Today’s post is done in 3 parts, because there were 3 parts to today’s post 😊
This morning, I woke up crying – I woke up
hearing myself crying like I had lost my best friend.
And I had.
I had been dreaming of Bob; the dream was
kinda disjointed … but I remember Bob and I were enjoying ourselves, when he
took off walking, and us agreeing I would drive the car to a specific point of
the walk and pick him up. I watched him walking off into the distance, as I
slipped the car into drive, and turned my eyes to the sharp corner of the
U-turn-street: when I looked for Bob, coming into a straight stretch – he had
disappeared. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I drove the loop twice, thinking
maybe he was off to the side, jawing with someone (as he was always prone to
do); but he had just vanished. Coming out of the grogginess of a deep
dreaming sleep, I heard myself crying, “I lost him! I lost him!”
I must have laid there for a good 10 minutes,
crying like the world was coming to an end, before I woke all the way up and
shook myself to break the dreamscape link.
I dried my eyes, got dressed, and
decided to go for a drive.
I had read online that there were now
hiking trails at the Vista Park in Skamokawa: I wanted to try them out.
This morning would be a good time to do that: I left home at 9 AM.
The drive was short, not the hours long
drives, I normally do.
Vista Park, Skamokawa
Road clear of road crews the entire drive; to and fro. YAY!
Entering the Park, you have to dodge a lot of
potholes – some deep, some just wide; all with ragged edges.
WOW - there is a LOT happening at the Park, now. 4 years ago, it was kinda derelict despite all the advertisement.
WOW! Vista Park has grown! It isn’t a little hole-in-the-wall yuppie kayaking thingee,
anymore. It’s a thriving tourist venture now.
I drove to the Office and asked about the
advertised trails – I don’t remember there being any, last time Bob and I were
there with our little grandson, in 2017: I was curious.
I was told they were “at the end
of the road, behind the Office”; so, off I drove 😊
3 different trails to 3 different scenic spots along the trail route.
As I made the turn from the Office to
trailhead, and saw this preserved gillnet boat.
Trailhead parking area.
The trailhead brought back a lot of memories.
The path led down familiar terrain: father’s
cousin Terri, and her husband Don Anderson lived in a cute white house at the
end of the curve (which had been graveled in 1968; the Holden house before
that) … and my mother, and us 5 kids, had hiked to her house one afternoon,
from Ingalls Road in Skamokawa – through a farmer’s field, and up over Moe
Hill, to tie into a logging road that dropped behind the old school house, and
into the road that led to Terri and Don’s house. I’ll never forget that hike –
and I told Bob about it many times: it was exciting.
Lots of memories here ...
When I finally reached the trail, it was a
rough trail: kinda like the trails logging tree-toppers, and choker-setters
make in the forests, to get their jobs done.
Rough trails - marked only by logger's plastic tags.
“Follow the pink ribbon - follow the pink ribbon - follow, follow, follow ...”
Mossy forest steps; THANK YOU, Yeshua!
A bit further on, a glimpse of the Columbia
River – and the remembered sandy beach – came into view.
Bob was not the only male I visited that
sandy cove with … but he was the only one that impressed me with his presence
in that cove. I never spent time with Doug, there; but I did spend a coupe
afternoons there, with John, who told me of forested hunting trails that led up
over the cliffs, to places with names like Brookfield, and Frankfurt;
Brookfield, I knew: I often hiked there to that ghost town at the end of West
Valley, with scant reminders (Spring blooming daffodils, an apple orchard,
skeletal remains of an old homestead, log river wharf piers, a boat slip, ect.)
of a river town; from my patent’s house on Ingall’s Road. But, I didn’t know
anything about Frankfurt, except what John was regaling me with – he said he
often hiked those hunting trails. I was in awe, looking up at those towering
cliffs and imagining those wonderous trails 😉
But it was the August if 1974, when I went to
that cove with Bob, that it shimmered with magic – the magic of young love.
Remembering beach days with Bob, the Summer of 1974.
Sonny
James, ‘Young Love’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU_8D5jBqd0
The Judds, ‘Young Love’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR5VviO9aiQ
And when we drove to Brookfield, and later to
Frankfurt, those places shimmered with magic, too, when Bob told me the
background stories of both pioneer river towns. Later, I would come to
understand that Bob had direct ties to Frankfurt: his mother’s relatives, the Smalley’s
had had homes there.
But
before I realized that bit of family linkage … I fell in love with the remnants
of Frankfurt, as soon as the pickup stopped and I jumped out: there were, still
at that time – in the summer of 1974, a few ramshackle cottages with rose
bushes twining around a picket fence alongside one … and a couple little
decorative bushes that some logger’s wife had loving planted, daffodils, and
discernable trails between the few remaining/listing cottages. I
looked over the area and out over the river and imagined life there long ago: I
loved it, on sight! One time when we drove there (once Bob had
taken me there, I begged to go visit it often, when we were driving the roads
that way), Benji Brown and his girlfriend, Angie (they later married and
divorced) came sauntering out of one of the cottages and we spent about an
hour chitchatting, before going our separate ways.
Later, after Bob and I were married several
years, Frankfurt access was gated off by the Campbell Logging Company, and
driving there was no longer an option: now, anything that remained, is decades
reclaimed by the forest.
But I think of Frankfurt often … and see it
in my mind’s eyes, as I did then, that magic summer we were dating, in 1974.
And then, I spotted some love
along the trail: heart shaped leaves 😊
Heart-shaped leaved 'False Lily-of-the-Valley' wildflower.
I also saw a prolific patch of wild Oregon
Grape.
Immature Oregon Grape.
Remnants of a charred tree lay among the
forest litter, too.
I wonder what story this charred wood would tell if it could talk ...
This lead of the trail was supposed to lead
to the beach … and it did – to a point: for young bodies, it would be
a wonderful excursion – for older bodies, like mine, it would be
torture: at the end of this trail was the beach … if one was so
inclined as to fight their way over a jumble of river-wave-stacked driftwood: I
was not so inclined.
Not so rough section of trail; pretty & srene.
A bright spot of sunlight poking through the forest canopy, overhead.
I'm a rebel at heart; but I turned around at the end of the trail – and backtracked to another trail junction.
Looking at the back of the Park Brochure I
had scribbled a rough trail map on, I followed the middle trail that veered off
at the backtracked junction.
This spur of the trail leads back to the trailhead.
Jewelweed.
A slimy resident of the PNW forests; a slug; disgustingly important in the ecosystem.
A patch of Sweet Grass shamrocks.
A hastily built footbridge over a low-flow creek.
Sunlit end of looping trail.
I hope my body is kind to me later on ;-)
The trails hike took about 35 minutes to make
the loop back to the Highlander; the river breeze kept the hike a relatively
cool endeavor.
Leaving the hiking trails behind,
I thought I’d see what was over the large sand dune, beyond the large
((((WARNING!)))) sign. The Columbia River is a greedy river, and I was curious
to see if the remembered magical cove was still intact.
There is more sand accumulated - but the cove area is still there.
A LOT calmer beachfront than out at Willow Grove. I may have to make a return visit ...
I don't understand the tide table, so I avoid water when solo loboing.
Rocky bluff behind Redmen Hall - across from Skamokawa Fair grounds; Fair is next weekend.
Today was a surprise, as well as a blessing 😊
**SHABBAT
BLESSINGS/Pt. 2 ~ Julia Butler Hansen Game Refuge: https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2021/08/shabbat-blessingspt-2-julia-butler.html
**SHABBAT BLESSINGS/Pt. 3 ~ Stella: https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2021/08/shabbat-blessingspt-3-stella.html
