Opal Creek Hike 2009

Last weekend, I joined Andrew and Tim and Josh and Paul for our annual trek into the Opal Creek wilderness area, which is located between Stayton and Detroit. This is the first time I’ve been able to make the journey in several years. On my last trip, I made this photo, which was published in Audubon magazine:

Opal Creek swimming hole

As usual, we left early Friday afternoon. The five of us piled into two vehicles (including my Mini Cooper!) to make the two-hour drive. Here’s a map of our destination (I don’t know the source of this map or I’d provide credit — it’s not mine):

We parked at the locked gate located at the left edge of the map. The first part of our hike followed a pot-holed gravel road along the Little North Santiam River. A bridge over Gold Creek provided a scenic view, and was followed by a brief passage along a cliff-side that reminds me of something out of World of Warcraft.

After 2.2 miles, we turned south to catch the trail along the creek. (On our outward hike, we took the north route along the gravel road through Jawbone Flats.)

Andrew, Tim, and Josh hiking along the creek

We hiked east 1.4 miles to Opal Pool, then another 0.6 miles to the washed-out bridge. Only the bridge isn’t completely washed out. It’s a log that has fallen across the river, and which had been “drafted” for use as an official bridge. But the log has settled over the past couple of years, so the Forest Service has closed it to the public. That didn’t stop this group of scofflaws. We scampered across, and then hiked the final three-quarters of a mile to Cedar Flats. There we pitched our camp.

Over a meal of “Greek burritos” (read: Andrew’s hodge-podge dinner) and scotch whisky, we talked about resource depletion and economic collapse. Tim is a self-professed “doom and gloomer” who is concerned about the implications of a growing population in a world with finite resources. It was a fine discussion, one that lasted the entire weekend, but we did not solve the world’s ills.

Andrew and Paul, sitting around the campfire

Most years, the group spends Saturday hiking upstream to our favorite swimming hole. (The swimming hole depicted in the first photo on this page.) This year, however, nobody was interested. The weather was cool. Swimming in cold water didn’t sound fun.

Instead, Andrew and Tim made the 16-mile round-trip hike up Whetstone Mountain and back. The rest of us stayed in camp. Paul read and so did I. I spent a several hours pacing the 40 steps between two fallen logs, reading The Shipping News for book group. (I’ve become a master of reading while walking. It’s awesome.)

While we read (and napped), Josh explored. About 100 yards from camp, across some fallen trees, he found a sort of voluntary huckleberry farm — and an interesting fungus. He summoned me and Paul to see:

J.D. and Paul on a log. Photo by Joshua Bennett.

On Sunday morning, I woke early. The air was cold. (Later the group agreed that the temperature was probably around 5 or 6 degrees centigrade.) Despite the chill, I crossed the creek and found a deep-ish spot where I could bathe. The water was not much cooler than the air, so it wasn’t a big deal. And it felt great. You can be sure that I was very alert after taking a cold bath on a cold morning.

There are few things I love more than spending time in the woods. I’m not sure why I don’t do it more often. It brings out something vital in me. I love exploring off the trail and playing in the creek and gathering wood for a fire and sleeping under the stars. And I love being surrounded by scenery. There’s so much beauty that one’s senses almost become dulled to it.

Opal Creek just below Jawbone Flats

On Sunday morning, we packed up, hiked out, and climbed into our cars. After stopping for burgers and shakes, we drove home to our workaday lives. I’m already thinking of next year’s trip.

2009 Noah Roth Family Reunion

When I was a boy, we saw my father’s family several times every year. We lived down the road from his parents, so when my aunt or my uncle (or both!) took their families to visit grandma, we’d traipse down for a visit. Some of my best memories from childhood involved playing with my cousins.

As adults, however, we all sort of drifted apart. For at least a decade, we didn’t see much of each other.

But over the past ten years, there’s been a renewed interest in spending time together. We have a private online family discussion forum. And about once a year (sometimes twice!), we get together to chat. And to eat. (Our family sure knows how to eat!)

Last weekend, we all gathered at my cousin Scott’s house in Shedd. It was good to see my Uncle Stan (who has had health problems) and my cousin Mart:

I’ve forgotten how many cousins I have. It’s a lot. A dozen? And most of them have children. In fact, many of them have six or eight or ten children. I cannot keep track. Here’s one of my cousin’s daughters, enjoying the salvaged swingset:

There was no roast pig this year, but we did not want for food. We had chicken and burgers and beans and fresh-roasted corn on the cob:

We had far, far too many desserts:

As we enjoyed ourselves, the grass farmers worked their fields.

One side effect of the heat and the dust and the tractors were several dust devils. One of the dust devils was notable for its size (hundreds of feet into the air) and its duration (ten minutes?):

Also for its intensity:

I enjoy these family reunions a great deal. I’m thinking it’s about time for me to host one next year. I wonder if Rosings Park can handle a swarm of Mennonites!

A Very Small Summer Adventure

I had breakfast with Paul and Amy Jo yesterday morning at Broder on Clinton (which is apparently a sister restaurant to Savoy). Over baked eggs and Swedish pancakes, we chatted about life. I mentioned that Thursdays were my days for walking the 2-1/2 miles into Milwaukie and back. “I go to the comic-book store and have cheap tacos at Cha Cha Cha,” I explained.

“Have you checked out the railroad bridge into Lake Oswego?” asked Paul. Oak Grove is directly across the Willamette River from Lake Oswego, but there’s no easy way to get from one community to the other. It takes about 25 minutes to make the drive. It would be a two-minute drive if there were a bridge.

“No,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to. But it’s illegal to cross, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “There’s a pedestrian path on the side. And one of our neighbors used to work in Lake Oswego. She walked used the bridge to walk to work every day for years.”

Paul and I decided to check it out. Instead of walking into Milwaukie on the Trolley Trail, I would join him for an adventure into Lake Oswego. When I posted about our plans on Facebook, Tiffany warned: “FYI, It is a federal trespassing charge if you are caught.” We were undaunted.

I was a little more daunted, though, by the actual posted prohibition:

I think it’s funny that the Portland and Western Railroad have mis-spelled trespassing as “tresspassing”. Anyhow, because there were wide shoulders along the tracks, we played scofflaw and proceeded to the bridge. Where the rails were elevated above the ground, there was a metal grating along one side — the “pedestrian path” that Paul’s neighbor must have used to get to Lake Oswego.

We walked up to the bridge itself and snapped a few photos:

But then we chickened out. (Well, I chickened out. Paul may have been willing to continue.) We turned around and walked back the way we’d come.

Rather than pull out where we’d started, though, we followed the tracks toward Milwaukie. It’s actually a lovely stretch of land, that mile beneath the bluff and along the shore. (Sorry, no photos.) Paul pulled out at Elk Rock Island, and I continued along the rails, across the bridge that goes over 99e and the lake, and into downtown. I didn’t see a train the entire time.

It was a fun walk, and I intend to do it again in the future. (The “to Milwaukie” part, not the “bridge to Lake Oswego” part. I may do the latter at some point, but not regularly.) On the way home, though, I played it safe and took the Trolley Trail.

Songburst: Playing to Win

While we were in Sunriver, the group played a marathon session of Songburst, the “name that tune” game. Steph read song titles and lyrics to us, and we tried to guess the next words. This was the “70s and 80s” edition, so it hit the sweetspot of our childhood years.

We were all surprised at how skilled Kristin was at Songburst. She nailed even the most obscure songs. It’s as if she’s spent her entire life curled up, listening to K103 on a transistor radio.

Part of the fun was singing the cheesy songs of our youth, and discovering who loves which artists. Kris stunned us all with her Stevie Wonder impersonation. Jenn is a big fan of Olivia Newton-John. Kristin can sing “Brand New Key”. And I like the Little River Band.

Because I was a little tipsy (though not nearly as tipsy as Jeff, who was very happy), I downloaded three albums during the game: Toto’s Greatest Hits, Paul Simon’s Greatest Hits, and Little River Band’s Greatest Hits.

This morning as I was working around the house (trying to recover from this damn cold), I was playing Little River Band at full blast, bellering, “Have you heard about the lonesome loser, beaten by the queen of hearts every time?” Then a song came on that I cannot recall having heard before. It was rocking. And then it wasn’t. And then it was.

“Oh my goodness,” I thought. “The video for this has got to be awesome.” I meant that ironically, of course. And yes, yes the video is awesome. Ironically.

My friends, I give you “Playing to Win” by the Little River Band, circa 1985. Enjoy.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go download Dan Fogelberg’s Greatest Hits…

A Night on the Town

I’ve been promising for months (years?) that foldedspace would come out of its shell. Perhaps I should stop promising that.

One way for me to get more material to write about is to actually do stuff…instead of writing. The truth is that most of my day (every day) is spent on the computer, writing for my many sites. This is profitable, no question, but it means I have little personal experience to share.

To remedy that, I’m going to make a point of going out and about, hanging out with friends. And, in fact, I did just that last Friday night.

I joined a bunch of old friends from high school (Dawne, Tom, Jonathan, Tami, Dagny, ~~Cassie~~ Castle, Dusty, Karin) to eat, bowl, and sing. Well, I didn’t sing, but I had a lot of fun listening to everyone else do so. I’d never experienced karaoke before, and I thought it was a lot of fun.

I had the foresight to bring my camera, so I can offer two videos for my fellow Canby alums. First up, here’s Jonathan McDowell singing George Michael’s “Faith”:

This was the first time I’d seen Jonathan since high school. It was great to chat with him and to hear his laugh. It was also great to see Tom Stewart again, who blessed with a performance of Neil Diamond’s “Forever in Blue Jeans”:

Great stuff, gents. Great stuff. Maybe I’ll polish up my Paul Simon or Johnny Cash so that next time I can join the fun…

Memorial Service for Paul

This is just a quick note: a memorial service for Paul Carlile will be held Thursday, January 29th at 6:30pm at Ascension Catholic Church in southeast Portland. If you knew Paul, you are welcome to attend. (Hell, even if you didn’t know Paul, you are welcome to attend.) Trust me: the irony of the situation is not lost on me. Paul and I were both atheists. He committed suicide. The memorial service is in a Catholic church. But you know what? That’s cool. This is for his family, not for Paul. He surrendered any choice in the matter…

20-Year Anniversary

Kris and I have been together for 20 years now! Though sometimes we bicker (as all couples do), mostly this has been a wonderful experience. I am overjoyed to be spending my life with a partner I love, trust, and respect.

I had promised Paul and Amy Jo that I would share the “application” I completed to become Kris’ boyfriend 20 years ago, but she’s asked me not to share it. I did find it, and it’s fun to read, but I’ll respect her wishes. I will, however, reveal that her number one concern at the time was that I wasn’t serious enough, that I was just too glib. Twenty years later, that’s still her top concern (well, that and cleanliness). Kris often says: “I’d laugh more if you weren’t so funny all the time.”

To celebrate our anniversary, we spent a day together on an extended date.

“You need new shoes,” Kris told me recently. “Especially if you’re going to be doing public speaking, you need a new pair of dress shoes. Quality, not something cheap.”

I am not a shopper. As has been established here and elsewhere, I buy most of my clothes at Costco, supplemented by an occasional trip to Goodwill. “I don’t know where to go to buy new shoes,” I said. “Nordstrom?”

“No,” she said. “Nordstrom is too expensive. Why don’t you call Chris Flick? He has nice shoes.” Chris Flick has nice shoes? How the hell does she know this stuff? I couldn’t tell you which of our friends wore what kind of footwear — nice or not! Shoes just aren’t on my radar.

I called Chris Flick. “This is kind of an awkward question,” I said, “but where do you get your shoes?” Chris laughed, but he didn’t hesitate. He told me that the best place to buy good shoes at great prices was Nordstrom Rack, Nordstrom’s outlet store.

Kris and I drove downtown to buy shoes at Nordstrom Rack. It was overwhelming. Their were aisles and aisles of shoes, most of which looked the same to me. “What kind of shoes do you want?” Kris asked. I didn’t have a good response. The shoes I want are my Timberland boots that I wear around all the time. (These boots are actually the root of the shoe dilemma — it’s my insistence that I can wear these for all occasions that led us to the point of shoe shopping.)

So Kris picked out several shoes for me to try on. We discussed color and fit and comfort. My eyes grew big at the prices. ($60 for a pair of shoes?!??! I’m accustomed to spending $20!) I was taken aback when Kris suggested we buy two or three pairs of shoes. “We’re not going to solve all of your shoe issues with one pair of shoes,” she said.

In the end, we bought four pairs of shoes. I can hardly believe it.

After shoe-shopping, we continued our 20th anniversary extravaganza by spending too much on popcorn and a movie. (Good grief, but I’ve become a skinflint in my old age!) We walked up to the Fox Tower 10 to catch a showing of Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog Millionaire is about a young man from Mumbai whose own life provides him with the knowledge necessary to answer the questions on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

There is much to love about this film — the music, the actors (especially the children), the style — but I felt parts of the story were, well, formulaic. And if you know even the barest outline of the plot going in, then the climax is telegraphed from the very beginning of the film. Foreshadowing is too subtle a word for how clumsily this is handled.

Still, it was good. Best Picture good? Meh…

For dinner, we headed down to Dan & Louis Oyster Bar. The food was okay, but the atmosphere was ruined by the man urinating on the front steps as we entered the restaurant. (It’s located on the edge of a sketchy part of town.) I was bold and ordered the crab. I love crab meat, but I’ve never ordered a whole crab before, and I was lost. I was also messy, splattering butter all over myself. Kris just shook her head.

In the end, it was a fun day. Kris and I rarely do dates anymore. We should do them more often. Just not to buy shoes, and not to spend a small fortune on a movie, and not to eat crab. I think that cheap pizza and a discount theater are more our style!

Update: Yikes! A few hours later, there was a deadly shooting just around the corner from the restaurant. As most of you know, I’m not one who believes in the supernatural, but as we were walking to the restaurant last night, I had a terrible foreboding at this spot. I’m not kidding. But it was about bodily harm to me, not others. Just coincidence, I know, but still freaky.

Bad

One of Paul’s many virtues was that he pushed my comfort zone. Sometimes this was problematic, but mostly it was a good thing. In high school, I was very much a “play by the rules” kind of guy. (Mostly, I still am.) Paul sometimes liked to break the rules.

I did not skip a single class period up until my senior year, for example. But then Paul induced me to skip twice. On the first time, we joined a few other kids to watch music videos at somebody’s house. (Details are very hazy in my old-man brain: Tami and Kim J. perhaps? Amy F.? I’m not sure. All I remember is INXS.)

The second time, I remember clearly.

On the 09 March 1987, U2 released The Joshua Tree. When Paul and I entered high school, we were unfamiliar with the band. I heard them during the first week of my freshman year. I’m not sure if I introduced them to Paul, but I believe it’s likely. In any event, by the end of our senior year, he and I were both hooked on them. We owned all their LPs and many of their rare singles.

So when the new album came out, it only seemed natural to skip school to buy it. After lunch, we hopped into my dirty old Datsun 310gx and drove to Tower Records. We each bought a copy of the LP, and I picked up my first “cassingle” — “With or Without You” on cassette tape. We were back to school before the final bell.

I’ve always treasured the memory of that day. It seems to typify the Paul and J.D. relationship.

Here are two songs from my favorite U2 album, The Unforgettable Fire. Both have been in my mind lately. First up, the best U2 song ever: “Bad”. This is the amazing Live Aid performance that I’ve shared here before: “If I could, through myself, set your spirit free, I’d lead your heart away, see you break, break away, into the night and through the day.”

And then there’s this, which is doubly-apt since today is MLK day. I’ve been singing it to myself all morning: “Sleep, sleep tonight, and may your dreams be realized. If the thundercloud passes rain, so let it rain, let it rain, rain on me.”

I’ve held back the tears until now, but watching these videos…so cathartic.

There’s a memorial service for Paul in Eugene this Wednesday afternoon. If you’re interested in attending, please let me or Tom know. Paul’s parents are trying to pull something together for Portland this Saturday, too. I’ll post when I know more information.

Hurt

At 3:09 pm last Friday, Paul Carlile texted me. “I’m in PDX,” he wrote. “Are you available before 7.”

“Sorry. No,” I replied at 5:14. I had plans. I was taking pizza to Andrew Cronk and the kids, and then driving to the airport to pick up Kris.

Had I known then what I know now, I would have changed my plans completely. I would have let the Cronks go hungry. I would have left Kris standing at the curb.

Susan, Paul’s long-time girlfriend, just called. Though they’d recently broken up, they were still close. “J.D., this is Susan,” she said, and my brain had to whir — Susan who? “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” she said, and then I realized it was Susan S., of course, who else? “But Paul killed himself last night.”

“What?” I said. Was she joking? Through her tears, Susan told me what she knew. Paul had been depressed for a long time. A mutual friend had spent the weekend with him, trying to help him come to grips. When she left, she thought Paul was on stable ground. He wasn’t.

I feel hollow. I didn’t see Paul often anymore — just a few times each year — but he was an important piece of me, a piece that is now lost. I have several paragraphs of memories typed here in my text editor, but I’m not in the mood to share them. It’s as if I want to keep them to myself, to hoard them.

Suffice it to say that I would not be who I am today without Paul. I cannot believe he’s gone.

Here’s a song Paul introduced me to:

It seems painfully appropriate for this occasion.

Update: More memories of Paul.

More Winter

Are you tired of the winter photos yet? We Oregonians aren’t. Well, we’re tired of being house-bound, perhaps, but not tired of the snow. (According to today’s Oregonian, this is the most snow we’ve had in a winter since 1968-1969, which was just before I was born.)

First up, a comparison of a photo from Saturday night with a photo from Monday afternoon. The first photo was taken at about 7pm, in the dark. We had just a few inches of snow on the ground. The second photo was taken about 42 hours later, at 1pm in the afternoon. We had about fourteen inches of snow on the ground (with one-half inch of ice in the middle).

Winter doesn’t just bring snow — it brings icicles, too. Because our house exudes heat, the snow melts and icicles form on the gutters. (Unfortunately, our gutters have actually been damaged in spots.) Click through to see a larger version of this photo at Flickr, where you can see the giant icicle hanging over the dryer vent.

Winter also, apparently, brings Oliver, who still is not my cat.

Actually, Maxwell likes to be outside in the the cold. He’s our snow bunny. He whines to be let outside the moment we get up, and then won’t come when called all day long. He only returns just before bed. And where does he go? He just sleeps in the bushes. Stupid cat.

Finally, here’s Kris’ first venture out into the white stuff. Mainly, she’s stayed inside, reading, drinking tea, and snuggling under blankets. But yesterday she ventured outside to experience winter:

Depending on which forecast you trust, we could see another 3-5 inches of snow tomorrow, as well as some freezing rain. Who knows? All I know is that Christmas has been delayed in the Roth family!