On the Road Again 2011 - Blog 16

It is always, at least for me, a strange feeling to cross into the USA. The border people ask questions, that while they are not unreasonably invasive,are asked in a manner that is both rude and aggressive. They also frequently manage to do so in a way that suggest that they are immeasurably bored by the whole process.

Travel within the Gulf Islands can be complicated both in terms of making the various ferries as there appears to be little attempt to coordinate their schedules and the various terminals are not always located near each other. For example we needed to make a specific ferry that left Fulford Harbour on Salt Spring to go to Victoria on Vancouver Island. We then needed to drive 20 minutes to Sidney to catch the ferry to Andacortes north of Seattle.

It was in Sidney BC that we had our little chat with the Canadian and American custom people. We had rehearsed the answer to the question (which would have been a valid question for anyone who knew where we were going to ask) " why didn't you go directly to Vancouver from Salt Spring?" It would have been both faster and it would have been cheaper. There were two answers...one was that Sally for good reasons, has a firm belief that people who go to Gatherings have an increased risk of being harassed by the border people. If we took a more indirect route with a destination other than the Gathering, or harassment potential would be reduced. The other reason for taking the two ferries was that we were not going directly to the Gathering.

Somehow everyone in the van except for me, knew that we were not going directly to the southern part of Washington State. Sally has a former worker and a good friend who now lives on Orcas Island. She had arranged to visit her for two nights. So we got off at Friday Harbour, meet Sally's friend and had a very nice meal in a Chinese restaurant. The town of Friday Harbour was busy and quite alive with music, places to eat and lots of tourists.

After supper we got onto another ferry and went to Orcas Island and then to the house. It was an interesting house, or at least how it got built was interesting. There were six houses on a crescent, all of which looked similar. The couple had joined some sort of a co-operative. All of the families had bought the land and had signed agreements as to how they would build and perhaps more importantly when they would be finished. There was a not-for-profit housing agency that assisted them in all phases of the building including what materials to use,  and where to get them. The agency also, I think, assisted with some of the financing. The families built their homes with the assistance of professionals (e.g. electricians) - they helped each other out and  in the process became good friends. They are now officially a condo board so they will stay connected forever. It is a good system. While the houses were a bit too uniform for my taste, they were individually brightly painted. The lot sizes were good, and the interiors were all different. People who could never have afforded to buy a house, now can. And they did it themselves. There should be more such opportunities.

On the Saturday we went to the local market. It was a highly localized affair with all of the vendors and most of the customers all knowing each other. The crafts were great and generally very reasonably priced. The fresh food looked absolutely wonderful. Later we went to the local pioneer museum where we had a guided tour. Very interesting.

As nice as the house was, and as great as the island was, after a day, I was ready to leave.                           

On the Road Again 2011 - Blog 18

I was excited. Finally after a couple years I was going to another Gathering. The last time I had gone to a National, it was to do research for my thesis. I had promised to provide some feedback. Now I would be able to do it.  It is a special feeling to be going home after a few years.

The next morning I was up bright and early -in fact I was ready to go by just after 7:30. I should have known better. Sally is not a morning person. Her morning routines are complex and I suspect tiring and hard on her and her helpers.. We had agreed the previous night that we were going to have an early start. I believed them. The others were not breakfast people, so I went alone to eat while they were assisting Sally. The little restaurant attached the the campground/ motel only had one employee. She both took our orders and, cook the breakfast and served the meal. Perhaps that is why they used paper plates and plastic utensils- so the she did have to do the dishes as well. The breakfast was good and as the restaurant was a local hangout, I got to observe some old guys sit around and gossip.

There are, I am sure, thousands if not millions of similar places across North America. Perhaps such places exist in every corner of the world. I don't know because I have not visited every corner, but I have eaten breakfast in small restaurants from Newfoundland to West Virginia to Salt Spring Island. And in all of them, older men gathered for coffee before they start their day. Sometimes the group is comprised of mainly retirees, other times the group appears to me a mixture of older guys who are still working and those who are not. The working men are first to leave knowing, I am sure, that they are going to be talked about as soon as they leave. The men meet because they are good friends and because they share so many common cultural values. Within some groups younger men do, on occasion, attend but it frequently seems to me that they have a lesser status.

By the time I finished my breakfast (which included  eavesdropping on the conversation until the old guys had left) I sort of hoped that we would be nearly ready to get the van packed. Of course they  were not ready and they had decided to have breakfast. I spent the time pacing around the van. It was almost 12:00 before we pulled out of the driveway.

The drive to the main gate of the Gathering was spectacular. Unlike some other Gatherings I have been to, it was easy to find and the roads were great. No logging roads, or long stretches of a dirt road with stones as sharp as knives - for almost all of the way, it was well paved with no cracks or pot holes. Of course it was going into a National Forest and our roads into Algonquin or Banff National parks are just as good. But what made the road so spectacular was the view of St. Helen's. One could easily see where literally the mountain " blew it's top". It is completely flat on the top. Quite amazing.

When we got to where people had started to park their cars, we just kept on going on the assumption that (1) that the wheelchair would be our pass to parking as close to the trail head as possible and (2) that the people managing the parking would know Sally. I was right on both accounts. We got as close anyone got because of the chair and people we waiting and ready to help unpack the car.

It was so much easier than the last time Sally and I travelled to a Gathering. This time it was only about a 20 minute walk along a relatively level dirt road from where we left the van until we got to where Sally would likely stay. Once the van was unpacked and I knew approximately where Sally was going to be, I kept going trying to get to "my kitchen", the kitchen I am most comfortable with, the kitchen I did my research at.  It is called Instant Soup.

On the Road Again 2011 - Blog 17

Finally we were on our way to the Gathering.

But it was such slow travelling. Part of the reason for the trip feeling as if it was taking forever taking was that Sally needs a fair amount of time to get ready in the morning. But the other part of the problem was that her workers did not feel the same sense of urgency that I did. I wanted to get to the Gathering. I knew that in spite of all the comments on the various web sites about relatively easy access, there was no guarantee that it would be easy. I did not want to get there in the dark. And while there had been no comments on the web about police harassment, I knew that there such harassment was always possible to occur at any moment especially during the set up phase. To get caught up in an incident, especially if it was getting dark would have been a nightmare. I, of course, am a bit of a worrier. I need not have bothered. Nothing I could have said would have made the young workers hurry. So we spent almost an hour in Anacortes after getting of the ferry shopping for stuff like organic fruit, toilet paper and clothespins. All stuff that could have been bought the day before. Wandering around an strange town looking for stores is not a good use of a traveller's time.

The traffic down the interstate even when we were bypassing Seattle was never that bad. Two of the workers had been down this road before and so there was little confusion as to where we were going. Three or four hours later we were off on to the secondary highway. Once again we were obligated to stop to buy food. Another 45 minutes wasted. It was hard to just sit there and not say something. But it wasn't my car and I was not driving, so I kept my mouth shut. For most of the time while the others were out shopping, I stayed with Sally, and that is always a pleasure.

Just outside the town of Cougar, Washington, we decided that we needed to stop for the night.It was too late for us to get to the Gathering. If we had not wasted those few hours shopping, we could have perhaps made it. But we didn't and in hindsight perhaps it worked out for the best.

The place that we chose (it was in fact the only choice) was great. There were a number of cabins and lots of spaces for tents and RVs. There was a small swimming pool and an equally small restaurant. And perhaps most importantly, it was cheap. For $100.00 we got a room that had a bunk bed, a single and a queen size bed. The two young female workers slept in the queen, Sally in the single, I and Sally's male worker used the bunk bed. It was a good good deal, the cabin was interestingly furnished and the owners were very nice.

There were a lot of families at the campsite. Some of them had come for a family reunion and were staying a few extra days, other groups were there because this was where people registered to climb Mount St. Helen's. There was a nice,peaceful feeling to this place. It was a good place for a shower and a good night's sleep before getting lost in that special place called the National Gathering.