last day

L leaves us tomorrow. We will pack her onto a train bound for Seattle and she will return to her day-to-day in Minneapolis. It will be sad to see her go, but I confess I will treasure a stretch of calm and quiet in the weeks to come. I love those long empty weekend days with nothing planned and nothing but a garden begging for attention. I am a social creature, but only in small doses. I am happiest when left to myself in the silence of the garden, dirt under my fingernails, and sweat shining on my brow. And the weather promises to improve in these coming days, so I rejoice in anticipation of reclaiming my proper place among the growing things.

L is sleeping in this morning, and M has headed to New Seasons to pick up picnic provisions, a baguette, some tuna salad, fruit and nuts. I am grasping at this rare opportunity to write while no one is around, requiring conversation, or breakfast. The sun is shining this morning (for a change!) as I sit on the front porch and dream of the day ahead.

We are going for a hike in the Colombia Gorge as soon as we can get our shit together. The plan is to hit the Eagle Creek trail for a twelve mile round-trip hike up 1200 feet to the Tunnel Falls, an insane crashing curtain of water that falls in front of a blasted-out tunnel behind it.

We took the same hike with M's father, T, last summer, but had to turn back at the tunnel. T stood trembling just before it, petrified and clinging to the cable mounted in the rock walls beside the precipitous cliff side, his vertigo and fear of exposure paralyzing him. M and I scrambled through the tunnel, and T took photographs of us from across the grotto as we stood triumphant on the other side. We marveled at the massive weight of the cliff hanging over our heads, held up by who-knows-what and certainly destined someday to fall. We stood astonished as we considered the massive rock caverns and cliffs that must have proved so formidable to those Forest Service workmen who blasted a course six miles through sheer basalt all that long summer of 1916.

I can't say in retrospect that I regret turning back at that point. Twelve miles was about all my aching feet and knees could bear, and as we rounded out the last few miles back to the car, we trotted ever quicker, like horses who sense that the barn is near.

We hope to try this trail again today, but I question whether we won't encounter spring snows along the trail at its higher points and be forced to turn back before we experience the majesty of the falls. M insists the snows will be gone, but this recent cold, rainy snap does not build my confidence. I suppose we shall see.

L is moving about inside now, preparing to greet the day. M should be returning any moment, and from where I sit on my front-porch perch, I can see clouds forming on the horizon. Hopefully the rains will spare us as we cherish this last day together. Hopefully the snows will have melted and our legs don't give out and the tunnel has not already caved in.