Ash & Pumice

There is a sense of bliss that comes when walking through the ashes of an active volcano. The sandy pumice is still fresh on my boots as I write this.

I fell asleep last night to the sounds of shuffling tents and chattering of people and dogs. Not my idea of a camping trip, but the absolute silence of 1 AM made up for the distractions.

It's weird when I go camping. I have a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night for no good reason. Sure, I'm uncomfortable, but that hasn't prevented me from sleeping in the past. Maybe it is to experience that uncanny silence and darkness, where your view is only illuminated by the moon and stars that shine through the trees.

Of course, there are small noises in the night too, simply the activity of the forest coming through to take advantage of the food leftover by clumsy campers. That's why you always lock up your food in your car: to make sure your campsite is not pillaged by the creatures in the night.

I woke up again around 5 AM, to a glow of a sun about to come up in half an hour. I promptly fell back asleep though, in the warmth of my sleeping bag against the mid 40 degree weather of the mountains.

My next distraction came at 7 AM, with the yelling of kids and the barking of dogs as the minute hand slid past the quiet hours into the loud hours. I tried to go back to sleep for a while, but I couldn't shut it out. Around 8 AM, I was not too happy, and decided to high-tail it out of there.

I took off towards a place called Blue Lake Trailhead. I figured: "I have all the time in the world! It's only 9:30 AM!" The car climbed alongside a rising ridge, and in usual mountain fashion, overlooks were plenty and stunning:

Finally, the climb plateaued in a very thin forest littered with boulders. Rockfalls were everywhere, and the trees were all dead and splintered. Eventually I figured it out: This must have been remains from an eruption. Maybe the 1980 eruption? I'm not sure.

At first it looked like a logging operation, but when I pulled up on the final leg of the gravel road, I saw the path of an eruption flow. Little did I know, this rock flow would lead me to the lake, which I believe was also formed because of damming from said eruption. The trails lead up and down alongside the flow, and eventually out onto the road of rock.

All this time there was rushing water off to the western side of the flow. Its noise was straight out of a recording of nature you find in Target. The trail was not far, only a mile in, but it was stunning to cross such an alien looking landscape. And of course, all this time the giant herself always loomed above me, visible through the clouds at different points.

The lake itself was serene. It was cold. Glacial melt I was assuming, or snow runoff? And it was blue. The water was so clear, I would have gone swimming if the outdoor temperature was not 55 degrees.

Hell. I thought about it anyways, to live life on the edge. Then I remembered I was at least 50 miles away from the nearest medical clinic, needless to say a mile out from the actual road. The idea of hypothermia was enough to encourage the carpe diem right out of me.

I sat at the lake for a bit, playing my fiddle and reflecting on life. It was one of the few times where I could actually play without fear of annoying anyone. There were obvious campsites at the edge of the lake, complete with fire pits, but I wasn't about to haul all of my camping gear a mile at a time across rock and ash to try to set it up. Where's your horse when you need one?

In the end of the day, I spent about an hour up on the freezing pumice plane, playing away, wishing the clouds would vanish for the sun to come out and warm my bones. It did eventually.


Mount Saint Helens, or in the Klickitat language: "Loowit", has captured my imagination ever since I arrived here. As a little kid I always was fascinated with volcanoes, and never did I think I would "grow up" to come to play around the very volcano I watched documentaries about back in Ohio. Her very power and presence is commanding. It dominates the horizon with Mt. Hood (Wy'east), but St. Helens is malleable. It has exploded, eroded, glaciated, and steamed; something that large chunks of rock should not do.

The mountain symbolizes the impermanence of the earth, the very thing that we take for granted. When looking, you can tell: There is more to this than meets the eye. There is always something else behind all of these wondrous things we can see in our everyday world.

US 12 and the Cascade Transition

Rain Shadow. The term conjures up different meanings for different people. Out here in the Northwest, it refers to the fact that the Cascade Mountains prevent much of the soppy rain from getting to the eastern side of the region. But with that very sop brings the greenery to life in the west. It is what makes the Pacific Northwest the place for young development and high, liberal standards of living. It allows prosperity, and the host of issues that come with it.

After about six months, you start to lose track of the mountains on either side of you. The Coastals are the first to go, because they are shorter, and demand less of your attention. Then the Cascades in the east go, because it's just something you get use to. The ultra-high peaks are the last to go, and I still marvel at their size from time to time; still questioning to myself how such things with such size can exist in this world.

Green valleys tend towards the steep western slopes of the Cascades. Flat gravel rivers tend to be the norm because of the glacial erosion and volcanic forces that created the valleys. It makes for amazing farmland, fertile with nutrient rich ash infused soil.

As you climb, the fields and streams are replaced by lush evergreen forests and rushing rapids. The trees bristle with life, and you start to venture into National Forest lands, uninhabited by none but government sanctioned ranger and gas stations, resort lodges, and dry, snowless ski slopes.

You keep an eye on those volcanic giants the whole time, as they dip and dive behind the wooded hills.

As you crest the highest point on the road, within minutes the scenery starts to change. The trees become a paler shade of green, and droop. The soil goes from dense underbrush and roots, to open forest floors with a pine needle carpet. It doesn't rain here nearly as much, and so the forest had to adapt, and to separate its species for less water, and dustier soil.

There are more open plains: Places where the trees couldn't quite make it because of a lack of water. Soon the scene turns into solid rock that rises up into massive megaliths of dirt on the land. The grass is about the only thing that can survive these steep and treacherous hills. How does anything live out here? Who in their right mind would think to settle here?

Irrigation. It's the only thing that keeps this valley alive.

When driving into the Yakima Valley from the south, you come out of the desolate empty hills that make up the Yakima Indian Reservation onto this plain of Eden. The valley floor (around halfway up the picture) is just painted with green. Green fields, green orchards, green trees and towns. And brown hilltops. Desolate, isolated hilltops where agriculture does not work.


The Cascades serve much more than simply a barrier for rain. They symbolize a divide among the cultures of Washington and Oregon. To the West lay the lush, fertile forests and farmlands; home to the burgeoning tech giants and environmental firms of the Pacific Northwest. To the East there is dry, infertile desert land. Depressed towns with little to no reason for existing outside their irrigation. Impoverished families with no hope of upward mobility; stuck forever in their circumstance of where they were born.

Liberalism, and the populations that accompany it, drive the politics from the West. State capitals are in the West. Urban centers are in the West. Interstate corridors of prosperity are paved in the West.

Fading conservative bastions are in the East. The dry high desert demands the rugged individualism you find in people, along with the fear of change, and the fear of abandonment. The towns are smaller, the people more xenophobic, and the roads much dustier.

Yet in the East there is much, much more apparent diversity. So many privileged neighborhoods in the urban centers in the West are exclusive for one ethnicity, and one group of people, and those tend to subtly stereotype urban societies, neglecting the minorities that live within the exact same area.

In the small towns in the East, minority groups are visible. There are Mexican restaurants, Spanish advertisements, and decorative colored banners adorning many of the main roads around migrant settlements. Yet they do not hold power either. There is more of an outward racism and fear from leaders and citizens in the majority. There is positively no appreciation or embracing of the migrant populations, nor acceptance from the majority into the area.


Though their populations are different, there is much more that links these two sides of the Cascades besides Interstates and US Highways. But the mountain chain divides and separates in more ways than just weather.


What amazes me is how apparent and striking the change is. Within an hour through the Cascades you are in an entirely different world, one radically different, but still with hints of familiarity and similarity.

I believe that there is no such thing as "nowhere". Anywhere you can travel is "somewhere". You just need the will to look.

Suburban Cities

Small towns always tend to entice me. Like when I'm in Portland, I find myself in them, and never wanting to leave. It's like I want one or the other. I cannot have mixture and melting of lifestyles.

I want to be out in the middle of the country side, in a small town with a dolled-up downtown, and ruins of former industry littering the streetscape. One where there is no aspect of planning, but that is okay, because there are no Urban Growth Boundaries to fill; there are no housing crises because of gentrification; there are no drivers to economic gain other than simply being there because that's where you landed, and that's your port of harbor.

Or I want to be in the middle of it all. Where the trolleys clank past, and buzzers and alarms keep you on your toes 24/7. Where at any minute anything could be going on, and you would never know it, or you'd be right in the middle of it. The background noise becomes a staple of your life, and eventually it becomes like static, always there. There are always things to see; always things to do; always a new "place" to be discovered.

On Monday everything seems to be shutdown here in Chehalis. I'm here on a Tuesday (thank goodness), but on all the signs on the doors it always says "Mondays- Closed". I wonder why that is. It is only in a small town would you find that uniform quirkiness of businesses and work weeks. In cities, all kinds of places are open during all times of the day, never being the same, spelling out diversity in the very fabric of the business of the metropolis.

It isn't that in the suburbs that businesses are open all the time. Nor is it that they are closed all the time.

In the suburbs there simply are no businesses.

It was weird at first, but sitting here in a small town, I can now see it. Everything is within proximity of the living areas. Granted, walking would be somewhat of a chore, but there is space when you move. You are easily within 5 minutes drive of any business in town.

In urban areas, everything is there. All at once. It is so compact, so focused, that everything is within easy walking distance, and everything is never but a five minute walk of where you live. You can easily access the things you need, and the things you want.

In suburbs, there are just oceans of houses. When you descend into one unit it's like you are delving into a maze. a maze with no public buildings, no public parks, no public space. The houses are all compact, and all privately owned. You can't walk into one for a quick break or snack! That would be trespassing! You can't deviate off of the quickest path! There's only more houses of the same stature for you to look at. And it takes forever to leave.

In one instance I remember driving out into Mount Hood National Forest. I looked up the quickest directions, and set off. But then I sat. At red light after red light, waiting to just LEAVE! There were no convenient highways to take me there, and the houses just strettttttttttttched for 10s of minutes. It came to be about half an hour until I was out of Gresham! I thought that Gresham was this nice little hamlet on the outskirts of Portland! Something like Troutdale, but a little bigger.

Was I wrong.

It was sprawl city. I just looked it up, and it's population is around 100,000 people. 100,000 people! That's a little smaller than the entire city of Vancouver! And there are two other "suburbs" of Portland that are like this! They are bedroom communities, much like Vancouver, but west of the city.

When I take US 26 out westward towards the coast I always find this surprising about Hillsboro and Beaverton. They also take forever to get out of. It just so happens that US 26 is a limited access highway, so it takes slightly less time.

I have a hard enough time reckoning a place out of a suburb city that is, in it's entirety, outside of the state of Oregon, and therefore has a head start on creating an identity of place. I wonder how it must be living in those other places, where all you have in terms of identity is your neighbor.

Social Struggle in a Mountain

Looking upon Mount Hood today, I struggled with many feelings. I was out on a rage-fueled power walk around the empty lot beside our office, recoiling from the sudden news of less-than-desirable communications.

I was at entirely no fault, yet my latent guilt complex kicked in, and I immediately started unnecessarily pleading that I was innocent; that everything that had happened was the exact opposite of what I had instructed those involved explicitly not to do. But this happenstance wasn't even that major. It had no reason for the level of concern I gave it.

It may have been the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back. I have no idea where what went wrong, but my mind snapped. The single lock holding back the frustration broke, and my mind instantly went into self-blame and anger.

As I started the rage-induced power walk, I found myself starting at the mountain. That looming mountain. It towers, and in someway it could be a physical metaphor for the struggle I've been facing here. The thing with Mount Hood is that you can drive to the treeline at Timberline Lodge, and start your accent there. It gives you a running start. The Northwest does this too. A great job market, ripe for unique and young talent, and taking people in. And they do.

But there are only so many allotted climbing permits up this mountain. Those who are privileged enough to snag one before they fill up are permitted up the mountain. Others find they arrive at Timberline Lodge, ready to get to work and show off their stuff, only to learn they don't have the privilege of getting stable housing, ready medical care, no hike up the ridge for you.

Yet others come from afar, and are ripe for the region, yet find they chose this wonderful looking ski area from which to start, just to learn there is no safe approach to the summit from their location. They were misled by marketing efforts into thinking they would have the mountain to scale with their own wits, when in reality, they have expended their resources on moving to the region, and cannot move on.

I'm in that last camp. I came with the promise that there would be a progressive, young, and energetic population. So I chose a perfect looking northern camp, ready to ascend when I arrived. But alas. No approach. So I've done what I can. I've made this camp as nice as I can try.

But the progressive, young, and energetic population? They are riding on their privilege up the mountain. They secured their pricey climbing permit, bought the expensive top notch gear, and have already started their accent. And that lucky room for a mountain climb only opens up when one of the members of the party comes back down due to exhaustion or altitude sickness, and only those with the resources and luck can start their accent, while the rest of us are stuck on our less impressive summits, and warming our hands by the fire in Timberline Lodge.

The population on the non-approachable sides of the mountain are insular and protective. They contain a conservancy of attitude that I thought did not exist in this blue swinging utopia. Granted, while they are not as red as other places I've lived, they are more condescending and ignorant compared to those of the East. The rural here is a strange mix of a libertarian type of red, and a social type of red. And it is the majority in four out of the five counties I work in. Each has their own flavor, yet all in the same idea: Outsiders are not to be trusted, different is bad, and status quo is the only way to hold on to what little you have left.

I've traveled to Timberline Lodge, and I've met and spent some time with those who made it there, and chose not the wrong area but simply did not have the resources to begin ascending. They live in the lower middle to lower echelons of society, content, but not excelling. Their spreadsheets may be static, but they hold hope that they will update eventually, with enough hard work.

Don't get me wrong. All people across the region are beautiful. They all hold their own interesting quirks and quarks, and they all can be great to work with. I fancy myself the kind that can communicate with most people, but some are just too tough of eggs to crack. I've opened up my toolbox of methods and tried my best in all directions. But today affirmed that some battles you just have to leave behind.

This region has mentally exhausted me, and I am beginning to see why people hole up in their islands. Residents stay local to their niche, to the place that suits them. That could be from the center of the progressive city, all the way to the small flower lined Main Street of their rural village. But people do not mix. Both sides do not explore, do not reach out and connect, and cannot accept each other's help.

It's that crux that we see so often across this great nation. The urban has the resources to help the region, including the rural, and makes large decisions for the rural areas as a result their power. But the rural provide the food, the recreation, and the cultural diversity and escape for those in the urban areas.

Both need each other, yet they act like neither can ever get along. Cooperation out here is anything but a fragile line in the sand, and both parties are content to kick and dust that line away, and are content with the tide coming in and taking away the essential other. And that is not what I like. I cannot survive in an area that does not acknowledge it's other, and is perfectly fine with letting ignorance wilt the other half away.

Sharing of Place

There always seems to be a crash that comes with the highs. I don't want to muse on about balance, but that must be the explanation. Everything tends towards high entropy, making sure both sides are equal, requiring energy to move packets of down back to the packages of up.

Sharing this place helps me do that. I love to share my place with others. Over the past weekend I shared this natural wonderland with some folks from college. We went to Mount Saint Helens, went into Ape Caves, saw the Trail of Two Forests, and hiked over Lava Canyon. The usual tour. But something this time was different. I unabashedly enjoyed myself.

Lava Canyon Falls

A railing to hike past a waterfall and on down the trail.

At the end of the day, my sides hurt, I worried not, and really let my "true" self shine. We got dinner after hiking, and then went home and played Mario Kart 8. It felt exactly like I was back in good company.

The lovely people who were on this adventure.

I love it when people visit. I can host again. I can create a welcoming and friendly environment where we can have fun, enjoy the same things, and just be.

Friday consisted of me working, and administering a "Bus Training" for some staff at our agency. The goal is to get a better understanding of what the bus system is like, and to get some "on the ground" experience of what clients go through. But I just realized: It seems like even that is a "sharing of place" in a certain way. I was sharing my place of public bus with others who haven't seen it before.

After a tiring trip around Portland that included food carts and lots of walking, we went to one of the best live shows I've ever attended. The Mountain Goats played, and there was a great intro band called Blank Range. Oh god I sang along and danced live I never had in my life. I guess maybe you could call it "losing yourself"?

Sharing experiences with others. I think that is central in what I do. I adventure, learn, and observe. Then I try to show others. Place is a much bigger thing than simply a geography. It involves people. It involves actions. It involves happiness. But most of all, place is interdependent upon all of those things.

Stacked Layers of Place

Portland looks almost too idyllic in the Springtime. Everything is blooming and reawakening under the partially cloudy sky.

This spring has been tricky. It's given us the remnants of the winter we barely experienced. It is nice though to see the beautiful snowy white peaks of the prominent giants in the distance.

I have been a little less excessively welcoming of the sun and the warmth this spring season. The winter was unusually not rainy, and I've learned to deal with the rain a little better now.

Life has an impossibly intricate and interwoven design to it. Being in a metropolitan area, but not being at the core of it, has shown me a radically different view of what I thought about cities. No longer am I in the core, nor am I completely removed. Everything flows in patterns, where one relies on the other, yet not all is equal nor equitable.

The semi-periphery is full of beautiful contradictions. People work in another place, they play in another place, they go to their doctors appointments in a different place. The only consistent thing about this place is that people sleep here.

But maybe I am defining place incorrectly? I mean, in my mind a place is an entire town unto itself. It's contained, enclosed, and separate. There are no "places" that match my definition within twenty miles. There are a collection of little towns, some with their own characteristics, others without. "Carter Park" is a neighborhood within Vancouver, whereas Thurston, Ohio is the neighborhood. That's what it is. It's a simple separation of articles of speech.

I guess you could substitute "neighborhood" with "community", "location", or "place".

Stacked like an order of operations, place has an expanse to it. Especially when you bring together hundreds of thousands of people in one region. And I don't think I've ever really thought of that before.

It reminds me of the Chinookan artwork in the Cathlapotle Plankhouse. On the middle post there is a black arc of the earth that sweeps up from the ground, and a red arc coming from the heavens follows the same pattern. In the middle of the post is a black ring and within it a black circle, that form a somewhat target shape in the middle of the beam.

The outermost ring of black symbolizes the world, with its outer shell of life and vastness within the red of the heavens. Inside the ring, the red of the heavens is with those on the ground and within the earth. Finally, that black dot is your immediate family and kin. Those that you know the best.

Chinook peoples are still here today, and built and painted that house, and I think it is a good pattern to use. It is also great because it is simple. Only two layers, one within another. My view of the world is that of many layers, usually not so well organized and engineered. The core and the peripheral rarely follow a perfect circle, and do they rarely follow a two stepped process.

I try to navigate those layers, and I enjoy every second of it.

Quickening Reconciliation

My relationship with suburbs is... tepid at best.

The noise level is never a constant. It is always fluctuating, never settling on either a flood or a pasture. You stand out on a curb, waiting on the bus in the rain, and a wave of cars comes. Your mind goes into urban mode, getting ready to rev out the noise via your personal mufflers. But then there are no cars, and in front of you lies a three lane stretch of pavement; an abandoned highway in a depreciated rural town. But then the cars come again.

And the pattern is not even consistent. There may be lines upon lines of cars impeding your path, only to succeed to an empty road that you can dance in.

What baffles me more is the pattern of development in a suburb. Lines of roads, main arterials lead to dead ends. Cul de sacs that lead nowhere except in a circle to exit right back out where you came from. There are no through-ways, only walled off communities with one or two roads in and out. It's a closed system, full of conveniently placed barriers to impede your progress.

It is almost like in a game:

In a game, sometimes one of the key elements is immersion. That intense focus and feeling that you are the game. Sometimes your reality flips away in an instant, sometimes it slips away gradually as you are drawn in. Some games also have the conveniently placed barriers that make you follow the story, and prevent you from free roaming or exploring your surroundings. But some games have open world story lines, that allow you to go anywhere and everywhere you wish at first dawn.

Maybe "place" shares some of the same qualities. I usually find myself immersed in a place wherever I go. I usually am able to free roam and explore to my hearts content. Maybe Vancouver is ready to reel you back to reality in an instant, just before you become too complacent. Maybe suburbs are designed in a more linear fashion, ready to shuffle the folks who live in them on their merry way in the next chapter of their lives.

That's too complacent for me. I cannot take being offered one path, or possibly two, that ultimately leads to the same outcome. I cannot do the constant snapping back to reality, nor can I take the acknowledgement of the player in my life, or some fatalistic plan going into action.

But let's not turn this into too much of a philosophical debacle or entanglement. The thing about places is that they change; in themselves as well as with the movement to other places. Along with the fact that everywhere is a place with it's own qualities, with it's own character.

I try to not think that somewhere is nowhere, but it's hard sometimes.

I don't think Vancouver, or a suburb or bedroom town, allows me get immersed. It's always interrupting me, reminding me of the things I'm uneasy with. The town is linear, with many, if not a majority, of it's residents complacent in a path that they have chosen and are happy with.

There is nothing saying there is anything wrong with that framework. It just ins't me. I strive to be somewhere innovative and exciting; somewhere with an acknowledgement of the need to move forward and discover the heart of the issues, rather than addressing symptoms. That is why I'm searching for more. That's why I am searching for better for me.

It may be individualistic, but I believe that an area must balance, be receptive to new ideas, and have plenty of opportunity for all. Where I am at now has all of that, it just happens at a rate and method that does not agree with me. It is focused on nuclear family needs rather than communal societal needs. And with nuclear family needs change will come, with the shifting of paradigms of the children. But for those who are not quite on that track yet, other places beckon and call out.