Hello family and friends. On the eve of the Winter Solstice, I am back home, grateful for heat, light and indoor plumbing after three months on the road camping in our 1979 Trillium trailer, Marion. While home, a power outage caused by a doozy of a wind storm knocked out much of Whidbey Island. We got by with the help of a noisy gas-powered generator, which provided electricity for our fridge, a 50-gallon aquarium for our 17-year-old Plecostomus Lazarus, and the heating pad for our 17-year-old cat Ollie A Coleman camp stove heated our meals and Bill kept the wood stove stoked to keep the worst of the winter damp from coming inside.
I applaud the crew of Island County, Puget Sound Energy, and the various fire districts who all worked around the clock to remove fallen trees and restore power. Gotta admit that life is harder without electricity. Not showering for two days? Hard. I mentioned to Bill that time seemed to flow slower with the power out. Thursday night, Dec. 18, after watching the downloaded film from 1945, The Bells of St. Marys with Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman, the power came on just as the credits rolled at 9 PM. Hooray!
I drove a friend to Whidbey Health Medical Center for chemo treatment Dec. 17. Just getting to her home was difficult, as trees tilted on power lines along her road, preventing further travel. I had to turn back and reach her home by another route. Fallen trees leaned on power lines as we drove up Hwy 525 toward Coupeville. Lines snaked at gas stations. While we waited in the lobby, a lovely man played folk tunes. My friend sang along, knowing every song. She said she just had to sing. One of those moments I’ll never forget for its poignancy.
Yet, as if someone waved a magic wand, when driving to Coupeville yesterday, the roads were clear, as if no wind storm had ever happened. One of yesterday’s highlights was a late afternoon visit to the Earth Sanctuary. We enjoy its dedication to the gods and nature spirits.
Now that we’re home a week, I’ll catch you up on the final three days of our road trip. For that time Bill booked us in places with heated restrooms and electric hookups. We could not bear any longer the conditions we had earlier while camping in winter cold at Malibu Creek State Park and New Brighton Beach State Park near Santa Cruz–both in beautiful locations–which featured prison-like concrete unheated bathrooms. Crew came in to hose the walls and floor, adding a strong dose of chlorine bleach, resulting in a cold, clammy and unpleasant aroma when visiting the facilities–not a place to rest.
While recovering from two cold nights with no electricity camping in Santa Cruz, we booked a room at the Jack London Lodge in Glen Ellen CA. Bill–who’s been fatigued with a dry cough and sore throat since Thanksgiving–researched the best place to stay in Northern California. He found a fairytale campground located in Trinidad. This Northern California tiny city with a population of 320+ has great juju, friendly people and a scenic state beach park. We stayed at Emerald Forest Cabins & RV.
Driving up to Trinidad from Sonoma County, we hit a wall of the cold tule or radiation fog that’s hit interior California for nearly a month.
We stopped at the Chautaqua Kitchen & Market, recently opened in July, and owned by the nearby Chautauqua Natural Foods Co-op in Garberville. The broccoli soup was nourishing and hearty. The portions were so large we enjoyed it again that night. We’ve seen the town go from boom to seedy to looking well once again. While spooning our soup, a TV screen showed looping videos of Garberville and Mendocino County featuring wholesome families running marijuana growing operations and running dispensaries. Headlines flashed across the screen: “America’s Cannabis Heartland.”
I needed to refresh my supply of marijuana gummies, which help me sleep at night–I have a condition of over-histamine production resulting in insomnia and random intense itching, which the THC/CBD alleviates. We drove to nearby Redway and stopped in at Clarkies Joint–a woman-owned dispensary. The friendly clerk we met told me the owner once ran the preschool her daughter attended before switching careers. I bought CBD gummies and a THC tincture. I sleep well without waking with these natural remedies.
After leaving Garberville, we drove on, enthralled with the 2025 Audible book, The Twilight Forest: An Elegy for Ponderosa in the Changing West,” by Gary Ferguson, and excellently narrated by Eric Jason Martin. Ferguson takes us into a deep dive of the venerable Ponderosa–similar to redwood and cedar in its integral role in indigenous cultures. He explores what holds us together in the face of wildfires, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes. He said it is community resilience. Fueled by the audiobook with an even greater love for trees, we turned off the freeway and drove for a little while along the Avenue of the Giants, stopping to park and commune with the redwood lords and ladies, ancestors of the tallest trees to grow–300 feet and more–and among the oldest trees in the world.
Finally pulling into the Emerald Forest resort we were impressed by the friendly helpful staff, the tall redwoods, the old-timey dark brown cabins with yellow doors, and the wood-paneled restrooms with heated floors. Marion seemed to sigh with relief at being cozied between a portal of tall coast redwood in campsite #14. Dried redwood needles, provided a clean, dry and scented carpet from which to step on when exiting the trailer.
The whole place was decorated for the holidays, which made me long for getting home and seeing our own holiday lights cheering the dark nights.
Later that afternoon we drove to Trinidad State Beach where we admired the ocean outcrops and rocky headlands. An expectant mom posed in a gauzy blue gown while a photographer captured this moment at sunset. A passing couple asked us if we were part of her photo shoot, since we were sitting nearby on a beach boulder. We replied, “No, we are just witnesses.” We felt a thrill to see this scene:
Before leaving Emerald Forest the following morning, we drove once again to Trinidad Beach for a morning fix.
We stopped for a restroom stop at Ophir, OR. I watched a happy family sitting at a picnic table, talking, kids running, getting hugs, framed by the crashing Pacific Ocean. I felt a pang of sadness that our daughter Gillian has chosen not to talk with us for the past year, and wondered if we would see her when we camped the following night in Corvallis where she lives. Before leaving, Bill patted Marion’s shell, and I felt a wave of gratitude to his Aunt Marion, whose estate following her passing left us funds to buy our Marion. Our little ‘second home’ has provided such comfort and security in all kinds of weather as we travel.
Our next stop took us to Cape Blanco State Park on the Oregon Coast. California’s state parks could really benefit from learning campground maintenance from neighboring Oregon. While it was a hundred steps from our campsite at A46, the road to the bathroom was paved, the bathrooms clean, warm, attractive with tile and wood interiors, and the showers hot and free. We walked along a path near camp, which led through the spruce and huckleberry forest to a bluff overlooking the wild Pacific.
The following morning we set our GPS for Benton Oaks RV Park in Corvallis OR. We’ve been staying at the Benton County fairgrounds since 2013, when we first brought Marion into our family. We drove to the home Gilli lived in, noticing with concern how poorly kept the property had become. We knocked on the door, wondering if the place had been abandoned. But Archie, a white dog, barked hysterically at the window. We left the house, with a gift for Gilli left on a porch chair, and drove to Gilli’s previous employer where her friend Thomas still works. I hugged him and asked about Gilli. We learned that she moved out a year ago, is working at a nearby car dealership and is attending school to become a diesel mechanic. That was all Thomas would say–he told us he was uncomfortable being in the middle. However, we hung on his every word, wanting to know how Gilli’s life was going. We drove back to camp, where a thick cold damp fog hung around the oak trees. We felt sad at the chasm that has grown between us and our beautiful 36 -year-old daughter, and doubted we’d visit Corvallis again until she reaches out to us.
Sunday Dec. 14 we left Corvallis in the fog at 7:30 AM and made it home by early afternoon. We have spent the past week re-orienting to living in 1600 square feet, rather than the 88 square feet of cozy Marion. We are grateful to our home care couple Emily and Lucas, who cared for Ollie and Lazarus in our absence. It’s good to see dear neighbors and friends like Barbara MacCallum, who will join us for Christmas Day dinner.
And so, it’s nearly the solstice and we began a new cycle of longer days ahead. We wish you safety, health and well-being. And if you’ve disconnected from someone who loves you, please reach out and let them know how you are.