First Snow

The front windshield was completely fogged, except for a pillow sized opening in the middle of the dash.  A wipe of my forearm exposed the winding gravel road for ten seconds before closing up.   Leaning forward, I peered through the gap in the fog.  Luckily,  the road was deserted and I steered the Syncro down middle of the road.  Thick snow flakes stuck to the window, melting after a few seconds.  I turned up the wipers.

"The defroster on this thing is a real gem." my brother said, cracking his window with the manual crank.

"Yahh yahhh, the fan nob is broken.  I gotta get it fixed."

As we marched up the mountain in second gear,  the snow dried out and the flakes shrunk.   Narrowly avoiding  the blunt nose of my Vanagon, they flew over and out of sight in some feat of aerodynamics known to a select few in Pasadena and Cambridge.  After seven miles on the gravel road,  we pulled over on the side of the road.

"This looks like the place."

"Have you ever been here before?"

"No but this is what it looked like on Google maps."

"Gotcha.."

We bundled up and headed out into the open field.

More so than any other weather event,  the arrival of snow  each year establishes the change of season.  Falling asleep one night in late fall , I woke up  the next morning squarely in winter to  a few inches of wet snow.  Loading into the Syncro that morning,  we headed up to the hills behind Mosier, Oregon in search of deeper snow and eager to enjoy the season's first snow.

#vanlife

A dirt trail up the hill and into the clouds.

Lucy, my mom's trusted companion. Full bred Irish Terrier, half breed pain in the ass.

Stopping to take a photo,  my mom and brother unsuspectingly walked ahead.  Four years of constant snow warfare in Maine taught me to always be vigilant.  Scraping snow off the ankle high grass,  I balled it into a lemon sized ball and waited.  I made up some of the distance between my brother and mom.  Sensing that something was wrong,  my mom's dog spun around and barked.   My brother followed suit, catching a snowball on the nose.

Here are some more links,

Post (Picasa),

Mosier, OR (Out of Reception),

Hood River, OR (Out of Reception),

A Restless Transplant (Facebook).

#vanlife

Like live canaries in a mine,  a high concentration of vans in an area suggests good things.  Adventure,  free spirits and exploration.  Parked on side streets, some of these vans lay waiting for a long weekend or a the occasional road trip.  For others,  these streets provide a safe harbor away from the watchful eye of the area's finest.  They all dream of the open road.

Portland Oregon has a lot of vans.  Over the last few weeks,  I have been stopping and snapping shots of vans that catch my eye.  Here are some of my favorites.

Red stripe.

Syncro love.

Hippies.

Warriors.

Hunters.

Pinstripe.

V-8.

Tiger style.

Business in the front,  party in the back. Mullet.

Syncro love.

There is a lot of green going on here.  Both outside and inside I'd wager.

Fall Colors.

Two tone.

Mobile command station. VanRAD

To celebrate vans like these and the notion that, "Home is where you park it," I have started a new tumblr called #vanlife. #Vanlife will be composed of my van shots and submissions,  so if you have a van or  see a one or another ship of the open road, take a picture and submit it here.

Here are some more links,

#vanlife (tumblr),

#Vanlife (picasa).

Fall

After a few hundred miles,  things started looking familiar.  Road names and exit ramps sporadically conjured memories from yesteryear.  Beers in the woods at parent-less McMansions in high school.  Dark thirty to departures heading up to Mt. Hood in the back of a friend's family van.  Tween soccer games at a roadside field.  The closer the Syncro marched towards Portland,  the more the memories flowed.  "Portland International Airport, 20 miles."  No stopping them now.

As I drove north on I-5 through Northern California and Southern Oregon,  the trees changed color by the mile.  No more dodging fall by zipping up and down the California Coast.  Leaves littered the sides of the roads and rain beat down in proper northwest fashion.  At 4:30, the sun set over the hills.  "Fuck daylight savings,"  I mumbled, adjusting the windshield wiper speed.  Five hours later, I pulled off highway 14 at a familiar gas station t0 fill up.  Dressed in shorts, a sweater and barefoot, the 38 degree, rainy night caught me off guard.

Needles and leaves.

A morning hike in the woods.

An afternoon in Portland.

Tim on Prindle Mountain.

For miles.

Harvesting beats from the garden.

Seal Rock.

For the first time in five years,  I was back in the Columbia River Gorge during the height of fall.  Visiting the northwest once or twice  a year, in the summer and around the holidays, limited my view of the place I where grew up.  Just like a new haircut making a familiar person look different,  a change of season makes an old place look new.  Try it sometime.

Here are some more links,

Fall (Picasa),

A Restless Transplant (Facebook).

Lost

There is surf spot on the Northern California Coast  only accessible by bush plane, Zodiak boat or an eight mile, tide dependent, hike in along the coast.  Since traveling through the area a month ago,  I started picking up tidbits about a remote point break nestled in the largest undeveloped section of the west coast.  These tidbits led to research and an eventual plan to backpack in and surf this remote break.

According to lore, locals bury boards in the woods so that they don't have to schlep them on their back.  In the early 00's, a few hikers died when they were caught against  cliffs by high tides.  In addition, the (frigid) waters are infested with great white sharks and the shores team with black bears.  Nestled on a point,  the break is exposed to swell from the both the north and the south, meaning that rogue waves three times larger than normal can catch surfers.   "Get hurt out there, and you're looking at a life flight out courtesy of the US Coast Guard," a local explained through the window of a Toyota pick up.

These "obstacles" contribute to a deserted point break surfed by few, but known in the Norcal surf community as one of the best in North America.

"If not now, then when?  I just don't think we will have another opportunity,"  Dan said from his apartment in Arcata. "The swell is building and it's from the right direction.  The weather will be in the 70's too, in late October.  We can't pass this up."

"I'm down," I answered into my phone from the side of Route 1 in Big Sur.  "I'll be up there by Wednesday.  The waves will be better by the end of the week, huh?"

"Yahh,  that should be perfect."

We arrived at the trail head late the night before, greeted by the site of another Syncro with a few surfboards on top and an early 80's Westy.  Waking before dawn, we packed our things, hid our valuables and started down the beach.  Racing along as an eight foot high tide chipped away at the narrow beach,  we covered four miles along the beach then scrambled up a hillside.  As the tide recessed,  we sprinted around small rock points between waves.  Cove by cove, we marched ever closer to the distant point.

We dinged our boards and cursed our packs.

After eight hours of watermelon sized rocks, exposed beaches and jagged points, we finally made it to the bluffs over looking the break.  To our surprise we saw not one break but a handful of pealing, uninhabited waves.  A far-cry from Southern California: just a single team of two surfers taking turns riding a wave and driving a jet ski.   With the eagerness of a group of nine year olds on Halloween, we shed our backpacks, changed into our suits and charged into the waves, intent on reaping the benefit of our day's effort.

For the next three days, we surfed the handful of breaks along the abandoned coast when the tides were right.  When the water was flat, we explored the beach, scavenging for driftwood, and other odds and ends to improve our makeshift home.

Tired from the day's sessions, we packed it in early each night.  Waking at dawn, we checked the surf.

Water.

Low tide.

Using salvaged marine rope,  we lashed two trees together, creating crows nest.  From this vantage point, we could see breaks a mile down the beach in either direction.

In the mornings, we spotted bear and deer tracks on the trails along the bluffs.

Twilight.

Our shelter,  my LL Bean tent.

A-Frame.

Our planks.

Next time, I will probably come in on one of these.

Deliberation.

An Aran Sweater for the cold nights.

 After three days of playing lost boys, our food ran short and more importantly, the swell died down.  Much to our chagrin,  we broke camp, took one last look at the swell from our crows nest, and hiked back a long the coast.  Motivated by the promise of a convenience store at the end of the beach, we walked in relative silence.  Some things you will never forget.

Here are some more links,

Lost (Picasa).