Taking Off

I’m sitting at a Toyota dealership in Everett, Washington, this morning waiting for our car to be fixed. We expected to wake up to the sound of the Pacific Ocean, all cozy in our pop-up camper trailer, awaiting a new day of adventure in Olympic National Park.

Yesterday was a lost day of cold rain, surprising delays, mounting frustration, and a small army of people at 5th Wheel RV Center trying to make our day turn out right. Ultimately, it ended in defeat at a Holiday Inn with a nice pool and an indigestible meal of deep-fried, vaguely Mexican food.

I suppose it’s a good lesson – a smack down, really – that our plans can be scrambled in a heartbeat. Balancing keen anticipation for the coming school year and travels with a healthy acknowledgment that we don’t know what the future holds, I remember my Grandma’s wisdom, “We’ll just play it as we find it.”

Hugging my brothers felt like coming home after a long time away.  I hardly ever see them, hardly ever call them, but when I do see them it is like we have never been apart.  There is an instant, invisible shorthand that you have with brothers and sisters that no one else in your life (even husbands and children) will ever duplicate.

We had a few nights of talking over old times in Thief River Falls and laughing at our exploits of those days.  Kids these days have a different lifestyle.  I know my kids are safer, but they miss out on the joy of unfettered freedom we had back then.

Montana is beautiful, especially in the Gallatin River canyon where my brother Dan lives.   Dan said he doesn’t really notice the beauty anymore, but when he has been away from it, he misses it and appreciates it when he comes home.  I think that when we have beauty in our lives, we take it for granted until we don’t even see it anymore.  I would like to try to see the beauty that is in my life each day, even if it isn’t conventionally pretty. This includes mundane tasks!

Here in Seattle, I have played tourist for a few days now, and I need some rest.  Tomorrow we will go to Olympic National Park and check out the rainforest and the tidepools.  I look forward to seeing the beauty outside of the city.

Q: Eli, how did you like the road trip from Minneapolis to Seattle?
A. Some of it was just plain and boring, but some of it was exciting and fun.

Q. What was the most exciting state so far? Minnesota, North Dakota, or Montana?
A. Montana.

Q. Why did you like Montana so much?
A. Because I got to see my cousins, and they’re really fun. I’m sad I had to leave them.

Q. What did you do with them?
A. We played hide-and-seek in the dark. We played a game where one person went out of the dark room for one minute. When they came back in, the other people tried to scare them and make them scream.

Q. Did you see anyone else in Montana?
A. Uncle Dan.

Q. What did you do with him?
A. I shot a gun – an automatic rifle – at targets.

Q. Did you hit the target?
A. Yes. I think I hit it around seven times.

Q. How do you like Seattle so far?
A. Good, except in some stores there’s a bad fish smell.

At our cabin last night, I was awakened from a sound sleep by the pacing of my dog, Buster. In the course of getting up to see if he needed water or wanted to go outside, I couldn’t help but notice the bright moonlight shining off the water below. At the window to get a closer look at the nearly full moon, I saw an equally bright disk in the southern sky, easily five times larger than any star on this perfectly clear night. What is that?

We learn a lot by asking questions, often spurred by simply being in the right place at the right time. I now know that the bright light I saw was Jupiter.

I already knew that Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, but with a little digging I learned more. Jupiter is over ten times larger than Earth, but its “day” is less than half as long — that’s a lot of spinning! Despite its size, Jupiter has only a tiny rocky core that is surrounded by a dense ball of hydrogen, helium, water, nitrogen and other gases. It has 39 known moons. In images of Jupiter, you may have seen The Great Red Spot, a hurricane-like storm that has been raging for over 300 years!

I guess the lesson here is that learning is not necessarily linear or predictable. I had no plans to learn about Jupiter as I crawled into bed last night. Similarly, Dr. Spencer Silver didn’t know what to do with a repositionable adhesive he had developed when a 3M colleague imagined it could be used on a bookmark in his church hymnal, giving birth to the Post-It Note. History is littered with accidental discoveries. You can look them up!

As Louis Pasteur famously said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Or as my Dad often asserted, “No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.”

The inspiration for this story came from my Uncle Dan’s basement, where he has 3 deer heads on the wall.

Once, there was a deer named Bud.  He had a brother named Yo.  They had a dad named Bob, but they liked to call him Dude.  This trio was not very bright, so one day Bud said to Yo, “Hey Yo, I’ll bet you can’t get your head through that cement wall!”  “You’re on!”said Yo.  Yo charged at 1 billion mph towards the wall in 0.00001 seconds and… BAM! his antlers went through the wall.

“Ha!” said Bud.  Bud charged at the wall at 1 billion 1 mph.  In 0.000001 seconds and… BAM! his entire head went through the wall.  Bud said, “Word, Yo!  I WIN!!”

Along came Dude.  “I’ll get you out of there!”  He screamed with rage as he ran to break down the wall at 6 trillion mph and… BAM WHAM he got his head through.

Later, after eating Fin and Ron (the fish) they quickly died, heads stuck in the wall.  Their ghosts haunt foresty places to this very day.

We’re in the beautiful Gallatin river valley in Montana, staying with my brother, Dan.  It has been a wonderful trip so far, I’ve been able to find places and not freak out about the driving.  When going down my first mountain pass, however, my palms started to sweat.  I am now used to the mountains and have stopped worrying for the time being.

Both of my brothers are here, Marty has been staying with Dan while he’s working in the area.  My boys bonded with my brothers last night, Lucas and Marty played catch and talked while Eli and Dan went to the shooting range and Eli shot a .22 at a target.  Eli did well!  I shot the .22, too, bringing back days of my youth when I won a trophy for target shooting.  I’ve never shot an animal and never want to, but I do like to shoot guns.

Yesterday we went to the Museum of the Rockies and learned a lot about the dinosaurs that have been found in Montana.  It was pretty amazing!  There was also a daVinci exhibit of his flying machines and weapons.  The boys took notes on what they found interesting.  We’re going to do some math today, so they get into the groove of doing some school work.

In the meantime, they are learning about the world around them and learning about how many different types of people there are in their lives.  Having the perspective of my “mountain man” brothers is priceless.  We’re off to Missoula tomorrow to stay with the Montana cousins.

So far, every fruit snail/slug exists! There is a banana slug, apple snail, orange slug, and pear snail!!!!! (Last 2 shown below)

Early this morning my family left me. In six days, I’ll rejoin them in Seattle. It’s the longest stretch we’ve ever been apart. Until then, no casual banter as the table is set. No hugs and kisses. No bedtime stories.

Since I’ve been married, and especially since we’ve had children, I don’t know quite what do with myself when they’re gone. Oh, I can make a list of chores and errands and keep myself busy. But it’s the spaces in between the busy-ness that seem particularly hollow. I guess I’m a pack animal.

As Matt has requested, I’ve gotten a picture of an apple snail. We won’t be seeing those, though. They live in freshwater aquariums and are the biggest freshwater snails in the world!

The boys and I took off this morning at 6 am, while they were still in their pajamas.  They didn’t fall back asleep as I hoped they might, we were all too excited about our road trip!

Driving north of Minneapolis, the fog was so thick you couldn’t see 100 feet ahead of you.  It made for some pretty bad driving… “This fog is as thick as pea soup!” said Lucas, doing his best old man impression.  The fog lasted through St Cloud, we could barely see to get off the freeway to enjoy breakfast at IHOP.

One of our goals on this trip is to stop and see things, not just Drive Drive Drive.  I told the boys that whenever they saw something they thought was cool or they wanted to see, just say so and we would stop.  Too bad we were going through North Dakota.  There is absolutely nothing to see and even less to stop for.  We made great time and hit Bismarck by 2:30.  The boys nixed driving on to Dickinson, so we checked into our  hotel and are getting ready to hit the pool.  The temperature outside is 101 and windy.  We plan on asking the front desk for an egg to see if we could fry one on the sidewalk.