It’s 45 degrees and raining…again…still. This place is hell in the winter, don't let them chamber of commerce charlatans trying to sell inflated real estate tell you any different. Cold and wet as whale tears.
Good news! We have a house/dog-sitting gig for the next few weeks. Friends of ours escaped the nasty weather to Thailand and asked us to babysit their two dogs and lovely townhouse. It's about 2400 square feet of two-floored modern splendor. Got a deck and a view of the San Juan ferry and Cypress Island. Just look at that lovely view above.
Their dogs are Riley - a gentle, female ten-year-old one-eyed, curly-haired terrier - and Stanley - a four-year-old male, 15-pound, bantam-rooster of a terrier with a jutting lower jaw and comical exposed teeth. Both of them accept us but wonder where their other people are and why they can't sleep on the bed anymore. Echo is alright - maybe a little protective now and then of her humans - can be bitchy. She wants us to herself, but the dog bones, treats, and toys are to die for. She’ll put up with the others as long as everyone understands she’s the big dog and we belong to her. And no dog sleeps on the bed.
We’ll be here until sometime in January. The extra space - 2400 square feet vs 400 square feet in the trailer - has me spooked. We go downstairs only to watch TV - yet there are two bedrooms with closets, a bathroom, and the TV room down there. A beautiful painting of a typical San Juan Island scene hangs in the stairwell. The house is tastefully decorated. There is a two-car garage for chrissakes! Each toilet has a motion-activated rainbow-colored night light - in the bowl. Improves a man’s accuracy. I shit you not.
I am a gypsy in their palace.
The snow geese are back in the valley. Tens of thousands of them sit squawking in the fields on Fir Island, having flown down from Alaska and Russia. Apparently, they know nothing of Russian sanctions. They are big, garrulous, gorgeous, and not endangered at all. In fact, they have benefited from climate change. Their nesting areas in the Arctic are warmer, so easier on the chicks. Increased agriculture in the estuaries where they spend winter provides gobs of food. Their population is estimated at around 5 million birds, up 300 percent in the last 50 years. Around 300,000 of them winter in the Skagit Valley, feeding on bullrushes and farmer-planted wheat and grass.
They take to the air in one great, wheeling, honking, ten-thousand-bird organism. On the ground, sentinels warn of possible danger and watch for eagles, coyotes, and photographers. Given the alarm, the flock launches as one with no air traffic control or mid-air collisions in a chaotic blizzard of black-tipped white wings and noise. They are superb.
Snow geese migrate 3000 miles across Canada and Alaska to winter here, where I am hunkered down - hibernating. That’s the choice, right? To migrate or hibernate? So, for me, hibernate it is - until this housesitting gig is up. Then I am bolting for the desert south. It’s a late migration but later is better than never. By late January, I will be bonkers.
Proposed is a backpacking caper in the great Southwest desert. Perhaps the Grand Canyon, maybe Zion, Gila Wilderness for sure. Might hunt for Ed Abbey’s grave in Arizona, chase Cochise in New Mexico, or stand gob-smacked in Canyon De Chelly. I’ll drive Big Red down through Eastern Oregon and Nevada on the approach. Return north through Utah and Idaho most likely - a couple, three weeks ought to do it. We’ll go together - you and me - via this here Substack page. Keep an eye on your inbox.
Miss Dawn will stay in Anacortes, minding the store and the trailer. She has gone and made herself indispensable at the Red Door Thrift Shop. She loves the work, they love her, and the whole community benefits. Echo might stay here too. She is allowed on wilderness and BLM trails but prohibited in National Parks. I know - it doesn't make any sense.
In March, after my solo Southwest adventure, Dawn and I are considering a week or ten-day trip together down the coast of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. We’ve traveled that way several times before, but it was always on the way to somewhere else. This time, we will take our time and give it the attention it deserves before returning to Anacortes.
If any of y’all vagabonds find yourself in the Southwest in late January or early February - give me a shout. Let’s meet up in the sunshine at those hot springs, the ones up the wild river where the petroglyphs are fresh.
"Carry on my wayward son" or is that carrion? Enjoy the sights and sound Hermano, next year perhaps.....next year, always next year.