Great Outdoors

As a few of you may have noticed, I was out of the office last Thursday and Friday. That is because I was up in the Washington State Cascade range with my son, Devon.  To be supportive of getting out into nature and just letting go and relaxing, I should say that we were camping.  But the truth is we were putting in long hours of work on a tiny A-frame building that serves as a sort of solid tent for their camping retreats. For my patients, I recommend spending time out in real nature without a working agenda; just being there and enjoying. Sometimes I am not good at following my own advice.

I remember 3-4 years ago, after Devon first bought this campsite on a protected river, helping him cut a path through the fern forest where we found a couple of slightly level spots. We cleared this area and set up a couple of tents. That was a lot of work back then. Once the tents were up, we created a place for cooking, a porta-potty, and an instant heat gas shower set up. There is no electricity out there, but there is a water faucet up by the road. We ran a drinking-water-safe hose down to the campsite. I thought that was pretty ambitious and all was well. Being on a protected river, no permanent building structures are permitted.

Well since that time Devon’s wife made it clear that tent camping was not her thing. She wanted a real cabin, but real cabins are not allowed on sites along the river. However, if your structure is not attached to the ground but merely sits on the ground, then you can build. Over the last year, Devon has spent 10 weekends, usually alone, but a few times with friends, building this A-frame. His last project up there was to build a deck next to the A-frame. The plan for this trip out to the property was to put up siding and seal the deck. Talking with Devon the week before I went up to his place, we thought the project should only take up a day and a half and were thinking about what else we could do. What a joke!

I flew up to Seattle on Wednesday and spent Wednesday afternoon and evening visiting with his wife and two kids (I guess those would be my grandkids). Early the next morning we loaded up the car and headed to the mainland. The reason that sounds funny is because he lives on Vashon Island, west of Seattle. So getting anywhere involves taking a ferryboat. Once we hit the shore, we headed to the nearest Home Depot to buy building supplies – in this case Hardie plank and paint for both the board and sealant for the deck. The first challenge was that the Hardie plank only came in 12-foot lengths, much too long to fit in Devon’s car. Each plank weighs 20 pounds and we needed 18 of them. So we spent a while in the parking lot scoring and snapping 4-foot lengths off each plank so that it would fit into the car. Once we got loaded up, we had a beautiful 2 ½ hour drive east into the Cascade Range to reach his campsite. We stopped for provisions halfway there and then continued up into the hills.

It had been raining that day in the mountains, so although everything was as beautiful as I remembered it, it was also very wet. Fortunately, the rain had stopped by the time we got there and the prediction was that we had a three-day window of dry weather to work with. We threw down a plastic tarp on the deck and carried the Hardie planks down the hill. I took on the task of painting the boards a lovely shade of black while Devon set up camp. Sometime over the last couple of years, they had assembled a picnic table to serve as a base camp and cooking area. This was a welcome spot to relax once I finished the painting of two coats of paint since it was dark by then.

After a delicious dinner of tuna and tomato sauce heaped over tortilla chips accompanied by ginger beer and dried apples, we were ready for a few rounds of Go Fish (cards) and bed. Fortunately, they had cots and lots of blankets to sleep with as the A-frame had a big opening over the front door and it was going to be in the low forties that night. Surprisingly, I stayed warm… at least until I got up in the morning!

Part of the joy of adventuring in the great outdoors is getting to meet life on its terms. Our normal daily existence is pretty much removed from reality. We are surrounded by the conveniences of our human-modified world. Typically when I get up in the morning, the temperature is determined by a thermostat, not the real weather. We live in a world where we are the masters of so much. Out camping that pretend mastery of the environment disappears. We have to adapt to what is. I believe our pretend mastery makes us feel entitled to have everything our way, including other people. Camping helps break that illusion and reminds us that we are tiny and insignificant in the big picture of life. Living with that humility opens us up to so many gifts life is trying to give us.

Friday morning was such a humbling opportunity to experience my lack of mastery. My first task was to create a plug for the triangular open space above the door that could be removed for cooling in the summer and yet be sturdy enough to attach cement Hardie board panels to. That took about a dozen tries. The triangle was not perfectly triangular, thus getting a proper fit was decidedly difficult. Meanwhile, Devon had to invent a way to lift the bottom edge of the plank just the right amount to make everything look right. Once we each achieved our objectives, it was time to start mounting the panels. Fortunately, Devon had a generator and a saber saw with a carbide blade, because the score and snap technique would not work for the tight piecing together of the board on the walls. The downside of cutting the Hardie planks was all the cement dust it formed. We had to wear N95 masks and goggles while cutting to keep that nasty stuff out of our lungs. What with the angles and everything being done on a ladder, this process was very slow. The top piece got put in place in the dark. Another day was done.

Over the course of the day, the wind seemed to dry out the deck a bit, and hope emerged that we might be able to seal the deck in the morning. Supposedly we had a three-day window of dry weather. It didn’t look like we were going to be able to get the planks on the front wall of the A-frame, as we had to leave by mid-day to get back to Vashon for the night. We still had the front door to reset and waterproof and the back window to seal. We were clinging to our plans for what we wanted to accomplish. Obviously, none of the other projects were going to be looked at.

We awoke the next morning to a light rain. It had been raining more heavily during the night. So much for a dry deck to seal. Nature just did not care that we had plans. Our way did not matter to the weather. But hey, we had sealed the big opening to the outside world and created our little controlled environment inside the A-frame, and we were warmer! We managed to pull the door and reset it with proper seals to keep out the elements and caulk the window to keep water out. We had succeeded in creating a little home away from home; a tiny barrier to keep us from the chaos of the real world!

It took a couple of hours to clean up and carry away all signs of our recent foray into the wilds before we were ready to return home to the island. A few hours with family and a celebratory crème brulee for my 70^th birthday (I am not a cake person), and a real bed awaited. My son dropped me off at the airport the next morning and here I am sitting in front of my trusty computer to write out this tale.

It really is good to get out into nature once in a while. It is helpful for reminding me that there really is a bigger world out there. My normal life is very predictable and controlled. I like the fact that

 I don’t have a lot of chaos in my life. It is also good that I remind myself that I am fine in the bigger world where I live to respond to what is rather than trying to control it — at least confine my control to a 12 x 12 foot A-frame.Take care,

David

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Ellen 

Three weeks ago Ellen and I started on our diet experiment of following the rice diet, a diet of rice, sweet potatoes, black beans, and fruit. But a week ago I took off to go “camping” with my son Devon so we put the diet on hold while I was gone. Here we are getting back on that diet horse. Ellen is trying a new rice, sticky rice. It is much softer than the Basmati rice or the black rice we have been using. I find it makes rice milk much better – just rice and water in the blender.