Timelessness

Troy has that timeless, Brigadoon quality, or maybe it was just my timing.

I never did see Old Priam again, and the town was almost deserted. I do think it gets busy with visitors here to raft the Grande Ronde, but maybe just near the week’s end. I had it to myself to explore. The neighboring cabins were abandoned, certainly the funky one that is the featured photo. It reminds me of what hippies built in the 70s.

But what a perfectly beautiful morning. The cloudless sky was already a deep blue that says hot later on. Not a soul stirring in Troy when the sun was well above the horizon and I could feel its warmth. After a wonderful night’s sleep up under the pop top, finally (I’d kept it down to conserve warmth during the cold nights prior), I roused myself to make coffee and discovered it wasn’t yet 6:30, even. Dang.

The sun cast a beam right where my chair was set up on the top of the riverbank, next to some cottonwoods, but when I sat down with my coffee and book, the air wafting up from the rushing Wenaha river was very fresh and cool. I sat and sipped and looked over at the cliff of rusty basalt that rose up from the other side of this small river, and watched different kinds of birds swooping around. And felt utter well-being. I looked just a bit downstream, to my left, and could see, just past the bridge, where the Wenaha meets the Grande Ronde. Looking at the merging of their currents I thought how I always find confluences riveting and important, just as I do springs. Then a bird alighted on a bare twig of cottonwood straight in my line if vision, about ten feet in front of me, over the lush growth of the steep bench to the river.

Just there, in a patch of sun, staring at me, as if to say “Okay, you can take a look at me, because I am indeed fabulous.” He had a yellow brown tint running up his little neck and head. His tiny crest and fat beak were shaped like a Cedar Waxwing, and indeed the googles have said that he was. Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the photo.  I could see his dull brown mate who was staying down in the leaves of the undergrowth, and he flitted over to have some berries off of a shrub I am sad to say I cannot identify.

What a lovely, easy moment. That has always been my style of birdwatching, and it used to cause consternation in my more serious birder relations that I had seen some beautiful birds this way. But it hasn’t happened in a long time, the Western Tanagers haven’t visited, nor the Summer Tanagers in NYC, nor the Lazuli Bunting in Portland.  I felt as if I had been told that a bit of my personal forces are returned to me.

Yesterday it felt so good to have a non-road day. Each day prior I have felt that eager, happy wonder in the driver’s seat, leaning forward even, because I’m so pleased to be off onto roads I’ve never been on, or have not been on in so long I will see them better than the first time. A great feeling, and a possible source of the sense of personal forces returning. But a day to not break camp like a nomad, to have very little to do but dink around and watch the clouds change was what I was ready for. I felt pleased at my planning of the trip, even though much of it I’ve left to serendipity.

After a leisurely morning I walked down to the stop sign by the house with all the fruit trees, and started up a formerly paved road that is now mostly gravel. It looked down over Troy, and I had fun looking at people’s backyards and spotting Janet over in the trees. I don’t understand why people with big, well-watered and mowed lawns don’t fill them with gardens and fruit trees. The fact they grow here is brilliant, but they’d rather drive an hour or two to pick up some cardboard vegetables from California at the Safeway. Good god. Plus, what else is there to do here?

At the first switchback I could see the trail head, with a sign about invasive species, and a sign about Bull trout vs Rainbow trout (release the first, keep the second) and some other stuff. The trail looked a bit overgrown, and it was, a bit. Pushing past teasels with a cliff on the other side isn’t fun, but they weren’t too prickly yet. I could look up the canyon, and down the canyon, and watched hawks fly over the river. Way up on the top of the steep grassy slopes above, I imagined Nez Perce on their spotted Appaloosas, looking down. The trail descended to a flat place in the river bottom. It felt extremely quiet, especially away from the river a bit in a large meadow dotted with burnt trees and a showy wildflower new to me. The silence was eerie.

I had chosen to hike at midday to avoid any wildlife action, since there is a wolf pack in this canyon, and plenty of bears and cougars. Nevertheless, I picked up a sharp piece of basalt and carried it in my left hand, thinking some people would consider me a fool for being out alone here and unarmed. I was not enjoying being alone, but I got over it and kept on, climbing back up the side of the canyon until there was a gate where the official Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness Area starts. It might be the most remote and one of the least-visited in the state of Oregon. I believe it extends into Washington, actually, as we are just a few miles from the border.

I turned back, and silent adventure over, walked back down the road behind the town and noticed the people with the fruit trees had two good-sized English walnut trees in the back! I could see the green walnuts in their hulls. Fruits and nuts! Beef! All I’d need would be a milk cow. Chickens. I did see one coop of chickens, their tiny yard fully covered in chicken wire, due to predators. Oh, and I’d need some pigs, and a smokehouse. Ok, and a little mill to grind wheat from my neighbors. I could grow vegetables and corn, too. Plus there is internet. But people don’t realize about the flies. There are tons of flies involved in farm life. Which reminds me of the noteworthy lack of bugs on this trip. I’ve enjoyed having wildflowers without the usual price of mosquitos.

An older couple hailed me because Priam is off and they wanted to know how to camp here. The man said he hadn’t been here in 57 years, and seemed glad to be here. I asked him how it was 57 years ago and he said the restaurant and bath house weren’t there, but there was a Richfield gas station, a store, and a cafe. He said the cabins I was looking at were in business. The store and cafe burned down, he thought in the 70s. I’m starting to see a pattern here of things going sharply downhill in the 70s. The Hot Lake Sanatorium, this place, Flora School, and it seems others.

Now I’m wondering if it were not deliberate. Certainly the economy was deliberately changed, with monetary policy and tax laws, to destroy the independence of small towns and small people. It seems to be escalating again, but with a similar small, neo-hippy response toward self-sufficiency. Always the tug-of-war of control.

Speaking of self-sufficiency, I enjoyed the second local steak and a beer after my little hike, and immediately took a nap. I woke up and realized my mouth was open, from sleeping so soundly.  Then I cleaned up and wandered back into the rec room of the bath house to use the weak wifi and check to see if my research department had responded to my email announcing I was indeed alive. I looked forward to a nice shower and was careful not to vandalize any portion of the premises.