[abhayadana]
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[current music: bedouin soundclash- when the night feels my song]

another stormy sunday here in newport. i just talked with ram & his power is out down in south beach. & then i talked with anne who informed me that gusts in newport reached 83 mph.

yes, perfect stay-in-bed reading weather. so, i finished reading the elephant vanishes, a collection of short stories by haruki murakami, this afternoon. during the past 2 years, i've been steadily making my way through murakami's back catalog. the one word i would use to describe murakami's writing is "inscrutable." so, it can be sometimes frustrating, sometimes rewarding. in some ways, reading murakami is like watching a david lynch movie. well, maybe, except that murakami's protagonists tend to be middle class japanese city-dwellers with extensive musical tastes. in any case, i can recommend after the quake and the wind-up bird chronicles as good (if baffling) starting points for murakami. the elephant vanishes ended up being pretty hit-or-miss.

.....
last weekend, i decided to skip town & head up toward the mountains. friday evening, after a quick stop at the office, i drove out to eugene, caught little miss sunshine at the bijou, & slept on a nice quiet side street by a park. saturday morning, i drove out to the mckenzie river area of the willamette NF & started out on the o'leary mountain trail. the plan was to hike the 9.1 miles to the olallie trail, cut south & then on sunday, loop back west on the east fork and echo trails. as it turned out, i finished the o'leary mountain trail, followed the olallie trail alongside of the mountain for while, but then as the sun started to drop lower in the sky, i realized that there really weren't any suitable camping areas around due to the steep slopes. so i decided that instead of continuing down onto the east fork, i'd just backtrack to the o'leary trail & then camp on top of the ridge, which was just about the only (roughly) level ground i had come across.

4pm: the sun is low in the sky and i am inside of my tent, eating a clif bar and staying warm. the wind is starting to pick up again and the rain, which remarkably held off most of the day thus far, began its beating upon the tent walls. 5pm: the sun is down and i am inside my sleeping bag. as the hours slid slowly by, the wind and rain became more & more fierce. it was LOUD. i tossed and turned over & over until around 11, which was when things seemed to die down a bit & then i was finally able to settle into a fitful yet oddly fulfilling sleep.

i awoke at around 6:30 sunday morning. the rain was still falling but it was gentler than during the night. as i emerged from the tent (oh faithful green slug tent! good thing i staked you down!) i surveyed the damage done & there were broken tree tops littered everywhere. i packed up & was on the trail again by 7. even though i was just backtracking my way out, i still managed to lose the trail for about a half-hour around macduff mountain where the windthrow pretty much obliterated a large section of switchbacks. ah, quite the overnight storm! i happily made it off the trail sometime shortly before noon.

here's what i looked like after coming off the trail. wet wet wet. i look as pale as a ghost but that's actually because the camera lens started fogging up while i took the picture.

at the o'leary mountain trailhead

after getting off the trail, i decided to hit the cougar hot springs. some old hippies, a guy who just summited three-fingered jack, a young couple, and a family of four were my company. i soaked for almost 2 hours, enjoying the warmth & the scenery & the rain. sorry, no pictures taken.

on the way back to newport, i stopped in corvallis to visit with dacey & then in toledo to watch howl's moving castle with d&d. when i made it back to newport, i was tired but it had been a good weekend. i was able to get away, enjoy a nice backpack, have some good conversations with myself. in spite of the stormy weather, the scenery during the hike was actually pretty nice. on saturday, while on the ridgeline, i spent some time just watching the fog slither through the river valleys below. & there were these large basalt pinnacles that crowned the tops of some of the ridges. all in all, i felt good.

.....
tomorrow, i'll be in the classroom at yaquina view elementary to teach some kindergarteners about maps. i haven't worked with kindergarteners since nika & i worked at roycemore, which was 5+ years ago (wow! it HAS been that long!). anyway, so i should probably catch some ZZZzz's soon. i'll need the energy!

been a good weekend though. games night, dancing at apollo's. catching up on phone calls, reading. some tabla practice mixed in there. getting over a cold. ah choo!

.....
[current music: aphex twin- alberto balsalm]

one more thing.... i talked with stacia yesterday & for some reason, the mt. hood trip from last year came up & she remembered that i had shot some video. enjoy!

   [posted by khem @ 8:17 PM]
   [1 Comments]

   Maps with kindergarteners at Yaquina View, how come I didn't know about this? Awesome, I need to hear about their questions.