How Much Living Can You Cram Into One Month?

How much living can be crammed into one month? The title was almost going to be “A month jumped up and bit me.”

After my last email “Getting in touch with my feminine side” one of my military friends emailed me back and commented that he never ceased being amazed at how much living I cram into life. That comment struck me in a strange, yet encouraging manner. To be honest with you this single ‘fly-by-th-seat-o’ my pants’ lifestyle is by no means the life that I would chose for myself, but is what I believe to be the path that was meant to be for me.

That said I took a look at all the crazy unusual things that I have been doing and living and I too am amazed at how much I seem to get out of life, or should I say, how much I am able to put into life. I thought to myself that this would be one of the things that I miss when I leave the National Guard lifestyle behind in retirement. I prayed my prayers for continued adventure and such along with all my other prayers and guess what. A month jumped up and bit me out of the blue without any forewarning, pre-planning or preparation.

I knew about my nephews wedding coming up for some time. I had also suggested another back camping trip to Tommy my college buddy from years back for sometime this spring. I knew that the Guard was going to have a language refresher course for summer camp again this year. I know that there is that ‘4^th of July’ thing that Americans like to do ever year and it usually comes in the summer time. I knew these things, but I did not know that the stars would align themselves and I would be off on another journey of mine.

The events all lined themselves up so that I would need to be on the west side four weekends in a row with the National Guard summer camp making for two of those weekends before I would be released from indenture. I decided to just camp and wonder about in between the weekends to keep from driving back and fourth. Without any prior planning and much forethought, I loaded the jeep down with as much stuff as I could so I could stay on the west side for what was looking to be just under a month long journey without having to come back, if I so decided to stay. I had just purchase a year old mountain bike on the back of my jeep and was feeling pretty cool for a forty year old dude.

Nothing went according to plan, which I now believe was the plan. I left for Rob and Shendy’s house on Friday the 23^rd going through Leavenworth and picking up some chocolate for the woman of the house. I know how to keep the welcome mat on the front porch. I had a really good visit with Rob and Shendy that night as they always provide great hospitality in the form of gourmet cooking and fellowship.

I found out that the wedding was for Sunday night and not Saturday night so now I was a day early. Saturday was now spent walking around downtown Seattle where I discovered the old wooden boat heritage museum down on the south end of Lake Union. The photos were great. I had a wonderful time. I got lost wondering around the Fremont area looking at boats and dry-docks. It was wonderful. The next day was Sunday and I went to church with Rob and Shendy at one of the Mars Hill satellite churches. It was very interesting. This was a very progressive church that had long ago outgrown itself and now they were branching out. The music was great and then there on the big screen was the preacher from down town Ballard preaching via voice streaming over the internet. That was a bit weird at first, to come to the realization that the sermon was via telecommunications. I do believe that there was some good fellowship there.

Eventually I made my way up to Bellingham later that afternoon and found the old church. The wedding went really well. It was one of the more beautiful weddings I have ever seen. The best part of all was the red wine at the reception. I couldn’t believe that they had alcohol at a protestant wedding reception. Everyone had a really great time. I assure you that weddings and family reunions can actually be enjoyable if wine and beer is provided. That is something that hanging out with Catholics has taught me.

I stayed in a hotel that night and took off for BC Canada the next morning eh. I took the sunshine coast this time hopping along the coast via the ferry system. It was breath taking scenery almost the whole way. I am so glad I did it. I caught the last ferry of the night over to the Island at Comox and found a hotel late that night.

The next day I found a mountain bike shop for some advice and was off mountain biking around lake Comox. Eventually I found a steep logging road that provided some good elevation climbing for exercise. After 90 minutes and roughly 900 feet elevation later I had stunning views of the eastern coast of Vancouver Island and a small black mama bear with two cubs. I saw her about forty yards up the road from me. Her cubs were cute as could be and they didn’t make a noise. They were slowly moving away from me and looking back every step to see what I would do. I didn’t panic at all. I didn’t get excited, I just turned my mountain bike around and de-elevated very quickly.

I spent the rest of the day hiking and driving around the gravel roads to another lake, the name of which escapes me. I was looking for the perfect camping spot. I was really tired and it was nearing midnight and for some reason I got really stubborn about finding the perfect spot to camp along the lake so that I could just roll over and wake up to a breathtaking view. I also needed to find that spot in such a location that I would feel comfortable by myself enough to get a good night sleep. About midnight I found a spot by a big glacial cut lake where the road widened and I parked my jeep in such away that I had about four feet between the jeep and the drop off into the lake. I felt comfortable and I slept like a baby until that 4:30 am when the sunrise woke me up. I rolled over and put my glasses on and there was that perfect breathtaking view that I had so ardently demanded the night before. I laid there for about an hour on my side just looking at the scenery of steep mountains jutting up out of the far side of the lake with snow still in the upper elevations.

Eventually I made my way to Torfino and Uckulet (sp?) where I got some wonderful pictures. I made my way to Port Albirni where I again found another bike shop who gave me some advice on where to ride and he told me that I should stay at the Fat Salmon Backpackers Hostel. I had a great time there. It was really a lot of fun. There were many Germans there so I got to practice my German a little bit.

The next day I raced down to Victoria and checked into the most reasonable hotel in downtown Vic, (Strathcona lodge) got my stuff settled in and put my mountain bike in their storage room and sat down to prepare for the first interview on conservative talk radio. The phone rang and the interview began. It went so well that the woman, Sharon Hughes demanded to make two interviews for two consecutive weeks out of it.

Now there is one thing I need to tell you all. After two deployments into theater working in a plethora of positions, I have information in my head that could land me in jail for a long time if I were to discuss publicly. I also am a naturally born, how shall I put this, talkative, opinionated, antagonistic blather mouth. I was practicing for this interview with the help of Rob Kuchcinski who did a marvelous job by the way of helping me prepare. I was practicing and praying that I wouldn’t say the wrong things, that I wouldn’t accidentally be offensive or say something that I would later regret, you know, I was praying and practicing not to be Tim for an hour. I had many anxieties over the past several days over things that could happen during this interview. The words of my older sister kept coming back to haunt me in the form of intrusive thoughts. I could hear her 12 year old winy nasaly voice coming back to haunt me over and over, “Timmy, if you ever know anything you’ll be dangerous.” Oh my god. My older sister is a prophetess.

The interview went off great and I went pubbing after that. I had a really great time too. The next morning was Friday the 29^th when the camping buddies were supposed to meet in Steven’s Lake to launch off on a long weekend of backpacking and such. The borders were horrible and I spent an hour and a half at the ferry dock, two hours in line to get through customs and the traffic was pretty bad coming down into Everett. I got to Tommy’s house late, but that was ok because so did everyone else. We went out to a small town restaurant in an old house and it was all about meat and bar b’ queue. I was in heaven and we hadn’t eve reached the trail head.

We drove to Leavenworth before heading up into the mountains and got to the trail head at Midnight. We set up camp real quick and bed down. There were six of us all together. We took off the next morning for an eight mile two thousand vertical accumulative climb to Lake Anne above Leavenworth and Plain. It was stupendous. We took all day and had to cross many snowfields above the 5500 foot mark. The snow was everywhere at 5800 feet and dripping into the lake. This was one of the most beautiful alpine lakes I have ever seen. I was so hot and tired that I went swimming and yes it was INVIGERATING!

Now Tommy has made himself a bit of a chef and he prides himself in doing very well at a campfire. So there I was relaxing my paws and salivating over the marinated filet steaks that Tommy packed up the trail. Another guy from the group had packed in some various forms of alcoholic beverages and that first night I watched the sun go down over the peaks behind the lake while smoking on one of my cigars whilst sipping a dram of single malt scotch whisky after a good medium rare beef filet steak that was about an inch and a half thick. Camping with Tommy is good. The next night was marinated chicken.

We camped for three days and I left by myself on Monday the 2^nd making the hike down to the jeep in two and a half hours. I drove from there back to Pullman because I didn’t want all my camping gear locked up in my jeep and a nice bike on the back while I would be studding Japanese at Ft. Lewis during the summer training camp. I arrived home at the Kevin Johnston Farm where I live to find that I had gained weight during this odyssey thanks to Tommy’s cooking. I cleaned up my mountain bikes and stored them, I washed all my gear and stored it all away and prepared for the next phase of my trip. The 4^th of July. I have missed out on many of these celebrations along with just about everything else in life over the last five years, so I wanted to do it up right.

Wednesday morning on the 4^th: The fist thing was to get to the Blooms house for a communal breakfast. We then all went together to the Johnson parade. The Johnson parade is the world’s largest unincorporated parade. There is no organization to it at all. If you want to be in the parade you show up and get in line and march down the town’s main street which is paved now. The town has about 25 people in population. 30 plus years ago, two boys decided that there should be a 4^th of July parade and so they got some kids together and rode there bicycles up and down the road. Today it’s about 5k people watching another 500 people involved in the actual parade. It was truly an all American parade. I loved it. This was my first time attending the Johnson parade after being on the Palouse for 12 years now.

I went to another party later that evening hosted by people from the church. It was a ball. We had a really great time and the food was awesome. Some thirteen year old boys set the tree in the front yard on fire with their illegal fireworks, but that’s what thirteen years old boys do. It’s their job.

I left the party and went home. The big fireworks display was still going on in Pullman as I was driving through so I decided to attend what was left of it. I pulled in behind the lengthy line of cars parked by the wheat fields and was able to see the grand finale. I loved it. I wore that day out and it was time to head home.

The next morning I woke up late I’m happy to say. I packed the jeep and was off to Spokane to see Tina Sipp before she left for Africa to teach vacation bible school in Uganda and Rowanda. Then it was off to the west side again. I stayed in the very nice officers bachelors’ quarters in a very nicely restored old building. I love old hotels. I reported to my classroom the next day and found out that this was a 16 day stint instead of a 10 day course that I had two years ago. The course went very well. There had been several teachers cancel out and so our class was reduced from an immersion course to a refresher course. We don’t have to put in nearly as many hours and get paid the same as the other soldiers in the much more demanding classes. Isn’t government employment great?

The class was authorized a field trip so we decided to go to Seattle to the Japanese supermarket Uwajimae. The Uwajimae supermarket is a mainstay in Seattle for over 70 years. Evidently the family was able to maintain ownership through the concentration camps in California. There is a great book store there and it really is a great tourist stop for anyone but we were able to use our Japanese. We later went to Fuji Sushi and talked in Japanese. We then went to a Mariners game. It was my first professional baseball game. We had a great time and the Japanese catcher hit a grand slam homerun to win the game. We got back at midnight. That was the best field trip ever.

I finished up my time of studying and in between the listening test on Thursday and the reading test on Friday, I helped Rob Kuchcinski dig a drainage ditch in his back yard. There is a great allegory for men working in the backyard and on home improvements as a modern feminized way of “going forth and conquering the land” sort of way. Men can live out their failed natural born ambitions to conquer new territories by building a deck. I have often noticed this during my short stint in sub-burbia in Boise Idhao where men tried to out compete the other men in the cul-de-sac by building a bigger and better deck. I can’t make fun of your real grownups out there too much because I am a homeless jobless bachelor and therefore by default I am a deck-less man. Now Kevin my house mate and landlord has out done all-yall. You should see the deck he built. You could drive a Mac truck on it. Of course he lives on a farm and so that doesn’t count. It has to be in the suburbs for it to count at all. That's the rule.