First We Quit Our Jobs

  We were, luckily for our nearest and dearest, able to buy some more gifts here. A special favorite was the T-shirt that said:

  ALASKAN MEN. THE ODDS ARE GOOD, BUT THE GOODS ARE ODD

  The Native crafts were among the most beautiful we had seen. There were wonderfully colorful beaded wall hangings, stone carvings, and leather goods. By the time we packed up to leave, we had to make several boxes in Sue’s “basement” available for storage of the trinkets. Now I knew why beads had once been such useful currency. They’re easy to pack.

  * * *

  We boarded the M.V. Columbia near midnight. The 418-foot flagship of the Alaska Marine Highway fleet was a city in the making. With balletlike grace dozens of vehicles were directed into position on the car deck. In keeping with the rugged nature of the state, sleeping was permitted anywhere on the vessel (except in a vehicle). Tenters were invited to camp on the solarium deck. We opted for a cabin. It had the basics: bunk beds, a shower, a head, and a washstand. We yearned for the Sue, two decks down—we were allowed to visit twice a day when the purser announced a car deck call. A village of six hundred or so folks settled in for this night and the three to follow. The air was cold and the sky inky. We saw stars for the first time since we’d left Michigan. Quietly we slipped out of port, in great contrast to the bump, clang, and thud with which we’d entered the state. I thought of other trips we’d been on and our routine of planning of where we’d go next as we went home. As we made for Washington State through the inside passage, I felt sorry to be leaving this wild territory and wondered how soon we could come back. We’d covered only four thousand miles here, and there was so much more to see.

  Half Full

  Back in the U.S., back in the U.S., back in the U.S. of A. My version of the Beatles’ lyric thrummed in my head as we landed. Arriving at the dock in Washington after a quick side trip to Vancouver Island left us no doubt we were back in civilization. Noise, road signage, advertisements, hustle, bustle. We had radio reception to beat the band. The towns on the Olympic Peninsula teemed with people. We felt like foreigners, speaking a language of our own. Hey, bear. When we called my folks, they rejoiced—admittedly selfishly—that since we’d always said we’d be home in plenty of time for Thanksgiving, our trip was half over. It made me terribly sad.

  The Alaska portion of our trip felt so singular to me. It had a shape, texture, and flavor all its own. Moreover, it had a purpose and goals. We had simply driven every passable road in the state. Now there were endless choices that had to be made. The options were innumerable here in the lower forty-eight. We could go south through Oregon and then head east. Or we could continue south to California and then figure it out. Or we could go directly east through Washington to Idaho and into Montana—but should we cross through the panhandle and head for Missoula, or take back roads and aim for Bozeman? The maps, guidebooks, and atlases strewn all over the Sue were useless until we determined where we wanted to go. There were too many paved roads that could be taken. The truly carefree days seemed over.

  It felt as if we had to prove something to someone. I wasn’t sure what and to whom, but I felt we were in the visible part of the hemisphere again, back on the scope. I called a friend on the West Coast, who verified this for me. She wanted me to know lots of work was available, if I was interested. No, but thanks anyway. Maybe this was the kind of pressure I always created for myself. Maybe this was the part where we were supposed to figure out what to do with the rest of our lives. I felt a slight squeeze in my chest. Maybe it was the readily available newspapers and phone lines that put me back in the plan-your-work-and-work-your-plan mode. Maybe some primal sense that summer was over, time to get serious and back to school, was closing in on me. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I definitely did not like this queasy feeling. It had been so easy to just live, in Alaska, to simply let myself be. I loved absorbing the natural world there, exploring with all my senses. Now I felt edgy, anxious about what we would do, wondering how it would be. There were so many choices. Driving would help. Motion was a good thing.

  We sought to avoid the throngs by going into Olympic National Park, as if it were a safe haven offering us a temporary moratorium from the press of humanity. It was just the place to go to lift our spirits as well. A natural dream palace, a northern jungle built of ancient trees laced with mosses, it was mysterious but not frightening. Setting up camp amid the giant fir trees made us feel minuscule, a surefire wake-up call to the insignificance of my anxieties. Early the next day we took a hike. As we traversed the soft trail of pine needles, meeting no other human being as we went, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see an elf or a gremlin. The rich moist greens were intoxicating after the harshness of the North. Had I seen a gnome (I elected to think it would be in the shape of our recently departed friend who published a book on the subject, Ian Ballantine), I would not have been at all taken aback. As we walked along, without interruption from man or beast, our anxieties were soothed. Increasingly powerful swords of light cut through the morning mist as we walked the enchanted woods. Maybe King Arthur dwelled here. We sat on a log bench to eat our lunch of apples, cheese, and bread, then made our way back to camp utterly refreshed, ready to meet whatever humans might be at the Sol Duc Hot Springs.

  If the walk hadn’t sane-itized me, the waters surely would have. The naturally occurring springs surfaced at 135 degrees and were cooled in four pools to temperatures ranging from 75 to 105. Once again we were sure that happy ions filled the air or water around us, because not a soul among us seemed discontent. After a good soak I reconstituted myself and my opinion of the trip by deciding the glass was half full, not half empty. The next two months would be just as exciting as the last. Different, not less. We determined that they would be the beginning of the next chapter in our lives, not the end of the trip of a lifetime.

  Driving along the coastline in the predictable rain and fog of the Pacific Northwest proved disappointing and frustrating, so we headed inland for Mount Rainier. We seemed to zig and zag back and forth through the seasons. In Denali it had felt nearly like winter, while later, in Vancouver, it had been summery. Now there were hints of early fall in the trees. Darkness was coming earlier each day, it seemed, pushing us inside and reminding us that autumn was not to be stopped. We made a little home-renovation stop, buying two reading lamps to brighten the evenings and a huge deep red mum plant. While we drove, we kept the mum in the shower. When we arrived somewhere for the night, we placed it outside beside our steps. It gave a funny Martha-Stewart-was-here look to nature.

  At 14,000 feet, Rainier is the tallest mountain in Washington, though it’s 6,000 feet shy of Denali, against which we now compared everything. The mountain was a magnificent sight as it rose quickly before us, showing off her white shoulders and cap. Even though there were people here (the campsites were all taken), I felt at ease. In fact, on a stroll through the campground, we admired one RV that had slide-outs (sections of the vehicle that expanded once it was parked) and boldly asked the owners for a tour. A handsome couple from Nebraska in their early fifties, they were happy to oblige. We traded brief road histories. They told us they had retired, sold their home, and been on the go since the spring. Using one of their daughters’ addresses as a mail drop, they were footloose and delighted with life as a couple after years of parenting. Inside, their home looked lavish and large to us. The living portion was thirty-five feet long, expanding in both the bedroom and living areas to twelve feet wide in places. Several pieces of furniture were loose (the dining table and chairs, for instance)—a miracle to us, who had become accustomed to everything being fixed. The bathroom was elegant, with both a stall shower and a tub. The home could be disconnected from a pickup truck, giving them transportation of a smaller kind when they wanted it. We asked whether they had a plan for the upcoming months. Beyond a trip to California to visit family, life was going to be a surprise, they said. No more plans, thank you, no more schedules. The only plan was to move when they felt like it, stop when
they wanted. They were surely happy campers. We thanked them for their hospitality and mused whether we could do that. It certainly had some appeal.

  We signed up for a hike with a ranger, who told us a remarkable thing: When a tree’s life is threatened, stressed by the elements of fire, drought, or other calamity, it twists beneath its bark to reinforce and make itself stronger. On the surface this new inner strength may not be visible, for the bark often continues to give the same vertical appearance. Only when the exterior is stripped away, or when the tree is felled, are its inner struggles revealed. How incredibly human, I thought. The image of the twisting tree stayed with me. That night Sandy and I talked about the parallels between the tree’s powers of adaptation and human experience. I believed that hardship could strengthen the spirit, and that, conversely, it was rare to find someone with great depth of emotion and empathy who had faced no hardships or spiritual challenges. I kept thinking about those trees, twisting what seemed to be fixed, readjusting the core to keep the head skyward.

  * * *

  Refreshed and stimulated, we braced ourselves for what we thought of as our first real city visit. Seattle lay appropriately enshrouded in fog as we approached her from the south that morning. I looked forward to taking Sandy to the Pike Place Market, a treasure trove of fresh produce, meats, fish and seafood, bakeries, Italian specialty foods, and all kinds of arts and crafts. I’d been there once before, when I was in town for a sales meeting eighteen months earlier. On that visit I had viewed Seattle from the shiny side—the east side of the market. Elegant hotels, tall office towers, and trendy restaurants were what I saw. I had paid homage to the original Nordstrom’s, my favorite department store. It has a wonderful shoe department and offers old-time service. Now, as Sandy drove the Sue along the waterfront, we saw the city from her rear flank. The port was busy with steamers and barges. Stevedores and seamen worked, hoisting and hefting. It was a gray, grimy sight. I was reminded that this was the port where hundreds of thousands of hopefuls had gathered to obtain passage north to the goldfields in Alaska in 1898. Rounding a bend, we saw the scene upgraded to tourist class, with a pier full of gift shops, a ferry terminal, and a restored trolley line. We arrived behind the market before nine. There was ample parking and easy access to the city, up the hill to our right. Once again I mused about finding parking for the Sue in Manhattan near any of the waterfront attractions. My hometown has a lot to answer for in that regard.

  Welcome, hungry campers! Heaven was upon us. Though we hadn’t suffered for lack of comestibles, the sight of all this edible glory under one roof was nearly too much for my heart to bear. Built in several stages, the market was partially indoors, partially out. First to attract us was not some exotica but simple corn, the one thing we hadn’t seen all summer and craved. Farmers’ stands were loaded with fruits and vegetables of all kinds. Craftsmen tended to be found upstairs near the street, while the gift and other shops were located deep within the building at various levels. We found prosciutto and ripe melon to go with it, stocked up on Brie, crusty bread, and of course salami. The fishmongers practically danced with their goods, in order to call our attention to their wares. In a moment of nostalgia, I bought a piece of smoked Alaskan salmon. There were jams, relishes, and vinegars of local provenance, alongside buckets of glorious fresh-cut flowers. After two hours of wandering, gazing, pointing, and paying, the crowd began to develop into a serious mob. Time for us to go and have lunch.

  A friend I had worked with in New York had moved back to Seattle with his wife and baby to be closer to their families. Now he had a wonderful job as a much bigger fish in a much smaller pond. I told him I needed a Thai fix, and he suggested we meet at a pan-Asian restaurant within walking distance of the market. Over huge steaming bowls of chicken and noodles in an aromatic ginger, coconut milk, and coriander broth, we babbled about the differences between living and working in New York and Seattle. Life was easier here, but work was challenging. New friends were harder to make at this age, and old contacts were not as interested in doing business. I quizzed him about his life, about the transition, and about his wife and how she was faring, hoping for revelations. There were no miracle cures for my disease about our future—where to live or what to do. We would simply have to reinvent ourselves in our own way, in our own time. After catching up and eating our fill, we said good-bye. Sandy and I headed for literary Mecca, the Elliott Bay Bookshop, a wonderful store with friendly intelligent clerks. I found F and a bagful of other goodies.

  Leaving the city was a nightmare of traffic jams and road construction, but at least we were moving. I wondered if we were becoming addicted to being on the go, a sort of motion sickness in reverse: when I wasn’t going anywhere, I became nauseous. I asked my husband whether he thought it was fatal. We looked at each other and grinned. We had food, we had gas, we loved each other, and we were on the road. Life was good. Except for this creepy guy in a turquoise pickup truck who kept popping up on either side of us and gesticulating. At a red light he pulled up directly under my right elbow. He opened his window. Reflexively, yet feeling somewhat defensive, I did the same. “Welcome to Washington!” he crowed. “Isn’t it beautiful, hope you’ll like it. Been here long? Long way from home! Bye!” The light changed, and he was gone. I was still surprised by the kindness of strangers. And a little ashamed of some of my preconceived notions of the world.

  We went from zero to 4,061 feet above sea level in under three hours as we rose through the mist of the Cascades at Stevens Pass. A few miles beyond the peak, as if a veil had been lifted, the sky turned robin’s egg blue, a green valley spread out ahead of us, and we came into Leavenworth, Washington. Much to our surprise, it was a Bavarian village, where even the price of gasoline was lettered in old Germanic script. There must be a bakery here, ja? A little strudel, perhaps? We found the last site available at a campground that looked as if Heidi might have slept there, complete with little white fences running along bright green grass and beds of blooming flowers. It seemed that tucked into the lap of the mountains, we had even found a taste of spring.

  Greta Garbo in Last

  Chance Gulch

  Driving across Washington was a lesson in geography, topography, and weather. We went up from damp sea level at Seattle, down the sunny eastern slope of the Cascades, across the semiarid high plains, to nearly desert conditions at the Grand Coulee Dam, and across mountain passes into Idaho, all in fewer than four hundred miles. Somewhere in there we discovered apples. It was harvest time: Jonagolds, Red Delicious, MacIntosh, and half a dozen other varieties were stacked artfully at roadside stands. Pyramids of red, gold, and green. Crates, overfull with crisp, sweet, moist fruits, stood at angles to tempt the thirsty traveler. Sandy MacGregor, true to his roots, preferred the MacIntoshes. I thought the Braeburns were great, but I fell in love with Fujis. They were, to my tongue, the perfect apple: crunchy, juicy, a little bit of tartness just after the initial burst of sugar.

  The scenery changed constantly. Alpine villages mutated into neatly plowed open spaces, which gave way to raw red dirt that seemed to dry out before our eyes, finally becoming dusty desert. We were arm Rockettes, flinging our fingers out left and right; Look at this! See that? Over there! As we watched, the landscape molted.

  In between set changes we tried to focus on upcoming business. After we hadn’t gotten the company in Vermont, Sandy had continued to look elsewhere for opportunities. Given our complementary skills, we were convinced we had a lot to offer in the right situation. Since we’d left home, our natural inclination toward getting along well together seemed enhanced, not threatened. As the notion of working together grew more tempting, the possibility of going back into a major corporation became less likely with every mile. The farther I got from Big Biz, Inc., the more amazed I was that I had been in it for twenty-two years. While I believed that work was a good and satisfying thing, I felt a little shell-shocked that I had spent all that time growing more rigid as I molded my ways to the needs of a corporation.
I also strongly doubted that I, or anyone else, had been used to the best of their ability. A frustrating, sad thought. When I first began my career, I had been enthralled with the glamour of meeting famous authors and working on their books, even though much of what I did had involved the finer points of typing and xeroxing. Still, it was important, honorable work, and I felt proud of my contributions. I felt stimulated by new ideas and by having opinions that mattered among my peers. An older friend had watched my progress with a skeptical eye. He gave me a dire warning not to get caught up in riding the merry-go-round, because I might think that the earth was moving with me, when it was really just the floor of the carousel. What was this fool talking about? I thought. It only took twenty years for me to understand. While I was spinning around so quickly, it was easy to mistake the floor for real ground. The difference was made clear to us abruptly when Sandy was fired. He had lost his job, as well as his orientation in life. While we drove, we talked about all this, and over many days and weeks, it became clear that one of the things we both felt lacking in the “new” corporate environment was a sense of community. By establishing ourselves in a new project, we hoped to find a way of life as part of a community, whether it was directly work related or simply in the place where we would live. In a few days we would be meeting in Helena with a publisher who was looking for a buyer for a majority share. Perhaps this would be “it,” the purpose and place we were looking for.