population 494), sitting all by its self, high on the Columbia Plateau.
We had decided to stay at the Sprague after reading many reviews on Trip Advisor that praised Kay, Randy, and the Sprague. We called ahead to book a room, but to no avail. No answer. But Kay, on in a recorded message and sounding like the loving mother of guys I had grown up with, lamented the fact that she was busy at the moment but would get back to us soon, which she did not.
“This is a great place to spend one or a few nights. The owners are absolutely wonderful people, and the accommodations are first rate”, says Jim and Jan of Kansas City. There were many other glowing reports of the Sprague’s splendorous accommodations.
Undaunted by the unreturned calls we pressed on to the Sprague and arrived at 5:30 PM. Unfortunately, no one was handy at that moment to see to our accommodation needs. A sign on the office door gave a different number to call for “immediate” service, a number that when called did not give service as advertised.
Perplexed and saddened by this chain of events we sat for a while, contemplating our next move, when suddenly a spirit appeared. Yes, a spirit appeared, one that reminded me of the jovial Ghost of Christmas Present in the Charles Dicken’s classic, A Christmas Carol, except that this jovial spirit was dressed in what appeared his underwear. Somewhat disheveled and a little on the raffish side, with a week old beard and unkept hair, he had a pleasant enough face on which was pasted an inviting grin on it, just like a kind spirit would have.
I decided to take a chance.
He waved us down and hollered, “Hey, stop, I can help you”.
Thus began an interlude with sixty-two Kody James (Kody with a K) of Norwegian ancestry, he made clear about fifty times during our time together.
Not one to waste air simply breathing, Kody (with a K) James launched into his story. “I am Kay and Randy’s friend. They are in Spokane on business. I can set you up with a room.”
Which he did. “Number 3 is good. King bed, 200 TV channels. The heater works. Fine view of the RV park from the bathroom window. You are lucky. Number 3 has a bath tub AND a shower.”
Sawyer loved it, so we said OK to Kody with a K.
Kody showed stupendous vocal stamina as he launched off into a remarkable tale. “I see you are from Virginia. I know a thing or two about Virginia. My very good friend is Tony Bennett.”
For those of you unfortunate and sheltered folks out there who do not know much about basketball, Tony Bennett is the head coach of the University of Virginia Cavaliers basketball team, who just last year won the national championship. In the past four years or so Coach Bennet has made UVA one of the best basketball teams in the country, consistently winning the conference and many games and always advancing far in the annual “March Madness” national tournament. (Well, almost always.)
Then Kody with a K laid an eye popper on us. “Ever heard of Joey Harris”, he inquired, between ever so shortening breaths.
Knowing a bit about basketball, I replied, “Of course. Everybody who is anybody in Virginia knows Joey Harris.”
“I am Joey’s godfather.” Then Kody with a K whipped out his phone and started showing us pictures of him with Joey Harris and his family, Joey’s mother and father, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends, all of whom he named and spoke of fondly.
Joey Harris, by the way, is a UVA basketball legend.
After a career in the NBA playing for the Charlotte Hornets and a time playing in Australia and New Zealand, Tony Bennet started coaching. For a time he coached at Washington State where he recruited Joey Harris to come play for him there.
During that time Coach Bennet decided to accept the head coach position at UVA and Joey Harris followed him there, where he became a top shelf player. After four very successful years at UVA, Joey Harris entered the National Basketball League (NBA), played for a while with the Cleveland Cavaliers and currently plays with the Brooklyn Nets. He is considered to be one of the best three point shooters in the league. Recently he signed a 75 million dollar contract with the Nets to continue his much heralded career.
Now do I have your attention?
But Joey Harris is not only a run of the mill great basketball player. He and his basketball buddies Malcolm Brogdon, Justin Anderson, Anthony Tolliver, and Garrett Temple Harris, all basketball greats in their own regard, are doing philanthropic work in Africa. They call themselves the “Starting Five”. They are pouring money into building wells in East Africa to supply water for some of the poorest of the poor. When Joey Harris comes back to Charlottesville every so often they practically give him the key to the city.
During the summer Joey runs the Joe Harris Basketball Camp, for kindergartners to eighth graders, every summer at Chelan High School where he played basketball.
And Kody with a K James, who is living in a dive motel in Sprague, Washington has just reported to us that Joey Harris is his godson.
But wait, there is more. Kody ain’t done yet. After the Joey Harris story he paused to take a bit of air and began to tell us of his career as a major league baseballer, during which he pitched for the Houston Astros for four years. For this segment he launched into providing names of baseball greats with whom he had played. Even I, an amateur baseball fan, knew many of the baseball greats Kody with a K had mentioned. He went on to display encyclopedic knowledge of baseball and its players, coaches, and fans and it seemed that it was not Google derived.
But I was becoming skeptical none the less. What is a guy with this history like this doing living in a rather colorful, somewhat low end motel in Sprague, Washington?
Kody took a break and went inside just as Kay and Randy arrived. Kay unloaded the car, unaided by Randy, who, after brief introductions, thought it might be instructive to tell me that Kay, that very day, had bought him a “smart phone”, one that he had quickly determined was smarter than him. He rattled on for a while about his new toy and said some disparaging things about Google, just long enough for Kay to finish unloading heavy stuff from the car. A planned strategic move, no doubt.
Kay and I went into the office to settle up and I asked her about Kody with a K. “Is this guy for real”, I asked, after relating to her some of Kody’s tales to us. “He sure is. Every bit of his story is true. He is a delightful man. Down on his luck. Every now and again he comes through Sprague. We are lifelong friends and always welcome him with open arms”, she said with an admiring smile on her beaming face. “He is here to finish writing a book he started some time ago. He is rather “Papa Hemmingway-ish”. Everybody in Sprague knows and loves Kody”
We settled up. Ninety-one dollars for our stay at the Sprague Motel and RV Park. Pretty stiff price for a shoddy shack like the Sprague. What the hell! When others go high we go low.
Broken down, that is $25 for the room, $15 for Sawyer, who happens to be a dog and baseball fan, and $51 for the local color and character.
The Sprague gets a five star review from the traveling Talley troubadours.
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The rest of the evening, whenever I went outside to get something out of the car, Kody with a K fell on me with more stories, more pictures, more names. I am convinced he was sitting at his window just waiting for me to appear from Sprague #3.
But he was just doing his thing, spreading good will and cheer as far as he could.
If this is not a Sherwood Howling story, I ain’t ever told one. Go forth, celebrate, and like Kody, spread good will and cheer through the land.
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The next day, April 12, we left the Sprague, and headed ever westward, traveling across the Columbia Plateau, through Ritzville (population 1,700), known to have a Starbuck’s, which we visited, and where one can visit the “Lasting Legacy Wildlife Museum, which houses thousands of wildlife pictures and displays.
We travel through, George (501), with the nearby natural feature the Gorge Amphitheater, or the “Gorge at George”, then through Quincy (6,750), and finally to Wenatchee (population 35,000), a sure enough German settlement sited smack dab at the foot of the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains. People out here call Wenatchee the “Apple Capital of the World” due to the valley’s many orchards, and the “Buckle of the Power Belt of the Great Northwest”, a metaphor for the series of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River.
To their credit, the good Germans living here named the town in honor of the indigenous Wenatchi people, who lived peaceful lives eating salmon, starchy roots like camas and biscuitroot, berries, deer, sheep and whatever else they could hunt or catch. The river they lived on, the Wenatchee River, once had one of the greatest salmon runs in the world prior to the installation of the hydroelectric dams, installed by those pesky Anglo-Saxons.
No more salmon runs now. You give and you gets.
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From Wenatchee, we headed westward on route #2, ever upward, through tiny Washington mountain settlements sited amid snow covered Cascade mountain peaks, with clear, cold rivers rushing eastward toward the mighty Columbia and Douglas Fir forests leaping skyward.
Finally we reached Stevens Pass, at 4,061 feet where the snow pack was about 10 to 15 feet deep. One can find a mighty fine ski resort here, complete with attendant businesses. The Pacific Crest Trail crosses the highway here.
We shoot down the western slope of the Cascades in ever-increasing bumper to bumper traffic. Go figure. We crawl through Skykomish (198) and Gold Bar (2,075), whose residents are confined to their quarters because it is impossible to go anywhere in this snarling traffic.
Finally we arrive at Marysville, sited beside the nightmarish I-5 route to Bellingham and enter that stream of cars and trucks. The traffic thins as we approach Bellingham, our destination and home for a few days. We check in at the luxurious Bellwether 1 Hotel. What the hell! When others go low we go high.
Bellingham, Washington – sited on Bellingham Bay with stunning views of the San Juan Islands to the west, and 10,781 foot Mt. Baker, or known to the Lummi Nation as Qwú’mə Kwəlshéːn or Kw’eq Smaenit or Kwelshán in the Nooksack language. The indigenous Lummi and Nooksack peoples have lived in this area for thousands of years.
Mount Baker is an active, glacier-covered stratovolcano, the second-most thermally active crater in the Cascade Range after Mount St. Helens, and the youngest volcano in the Mount Baker volcanic field.
After Mount Rainier, Mount Baker has the heaviest glacier cover of the Cascade Range volcanoes; the volume of snow and ice on Mount Baker is greater than that of all the other Cascades volcanoes (except Rainier) combined. It is also one of the snowiest places in the world; in 1999 Baker set the world record for recorded snowfall in a single season – 95 feet. Try skiing in that!
This is where my son lives, with whom we are going to spend a few days.
Namaste.
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