geology. geology, dammit! or, our vacation east of the cascades

small update: I have a post here
http://bitterbierce.blogspot.com/
where i was asked to guest. it's a good blog! and not just because the guy was classy enough to ask me to contribute (which he did, despite the instructions at the bottom of the post. really. honestly, he did.)
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I have just returned from a vacation-ette in Wenatchee, Washington. Unlike here, where the ground is covered with vegetation and used surgical gloves, Wenatchee is a paradise of sagebrush and stone, Mexicans, people driving trucks randomly entering the traffic flow and fruit trees.

Really, it is a beautiful place and we love it there. It has odd street names and strange vernacular architecture. Verdant farms and gardens exist seamlessly next to office buildings, or groves of peaches ripening in their millions, or desolations of baking stone. And the stone itself is on awe- inspiring perpendicular display everywhere. Cropping up in the middle of a parking lot will be a blade of basalt...In the middle of a manicured city park, an aircraft carrier sized slab...Even the stone hillsides sport strange irruptions of alien rock, like evidence of a meteor bombardment that I'm really glad I wasn't around for.

This is the first time we have gone in the springtime. We usually go in August, which in retrospect was kind of demented of us. The place is known for extreme summers. But we just slathered on the baby sunblock and rode merrily around in our tank tops and enjoyed the smell of the sagebrush.

Oh, but in the springtime Wenatchee is wonderful. All the hills have a wash of green and wildflowers burst out of the bare stones. It almost looks phony, like some crazed cat lady stuck bouquets of silk flowers in random crevices...The only thing giving lie to that hypothesis being the lack of cat ladies rappelling down the rock faces or hovering in helicopters. But that would be cool, wouldn't it?

The town of Wenatchee is medium-sized for eastern Washington. It's economy is based on fruit growing and shipping. It is divided by the Columbia River, which is dammed off into various lakes above and below the city. Cholo guys hang out in front of tiny ramshackle homes with swept yards, Mexican rap blaring out of beater whips, next door to over-the- top-mansions bristling with laser security and Escalades and satellite dishes. What strikes me as odd, in this agricultural town, is that most residents live behind a fence. Gated communities are everywhere, too, some with armed security guards. I wonder if this is prejudice or experience?

Wenatchee is surrounded by mountains, soft and rounded at the tops and jagged on the sides, green spread around their bases and creeks runnelling their sides; creeks lined on each bank with ribbons of lush,lush, lush verdure. These arroyos are the home of dream ranches from the pages of Dream Ranch magazine, elk, deer, lost antelope, coyotes and amazing small lizards which appear to be made out of gravel and sand. Some of the hills are snowtopped all summer, or begin the day white and melt to sueded brown by noon. Ravens and buzzards glide overhead. Doves call in the evening. Quail run everywhere in between like handfuls of rolling marbles, two scoops of bird with a flurp! on top and a kamikaze heart.

In the evenings, around sundown, a wind rises from the ground. This is how it feels, anyway, if you are standing outside when it happens. Your hair lifts and breezes tickle up under your shirt. This wind expands and fills, an invisible balloon of warm air perfumed with roses and sage and dust. Then it rolls down the hillsides and through the town to the river. From our favorite motel on a hilltop we can watch it gather leaves and curls of dust at a lazy rate high into the air overhead, and drift towards the river, and roll on downstream with the current.

Most days there is a thunderstorm, if not in the immediate vicinity then somewhere visible. Distances are big. Later in the year the rain falls as virga*, never touching the ground, but while we were there it rained and cleared by short turns all day, never ruining our plans in the least.

Our time was divided between hanging out at the cool, retro motel, watching the Food Network in the nice room that other people had to clean, and driving. We drove up and down the river and as far around nearby Lake Chelan as the road permitted. We explored many of the small towns along the way and made plans to retire in each one. We selected our homes from the number of wonderful Craftsmen style places everywhere and laid out the landscaping. We discussed whether it would be better to live up a canyon with only one road in and out, or whether living in the middle of the big open would be the wiser decision. We wondered, 'does the DEA run overhead infrared scan and then stage raids, or do they simply wait at the intersections and check cars at random?' (We are going to be *ahem*farmers in our golden years.)

We went up one canyon to the end of the maintained road, beyond which the highway department assured us lay two more towns. But it was in Ardenvoir, where the pavement ended, that we were accosted by the Arm Stroker and his wife, and that decided us against proceeding any further up the valley.

Now downtown Ardenvoir consists of one crappy, charmless, battered building . It contains a general store, a post office (closed in defiance of regulations, with a faded quilt for a curtain nailed across the window) and a tiny cafe floored in old license plates.Two old gas pumps stand outside bearing evidence of having stopped many a car, with their hoses all patched with prehistoric fluttering duct tape.

We bought a soda and marveled at all the beer on display in the the ancient windowed coolers still in use, the type insulated with rags and cotton, dating back to the days when ice was hauled up from the Columbia by mules and bedded in sawdust all year. There were lots of mounted elk heads looming above giving us the stinkeye. Buffalo jerky was for sale. Horseshoe nails were in stock, as were unreasonably numerous liters of Coke and plastic milk jugs (used for baling dope and jarring shine, respectively.) Everyone in the place knew each other. The clerk could barely wait on us for shyness.

The Yummy biker was putting in a fresh chew when the Arm Stroker approached out of nowhere. "Niiiiiiiice tats!" he enthused, circling my biker and stroking his arms. "Where did you get them? How old are they? Is that red? Whats that supposed to be? Wow!" Then he drifted over to me me, grinning. "Niiiiiiice tats" he reiterated. Then he reached out and ran his knuckle down my arm lovingly. Just as quick as it takes to read this it happened; it was over and he was gone, with his 11 lb. crack wife and her crennelated smile in tow. We never did figure out where they came from. Honey, we just LEFT.
But we are hardy, and we are easily amused too, particularly at the expense of the less fortunate. Nothing daunted, we antiqued; we shopped. We ate to excess. We had a great time!





*i had written 'verga' there, but upon looking it up discovered that 'verga' is an anatomical term for penis. Which would be interesting, provided you could observe it from afar, but i wouldn't want to be flying an airplane and run into a front of it. suck a few of those into the engines and see what happens to your lear jet, boy. try explaining it to your insurance company.