Hawaii, Owyhee...uh, Böglands (The Final Chapter)

 

Photo Credit: Kip

The light from another morning begins gently assaulting my eyelids, so my comatose body instinctively begins to burrow like a worm, forcing my face into a loose amalgam of swaddled-up fleeces and t-shirts - the makeshift pillow I build every night (because I forgot my pillow). My liver has never really had to metabolize alcohol on a regular basis, so feeling ambushed, it grudgingly does its work to restore what passes as my typical chemical balance, asking only that I be still and unconscious.


A sort of peripheral consciousness jury-rigged by my ears informs me that Kip and Rico are rooting around in their vehicles for implements of destruction, lug nut wrenches, jack handles, hammers, and pry bars, anything that might steal a geode from the grasp of its mother.


My liver is not the only organ of mine that is being taxed. Evidently, a significant portion of my neurons were slaughtered near the end of yesterday and synaptic first responders are desperately trying to rewire decimated transmission lines and repurpose some of the few mental structures that are left standing in a bid to reestablish my baseline reality. It is becoming ever clearer to me that whales cannot float…well, they can’t float on air… especially not in a landlocked desert canyon.


The noise entities that are Kip and Rico begin to fade. Now the aural soundscape is mostly leaves whispering in the dawn breeze and an occasional rock tumbling down a scree slope. Now and then a distant shout of garbled vowels and consonants conveys directions or advice… or exclamations. Now and then heavy metal objects clang and vibrate as they smash into rocks.


The last time I partook in a harvest of geological booty, was with Kip and Rico back in 2018 when we visited Oregon’s sunstone capital (near Plush, OR).

 

While the hunt for sunstones contains all the joys of hunting for Easter Eggs (minus the dying of, hiding of, and eating of), not having any conception of what to do with them once you obtain them makes them something of a conundrum for me. In desperation, I used my sunstones to bedazzle, Elton John style, a pair of old reading glasses. The resulting fashion accessory works better as an exaggerated narrative than an actual art piece.

 

As the sounds of Kip and Rico began to recede and morph into the form of distant echos, the fear of ‘missing out’ finally motivates me to resurrect myself from the oblivion of sleep. I squirm out of my rain-fly and begin picking my way up the slope, relearning how to walk. As the angle of the slope becomes more severe, I alternate my route between slippery burnished dirt and teetering slabs of scree depending on which is most likely to give my steps more purchase.

 

 

I ran into Kip as he worked his way along the rocky columns that thrust out from the top of the scree skirts. He was already coming back from the high cave we had all seen last night, and his report did nothing to dissuade me from seeing it for myself.

 

It was kind of like, I imagine, seeing the pyramids after the tombs had been ransacked - or a jawbone after all the teeth had been pulled out. But then, that isn’t quite fair. There were geode-shaped cavities, of course, but there was also still a wealth of geode matrix lying in wait for anyone with a geologist’s hammer or shaped C-4 charges.

 

I looked carefully at the pockmarked surfaces and while I wasn’t sure what the mechanism was for the formation of concentric spheres, at least I could see hints of how minerals leeched into the structures and consolidated over time.

 

I absolutely would not return here without a rock pick.

 

Uncle Rico placed a modest collection of various geodes on the picnic table. He had found a distinctive black one and a distinctive white one and arranged it all to conjure an ad-hoc yin-yang symbol. I was beginning to feel pangs of envy regarding his metaphorical-capable artifacts but got distracted by the salsa and avocado leftovers that hinted that tacos, at one time, must have existed here. Synapses sputtered and fired, but clearly, there were holes in my memory.

At this point, Rico began trying to sell the idea that we should go off-road to investigate an anomaly he had observed during the approach to Succor Creek the day before. But all I could think about was the horrifying possibility that I had missed a taco dinner. I mean, you wouldn’t just slice up a plate of avocados and fork the bits into your mouth. You’d obviously use the avocado to dress a taco. Right?

 

But Rico, oblivious to my distress, kept describing an unnatural black line he’d seen in the hills across a broad valley. Rico felt certain that whatever the black line was, it was a man-made feature. “It’s probably a fence or wall.” He said, “But it’s definitely an ‘unknown’ that we should investigate as we explore these mysterious Böglands.”

Here we go again, I thought.

Whatever!

I was busy focusing on the half empty can of salsa while half listening to Rico. It seemed he somehow attributed this mystery-wall to local baguettes. That made about as much sense as calling the Owyhee Canyon Lands the Böglands (No bogs…and not all that many bugs).

When Kip turned out to be enthusiastic about exploring Rico’s mysterious Bögland’s anomaly, I wasn’t a bit surprised. Besides, I have to admit that I was curious about the supposed connection between long, thin, French bread and unidentified landscape features. GPS data was quickly consulted and we soon set out in our two vehicle convoy, leaving Kip’s tent as a marker to reserve our spot at the campground.

 

We resumed the familiar neck shimmying rhythm of high-suspension vehicles lurching left to right - consenting to swaths of time during which we resembled nothing so much as bobble-head toys.

 

The convoy came to a stop at the base of a long stone fence made of the fractured native stones that lay scattered across the hillside. The rocks appeared to be stacked on each other in a haphazard fashion. There was no evidence of any dressing of the stones, or even really any fitting. Nor was there any distinguishable mortar.

Rico popped out of his Jeep and walked around to the back. He raised the hatch, which, stuck wide open, served as a lone spot of shade for him as he rummaged through an ice-chest.

“What does this have to do with baguettes?” I asked.

“Not baguettes,” He replied as he handed out ice-cold beers, “Basques.”

 

In the late eighteen hundreds Basques, immigrants from Southwest Europe, were so numerous in Jordan Valley that it was called “The Home of the Basques” (In fact, the handball court I thought I saw when we drove into town was really a Pelota Court built by local Basques in 1917). A significant portion of them, the immigrants who arrived after an initial rush of gold prospectors, made their living farming and raising sheep.

Presumably, then, the fence we walked was an artifact of early immigrant farmers, who combined the task of clearing their fields with marking boundaries and limiting the movement of sheep and other livestock. The stone fences stretched for miles, and I suppose the barbed-wire sections we surveyed were later additions that offered a less labor-intensive solution to stacking stones.

Occasionally I’ll bid a small job, something like painting a bathroom, and when all is said and done, I’ll find that my original estimate was very accurate. But as I stand along the stone fence and watch it curve up out of sight beyond the distant hilltop, I find I can’t even hazard a guess on hours required, or even the size of the crew. I get the keen sense that the people who built these fences could never have imagined a future in which it would have been possible to spend a day on a comfy sofa binging a season of a favorite television series.

Rico and Kip, clambering ahead on legs decades younger than mine, reach yet another false summit and determine they’ve explored as far as they need to and rest. I’m lagging behind, intentionally laying out a path of exaggerated switchbacks as I weave between stubbly clumps of grass. I’m doing all I can to avoid planes that are anything but level. The exercise is what I need. The sun squeezes the alcohol out of me through my sweat holes.

The stone fence reminds me of the vast treeless plains of Kansas, where early settlers in need of fences figured out how to substitute limestone posts for wooden fence-posts. I planned to tell Kip and Rico about it when I got to the resting place, but by the time I get there, they are ready to head back down.

Back at camp, Kip takes on the role of chef and begins heating up a frying pan. My assumption is that more fish filets from the coolers will soon be bubbling in hot oil, but when I chance to Iook, I see a horrifying pink composition suitable for a constructivist painting.

Kip is smiling like a mystic in the throes of a beatific vision as he deftly sorts the pink cubes with tongs.

 

I choose a smiling expression for my face which I hope will temporarily act as a mask. Meanwhile I am in turmoil. Did I ruin my brain yesterday? Did I permanently alter my baseline reality? Everything seems normal, but instead of fish, for some reason, I think I see Spam!

I turn to Rico, hoping to see how he is reacting, but he is wearing a smile like an evil Stephen King clown. He is somehow able to see through my fake smile and he whispers, “What’s the matter? You’ve never seen Spam before?”

I play along and we make our elaborate tacos as usual. They become the best Spam tacos I have ever eaten. Do these qualify as three species tacos, we wonder? But really, there is no telling how many species might be in Spam.

 

The next morning, we pack up camp and leave the Succor Creek camp area behind us. I ride shotgun with Kip while an actual shotgun rides shotgun with Rico. It isn’t long before one rabbit or another, sitting frozen in perfect camouflage, loses its nerve and breaks into a panicked sprint as the convoy bounces by. This only serves to bring them to Rico’s attention. Rico, in these instances, slams on the brakes and springs out of the truck, shotgun blazing. He is like an Old West gunslinger, except his quick-draw routine has the added complexity of an off-road vehicle element.

 

I never see the rabbit until I see Rico’s barrel pointing the way. Then, as I focus, I briefly see a fluid streak airborne, with a rhythm diametrically opposed to the mechanical bumping of a Jeep. It’s all muscles and the lever principle honed by millennia of galloping predators and swooping raptors - a masterpiece drafted by generations of masters - giving it a one-step advantage in a race for life - a race it can’t win in a hail of steel pellets.

There’s an explosion and my eyes flinch shut (they always flinch shut) and I smell the gunpowder. And when I open my eyes, there’s a breeze ruffling the soft belly fur of a still, quiet rabbit.

Rico has claimed another treasure from the Earth, and to make full use of it, he immediately field dresses it. He scolds me for taking a picture of the rabbit in its awkward state and yet this is a mystery I seldom have ever seen and can’t look away from - life so immediately gone. The body yet warm and supple - as if it were sleeping.

Rico does his work on a stone altar, next to a nameless creek…

 

 

…witnessed by anonymous trees.

 

We climb another long gradient out of a valley, up toward the crowning plateau, stopping briefly to allow the cars to cool.

 

Then we begin sifting our way down into the Owyhee River Canyon again, this time toward the lower end of the reservoir.

 

Here is the last stronghold for water in a parched landscape.

 

Here, the boat ramp still tickles the edge of the water.

 

And visitors have learned to bring their own shade with them.

 

No store is open at this place, but we do find a vending machine that dispenses ice and take full advantage of it.

 

That dam glory hole.

 

 

Down there out-of-frame off to the right is the dam bridge, and beyond that our next campsite along the river.

 

Slowly, the natives come out to greet us.

 

There are more than we first thought, hiding in plain sight. Later, when we break our food out, the lizards make a deal with us, offering to take care of the flies that pester us in exchange for seats around our stove.

 

We don’t make any friends with the fly-fishermen in these parts when it becomes evident we will be keeping our fish.

 

 

Rabbit adds a novel flavor to the evening’s two species tacos.

 

Tomorrow’s journey will last the better part of the day, and during that time we will be forced to ease our way back into the apocalyptic milieu we left behind. We will see snapshots in time of Oregon East to West, all in one day.

 

We will once again rejoin daily commutes - retrace the same path day after day - exchange our freedoms for paychecks which we will use to wrest back bits of freedom.

 

Multi-lane roads happen because of the demands of traffic. Lots of traffic requires a bigger infrastructure. And if a lot of people are on that road…well, there’s wisdom in crowds. Right?

Hawaii, Owyhee...uh, Böglands (Part Seven)

Our eight-wheeled convoy skitters from the gulch and confidently negotiates a gossamer web of roads that evolved over time - shaped by topography, territory, and tepid human encroachment.

 

This instant in time - this fragile iteration of topsoil and flora tied to the sky and the distant oceans is even now responding to disparate fingers -

 

Water vapor flows - an atmospheric river streams in the sky

 

This image was chosen for its analogous visual relationship to the next picture. Ramona Falls (pictured) is not actually in the Owyhee Canyonlands.

Water falls - water flows - gravity is

 

Earth is a fitful sleeper. She tosses and turns. Her skin cracks and buckles. She bleeds magma and farts ashes that settle in layers through the epochs.

 

Rain turns the pages - shows us chapters of the past - reveals secrets of creation - and nightmares of extinction.

 

 

The earth murders whole worlds, and tries to bury the evidence. And we stumble onto fresh stages to strut and fret, as if the world was new...and signified everything.

 

Wind-driven, sandy, nutrient-poor soil accumulates on the latest mantle of basalt. Migrating seeds find purchase and sprout, then, with prickly fingers, comb more dust and silt out of the sky - compounding their interest.

 

Yet even as an ecosystem evolves in this interlude of benign geologic activity, decay, erosion, and entropy are poking and prodding and disassembling.

We have passed from one drainage system into another. We can speculate that maybe, beneath our feet, the materials for some future Leslie Gulch lie assembled and ready to be carved. Yet, as we gain impressions of the canyon opening before us - as we look across broad valleys to the encompassing layer cake upon which the high plateaus lie, it is hard to attribute this sculpted landscape to the puny creek that trickles down its throat.

 

Mud and gravel fall.

 

Mud and gravel flow. Gravity is…(gravity is by far, the weakest of the four fundamental forces, so they say.)

 

A creek of succor pokes along the desert cliff
And octopus roots, like so many straws
Suck life into the trunks, the branches, the whispering leaves
To build a sheltering green lean-to against the sheer stone
A cool oasis that profits even those who are not trees
Nature’s beauty is undeniable
And I am among the first to celebrate
But I have been smashing fish unconscious with rocks
And inexpertly tearing fillets from their skeletons – that is
I have been a lucky tight-rope walker – luckier than some fish –
Reclining in today’s benevolence, yet feeling measured by
The gaze of trees

 

We set up a new base camp at Succor Creek State Natural Area. There are maybe 18 places to camp that are dispersed on each side of the creek. There is a vault toilet on the way in. You have to bring your own beverages unless you can filter water out of the creek…and I’m betting you can’t - well, I mean you probably can. But time is money and so are filters (If only there was a sponsor who could provide a refreshing beverage in situations like this and wanted flattering photos of their product in ‘lifestyle’ type images.)

 

Photo Credit: Kip

 In this picture, Kip accomplishes something rare. It appears that all of us are smiling mostly natural smiles. Part of the reason I’m smiling is because I’m sitting on a bench. This is the only furniture I’ve sat on so far besides the car seats because not only did I forget my sleeping bag, I also forgot my camp chair.

 

I set about preparing my bacon-wrapped, cheese-stuffed jalapenos. I was inspired to make these as a homage to the stuffed jalapenos I first tasted at Wanker’s Corner Saloon. Normally I grill these, but I lost my grill and my favorite hat when I flipped my kayak over by not negotiating a simple riffle on the Umpqua River. Pan frying turns out to be an acceptable alternative and, as a bonus, it doesn’t burn the toothpick tips off which results in fewer surprises and medical trauma down the road.

 

Then Rico broke out a bottle of a very fine bourbon he’d been saving for the occasion and I think we drank quite a lot of it, though my memory becomes imprecise at this point.

 

I rapidly lost the ability to conversationalate and found myself focusing on maybe a specific way a leaf was shimmying at the end of a twig, or the way a sunbeam illuminated an ice cube. I listened to the words coming out of Rico and Kip but it felt like a warm syrup and besides, I had no waffles. The shadows slowly changed their aspect, shifting across the canyon walls. Later, a whale came floating up the road past our camp. It smiled and gave me a subtle nod, like a cowboy would if he were wearing a hat, but it didn’t say anything. It just slowly drifted on by - making good eye contact with that huge eye. It was so graceful. It was also so unexpected. I turned to see if Rico or Kip had seen it but they were all like, haven’t you ever seen a whale before?

Even later, a middle-aged man approached the camp. He appeared to be looking for something. He greeted us, rather shyly, and asked, “Have you seen my whale drift by here? I’ve lost it.” Rico and Kip both just pointed up the road.

 

Even later, I was disturbed by a tap, tap, tapping noise. A man and a woman with hammers and crowbars had climbed the scree slopes below the cliffs and were treating the rock surfaces as personal percussion instruments. When they finally came down they explained that they were collecting thunder eggs. The man spilled his knapsack to reveal an impressive haul of baseball-sized geodes.

 

My dreams were both vivid and hard to remember.

 

There was something about the hero’s journey (Hercules and the gross of juniper berries).

 

There was something about my own mortality - being one with the landscape - ashes to ashes

 

Something about the Earth being alive.

 

Later still, I tried once again to take a shot of the Milky Way, still longing to achieve a technically competent shot. Bats squeaked in the dark and made impossible turns before the light of the stars. It occurred to me that I might still be dreaming, perhaps in the same predicament as Chuang Tzu who dreamed he was a butterfly, or wondered in retrospect if maybe he wasn’t really a butterfly dreaming he was a man.

So I asked, “Hey Kip, Rico,” pausing briefly to make sure I had their attention, “did you guys really see a whale?”
“Didn’t you?” they asked like a Greek chorus.

That bourbon was strong medicine.

To be continued…

The rest of this narrative can be accessed via these links:

PART 1: Hawaii, Owyhee...uh, Boglands (Part One)

 

PART 2: Hawaii, Owyhee...uh, Böglands (Part Two) 

 

PART 3: Hawaii, Owyhee...uh, Boglands (Part Three) 

 

PART 4: Hawaii, Owyhee...uh, Boglands (Part Four)

 

PART 5: Hawaii, Owyhee...uh, Boglands (Part Five)

 

PART 6: Hawaii, Owyhee...uh, Boglands (Part Six)