When we bought Davista, one of the many shiny objects dangled in front of our overwhelmed faces was a free Thousand Trails membership for a year, to include 30 nights at any TT campground within a certain region that we would later get to select.  Unlike many of the other shiny objects (extended warranties, discounted accessories we would “absolutely need,” RV-safe toilet paper…), this one was free, so we signed right up.  Though we knew nothing about the company or the campgrounds, our membership did come in handy in the northwest, both in Bend (Sunriver actually) and here in La Conner, which sits right across the water from Fidalgo Island and Anacortes.

We opted to burn the rest of our free nights with a two week La Conner stay.  The Sunriver campground had earned mixed reviews from us.  It seemed well-appointed, but not especially well-maintained.  La Conner is similar.  The setting is gorgeous, as would be just about any Puget Sound waterfront campground.  But… something was off.  What was it?  The facilities maybe?  A little too mossy and neglected?  The clientele?  A little too permanent?  Difficult to say. 

We did enjoy it, as it was quiet, relaxing, and fit our mood, which could be described as coming down from gobsmacked.  With Annapolis and the house sale freshly behind us (save for a frustratingly lingering dispute over a refrigerator that we should’ve handled before closing) and the reality of Plan Moon’s new year of travel ahead of us, we felt a bit unmoored, or at least more so than usual.  Adding to that was the quiet of late summer/early Fall.  School was starting without our kids in it, the weather was cooling, leaves were changing colors… we had quite a bit of walking along the rocky beach time to talk things over and try to figure out what on Earth we were doing.

Bonus: if you read the post about Seattle and remember my extended digression on an unconventional work trip I flew, you’ll remember that I said it came into play later.  Well here’s how… essentially that all took place during the time I was bidding for my September schedule.  That’s all submitted and processed via computer, and evidently something about the way that trip was encoded interfered with its ability to award me a schedule for September.  I’ll spare you the intricacies of what happened between my bidding and the final result, but ultimately I lucked into a once-in-a-career-if-ever paid month off.  Yes.  September off, for pay, no vacation time deducted. 

So along with figuring out what exactly to do with this extra year of travel & homeschooling for the kids (and the attendant uncertainty that we’d made the right call), we had a month of no commitments whatsoever to play with.  That’s a lot of strategizing! 

I previously mentioned an impossibly cozy restaurant in La Conner at which Tacco and I had, on several occasions, dug in over cider and stouts to work out our lives.  We returned.  Unfortunately we discovered that they had moved to a waterfront location, selling their original building to another restaurateur.  Quick dilemma – is it the restaurant we need for the planning-our-lives vibe or the location?  We opted for the location.  Good call, we think.

I’m not going to say we figured it all out.  But we did put a sizable dent in it and managed to gain at least a bit of control of the rudder.  We started big with the free month thing, reasoning that this was an opportunity we’d likely never have again.  So… Thailand?  Munich for Oktoberfest?  Normandy?  Head back east to New England, which we’d missed before?  Or maybe better to just slowly make our way down south as planned, but take advantage of the fact that we wouldn’t need to be anywhere near an airport all month.  We figured we’d get some input from the kids as well since, you know, they’d be going with us. 

And as far as everything else – the staying on the road, homeschooling for an extra year, doubling our travel time.  I think more than anything else we, and by “we” I mean “mostly I” needed to just chill the heck out.  My overarching concern with this entire endeavor is that we give our kids a unique and valuable experience without ruining them.  Emphasis on the not ruining them part. And yes, that’s overstated, but missing 6^th grade is one thing, missing most of middle school/junior high is another.  Also, roadschooling is different than homeschooling. Homeschoolers who are staying in one place tend to connect with a network of other homeschoolers and pool their resources. In our case, it’s just us. Our kids are troopers and quickly sought out the positives once we told them we would be staying on the road, but they made no secret of their preference to get back into school and start interacting with other kids their age again.  And frankly I don’t know how well we’re doing with their education.  They are ahead of the game in math and probably a few other subjects, definitely so with respect to life experience, but I don’t have a clue what I was learning (and they might be missing) in 7^th/4^th/1^st grade.  I suspect that, just like life in general, there’s a lot of “playing well with others.”  They’re not getting much of that, other than with each other.  This is the call we made, though, and Tacco did a great job of teasing out all the ways that this will continue to be just as, if not more, valuable than our being settled somewhere.  I knew all this, but having her say it was helpful.  Tacco and I both experience and express our concerns in very different ways. She’s an ocean and I’m a river. There are things to be concerned about, sure, but there always are. In the grand scheme, we’re doing fine. We plan to spend quality time with my parents, we plan to use our Epic Passes to do a whole lot of skiing, and we plan to use our time to further refine our choice of where to settle.  It’s going to be a great year.

Back in La Conner at the campground we spent some more time lazily playing on the beach with the kids and reading them into our plans, as well as getting some more input.  Ultimately we decided to spend our September checking out parts of the Washington Cascades and then rolling back south via California’s highway 1, which had been closed last year due to a landslide.  The Coronado Beach Cottages had been a highlight last year, and I managed to get us another reservation there.  So rather than doing a crazy overseas thing, we’ll extend summer.  Nothing wrong with that.

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Thousand Trails had a few more interesting experiences in store for us as well.  This one we’ll file under Interesting Neighbors.  The sites at this campground were pretty heavily wooded, just as the one in Sunriver had been, so we were mostly isolated from our neighbor to the north, but we couldn’t help but notice his multiple projects-in-progress as well as his seemingly cobbled-together rig.  It appeared he had been parked for a while.  At a certain point he strolled into our campsite and asked us if we smelled anything interesting.  Not a question we get a lot, but we answered honestly:

“Well…. yeah, I guess we have.  You mean the weed?”  

“Oh no, not that, that was me.  I mean something like rotten crabs.”

“Hm.  Well, no, but we’ll keep our.. uh.. noses open.”

“Yeah, please do, because I think the people who stayed there before you caught some crabs, cleaned them, and then just threw them into the woods, and it’s stinking up the place, and that’s pissing me off if so.”

Later:

“You know we did smell what you were talking about, but didn’t see any crab carcasses in the woods.  I think it might just be the smell of low tide coming off the water.” [spoiler: that’s exactly what it was]

“Oh no, that’s not it, it’s crabs.  You’re not pissed off about this!?! Cuz let me TELL you, I’m a TT platinum [or something] member, and if this doesn’t upset you then… *storm around storm around storm around*… I oughta get that guy kicked out of Thousand Trails!! *mumble mumble storm into RV and slam door twice*”

The next day, after more cannabis clouds wafted through our site:

“Good morning!  Hey, have you ever read this book?” [Shows me about a 1000 page tome on American History]

“Don’t believe I have, no.  Good morning!”

“Well man, you gotta read this, it’ll blow your mind, I’m telling ya!  Here!” [hands me his book]

“Ummm.. thanks, I mean we’re leaving in the morning so I don’t see how I’ll have time to –“

“No man, c’mon, take it!  Just check it out before you go, you can just leave it on my table when you’re done!”

“OK. Sure.  Thanks!”

So… though we appreciated the free camping this year, we decided not to renew our Thousand Trails membership. 

One aspect of pain that I find fascinating is that when you’re experiencing it, it dominates everything.  You can hardly think about anything else.  But when it’s gone, amazingly quickly you forget it was ever there.  Which isn’t to say you forget that you were ever in pain at all, though that can happen too, but remembering exactly what it felt like becomes difficult almost the instant you no longer feel it.

Multiple reasons for bringing this up – one is that my sciatica is gone, the other is that we closed on the Annapolis house and have finally cut our ties there.

The sciatica… what a relief.  It had been really starting to concern me, and was affecting decisions we were making.  Yet when it faded away, and that happened pretty quickly, I had this odd nonchalance about it.  Tacco would ask me how my leg was feeling, and I’d say “fine, why?”  Oh no reason, only that you’ve spent much of the past few months literally sweating from the pain…  I don’t know whether I can contribute its resolution to one particular treatment or  many, but I know that it began to turn the corner when Tacco did a lot of acupuncture work on me, her friend did the varsity huge-needle-plus-electricity treatment in Albuquerque, and the chiropractor in Salt Lake seemed to put the nail in its coffin.  Wish I knew exactly how to make it disappear if it comes back – I don’t — but I do hope that the knowledge that it originates in my glutes will help me keep it at bay.  Regardless, good riddance!

The house… ok, not good riddance exactly.  It served us well and we made great memories there.  But it had become such an albatross.  A growing albatross.  Its failure to sell was hanging over everything we did and turning what few hairs I still have gray at an alarming rate.  It was long past time to go, and… now it’s gone.  I’d love to say we don’t even remember what the stress of its drawn-out sale feels like anymore, but that’s not entirely true.  We’re still coming down from the experience, and there may be a lingering loose end or two.  But we did close.

The week back in Maryland was fruitful but very difficult.  We didn’t sleep.  We did far too much hauling things and cleaning things and painting things.  I came unhinged over a dumpster order gone awry, which isn’t my way.  I don’t yell at people over the phone well, nor do I enjoy it.

Ultimately though, we all got together on our last day in Maryland and signed the house over to a new and thoroughly pleasant family who we hope will make it their own even more than we did, and create even better memories there. 

We even got to use our newly lined pool.  It looks pretty good!

Before leaving we each signed one of the studs in the basement, something that’s become a tradition for us as we move out of family houses.

I’ll miss the basement we built.  It was only complete for our last year there, but we more than made up for it in how much time we spent down there.

Most of all though, I’ll miss our friends and cousins.  We stayed with them (our cousins) on our last night, and prior to that met in downtown Annapolis for a well-deserved outdoor happy hour.  At one point an ‘80s cover band was belting out Take On Me below us in the grassy area.  I sent a short video of it back to Keeper, hanging out with his cousins back at their house.   Which is perfect, as there’s an infamous video of our three kids heavy into a Just Dance for Wii session in our living room with that song as the soundtrack.  Keeper responded to my message with a spot-on text representation of their Norwegian singer’s falsetto.  He’s pretty funny.

A night with family was the perfect way to bookend our impossibly hectic week and our five years as official Marylanders.  And now we’re back to Washington, and breathing again. 

Anacortes, Washington is a magical place.  Reasonable people can and do quibble over its weather and its relative isolation, but no one in their right mind who has really seen it would say it isn’t beautiful.  Most would say it’s drop dead gorgeous.

Though the entirety of Fidalgo Island is considered Anacortes, the actual town occupies approximately the northern third of the island, which, though not technically one of the San Juans, shares their geology and geography.  It looks more like a peninsula from the air, but much of its eastern side is separated from the mainland by a canal, and it is accessible via three bridges, two over that canal and one from Whidbey Island spanning Deception Pass.  As Anacortes is most well known for being the location of the San Juan Islands’ ferry terminal, all most folks see of it are the refinery you pass just south of prior to entering town, and its only two busy streets, one of which runs most of the length of its small downtown (but skips the interesting part) and the other which heads along the northern side of the island to the ferry, in the process also stopping just short of some of the island’s most scenic shoreline.  Consequently many people from the general area (*cough* Seattle *cough*) aren’t aware of its charms.

Several lakes are scattered among its forests, all of which have excellent fishing and some of which are good for more active types of recreation (waterskiing/wakeboarding, cliff jumping…).  Most of the shoreline is rocky and dramatic, but there are multiple beaches as well.  Almost half of the town’s surface area is comprised of the Anacortes Community Forest Lands (ACFL), which are lushly forested and riddled with trails for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.  Mt. Erie, in the island’s middle, reaches just over 1200’ high and sports multiple rock faces that attract climbers from far afield.  Two marinas make it a boating hub, with unparalleled access to the San Juans.  And along with the ACFL there are several other parks, including breathtaking Washington Park in the northwest corner and the northern portion of Deception Pass State Park along the southwest coastline.  Orca sightings are relatively common.  Everything smells fresh and green.

Here are a couple more of our pics from when we lived there. 

They’re ok, but there’s a local photographer who has managed to capture the island’s beauty.  Check out his work if you’re so inclined. Here as well. It’s jaw-dropping stuff, at least if you like nature photography. You see the pictures and you think “wait, people actually live here?”

We did live there for the ten years prior to our move to Annapolis, not counting the time we were stationed there for our Active Duty Navy stints.   Our house sat perched on the top of a steep, wooded bluff on the west side of the island, looking out through evergreens and madronas at the San Juans and the Olympic Peninsula.  Bald eagles soared overhead and perched on our trees regularly.  We gasped at and took photos of the sunsets every night until we realized that these sunsets were the norm, not the exception. These were all taken from our back deck.

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There were down sides.  I mentioned the weather, and though it never bothered me while I lived there, it’s undeniably chilly and often damp in every month but July, August, and September, with stretches of grey that can extend from days to weeks.  It’s also quite small, with only a few restaurants and not much in the way of retail.  And our house sat on a reasonably busy street, with cars zipping by at 50 mph – having small kids on bikes was a non-starter.

My commute to work was also tricky, entailing an hour and a half drive to the airport followed by a flight to my domicile (initially New York, thereafter Long Beach/LA) prior to starting a work trip.

When we first departed on our adventure, an eventual return to Anacortes to settle was by far our top choice, and it held that position for quite some time, despite an event I’ll describe momentarily.  Each time I would get the opportunity to return for a short visit thanks to my airline schedule, I would steel myself for what I imagined was the inevitable feeling of “this place is nice, but I think we’ve moved past it.”  And each time I would surprise myself by experiencing the exact opposite. 

It wasn’t until we visited for the 4^th of July week just prior to our departure on this journey (which, at that time, we were far from certain would even happen) that the first small cracks started to appear.  We were on the roof of the Majestic Hotel downtown, having just marveled at yet another magnificent sunset and just about to watch the fireworks, when Tacco and I looked at each other, shivering from the cold.  “You know what?” I offered gingerly, “… it’s a little chilly!”  What I didn’t add but was certainly thinking, as was Tacco I would soon learn, was “… and it’s July.  I mean, I love this place, but shouldn’t we be in shorts right now?”   I guess Maryland’s soupy summers, though not our preference, had nudged our tolerances ever so slightly toward warmer weather.  And it was hard not to notice how small the town is…

And then came Bend, and Park City, the rocketing West Coast housing market which priced us out of many of the houses we had been previously checking out, and my airline’s partial pull out of Seattle, which promised to complicate my commute even further should we return to Anacortes. 

So we drove across Deception Pass very eager to learn how Anacortes would sit with us and with the kids now that we had a year of travel under our belts.

Our plan was to camp first in Washington Park, and then move to the marina for the weekend, which is walking distance to everything downtown. 

Washington Park is arguably the most sublime place on an already enchanted island.  Tacco has on several occasions called it “sacred,” and I can get behind that — it definitely has that vibe. The campground sits in the interior of the park and therefore somewhat away from its jaw-dropping vistas and waterfronts, but we settled in and wasted no time getting to some hiking.

There are no uninteresting trails through Washington Park; most offer multiple view points, mossy trees and rocks, and calm water lapping against the rocky shore.  The only negative during this particular visit was the smoke.  2018’s summer was an especially brutal one for wildfires in the West, and a lingering high pressure system gave the smoke no escape route. 

Keeper had a bit of a damper thrown on his Anacortes visit as well.  We had been working hard over the previous few months to find a time and a way to fly his good friend out from Maryland to join us for a bit, and had determined our Anacortes stint to be the best shot.  It would require Keeper and I to fly on the redeye from Seattle to Boston and thereafter to DC in the early morning, meet his friend at the airport, and then do the whole thing in reverse to get him to Seattle, but we were all set to go and Keeper was thrilled to get the opportunity both to hang out with his buddy again and to show him his childhood hometown.  Summer is definitively not the best time to fly standby, and this we knew well, but I had checked the loads on all of the pertinent flights, and there appeared to be plenty of space, or at least enough. 

Right up until there wasn’t, that is…  With everything in place and Keeper and I having driven down to the Seattle airport, we arrived at the departure gate only to find that several last-minute tickets had been purchased, not only on our flight out to Boston, but on the subsequent flights as well.  Suddenly the entire plan looked dicey, and the house of cards crumbled.  I searched frantically for other options, but nothing materialized.  This is a semi-frequent occurrence, familiar to all non-revenue fliers (“non-revs”), but still it was difficult to make the late night call back to his friend’s mom in Annapolis to let her know that our plan had fallen apart and that there would be no visit. 

Keeper did take it in stride though, I have to hand him that.  We’ll try another time.

Mountain biking is a year-round activity on the ACFL trails, as well as the many other trail systems in the area, and I had cut my teeth on ACFL’s singletrack back in my Navy days.  We had a group of junior officers who would try to get together to ride every Saturday morning, and I could reach the trails from my house, so I would often go alone as well.  After our Slickrock adventure, I was eager to show Keeper where I’d learned to ride.

What I had forgotten and soon re-discovered, was how technical those trails can be.  They’re narrow, steep in places, and riddled with roots and rocks.  This makes for more exciting riding, and after watching Keeper struggle to navigate some of the trickier stretches, I suddenly remembered from back in the day several tree collisions and “taco-ed” front wheels, not to mention the occasional unintentional fall into one of the lakes.  His bike (my very old bike) wasn’t helping him much either – not only was the front suspension completely non-springy, but it’s a heavy bike, and the front brake is next to useless, having lost one of its calipers.  He’s going to need a new bike if we move to… well, pretty much anywhere. 

He was a good sport as always though, and we made it through a slightly shortened ride unscathed.  As a bonus I was able to show him the spot where I nearly spent a winter night in the woods 23 years ago after having my brand new bike light’s battery go dead on its maiden night ride.  But that’s another story.

After a few days in Washington Park we re-located to the marina area downtown, where I recently learned there are several RV sites available year round.  No electrical or water hookups, but the location couldn’t be more central.  On Saturdays from late Spring to early Fall there’s an outstanding Farmer’s Market that we would now be right across the street from. 

One of the kids’ memorable activities from our time living in Anacortes was picking blackberries on Farmer’s Market days, so they were excited to do it again.  Blackberry plants pretty much blanket the island, or would if the residents didn’t control them like weeds, and they are huge and tasty when ripe.  Some of the thicker patches sit right next to the square in which the Farmer’s Market is held, and there’s a more or less unlimited supply come August.  We ended up with berry-stained faces and enough fruit to make several jars of jam.  Which Tacco did. 

The week passed far more quickly than we had hoped it would, and we faced our return to Annapolis to close on our house for good this time (hopefully!).  We enjoyed ourselves in A-Town, no doubt.  I think everything I’ve described about our visit was positive.  Yet undeniably by the end of it both Tacco and I had at least a taste of the feeling I described earlier – the “I think we may have outgrown this place” feeling.  Perhaps having the unpleasant task of cleaning out and turning over our house hanging over our heads affected our receptiveness to its charms during this visit.  But I do believe it was more than that.  It felt small.  Small and a bit remote.  I’m not sure those are negatives, but they came across that way this time.  And the prices – if they haven’t quite outpaced our means, they’re certainly getting there rapidly.  Many of the places in which we had imagined ourselves raising our kids we can’t quite manage now.

The kids’ impressions seemed to track with our own.  They liked Anacortes. Quite a bit. But they didn’t seem to love Anacortes.

We will need some more processing time for this, but it’s an interesting development.  To be sure, we need to narrow down our options, not expand them, so ruling out a potential future home town helps us.  But it’s difficult not to wonder what happened, whether our needs and tastes have changed or we simply found places that seem to suit us better.  Or whether possibly this was a temporary impression, colored by our current mental state.  Impossible to know, and representative of this entire endeavor… while too much freedom is absolutely not a thing to bemoan, it can make the process of making big decisions dauntingly complex.  At some point you just have to trust your gut and make a call.  We’re not there yet. 

We’re returning to the area after we close on the Maryland house, but we plan to stay in nearby La Conner rather than Anacortes.  There’s an impossibly cozy restaurant there in which Tacco and I have nestled in a small booth on rainy nights over adult beverages and done some of our best collective thinking, hatching some of our greatest plans.  Sounds like we need another session.

Before that though, time to cut Annapolis loose at last.

My first day on Whidbey Island is a distinct memory.  It was June, 1995, and I had just spent the few years since college graduation in training mode for the Navy.  Learning to fly in Pensacola and Corpus Christi, learning to operate the P-3C in Jacksonville, and learning to what to do if I were ever to be captured in combat in San Diego.  San Diego was the training site, not the theoretical location of combat, if that wasn’t clear.  There were also several boondoggles, mostly of my own making, thrown into that mix, made possible by the temporary glut of newly minted Naval Aviators at the time – I spent a few months hanging out in southern Spain with a C-130 squadron, and another few in Cambridge, England as part of a small permanent detachment flying King Airs.  But all of it was preparation for this, my check-in at my first fleet squadron, VP-40 at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.  Two of my flight school friends who had checked into a sister squadron a few weeks earlier met me upon my arrival to show me around.  We had decided to share a rental house in nearby Anacortes, and they had set everything up and were eager to see what I thought of the house.  I drove onto the base via the back gate, and basically what I saw was this.

Had they plopped a Naval Air Station into the middle of a National Park by accident?  From the end of the runway and along the entire west side of the base you look out the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the mid-line of which serves as the border between the US and Canada.  To the south, the Olympic peninsula with its year-round snow-capped mountains rises jaggedly out of the water, and to the north the hundreds of San Juan Islands dot the calm ocean.  And everything’s green.  Except the water, of course, which is a deep blue that would make you want to jump into it if its temperature ever exceeded 50 degrees or so.  I was overwhelmed; I could not imagine that this was to be my workplace and home for the next three years. 

Check out the geographical setup above. Whidbey is the long island in the middle shaped like an old school telephone receiver, and the Naval Air Station is the somewhat lighter blotch just above the town of Oak Harbor. The nearest sizeable city as the crow flies is Victoria, BC, a few miles to the west.

Impossibly, the scenery got even prettier as we made the short drive up to Anacortes, first crossing the iconic Deception Pass bridge, under which several times per day the water roils itself into standing waves and whirlpools due to the rapid tidal currents. 

We pulled up to the house they had rented and I think my first words were “you can’t be serious.”  The entire front consisted of an A-shaped wall of windows that looked out upon the water, islands, and mountains.  This was to be my view, every day. 

Now, to be fair, I need to concede that I was extremely fortunate to be able to have formed my first impressions at the end of June.  Whidbey Island is a very different place from October to May.  This is not to say it is ever less than stunning, but the grey days, the misty rain, and the temperatures hovering mostly between 40 and 50 well into June at times can be oppressive.  But I didn’t know any of that then.  And it was never enough to keep this Southern California born and raised kid from loving the area for the three years I was there, enough so that Tacco and I moved back for another ten. 

It would have easily and happily been the place we raised our kids and likely retired had the opportunity for Tacco to teach back in Annapolis not arisen.  And at the beginning of our current traveling adventure, it held the front-runner spot by far in the where-do-we-settle competition. 

But the past is prologue, and here we were driving our flight of five in our moving home back onto the base to spend a week soaking up more of the Pacific Northwest summer vibe.  Tacco and I were curious how it would strike us, not to mention the kids, only one of whom had any real meaningful memories of living here. 

And of course this is what we saw. 

Cliffside Park, Whidbey’s RV campground, has got to be one of the nicest, if not the nicest in the military system.  It was given a major overhaul a few years back, and on top of the stunning natural waterfront setting, the trail system, the cheap (often free, depending who’s on duty) rental bikes, and the easy access to civilization, the gentleman who took the permanent camp host job happens to be a master gardener.  So you get this.

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The playing comes naturally, and play we did. 

First a bit of work for me though, as I flew up to Anchorage to meet a plane which I then piloted back down to Portland.  It was the only leg I was required to fly on this particular trip, and was the result of another boondoggle for me, the type that rarely falls into an airline pilot’s lap but is hugely welcome when it does.  Here’s what happened… Essentially a flight had gotten “stuck” in Anchorage, presumably because the pilot who had been scheduled to fly it out the following day got sick.  Not having any reserve pilots available on the West Coast able to get to Alaska in time, they began calling “local” pilots to see if any were able to operate the flight, and since I had recently changed my “home city” of record to Portland (seemed as good as anywhere to list, given our lifestyle), I got the call from our scheduling folks just before our family’s departure from Seattle.  If this doesn’t yet seem like a boondoggle, it’s because I haven’t yet described how such a trip pays out.  Essentially what I would need to do is get myself up to Anchorage (easy to do from Seattle) and fly to Portland.  That’s it.  BUT… as I am technically still based in Boston for my airline, they’re required to pay me for the trip from Boston to Anchorage, as well as the return leg from Portland to Boston.  AND… it’s paid at a higher rate due to its being an emergency assignment – almost double.  And as if that weren’t enough, they “bought” my next trip, which I would now not be legal to fly due to my flying this one – i.e. they paid me for it without my flying it.  Basically that’s about as good as it gets airline trip-wise.  And lest you think that description of the ins and outs of how airline flying can sometimes break insanely favorable was excessive, there was a point to it, which will come into play in a future post.

At any rate, I returned to the family happily settled into Whidbey’s rhythms.  The tidal swing there is high, about 15 feet from the highest high to the lowest low, and that makes for fruitful exploring at low tide.  As Cliffside’s beach is quite shallow, that much tidal swing makes for several hundred yards of extra beach when the tide is out, much of which is teeming with semi-trapped sea life that isn’t used to being sought out by curious kiddos.

The crabs were not as easy to see as we imagined they would be, given the fact that they tend to dig mostly into the sand when the water recedes.  But once we knew what to look for (and not to step on, oops…) we were able to spot several Red Rock crab and a few baby Dungeness, whose parents were presumably out foraging in deeper water.

The clams were somewhat trickier to capture, as they tended to be visible only via a jet of water they would shoot from their foot, only the top of which was exposed.  What’s more, they’re skilled diggers, and can immediately sense probing hands.  Keeper was pretty proud of himself for managing to unearth this one (which he shortly thereafter returned to the wet sand). 

And then there was this guy.  A baby flounder maybe?  Not entirely up on my flatfish, but we spotted him hiding from us in at the bottom of a large, shallow pool that had been open water a half hour before.  Keeper chased him a bit, and to both of our surprises managed to grab him once before he skittled away.  Not enough for dinner, or even a snack, but good to know my son can catch fish with his bare hands if it ever comes to that.

In keeping with our National Park site theme, we visited nearby Fort Casey, which I had flown over at low altitude hundreds of times, but never spent the time to visit during my time as a local.  Puget Sound’s relatively narrow and deep waterways make for easily defendable chokepoints, overlooking which sit several gun embankments.  I had ridden by a few of them while mountain biking or unsuccessfully fishing for salmon, but never took the time to learn much about them. The girls did so while earning their Junior Ranger badges, and filled me in.

The rest of the time we spent beachcombing, wandering, and playing in the campground for the most part.  And it was soul-soothing. 

Whidbey is such a relaxing place; it’s difficult to convey how calming looking out at this water is on a perfect 75-degree day, so I’ll just post the pictures.

After this we drive the few miles north to Anacortes, where we’ll camp at a few of our favorite places and attempt to pay attention to what our guts tell us about its prospects as our future home.  It has dropped in the rankings throughout our travels during our time on the road, but that’s possibly just a factor of our prolonged absence rather than anything rational or even emotional.  I’m curious to see where this goes.  In a week we return to Annapolis to close on the house (again), which I’m certain will spool us back up.  But right now, savoring the serenity is the order of the day. 

Still discombobulated from the previous week’s flurry of activity, we flew back to the Pacific Northwest eager to join our friends in Seattle.  Twice before we had made plans to spend time with them at their gorgeous house on Lake Washington, and both plans had been thwarted at the last minute by illness.  Fortunately no wayward bugs this time around, and we lumbered our beastly rig up into their golf course neighborhood on a stunning Friday afternoon.  The only uncertainty that remained at this point was whether we would actually be able to maneuver into their driveway.  My friend had made rough measurements which indicated that we’d make it, but you never know about the angles, the slope, or the vertical obstacles, all of which had bitten us in the past.  His measurements were good though, and I squeaked Davista down and into place in front of their garage.  Let the recreation begin!

Here’s the setting.  Imagine waking up to this view every morning.  “But wait, isn’t it always raining in Seattle?” you say.  Yes, absolutely.  Especially in the summer.  Every day.  Whatever you do, don’t move there. 

Our arrival was a bit late in the day for watersports, but we knew there was plenty of that on tap for the weekend, so dug into the first of several tasty outdoors meals instead while the kids got reacquainted.  Their two sons are the same age as Keeper and Firebolt.  In fact, we took a trip to Tuscany with them back when Keeper and their oldest were just over two months old (they were born two weeks apart).

Summer days are long, but summer days in Washington are even longer, and the wine and conversation stretched well into the evening as the sun didn’t set until well after 9PM.

The following day was Seafair day, Seafair being an annual August festival that centers on Lake Washington and peaks with boat races and an airshow.  It’s quite the floating party, with the best airshow viewing location by far being Lake Washington’s center, where a giant, morphing raft of loosely connected boats bob and drift and their occupants jump in and out of the water.  Water fights tend to spring up frequently as well, and our kids spent some time building up their arsenal. 

First, though, some pre-airshow tubing.  The girls were less interested in getting bounced around on the water, so we took the boys out early.  Probably safe to say they enjoyed themselves.  “Flossing” is even trickier when you’re doing it on a speeding tube, “dabbing” less so.

After returning to the dock and packing up our gear we headed to Seafair central, where a couple more families (friends of our friends) were already anchored and in full celebration mode.  After a few unsuccessful attempts to set our own anchor in the deep water, we tied up to their boat instead, unrolled the floating “party island” and got busy enjoying the day.

Quick Seattle geography digression.  Everyone knows that Seattle is on the water, but some likely don’t appreciate the full diversity of its waterfronts and waterways. 

Essentially it sits on a strip of land between Puget Sound and Lake Washington.  Puget Sound is a large inlet of the Pacific Ocean carved out by glaciers, which left it with countless islands, canals, and passageways.  On the western side of Puget Sound lie several islands and the Kitsap Peninsula, and beyond that, the Olympic Peninsula, with its year-round snow-capped peaks.  To the east, the equally jagged and glacier-dotted Cascades run the length of the state from north to south.  When you see the area from the air, it essentially looks like a maze of waterways sandwiched between the two snowy mountain ranges.  It’s easy to think that they’re all saltwater since they’re all connected.  But Lake Washington is entirely freshwater, fed by the Cascades’ snowmelt.  Lake Washington feeds into Lake Union, which is right in the center of Seattle, and then to the Sound via a series of locks which bring the water down to sea level, as well as regulating the level of the lakes. 

Here’s the point of all that, or at least a point – the perception of Seattle is that the water is too cold to swim in, and that’s true of the Sound.  The lakes, however, are pristine, fresh, and warm up nicely in the summer.  Perfect for swimming and playing.  Best of all worlds.

This being the third time we had seen a Blue Angel show, the novelty had largely worn off, and it was tough to get the kids too enthused about it.  But the water fights and general good cheer more than overcame any airshow ambivalence they were fostering. 

It was more or less a perfect day, capped off by another lakeside dinner and some sunset waterplay. 

Though we opted to depart Sunday afternoon due to our friends having commitments the following morning, we managed to get another tubing run in that morning, with my getting talked into joining my friend and his younger son on the tube.  My initial hesitation sprung from my not finding tubing especially exciting, but evidently that is entirely driver-dependent, as I would soon discover.  We got flipped around like rag dolls back there.  I didn’t know my face could do that.

The ride culminated in this spectacular spill.  Evidently I was in the “lucky” seat.

No one hurt, but we did decide to cut our losses while we were still laughing and get back into the boat.

I think my favorite part of a weekend that was one long highlight was watching the kids play together.  It’s been awhile, but I know that I’ve mentioned one of my overarching concerns about this trip was the lack of “play with other kids” time that we’ve been able to provide for ours.  Their kids are not only close in age to ours, but also close in temperament.  I have the feeling that if they lived near to each other they would become lifelong friends.

That would seem to lead to an argument for considering Seattle, more specifically their area of Seattle (which is actually Kenmore) as an ultimate destination.  Schools are good, we know we love Seattle, there’s an airport nearby and good recreation around…. But of course it’s never that simple.  Seattle of late has gone through a real estate boom that is comparable to the one in California’s Bay Area.  Houses get snapped off the market within days, at prices higher than the asking price.  Which means that we can’t afford it. 

This is not to say that we would live in Seattle if it weren’t for the cost.  We’ve considered it during our brainstorming sessions several times, and it always comes in high on our list.  But the final analysis we’re drawn to smaller towns – traffic drives Tacco batty, and to an extent I agree.  We both want fewer people around.

It’s not ruled out of course… nothing is really.  But we left in a melancholy mood after enjoying ourselves so thoroughly.  The kids connected deeply within 2 days, and we’re pulling them back onto the road and pushing their rediscovered friends back to “hey let’s play Fortnite together sometime” status.  

We did have a little fun with photography before departing.  There are a couple classic pictures of the two oldest kids (and some of the adults) from our Tuscany trip 12 years ago, so we decided to re-create them.  Did a decent job, too, though we couldn’t quite get them into Baby Bjorns.

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Ultimately, yet another highlight, leaving us with much more to reflect upon as we head north back to Anacortes, where it all began.

In aviation-speak, a diversion is the term for when unusual circumstances dictate that you change your destination and land somewhere you hadn’t planned to.

So there we were.  Shocked into silence in the kitchen, haven’t slept, home deal almost certainly about to implode (spoiler: it did), motorhome back in Portland not fixed, pool about to be opened with an expensive new liner that we don’t particularly like in a house in which we no longer live, packing everything out but suddenly realizing that we would have to instead get the house back to “show ready”  in the next couple days.

While I realize that having a home sale deal fall through barely even registers on the “unusual events” seismograph (we had already had that happen once after all, though much earlier in the process), there were so many second and third-order effects tied to this particular event for us, that it was too much to process. We had to just stop, pop a bottle of wine, and detach.

My first thought was “Trip’s over!  We’re pulling the house off the market and moving back to Maryland.”  In all the disorientation, it was difficult to see another viable option.  Not how we wanted to end this.

Fortunately we were able to detach enough to recognize that we were in no condition to make any decisions, and we slept on it. 

It was not a fun week.  But it resolved.  And everything’s fine. Rather than drag you through the chaos of the rest of our time in Annapolis, I’ll tell you how it ended:

• We committed to Plan Moon.  Plan Moon, if you read our earlier post, was one of two “big picture” scenarios we were weighing, and entailed NOT settling as originally planned, but instead staying on the road, continuing our travels (though scaled down somewhat), and home/road-schooling the kids for another year.  The prospect had been slightly terrifying to me when first proposed, but I had warmed to it in the interim, and these recent developments made it the only logical choice.  It felt both right and good to make that call.  A relief.

• They finally fixed Davista.  Well, maybe.  They “fixed” her.  At some point the technicians back in Portland threw up their hands and opened an assist case with the Ford mothership.  After a string of troubleshooting steps, they landed on the serpentine belt tensioner, which apparently was at least marginally defective on our model of engine.  “Huh??” you say?  Me too.  It took some mental gymnastics to connect a potentially loose belt to random misfires of multiple cylinders, but I pushed the “I believe” button after accepting the Portland folks’ assurances and reading through the self-styled internet experts’ descriptions of how a fluttering belt could case tiny rpm fluctuations, which could be interpreted as misfires, and and and… ok, sure, fine, enough. 

• Three days after the home deal’s implosion, that word somehow got out, and we got two more potential offers.  Evidently the new sense of urgency spurred them into action. One offer was contingent on at least one home sale and gave us headaches, but the other looked promising, and they wanted a short closing time.  We haggled the price a bit and accepted.  Closing at the end of August.

We flew back to Portland, re-packed ourselves into Davista and hooked up our Toad, and set off for Seattle, where we had arranged to visit some dear friends for the long weekend.  They live right on Lake Washington, with a boat and many toys, they’re some of our favorite people, they like good food and drink as much as we do, their kids are our two older kids’ age, and on top of all that, it was Seafair weekend in Seattle, the pinnacle of which is the Blue Angels airshow over the Lake.  We would be watching from the water, and there is nowhere in the world better to be in August than the Pacific Northwest. 

So ready for this.

More aviation geekery.  I’ll let you look that one up yourself.

Go-mode ensued immediately upon our arrival back in the Annapolis area.  It was the proverbial “twenty pounds of stuff jammed into a ten pound sack” scenario, as not only did we have a ton to do in order to clean out the house entirely for closing, but we been out of it since March, with lawn-mowing being the only maintenance that had been performed.  Things were a little rough around the edges, and I started immediately on a new punch list and the attendant prioritization.  Dumpster ordered, storage “Pod” ordered, moving boxes bought, dentist appointments made, trampoline dismantled, unwanted gear onto Cragislist, man that fence looks bad, better pressure wash and paint it, clean the siding, go go go…

We had just shy of two weeks until closing, and it was tough to visualize getting “there” from “here,” particularly with the inevitable onion-peeling that reveals sub-task after sub-task once you start tackling such a big job.  It had been blissfully easy to forget about the state in which we had left the house while on the road.  While it was certainly show-ready, the corners we had cut in order to pack into the motorhome and depart on semi-short notice made themselves painfully apparent; we still had tons (literally) of our “stuff,” mostly in the garage and basement, through which we still had to sort and pack/sell/discard.

And the pool.  I hadn’t been able to come up with a good solution for that.  In normal circumstances we would have “opened” it in the Spring, a process which, after the initial actions by a pool service, can take up to a week of close attention, cleaning, and chemical balancing.  So, even without considering the cost and liability issues involved with maintaining an open pool at an empty house, that was off the table – can’t clean your Maryland pool from the Rockies and Pacific Northwest.  The problem with leaving it closed and covered, however, is that the longer it stays that way in warm weather, the more it resembles a swamp, and therefore the longer it takes to bring it back to swimmable status.  It’s also not an especially appealing way to for a potential buyer to see it.

With our buyers, we had, after quite a bit of back and forth, resolved the issue by agreeing to drain the pool and have the long-in-the-tooth vinyl lining completely replaced, then have the pool filled and open for them at closing.  Reasoning that it was going to be their pool, we even had them choose the lining.  It was a good solution, but added significantly to the effort and expense jammed into our short Annapolis stay.

On top of all that, we wanted to see friends and family while back in Maryland, as did the kids.  So we plowed through the packed days and relatively sleepless nights, propelled by caffeine (me, Tacco doesn’t tolerate it well) and the inertia of our frenetic activity.

Meanwhile in Portland… Davista wasn’t playing nice.  After not hearing from the maintenance folks for several days, I called for a status update, only to hear that they had been unable to duplicate the problem.  Good God.  “Have you driven it?”  “Well, yes.  Some.  It’s tricky to just drive around town you know.”  “Yes, believe me, I know.”  A couple days after that I got a call with “Great news!” Evidently they had gotten the check engine light to flash.  But only at 12.5 miles per hour.  “Consistently??  Because if you remember, we were getting it at any speed and any driving condition, and I couldn’t correlate it to anything th–” “Yes well, it’s 12.5 mph and hem haw hem haw assure you yadda yadda best mechanics don’t you worry…”

Yeah.

I figured they had at least 10 more days to work it out, and besides, we didn’t have time to worry about such things – we still had a house to close on.  Back to the grind.This was the state in which we finally met our new buyers, or at least one of them.  Due in no small part to the rapport we had sensed, given that they were very much in the situation we ourselves had been in when had bought the house five years earlier, we opted to contact them directly during the pool negotiations, as going through the real estate agents was proving cumbersome.  It was a good call, in that we were able not only to communicate and negotiate much more effectively, but to ease some of the tension and uncertainty involved in dealing with a nameless/faceless entity.  So we had exchanged several text messages and emails, as well as a phone call or two.  Since we had been back in Annapolis, the communications had ceased, but we chalked that up to their being just as busy as we were.  They had completed the home inspection just prior to our arrival back in town, and I had remarked to Tacco, after seeing the somewhat alarming sight of the pool drained and green with moss and algae, the old vinyl now hanging limply from the sides, that I bet seeing that freaked them out a little.  Even with pool experience I had found it difficult to visualize that eyesore becoming a functioning pool within a week or two.  We laughed it off though – the pool folks knew what they were doing and we didn’t have the time to sit and worry.  The buyers had one final inspection to perform, this one on the fireplace and chimney, and he (the buyer) was tagging along.  We met in the kitchen, all of us sleep-deprived and harried, shook hands and exchanged brief pleasantries.  His eye contact was tentative though.  Why?  Nah, never mind.  The stress, I’m sure.  The inspection went well, with the chimney inspector finding a few small things, but making a point to turn to the buyer and ensure him that this was a great house, and had clearly been well taken care of.  “Mm hm, yeah, thanks,” he responded curtly while turning for the door.  Stress.  Gotta be.  We felt it too.

“Very nice to meet you – we’ll see you soon!” we offered as he headed for the door.  “Yes.. well… I need to tell you that we’re significantly less enthusiastic now than we were a couple weeks ago.  Uhhh.. we’ll let you know.”  And he left.

Um… what? 

Wait, what??  WHAT?!!  We did not just hear that.  We could not have just heard that.  The real estate agent looked at us, eyebrows raised.  Clearly this was news to her too.  I wish I had a picture here, but I don’t.  This is the best I can do.

Now what?

So about that flashing Check Engine light…

I previously wrote about the diagnosing and repair of its cause leading to, among other things, “the worst sort of bloviating.”  This is probably overstated, and more a more a function of dealing with repair experts in general, particularly self-styled ones on the internet, many of whom I spent a good bit of time engaging in this case.

The issue was this – is Davista now safe to drive in this condition?  And secondarily, if she’s technically safe to drive but it’s not recommended to do so, will driving a significant distance (i.e. Bend to Portland) affect the warranty?

To get answers to these questions, I talked to many, many Ford mechanics at many, many Ford dealers in an expanding circle centered on Bend and eventually reaching Portland.  I also registered on an RV enthusiast website and tossed my question, along with all the pertinent data, into the appropriate forum.

In an ideal world, there would be a simple answer.  What I got instead was a spectrum of info that varied from thoughtful, well-meaning advice to finger-wagging lectures about what was almost certainly wrong with my vehicle and what I Needed To Be Doing, almost all of them to some degree contradictory, and zero consensus.  Which is fun way to spend the better part of a day. 

The “bloviating” came primarily from the internet, and I should have expected that. It comes with the territory, and teasing out the thoughtful (and freely given!) nuggets of actual wisdom from within the sea of anonymous “I have an opinion and an audience now, look out!” noise is pretty much what we do in 2018. The mechanics, at least the majority of them, did their best to help, and I appreciated their time.

But still… nothing approaching consensus, even among the actual experts. Amusing to have two people with “years and years of experience” assure me with total certainty both that I would absolutely be able to detect actual misfires, and that I almost certainly wouldn’t feel a thing in a single cylinder misfire situation. “Trust me.”

I also discovered that, though there are several Ford dealerships in and near Bend, the closest one both certified to and capable of handling a vehicle this size is in Portland.  After aggregating everything and taking what I thought was the best advice I had been given, I called Ford themselves (rather than a specific dealer) and put it into their hands.  After some wrangling and convincing them that no, none of those dozen closer Ford dealers can handle us, they decided that driving was unwise and arranged a tow to Portland.

So we broke camp, put what we needed into our car, and watched as the huge tow truck arrived (three hours late), lifted Davista’s front end, disconnected her real axle, and towed her away.  Disconcerting.

We met her in Portland after checking in at our hotel near the airport, and told our long story to the service coordinator.  To my substantial dismay, he didn’t appear to be interested in any of the data I had collected on the problem or the troubleshooting I had already done.

“Check engine.  Got it.” 

“No… again, it’s a flashing check engine, and it’s throwing these codes, and it’s been happening when we..”

“Yup, flashing check engine, that’s right.  Don’t you worry about a thing.”

“OK, don’t you want to hear about the conditions in which is comes on, for how long, etc?”

“Uhhh… ok, yeah, sure.” [eyes glazing over as I tell him, with his pencil hovering over the page but writing absolutely nothing down]

“OK, so you’ve got all that?  You’ll tell the mechanic?”

“Yup, of course.”

“And you’ll call me if you need any further detail, as well as any time you find out anything?”

“Absolutely”

“Because this is our house.  We can leave it with you for a while now since we’re leaving town for a week or two, but it’s important we get it fixed asap.”

“Oh, I assure you I understand.  Don’t you worry.”

*sigh* “ok.”

And with that we jumped on a plane back to Maryland to throw more money at put the final touches on our actual house and get it completely packed out prior to closing.

“Short Final” is aviation-speak for the very last phase of a flight, by the way. I probably didn’t need to say that, but have never been one to under-explain.

Back to Bend, and it feels like home.  I keep waiting for the bomb to drop, where we discover some seedy underside to the picture perfect downtown or the dirty secret that its ostensibly happy residents have been coerced to hide.  But no, our fourth visit in the third season (we’ve yet to get there in Spring) was, if it’s possible, even more pleasant than the other three.  If Bend has a dirty secret, it’s its not-secret-at-all isolation.  It’s a tough place to get to, and there’s really no getting around that.  I suppose the presence of active volcanoes just upwind of town might qualify as well, but that’s a dice roll it shares with most of the Pacific Northwest, so I’m willing to live with that.  Most places are a massive natural disaster away from total ruin when you look hard enough.

The aforementioned Check Engine light intermittently flashed itself all the way into town, but after Davista got us to Bend safely we opted to forget about it while we played.  Not only did we have a river to float and some hiking and biking to do, but we had rented a house for a few days and invited my parents up (unbeknownst to the kids) to celebrate Firebolt’s 9^th birthday with us.

Opting not to break with tradition, we headed out on night one to Crux Fermentation Project’s al fresco playing field / dining area.  Despite some parking issues they’re battling through and what appears to be a significant renovation / expansion in progress, the place was packed as usual, and we set up our picnic blanket, ordered some beer and food, and dug in. 

As Keeper joined in to the impromptu soccer game that some of the kids had gotten going and the girls bobbed and weaved around the field like they tend to do, Tacco and I once again looked at each other and agreed that this does not suck, not one bit.

I managed my first flying commute out of the local airport (Redmond) to Boston in order to fly a two-day trip, and though it took quite some time, it wasn’t bad at all.  The Redmond airport is tiny and impossibly easy and relaxed, at least in good weather.  I connected to Boston via Denver on the way out and Seattle on the way back.  Took the majority of the day both directions, but no hitches.  Noted.  Though my intention, should we live there, would be to fly trips out of Los Angeles / Long Beach rather than the East Coast, it’s helpful to know that a commute across the country is at least doable, if not preferable.

Upon my return, my parents and I converged on Tacco and the kids playing at one of the riverfront parks just about simultaneously, and Firebolt’s expression once she realized that her birthday celebration just got larger and more joyful was priceless.

As the weather was perfect and most of us had been cooped up and sitting for most of the day, we took a short hike along the river, letting the kids show their Grammy and Papa what cool things they’d discovered about our possible soon-to-be hometown, including the white water park, the riverfront “casting course,” and the panoply of river floaters on tubes, paddle boards, and inflatable flamingos, meandering through the scenic Old Mill district.

Resolving to float the river ourselves the next day, we headed back to our rental house to settle in.   Ideal, as expected.  Quiet neighborhood near the river, criss-crossed by walking and biking paths, and infused with the scent of the plentiful ponderosa pines.  A few deer strolled by as if on cue, and at one point we spotted a large owl silently eyeing us from just under the roof on the next house over.

Though we had floated the Deschutes last Fall, that was several miles upstream, in Sunriver, and a much more serene undertaking given the location and time of year.  In downtown Bend during the Summer, it’s pretty much a party on the water every day.  There’s a shuttle that runs floaters and their tubes / inflatables between the put-in and the take-out, and we took advantage of it, as well as the tube rental company that operates at the shuttle stop.

Most of the float is gentle, and people tend to attach tubes into mini flotillas as they meander through town.  There’s lots of jumping into the clear water and swimming from tube raft to tube raft as well.

The whitewater park sits at about the midway point through town, and is a relatively new feature, replacing a semi-inconvenient portage under a bridge.  The river is divided into three sections there – a “natural” section down which floating is prohibited, a “serious” rapid section on which there are four sizable standing waves on which kayakers (and even surfers, I noted) can play & practice moves, and then the main tubing section, on which they’ve made about 10 smaller drops over which everyone can float.

The smaller rapids are fairly gentle, but they’re still rapids, as the tube rental folks were careful to emphasize.  They suggested beginners might benefit from taking out at the portage and watching how folks on tubes navigated them prior to doing it ourselves.  Sound advice, which we promptly ignored.  For my part, I was surprised to discover how easy it is to flip over in a tube.  The natural tendency, when seeing a breaking wave looming in front of you, is to lean back, bringing the front of your tube up a bit to meet the wave and hopefully get over it.  This is actually the exact opposite of what you should do, which is to lean forward into the wave to keep your momentum moving with the current and prevent sliding back into the trough of the wave, where the current wants to push your low/back side down and forward, and the breaking wave wants to push your front/high side up and back. 

I traversed the section the first time connected to Woodsprite and her tube, completely unaware that flipping would be a possibility, and full of assurances to her that while we would most certainly get wet (welcome in the 90 degree sun), her nervousness about flipping over was completely unfounded.

Well.  Very fortunately for me, my credibility with her wasn’t destroyed for life, as we did emerge unscathed and laughing.  But I’m glad she didn’t look over at me while cresting the last wave, on which I went wide-eyed when we came a hair’s width from going inverted. 

Firebolt, on the other hand, was another matter.  Though her horizons have expanded immeasurably on this trip, she still possesses an innate skittishness beyond that of her siblings.  Certain things frighten her, and when she gets it into her head that she doesn’t want to do something, she doesn’t budge.  The rapids were borderline for her, and required some cajoling.  Her initial plan was to take her tube out and walk through the portage while we had our fun.  We were, however, able to talk her into navigating them attached to one of the adults, which she did, and enjoyed immensely.  Victory!  Until the next float.  We actually floated the river one more time after the grandparents had left, having enjoyed it so much the first time, and Firebolt, flush with confidence, opted to hit the rapids solo.  On the last rapid, the one that almost claimed my credibility with Woodsprite, she initially got stuck in the wave.  I happened to be standing nearby, having just gone through with Woodsprite again, and could see the panic beginning to register in her eyes as I waded toward her.  What happened next was a bit unclear, and transpired very quickly.  A tuber behind her either tried to help by nudging the back of her tube with his foot, or simply collided into her due to the current, and the contact was all the tube needed to flip her over backwards and put her underwater in the wave with the tube on top of her. 

I pulled her up almost immediately, but between the confusion, the rushing water, and the fact that she had hit her head on the rocky bottom when flipped, she was terrified and inconsolable.  Poor girl.  It was all we could do to get her back on her tube to complete the float, even though the rest of it was flat water.  She informed us that she would never tube or kayak on a rapid again, and I almost believe her – of the three kids she tends to be the most serious and resolute about this type of pronouncement.  But still, I think she’ll come around.

Mishaps notwithstanding, floating the Deschutes was a huge success, and planted even more let’s-live-here seeds in all of us, as if we needed them.

One of Firebolt’s birthday requests was a hike (!), so we of course obliged her with another walk to Benham Falls, this time with my parents along.  It’s so easy and appealing to imagine doing this on a whim in the future, particularly when confronted by a casual “I’m bored” from one of the kids.

After my parents left and the celebrating ended, we relocated to the RV park in Sunriver where we had stayed the previous year.  We found it to be much busier and more “resort-y” in the summer, but also discovered that we definitely prefer Bend to Sunriver.  Nice to know it’s nearby, but there will be no temptation to look at Sunriver houses during the home shopping phase, should it come to that.

Overall, Bend hit it out of the park once again.  We spent a decent amount of time exploring neighborhoods when we could, and again managed to have our expectations exceeded.  Everything looks well-planned and thoughtfully appointed there; there were no ugly neighborhoods, only pleasant and frequent surprises.  “Look at that, another insanely well-appointed local market!  A cidery!  A charging station in the middle of the park!  Sculptures in the middle of the traffic circles!  More bike paths!”  and on and on…  We didn’t have a chance to look at any houses, but do feel like we’re homing in on a few neighborhoods on which to focus, should we move.  And the kids are even more enthusiastic about it than they were after our Winter visit. 

We’re still not 100% there, and of course we technically still haven’t sold our house, though our intention is to fly back to Annapolis in a few days in order to complete our pack out / storage and finish whatever else needs done (which is quite a bit, it turns out) prior to the closing. 

It’s a strange feeling, to have everything seeming to come together, yet still feel a universe away from settling down, despite its being our goal.  We’ve drifted in and out of a similar phenomenon over the past year, where whatever groove we’re in begins to feel familiar and “normal” and then we’re abruptly jolted back out of our comfort zone when confronted with some combination of the reality of what we’re doing and a change in our situation.  It’s difficult to describe, though I would imagine similar to what one would think (and what we thought) when considering the idea of doing what we’re doing now.  It seemed utterly overwhelming.  Extremely cool, but ultimately impossible.   Well, stopping what we’re doing and actually living somewhere now seems the same way.  It’s like we’re completely aware that it’s possible and could tell you how to do it, but the actual getting from here to there seems insurmountable and on some level terrifying.

And on that note, we leave Bend again.   

This thing.

Argh!

I’ll say it, Check Engine lights suck.  They do.  Your brakes go, you replace your brakes. Cracked windshield? Repair it. But Check Engine? Vague cause, even vaguer potential fix, and can lead to the worst sort of bloviating when seeking opinions on them. 

Once again I’m getting ahead of myself though, let me back up.

We drove down the mountain out of Park City and into western Utah’s desert, which is as desolate and unappealing as the eastern half of the state is spectacular.  The last stretch of I-80’s traversal of the state, just before reaching the border town of Wendover, takes you across the Bonneville Salt Flats, of land speed record fame.  The name says it all – miles and miles of flat salt. 

I don’t want to strike the wrong tone here, though – it’s an interesting drive in its own way, through a unique part of the country. Unavoidably, though, if you start in Utah and head toward points west / northwest, you are going to find yourself in wide open, empty territory for at least a day, no matter which route you choose.  Here’s the one we chose.

Most folks, I would suspect, opt to put the pedal down and make this drive “the long one” in order to blow through Nevada, but we’re mostly over long drives.  If there’s nothing compelling us to hurry, then six hours or so is about as much as we try to do.  So we chose Winnemucca as our midpoint overnight stop.

Winnemucca was ok.  Here’s a pic, which about covers it. 

The exceedingly friendly and aggressively sunburnt campground host informed us that we had just missed his famous tri-tip, of which he had grilled several pounds for the campground’s residents on the 4^th.  I was actually bummed we missed that; it sounded tasty. 

There was also a dirt racetrack at the adjacent Humboldt County Fairgrounds, at which some event was sharing its noise and bright floodlights with us.  But it wasn’t enough to keep us awake.  We crashed early and left in the morning.

One thing that was surprising about the drive was the extent to which Nevada, at least along I-80, was greener and more populated than expected, and eastern Oregon was more empty than expected.  To an extent I knew this from driving Bend-to-Boise last Fall, but this particular quadrant of Oregon I had never seen, and it is easily the most wild and empty region we’ve yet traversed.  Tacco remarked that we could be in the Scottish highlands.  Probably a bit less green and craggy though.  Regardless, it was worth seeing.

But that Check Engine light.

So if you’ve been with us here since the beginning, you may remember that this is not the first time it has reared its yellow head.  It illuminated in August 2017 while crossing Reservation land in Montana, and caused enough concern for me to pull over and do a little quick research.  After determining that it was almost certainly nothing of concern, we pressed on, only to have it extinguish a few days later. 

One of the problems with a Check Engine light is that even if the underlying condition clears, the light will stay illuminated for three “drive cycles,” which are essentially complete drives of reasonable length.  Normally, in a car, you can easily do three drive cycles in a day.  For us, we tend to drive for 4-6 hours at a time and then stop, sometimes for days.  So one Check Engine light that’s telling us about something that the computer sensed for a second, could theoretically stay on for a couple weeks. 

It becomes hard to take seriously.  Being in aviation, I’ve become hard-wired not to ignore warning lights, so this was especially difficult for me.  It would illuminate, stay on for a while, and then at some point at a gas stop or getting underway I would start up Davista and note that the light was out again.  This cycle played itself out no fewer than a dozen times over the past year, and what’s more, we’ve had three routine maintenance visits since then, and told the mechanic about it each time, but were assured that it’s nothing.  “Probably just a loose gas cap.” 

Well.  Somewhere between Wendover and Winnemucca it started flashing for about 30 seconds, which is where stuff got real.  Having never seen it flash before, I pulled over to investigate, and discovered that a flashing Check Engine light, unlike a steady one, means one thing only, and that’s an “active misfire” situation.  In other words, one or several cylinders are misfiring, right now.  The operating manual’s guidance in such a situation is to take it in ASAP for service, but if that’s not possible, to “drive moderately” until it is possible.  And to look out for excessive temperatures under the floorboards, as the catalytic converter, among other things, may dangerously overheat.  Not what you want to hear in the middle of Nevada.

Here’s what was strange though, it didn’t feel like it was missing.  I’d like to think I know what a missing engine feels / sounds like, and I noticed nothing.  Hm.

The next time it started flashing, I looked down at it and got distracted enough between looking at the light and feeling/listening for misfires, that I remained in the right lane and blew by one of Nevada’s finest as he was finishing up writing someone a ticket on the shoulder.  Seeing his angry / flabbergasted hands-thrown-up-in-the-air gesture in my rear view mirror made my heart sink, and his rush to his patrol car and quick sprint to my tail with lights ablaze to pull me over confirmed my feeling.  First ticket in Davista.  Actually it’s my first moving violation in as long as I can remember – at least 20 years.  Good times.

The Check Engine light continued to flash intermittently, without apparent rhyme or reason and for durations varying from 5 seconds to about a minute, for the rest of the drive to Bend.  It was extremely disconcerting. 

At some point post-Winnemucca I decided that it was time to buy an OBD2 Scanner so that I could plug into Davista’s computer brain and see for myself what was going on with the light. We stopped at the next population center to do so.  If you’re thinking that this is something I should’ve bought prior to the trip, then I wholeheartedly agree.  But sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know.

The scanner informed me that our engine’s #2, 4, 6, and 8 cylinders were misfiring.  Frequently.  Well, shoot.

The troubleshooting side of me that had spent hours, by necessity, attempting to solve airborne maintenance puzzles in the 1960s-vintage P-3 back in my Navy days kicked into high gear and immediately told me that something wasn’t right – that four separate cylinders don’t fail randomly and simultaneously, and that this data coupled with my not feeling anything resembling a misfire pretty much screamed that we had a sensing problem, not a misfiring problem.  But the pragmatic side of me kicked in, too, and told me that not only do I not know squat about truck engines, but that this particular truck engine was under warranty, and therefore the fix was essentially out of my hands. 

We pulled into Bend with the check engine light still on, having flashed dozens of times between Winnemucca and our destination.  Each time I wondered whether this was the time that would culminate in a loud bang and thick black smoke pouring out of our dead engine. 

Fortunately it never came to that, but I was a frazzled upon our arrival.  The plan is to forget about it for now, and enjoy Bend, yet again, while celebrating Firebolt’s 9^th birthday.  We’ve rented a house for her birthday weekend and have a surprise visit from my parents on tap.  Gremlins can wait.