Close Encounters

We have been traveling from the Bighorn Mountains to the Black Hills for the last few days stopping at the National Monument of the Battle of the Little Bighorn which was fairly emotional for us because we had been talking on our travels about how the European Americans valued the Earth so differently than the Native Americans and then to see all the white (7th Calvary Soldiers) and red stones (Native Americans) who died in the battle,one group fighting to take the land away for its resources and the other group fighting to save their way of life. We hope that someday all people can look at the Earth as being a part of themselves and not just to be taken and used.  

We stopped in the little town of Buffalo to go to the Occidental Hotel and Saloon which is just like stepping back 100-150 years http://occidentalwyoming.com/

Pat in the Occidental Hotel Saloon

Everyone from Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid to Theodore Roosevelt stayed there at one time. We learned about a man named James Gatchell in a Museum of the West run in an old Carnegie Library. Gatchell ran a drugstore in town and as a boy became a friend of the Cheyenne and eventually spoke for them.  He had a particular friend named Weasel Bear who as a youth participated in the Battle of Little Bighorn. Gatchell was a great collector of artifacts of the west. http://www.jimgatchell.com/

Recognize this bandit?

 Again we missed the rodeo by 1 week. Next time we plan a trip I am not going anywhere without the entire Western US rodeo schedule.
Then we hiked  The Place the Bear Lives, better known as Devil's Tower which was the first National Monument.  Many different groups of Native Americans have used this as a sacred place where they came to get strength from the mountain. You can go and read the Native American stories of how the Tower was formed. The one I like is of the Kiowa People where a boy turns into a bear and chases his seven sisters.  He turns into the "Tower" and the sisters turn into the stars of the Pleiades. It strikes you so looking up that your heart almost stops.  Because it is sacred to many Native American tribes you must have special permission to actually climb it. Hanging from the trees that surround it are prayer bundles. The Geological story is almost as amazing.  About 50 million years ago magma was forced into layers of sedimentary rock and cooled underground.  Erosion of the sedimentary rock over millions of years by the Belle Fourche River exposed the Tower.  Pretty Amazing and it is still rising. 
Since we saw Mt. Rushmore 20 years ago and it didn't inspire us then we decided to go the the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is a nonprofit organization. The Founders Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear decided not to use governmental monies but only private funds because they could not trust what the government would do..Based on the words of Red Cloud of Lakota, 1891 and those words "They made us many promises, more than I can remember-They never kept but one; they promised to take our land and they took it!"  The work has gone on since 1948, Ziolkowski died in 1982, but his children (6 of the 10) and grandchildren are continuing the sculpting.  The Crazy Horses' face is done (all of Mt. Rushmore would fit into the face),  the Indian University of North American opened in 2010 and they still have to finish carving the mountain (see what it is suppose to look like in Ziolkowski model below) build the medical center, Avenue of the Chiefs and Indian Museum of North America which is being housed now in the Visitor Center and Native American Educational and Cultural Center.  Still they give an impressive amount of scholarships and think that they will be done within 20 years.  The Project's main controversy is the same one that surrounds Rushmore.  Most Native Americans consider the Black Hills and its mountains sacred and so sculpting the mountains is wrong in their eyes even though Crazy Horse Memorial benefits Native Americans and was started by a group of Chiefs . Rushmore was an insult to the Native Americans from the very beginning which was first suppose to have Native American faces as well as Presidents and the carving of the mountain. In fact the United Nations believes the Black Hills should be given back to the Lakota and other tribes. The land was part of the treaty of 1868, but the US government reneged on the treaty and took the lands they had promised.  Certainly giving the Black Hills which are part of the National Forests could help in reconciliation.  I can't imagine how though we can make retribution for all the land we took, the oppression we have caused and how it will ever be right.

Voices in the Wind Washington Oregon Idaho and Montana

Pat at Cape Disappointment in front of whale statue on the Discovery Lewis and Clark Bike Trail  to the
"The Place of Ghost Writing"  at Pictograph State Park in Montana after rainstorm.
 We have been primitive camping for 7 days now from beautiful cool Cape Disappointment through the Columbia River Gorge where it was 100 degrees up Hwy 12 into the Clearwater River National Forest to the Missouri Headwaters following Lewis and Clark's Trail.  My phone died so I couldn't take photos and personally I just wanted to take in the vastness of this country. Every place we stopped had story and the voices of the past could be heard. On the way to the sacred place below near Billings Montana a rainstorm hit us. It smelled wonderful and the Earth drank it up, but we were traveling on I-90 and Pat had work to do so when we finally stopped I walked the trail in this canyon by myself and went into the cave of the Ghosts just as another storm hit.  I couldn't help myself I stood out in it and drank it up, every pore in my body and I thought about how much we need water for life and for our souls. Because I was one of the only people out in the rain on the trail, I could listen and heard the echoes of the

 the ghosts. Looking at the sky I almost believed in heaven.  

The pictographs in the caves were dated as far back as 12,000 years ago.  The First People, Apsaalooke Crow and others who came saw the pictographs and some believed that ghosts had done the art. They came to the caves which are in this canyon of the Bitter Creek seeking visions and spiritual guidance just like I did.

from GA to Mt. St. Helens and Cape Disappointment which was not disappointing

I promised Confessions of UU sinner from UUA GA, but we got so busy and then we haven't had Internet except here and there. I have some time this am and we are visiting the International Kite Museum in Long Beach Washington.
My favorite GA workshops the ones that gave me new ideas like Multi-Generational RE (Be Like a Hummingbird), Changing Worship (The Lovers of Love: UU Sufism, CFL: Creating Worship to Imagine and Act, Thinking Outside the Music Box and Exorcising-Co-Creating Worship) and Transformation Without Apocalypse: A Moral Response to Climate Change with Kathleen Dean Moore. Portland was extremely HOT and so we didn't get out much to do our usual walk through the city.  I wrote a long synopsis of the last minutes of the General Assembly about Black Lives Matter, an Action of Immediate Witness, which I won't post, but I sent it to the Fellowship newsletter and I think the committees that might be interested.  The worse two sins were we didn't stay for much of the night activities and ran out of the WARE lecture by Cornell West because Eliza was stuck 35 minutes away in a campground we had to get back to each night before 10pm when they closed the gates.  The campground was along a cool river which we didn't even get to put our tootsie's in.  The other sin was we didn't stick very well to our vegetarian and only eating free range chicken and meats and sustainable fish because even the restaurants in the industrial district weren't into that...And I thought Portland was so progressive?

Then Mt. St. Helens   I can't tell you the power and beauty of this Volcano, the last of our volcano visits.  Sitting on the ridge across it as it still steams and adds lava to the crater and seeing how nature is so resilient just gives me hope that life will survive no matter.  I couldn't help but cry.   The Native Americans of the region over and over returned and re-settled the area after each eruption through human history, their stories of the two mountains (Mt. Rainier, the quiet wife of Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helen's the tempest wife who threw fire at the quiet wife, the spirits of Spirit Lake) make you want to read more, they are resilient as well. In 1980, after the catastrophic eruption that affected over 200 square miles was devastating, but the animal life survived underground and lupine emerged on the hillside as the mudslides cooled. Wildflower after wildflower.  A newly formed lake Coldwater was cleaned by bacteria after 3 years and life returned. It makes me cry now just thinking about it.

Indian Paint Brush

We saw Ben and Kelsey and had super meals with them.  Kelsey is a fantastic chef.  Pat and I helped a little in the building of their tiny house.  No photos yet, but when it is done Ben promised to send them.  Kelsey is working on plans for building a creamery to make cheese and yogurt so they have a busy year ahead of them.  Right now they are living in a tent on the farm.  Ben's business called Feral Feet Hoof Care is growing and he travels as far as Yakima to trim horse hooves and get them back to bare-feet. Read more below. 

Coldwater Lake made by 1980 eruption

Lupine

Wild Foxglove

St. John's Wort

Cape Disappointment is a stop over to fly kites and walk cold beaches, to get ready for the HOT drive back through the plains and high deserts. We really like this area because of the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center, Confluence Project (Where Columbia River meets Ocean and Chinooks meet Lewis and Clark) and the Discovery Bike Trail. Columbia River Gorge next. Below see photos of the Chinook prayer walk to the old cedar stump. 

Pat flying his kite.

Waikiki Beach at Cape Disappointment

We survived the River and GA

Just  a few more photos from the High Desert Museum near Bend Oregon for all and Ben and Kelsey who are building a TINY House just in case they want to make "something" a little more primitive but larger (ie Cow Corals, Chicken Homes and Out Houses).
The High Desert Museum is still one of the best museums about Native American Life, their sacrifices and the high desert which covers much of Oregon and the NSW. We liked the little live Badger and Skunk, the Porcupine which reminded of the one that climbed up a tree by our popup at North South Lake in NY.  We also like the Bald Eagles, Owls and other Birds of Prey, all rescued and have a home for life because they have horrible disabilities due to cars hitting them and also people thinking a wild animal would make a good pet. 
But truthfully the River Otters and the N. American Bobcat took us to our hearts. both know how to play like our Eliza (the cat) and how to be LAZY.
You all should read the next blogg which I will publish in a few days as soon as I get some energy back from UU GA.  The blogg is called " Confessions of a UU Sinner" or something like that...Peace and Love Always Stefani

Dragon Boat and Banners over 500 congregations were represented at UU GA.  I absolutely loved the banner parade.

Pat in front of Elk Sculpture at High Desert Museum near Bend, Oregon

The outhouse Kelsey and Ben should think about putting outside in case one of them is occupying the inside compost toilet of their TINY HOUSE.

The best chicken coop I have ever seen, this one for French Fat Chickens

Pat in front of the barn in background and willow fence.

OK I loved this fence or coral.  It was hand made of willow, but the note said you could make one from any pliable first cut branches.  I thought about the Roses of Sharon, Red Stem Dogwoods, etc...in the NE US

A Sentimental Journey..19 years ago we were here at LaPine with our two Boys

yes I am still alive!

Happy Father's Day. 19 year ago when the boys were small and Pat decided to give up his job at Grumman to become a stay a home Dad, we hiked Newberry Volcano National Monument and saw slick black obsidian and learned how it was formed in volcanoes here in Oregon near Bend.  We went to the High Desert Museum where we read the news for the first time in at least a month and heard about the TWA 600 catastrophe and those that died near Smithpoint.  (For Thanksgiving after Thanksgiving we camped at Smithpoint and walked the Memorial.  I always said my form of a prayer.  We always walked the beach and National Seashore board- the board walk that is now gone because of Hurricane Sandy.  Looking for shells, digging deep holes in the beach sand to hunker down in to avoid the wind to tell stories of Pat’s and my youth.)

Toby and Ben sat around the fire at LaPine and sang with their Daddy as I cooked dinner.  Ben and Pat almost fell off the log they were sitting on as Toby sang “It’s a Big Country”.  He had earphones on and was singing as loud as he could with a Walkman, remember those? This was practice for when later he would sing like an angel in the honor’s choral group at WMHS.  Ben found out that rocks would explode like fire crackers in a fire, but he was the one to ask always hard questions during the trip about where we were and where we were going and why.  We always didn't know the why.  He also was the leader of making the most mischief like putting “Mousie” (Toby’s stuff animal) in the chicken boats (black plastic boats you bought grilled chicken in at the grocery store) and floating the boat down small creeks until Mousie almost disappeared. Mousie was also almost dropped into geysers as well. If I have time I will expand on those stories when Toby became a map maker and Ben a poet.

The following day after the sing around the fire and harrowing rock incident, we drove to Crater Lake, but didn’t stay more than a night because I needed the smell of salt water so we ended up at Cape Blanco on the Oregon coast and walked on the beach there until the fog rolled in and we almost lost sight of each other.  That night sleeping under the huge evergreens it sounded like a rainstorm as the fog dripped off the branches ---that summer was an experience that can never be replaced in my heart or my memories.

Tomorrow we will kayak the Deschutes here at LaPine.   I am so lucky.  Love me.

Pat checking out where we might get out of the rapids.

Pat in front of the 500 year old Big Ponderosa Pine, the biggest and oldest pine tree in Oregon.

The river seems calm but it is unusually high and fast according to the camp hosts. We will see. 

The Mountains of Central Oregon and Unplanned Adventures

So here is the beautiful pond at Bates campground between two National Forests along Hwy 26.  We saw an immature eagle and its mother flying over the pond and two new ducks, merganser and golden eye and this strange plant, I hope to id as soon as we have good internet.  Internet has been unpredictable here and there. 

We are finding unplanned adventures to be more fun than the planned ones.  We ended up today at the Kum Chung Wah Memorial and John Day National Fossil Beds on our way to the Newberry National Volcano area and High Desert Museum near Bend, Oregon.  We will see those areas before the end of the weekend, I hope.

The Kum Chung Wah Memorial was fascinating and told the story of two Chinese men who came here as part of the gold rush in Oregon and stayed in the tiny town of John Day until they died.  They became partners, one a traditional doctor of herbs and the other the gregarious Lung On who made over $900,000 while selling goods to both Chinese and Americans.  He had the first car dealership in John Day and became a Mason even though he was a Buddhist. He died in 1948.  Both left wives and children in China (US would not allow them to emigrate with their husbands) and never saw them again. During WWII the band on emigration lifted and a nephew of Dr. Ing Hay family came over.  He died in 1952 at the age of 89.  His great nephew is/was the President of American Medical Association.  Neat story.  The Chinese were hated and had to protect themselves from the bigotry at first in the area, but that changed with time, by the 1920s Dr. Hay had people coming from as far away as Utah to get his medicines and consult him. 

In the 1860s the area was also being explored for fossils as well as gold.  A young minister by the name of Thomas Condon discoveries of mammalian fossils from 45 million years ago spurred more scientific investigations and new methods of dating fossils.  The John Day National Fossil Beds are considered one of the best in the world and cover 100s of square miles of central Oregon. This was the perfect end of our fossil explorations after seeing Dinosaur National Monument. We missed one other National Fossil Monument in Idaho due to a miscalculation of which road to take.  Maps are not always accurate and sometimes we get turned around.  The Lady on the GPS has gotten us lost also on this trip twice.  But she saved us twice as well. I am thinking the next time we plan these long trips I need to get detailed maps, but where???
PS John Day was a fur trapper and hunter for the Astoria Expedition (yes, John Jacob Astor who funded the expeditions).  He has a river, town and the fossil beds named after him.  His claim to fame was being stripped naked and robbed by Native Americans somewhere up on the Oregon trail near the Columbia River. he went mad at some point.