A reality check in the high desert....

I had an okay time on my trip. Half of the time I wanted to be back home, but I enjoyed one of the two things I ended up doing. The drive there was mostly enjoyable too----it's still so strange to me that one minute you're driving past Mount Hood and in the familiar PNW forest setting, then only a short time later, the landscape turns almost immediately starts to resemble New Mexico.

I learned a lot about limitations on this trip--mainly, I cannot do the steep, exposed, warm weather hikes. I bailed on the hike I had initially planned maybe a few minutes into it [who knew that a hike to a place called Misery Ridge would be so difficult?] I knew almost right away that it was too much for me and to continue would be to become one of those people that are ridiculed on social media. As it was, I had a lot of difficulty making my way back uphill to my car and had to stop several times. I ended up just hiking along the river and that was enjoyable, saw a lot of interesting birds and some lovely scenery, but realized when it was time to leave that it wasn't going to be a simple matter to just walk back up the way I'd come down. I should have not ventured into the majority of the park to begin with, and just stuck with a less difficult trail that didn't involve climbing down into the river canyon.

So I'm changing a lot of my plans for the next few years---thought I'd want to hike in Death Valley, Zion, and some of those other spots and I think thats out now. Possibly even Crater Lake is out. I'll play it by ear, and maybe got slightly out of shape over the last couple of months which contributed to my problem but I think I need to accept that I may be pretty much maxed out on the type of hikes I can handle. I also ran into some foot problems due to footwear not working out [going to have to return the fancy hiking shoes to REI...] It's probably going to need to be mostly flat things from now on, or shady forest hikes for anything involving elevation. And nothing involving major elevation in the summer months. This is really my first year of serious hiking so we'll see how it goes, but I'm going to take a step back from the major excursions. The hiking website I follow tends to understate the difficulty of a lot of the hikes, so I probably will stick to the ones it lists as "Easy" from now on and even look at those carefully.

On my second day there, I took a trip to the Painted Hills, which I had always wanted to see. The drive was about an hour an a half, through some of the smaller towns and then the Ochoco National Forest. Think that was another thing that soured me, I got tired of driving so much every day. I was worried that it would be a case where I spent more time driving than actually looking at things, but it turned out fine. I did a shortish hike up to an overlooking rim, high above. It was early but already a bit hot, but this hike was only slightly steep and it was pretty gradual. Enjoyed the view from above:

The Painted Hills are really popular, but I lucked out to where I always seemed to be leaving a place just as others arrived, so I got everything mostly to myself. This walkway through a couple of the larger hills is popular, but I enjoyed it in solitude.

I really enjoyed this one location simply called Red Hill. Otherworldly and wonderful.

I had originally planned for a third hike before leaving, but there was so much driving on both days that I had pretty much had enough after the Painted Hills. I rested in the motel room all afternoon, and went home early the next morning. And that may be it for me and travel for quite a while. I don't regret going, but I don't know whether the area has enough for me to want to return. I didn't see a lot of the other places that people often recommend. I may return, but it's not going to be high on my list and there are so many other things to see that I haven't gone to yet.

Scheming

Trying to figure out my trip. It's about a three hour drive, but I probably should stop and eat somewhere. And am I going to attempt the major hike as soon as I arrive at the park, or try and pace myself? It'll depend on how I'm feeling. I always huff and puff at first, so I'll have to judge if that's just the usual "not really warmed up yet" or if I've bitten off more than I can chew. But this hike isn't as much elevation gain [not-so-pro tip: elevation gain is a way bigger factor in a hike's difficulty than distance, though distance isn't negligible--but a mostly flat hike has to go a lot further to really test someone if they're at least somewhat used to hiking.] It also depends on how quickly the elevation gain happens [and I think this may be one of those that isn't super high elevation but the gain isn't gradual which makes it rough.]

I really want to see these fossil beds, but they're an hour drive from where I'm staying, and I'll probably spend more time driving there and back than I will actually looking at them. I also want to at least check out this hike in a lava field, but not sure how long I want to do that or if I want to plan the whole trip around it--and again, it's a bit of a drive, but just about everthing is like that in the high desert.

This will be the longest road trip I've taken since the two day drive where I moved up here. I'm excited. May do this other alpine hike and also check out this "wild west" type town. And of course new restaurants, breweries, etc...hope to take lots of photos. Oh, I still have one more day of work to get through first....

Trade-offs

I've enjoyed my homelife these last couple of years, the domestic arrangement with my ex and spending time with the dog. It's nice to be able to come home to something other than an empty apartment. But sometimes...

I miss silence, I don't really get that now unless I'm alone in my room or out by myself somewhere. Sometimes I think that's the point of all the hiking and outdoor activity, where I can just kind of be. I ended up not feeling like doing a major hike today, and went to a park that was new to me, but I really enjoyed it. It was a little over 3 miles, with some up and down but not enough to where it was difficult, just a little strenuous at times, which is what I need. Thursday I'm doing a more serious hike, which will be exposed. That's an adjustment for me, I'm used to tree coverage. It's also going to be pretty steep, pretty fast. Hopefully I'm up for it. Usualy the drive to take photos is enough to motivate me. Anyway, here's a pic from the place today. Leaves are changing, but not super fast.

"Ain't well, but I sure am better"

That was a title of a self-help book that was popular in the 70s. I used to read it when I was a teenager, trying to figure out a better way to exist in the world. It didn't take, but I still like some of the ideas. One of them was the concept of living life 5 minutes at a time. I don't do well at that, but it's something to aspire to. Now that I'm remembering better, this post title was a different book by the same author, but it was this kind of easy-going self-help concept. I think it was revealed years later that the author was some kind of sex addict.

Anyway, I am feeling better, and my mind is on the hiking trip I'm taking next week. Hoping to hike to a volcanic crater....

Sick

I seem to catch a cold every couple of months now, I blame the return to office mandate. Usually it results in my having to cancel something I was looking forward to, this time it was meeting a friend who was in town, thankfully they're returning in a month. I'm mostly over it now, got to work from home the last couple of work days. It's the busy time of year and I had to work a few hours over the weekend. But I figure it will help pay for a hiking vacation I'm taking in a few weeks, assuming I don't get sick again.

Been reading a lot of the literary/social critic Olivia Laing, highly recommend her book The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. She is so good at weaving her personal story with profiles of artists and writers. I'm now reading an earlier book, The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking. Both my writing and my drinking have been somewhat lax lately. Hoping to at least get a good hike in maybe weekend after next. Meanwhile, it's reading and dog petting, and trying to recover from the working days and weeks.

The Lonely City

My latest read [or one of them] is The LonelY City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone, by Olivia Laing. It's part memoir, part cultural essay on loneliness and art. Loneliness is a subject of great personal interest, as you can imagine. After I wrote my last post, it made me think about that, the idea of companionship and friendship, and how I've often spurned relationships to where my solitude is a deliberate decision, yet I am also lonely.

We want the type of companionship we want, and anything else just won't work. I attended church for a while and there was this older man who would not leave me alone, to where I quit attending. He would glom on to me to where it was hard to even talk to anyone else. It was creepy. I had to be abrupt, which is hard for me to do.

There was also my previous relationship. I still feel bad that I didn't end it in the best way [suddenly, over the phone.] But it wasn't working for me.

It goes both ways. There are people that I wish I could be close to, yet can't be. I know I've probably unintentionally become the creepy person to someone else. Sometimes I feel like there's a deterministic element to it all.

I really miss the lockdown era at times, I felt like my world had more people in it then, even if they were people from halfway around the world. I"m still in touch with a lot of the people from that time, but it's not the same. There was this feeling that we were all in it together, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. There was also this crazy sense of creativity that I can't seem to access anymore.

I don't really hold much truck with the whole "male loneliess epidemic" idea, most of that is self-imposed by indulging in asshole behaviors that the internet has reinforced. People used to be shamed into better behavior so they would grow out of things. Now they don't feel like they have to.

Those are some of my thoughts on loneliness, which aren't super related to Laing's book, which is fantastic. I sometimes treasure solitude, I like doing things alone, traveling alone, and only occasionally wish I could share moments with someone else. But when I do, it's really a sad feeling.

How I'm Living Now

When I'd last posted, prior to this recent 2026 upswing in blogging activity, I was living alone in my tiny apartment. I realize I need to update my readership on the various upheavals during the four year interval. I turned 50, spent most of my birthday on a plane to Luxembourg, where I met several online friends that I'd been chatting with during the lockdown years. Went to a few Nick Cave shows, then explored Vienna before heading home. I was pretty depressed, because I'd been so happy with the people I was meeting, but didn't feel like I would feel that level of connection again. At the time I was really on TikTok, and chatting with a few people from there. I had met someone who lived a couple of hours away, and we ended up in a relationship. This lasted about two years, which is the longest relationship I've been in aside from my marriage. But we weren't on the same page about a lot of things, and I realized after a while that this wasn't going to be a forever thing.

Then something happened to really complicate things, my ex needed help, and I ended up deciding to have her and her dog move back in with me. We drove cross country for three days to my apartment in Oregon. As you can imagine, my current girlfriend was not a fan of this idea, but I didn't regard our relationship as being at the level where either of us had veto power of the decisions of the other person. That was one of the things we weren't in alignment on. For me, things were at the level of "We're exclusively dating," and she was pushing me to make a marriage proposal.

I'm painfully aware that I made a decision more or less to go back to the past, but anyone who has been reading this long enough wouldn't be surprised by that. Anyway, split up with my girlfriend, and ended up buying a house with my ex-wife. We live together as platonic friends. It isn't the same as before, because we've both changed too much in the interim and had a lot of stuff happen. I don't really know what the future holds, if we're going to continue living like this till we grow old[er] or if this is just going to be for the next 7-8 years, if we will go our separate ways after I retire [and have to sell the house because I can't afford it on what I'm going to be taking home as a retiree.]

It's nice having her here, and I am totally enamored by the dog. I know it's made a lot of things more difficult for me, but I guess it's worth it. It's not always easy. But it's been good to have someone to help me through some of the things I've been dealing with. But it's interesting that loneliness is still a thing for me, though now I feel more like I have a home to be lonely in, instead of wandering the streets like a character in the world's most boring film noir.

Labor Day

After going in circles most of the holiday weekend trying to figure out where to hike, I decided to just go back to somewhere I'd been earlier this year, Beacon Rock State Park. Initially, I was going to hike on a different trail there--but the intial uphill stretches made me feel like taking it a little more slowly and I ended up hiking further to the saddle of Hamilton Mountain, where I'd been earlier. It's one of those hikes that is allegedly difficult, but you see old people and little kids all over it. I went a different way this time, longer, but more gradual. There's a great portion called Don's Cutoff that I took--I'd done it previously but only downhill. It was tougher uphill, lots of switchbacks but it beat the loose gravel of the main trail I'd done months before. I enjoyed the signs of fall.

The best part was not encountering anyone for the first 90 minutes, until I made it to the actual saddle/summit area. Even then, there were only a few there [though they were loud.] The Saddle is a favorite spot, you can see so much.

That's Bonneville Dam below. Me being me, I decided to go ahead and hike another half hour to the actual summit, which was harder than I remembered [because I was going the other direction last time.] But I was happy I did even though it meant more people. It's so funny when you get to the goal of a hike like that, you want to stay up there forever because you went through so much to get there, often hours of exertion, but usually you end up leaving after 10-15 minutes. I went back down the way I came. Was pretty beat the last couple of miles. It was almost 9 miles total. I arrived around 8 AM and finished a little after noon. By then, the roads were a madhouse and I made the mistake of trying to get something to eat....all the places were packed and it took forever. I was lucky to be able to make a left turn to get back to Portland. Will probably take it easy the next few weeks, maybe go on a low-impact nature hike. Not much wildlife at this one.

More rain and reading....

I miscalculated yesterday's plans, and should have hiked. The weather was beautiful and I wandered around the Kerns/Sunnyside neighborhoods but had my usual issue of needing to wait for places to actually open. Today it's raining a lot, and though in theory hiking in the rain can be fine in the right circumstances, I'm not up to it today. Tomorrow should be better, and I can spend the afternoon napping, reading, and figuring out where to go.

I started Yesteryear, and it is a fast read but I am not sure whether I'm going to like it, it seems really heavyhanded yet unsure of what statement it's trying to make at the same time. I am interested enough to keep going, so that works in its favor.

I really have trouble just sitting and doing nothing. I don't know when that started, but I get depressed unless I have really solid plans to do something, and to have everything play out as I imagined it. I waste a lot of my time ruminating over past minor decisions. "I should have hiked today." "I should have eaten somewhere else/ordered something else." "I should have gone elsewhere." It is all very exhausting. It may be time to nap soon.

Friday Night

..and I just woke up from a nap. Naps are really where it's at these days. It's where I get my best sleep. Normal nighttime sleep is just bare minimum maintenance. There were times during the covid lockdown when I would go to bed around 8 PM because there just didn't seem to be anything woth staying up for. Things are better now, except I work in the office full time and have to wake up at 5 every morning, and can't seem to turn that off during the weekend. But it makes it better as far as going places and not having to encounter too many people. I'm curious what'll happen when I am retired. My dad has gotten to where he stays up late and sleeps until mid-morning like a teenager. When I've gone through long periods of unemployment, that was my habit too, stay up till around 1-2 and get up around 10 or so. But I like the quiet of early morning, so I may end up just embracing the old coot early riser stereotype. Tonight I'll probably stay up till around midnight watching bad movies and drinking, and hanging out with my dog, who usually decides it's time for bed around 11 or so. Going to hike on Sunday, probably, still trying to decide on a spot. More later. .

Off today, rainy wandering.

I took off today in order to take the car in for an oil change. Was looking forward to wandering around the city, but the much needed rain is going to be hiting all day today. So I'll still wander around, but maybe try to do a few more indoor things here and there. Looks like the whole holiday weekend will be rainy, then of course it clears up in time for the work week. The next few weeks will be rough at my job, probably with some level of overtime. When I first started, it was miserable, it's eased up in past years. We had a really terrible director in our department who was incompetent. My first September there, I realized right away that they had no idea what to do. One year, I worked a 16 hour day, most of it just sitting around waiting for people to decide something. She left [promoted, of course] and we have someone else who is really bad with people and a terrible communicator, but at least knows how to plan and organize work and understands what needs to be done.

I want to hike somewhere this weekend, maybe just because there are often very few crowds here when it rains. But best to hike someplace with a lot of tree cover. I have a hiking trip planned in a month, hope we don't get too much rain for that. I have the rain gear, so I will go on no matter what.

Almost finished with the book Martry by Kaveh Akbar which I struggled with during the middle part [not a big fan of the "rotating POV" format in novels] but it's been worth it. A young Iranian-American writer struggles with identity and other issues, living alone as a college student after losing both parents in separate events. The book has a lot to say about grief and art. I'd been seeing it around, but saw it at the "Staff Recommends" section at the library branch near work and am glad I picked it up. Gotta go soon, have to brave the traffic and rain to get to the mechanic, and the dog needs out first etc...

The peace of wild things...

When I moved here to Portland, I got to where I rarely drove. My apartment had a lousy shared driveway situation to where I usually left my car there unless there was a rare opportunity where all my neighbors were gone. I'd always been a walker, but moving to Portland allowed me to integrate walking as a bigger part of my daily life. Eventually, I moved and got to a better situation with driving. But this allowed me to have a better access to nature in the surrounding regions, other than the admittedly large hiking areas that are accessible through Portland transit. So I got more and more into hiking, and these days I'd say it's probably my favorite thing to do. Some of that is due to the bad habit of social media where I feel compelled to share anything I do that I feel might attract interest to my tens of followers [it's a little more, but not much.] But it's also a genuine desire to feel physically engaged and to be in nature, and hopefully in peace and quiet [though that sometimes is hard to find on popular hikes.]

I prefer hikes with some kind of payoff at the end, and it is almost some kind of adrenaline junkie situation. If it's not at the edge of something, I feel like it's blah. Well, that's exaggerating a bit, but I at least like to see a cool bird or an opportunity to take a cool photo, even if there's a lot of huffing and puffing involved to get there. Or occasionally falling down. The most embarrassing is when I am slowly struggling to ascend or descend [actually the trip back down is often way more precarious] while these families with little kids are scrambling with no problem.] Anyway, here's the view from atop Silver Star Mountain. The best part of it were these ravens that sounded like people yelling.

I fell down once on the way back, sliding on loose gravel going downhill on the trail, despite my hiking poles. Thankfully I only got a scraped arm and some wounded pride. I'm sure the birds got a big kick out of it.

Still more to say, and remembering Wendell Berry

A series of events have conincided to get me back to blogging. I feel I have more to write about than I once did, and am doing more though in other ways my world is smaller than ever. I promise to get to more of Where I've Been in my next entry. Still in the same town, same job, but my living situation has changed significantly. I've traveled a lot and had a lot of experiences where enough time has passed so that I feel like I can write better about them than I would have if they'd just occurred. Wendell Berry has died, a writer I came to love in my 40s. I read an essay by him in college and I despised it, thinking him some Luddite who wanted everyone to live on a farm or a small town similar to the one I grew up in and hated. Now I'm in my mid-50s and would love to live a simpler, rural lifestyle [though I still would like to visit a city on occasion.] His novel Jayber Crow is one of my favorites, and the greatest example of the "quiet novel." It's about the life of a town barber, his road to get there, and his life among the people he barbers. I read it every few years, and find something new from it each time. He created a whole universe out there, Port William, Kentucky. I'll miss all the people there, Jayber Crow, Elton Penn, Tol Proudfoot, the Coulters, the list goes on and on. I have to get back to my pre-work breakfast, but will return.