Lily (who now goes by Lee) and I drove to the Teanaway river valley on the east side of the Cascades, stopping at a Safeway in the small town of Cle Elum for junk food. I didn’t bring the guts… Read More ›
camping
In the morning coming off the plateau the fog looked like clouds over the lake
That April we got married the weather had been good every weekend three weekends in a row and I worried our luck would run out by our wedding day. There were about 50 people coming in to a mountain lodge… Read More ›
Faces in the driftwood the color of bone
At the Starbucks in Aberdeen on the Washington peninsula halfway to the coast with the kids and Ginger, the condiment bar a shit-show, the aftermath of a frat party, a scene from Weird Science but with milk stains and sugar wrappers and… Read More ›
That last trip to Teanaway
The dog Ginger, car camping for two nights, trying to break the food addiction she picked up in Germany with the 24/7 on-demand treating and feeding, so hungry she’s licking a patch of dirt in the gravel road, licking what… Read More ›
Night falls on Teanaway
Ginger licks the sleep out of my eye, licks the insides of the rain fly for condensation, doesn’t understand tent etiquette or the idea of personal space, steals my sleeping bag each time I get up, looks like Kermit the… Read More ›
First person singular
I forgot one of the things I like most about camping is getting dirt under your nails, that way your hands look like you’ve really done something when you haven’t, it makes your hands look honest, like they’ve got character…. Read More ›
Through the Portal-lands, camping with Charlotte
The boil-in-bag wild salmon backcountry meal didn’t have a date on it and I assumed no shelf life to speak of, no lot code, I got it at least a year ago, possibly two, probably still safe to eat. It… Read More ›
Canyon Road bookends
I unrolled the gravity-fed water filter bladder that still smelled like campfire from a year ago, collected a few liters of stream water and hung it from a tree by our camp while Brad finished a cigarette and started a… Read More ›
Three Girl Rhumba
I’ve been experimenting with drugs for our pets, for a 14-hour international flight next week where they’ll sit in the cargo hold while I read a first draft of my memoir on the plane. I crush the drugs, dilute them… Read More ›
Cow dung in foreground
Lily and I drive up the Teanaway to get away, bond. We pull the Pilot over at mile marker 11, where the trail report says you should start: pass the gate that says No Motorized Vehicles, head up the private… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 