Life Goes On

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Setbacks are bound to happen, but they should never stop you from moving forward with your life.

Over the past two days, I spent a bunch of time with some friends of mine from Wickenburg. These folks were incredibly supportive last autumn, winter, and spring, while I lived in the house I’d previously shared with my husband (when he was around), waiting for him to get reasonable and settle out of court so we could move forward with our lives apart. It was a long wait. I finally left the house at the end of May, right after the second of two court dates. He never did get reasonable and the judge made the settlement decisions for us in late July.

These friends saw me at my very worst, including one of the two times that I came close to what might have been a nervous breakdown. All through those months, these friends gave me some of the moral support I needed and assured me, over and over, that I’d be fine and that I was better off without him.

Oddly, it was also these two friends who, just yesterday, voiced their amazement at just how well I’ve been doing since those dark days.

Because it’s true: I have been doing incredibly well. My business had a very profitable summer and I was able to replenish all of the savings spent on a too-lengthy legal battle — and then some. After the long wait for the judge’s decision, I was finally able to move forward and buy the land I’d wanted for nearly a year. And because I didn’t have to wait for another party’s input on my decision-making processes, I was able to immediately move forward to get the water turned on, install and activate the temporary power pole that brings electrical power to my lot, and even get a septic system installed and approved by the county. I did all of this in just 40 days.

The Problem with the Last Land Purchase

I think back on the last raw land purchase I made. It was 40 acres of “ranch land” in northern Arizona, an escape from the oppressive heat of summers in Wickenburg. I’d been part of a “team” back then, partnered with a man who researched everything to death before making a decision. Often, he’d spend so much time researching an option that the option was no longer available when he’d finally decided. Although we got a fence installed relatively quickly — my accounting records show that it was installed within 6 months of the property purchase — it was two years before the septic system was installed and six years before he finally agreed to put some sort of building on the land. The building was especially frustrating for me. We blew $800 on plans with one builder and $400 on plans with an architect and looked at more than a handful of prefabricated buildings before he grudgingly agreed to the “camping shed” we wound up with. Although we managed to turn it into a year-round cabin and spent several holidays up there — including Thanksgiving and Christmas — he apparently hated it there, later referring to it as “Maria’s white elephant” to his friends. Of course, he never said anything like that to me.

And that was part of the problem. He’d agree to something he didn’t believe in — like the purchase of this land — and then get bitter about it. Or he’d like something one day and hate it a month or year or more later. But throughout this process, he never communicated what he really thought or felt. He just went along with the general idea, but stalled when it came to moving forward with anything of substance. And he never communicated what he was really thinking — or he waited until we’d come too far down a path to go back.

He created dead ends.

And that’s why I’m so much better off without him. I don’t have to deal with his indecision or stalling tactics or change of heart. I can just look at a situation, think about it for as long (or short) as I like, and make a decision. I can act — immediately if I like — and get the benefits of the results as soon as possible.

A Sad Flashback

Yesterday, I was feeling melancholy. It was the 29 year anniversary of the day my ex-husband proposed to me.

I remember the moment perfectly. We were in our bedroom at our Bayside apartment. It was after work. He’d gone to New York to pick up the ring that afternoon. It was the 10th of the month — back in those days we celebrated the 10th of every month to mark the anniversary of the day we met (July 10, 1983).

Engagement Ring
My engagement ring.

I knew it was coming; I’d gone with him a few days before to pick out the diamond. After being spooked by the diamond sellers on 47th Street, we’d would up at his mother’s jeweler on 57th Street. The diamond was beautiful — a one-caret solitaire, white with just a tiny “feather” imperfection. It cost him $3,000, which was a lot of money in those days — but then again, he made a lot of money back then. The setting would be a simple four prongs. It wasn’t as large as the diamonds my friends at work had been getting, but it was infinitely more beautiful, almost perfect.

On the afternoon of September 10, 1984, he got down on one knee in front of me, showed me the ring, and asked me to marry him. I said yes.

I later changed my mind.

Months ago, when I was packing up my things, I found an old journal that dated from 1991. In it, I found numerous entries that reminded me of the problems we were having, even back then. Him belittling me in front of my friends and family members — which he never stopped doing, even after we were finally married. Him putting me down, telling me that I’d never accomplish various things I set out to do. Him basically making me feel like crap — the exact feeling I shouldn’t get from a future husband.

So I didn’t marry him. For a while, I even stopped wearing the ring. The only reason I started wearing it again was because I was getting tired of creepy guys hitting on me.

And then, after 23 years together and an unfortunate sequence of events, when I thought we really were “life partners,” I married him.

Out of all the mistakes I’ve made in my life, that was, by far, the worst.

I had legally tied myself to the man I’d later refer to as my ball and chain — a man who held me back from so many things I wanted to do with my life, a man who made promises he broke, a man who made excuses rather than take action, a man who attempted to communicate his constant disapproval of my actions with sour looks instead of words.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved him. I still do — although the man I loved is long gone, dead to this world.

It frustrated me to no end that a man who had once been strong and ambitious had turned into a weak old man, afraid to communicate his true thoughts and feelings to both his mother and wife, more likely to make excuses about why he couldn’t do something than just step away from the television and do it. The frustration turned to sadness when he gave up on our relationship. It turned to pity when I saw what he’d replaced me with: a desperate old woman who sold herself online, a mommy who would lead him by the hand through our divorce proceedings, feeding him bad advice all along the way and costing him tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

How could I not pity him?

Although the pain of his betrayal is still sharp a year later, I do have to thank him for cutting our marriage short. Yes, I was tired of waiting for him to get his act together and start living life. But I would not have left him. I loved him too much.

By leaving me, he set me free. He put me back on track for a good and fulfilling life.

And while it’s sad that I have to move forward without the man I loved, that old man is dead and gone for good. Fortunately, there are other stronger men out there. Men who know how to have fun and make the most of life. Those are the men I’m meeting now. One of them will surely take that man’s place in my life — possibly a lot sooner than I expected.

Life Goes On

“You can’t move forward when you’re looking back.” Another friend of mine gave me that priceless piece of advice sometime within the past year or so. He was right.

So I’m moving forward — and I’m doing it at my typical fast pace. Life’s short — why wait to achieve the things you want?

The divorce proceedings were a time-consuming, costly setback, but nothing more. It was as if I took a year off from life. I’m back now and moving full speed ahead.

Thanks, honey, for setting me free and making me a stronger person.

Cheese: The Cheesemaking Class

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I get to see — and participate in — the cheesemaking process.

There’s a cheese maker that comes to Wenatchee Valley Farmer’s Market held each Wednesday and Saturday at Pybus Market: Alpine Lakes Sheep Cheese. As you might imagine, I stopped at their booth tasted some cheese, and bought some. It was very good. I don’t know how I missed it, but my friend didn’t: a rack card that advertised a hands on cheese making class. I went back to the booth and talked to Katha (pronounced with a long a like Kate). The class was five hours long and cost $80. It wasn’t held regularly, like the rack card suggested, but if I could get at least three people to go, she’d do a class.

I immediately thought of my meetup groups and decided to suggest it to the Wenatchee Social and Outdoor Adventure Group. They’re really not big on “adventure” (despite the name) and I thought this might interest them. But I was quite aware that the price tag would likely turn more than a few people off. Still, I got one person to RSVP yes for the August 10 date.

Then I sprained my foot. I wasn’t sure if I could stand for five hours. And I’d failed to get three people.

But Katha assured me that if I was able to attend with my companion, she was willing to do the class with just two of us. So on that Saturday morning, I met with Jill and we carpooled up to Peshastin in my truck. We arrived at 10 AM.

Alpine Lakes has an excellent cheese making kitchen in a converted garage. It has all the things they need to keep the equipment clean and sterile, several cheese making vats in different sizes, draining trays on wheels to capture the whey, and a “cheese cave.” At least a dozen refrigerators line one wall. A set of sinks and dish draining boards make all-important sanitation easy.

Katha was prepared to make four kinds of cheeses: a soft fresh cheese (like cream cheese), a soft ripened cheese (like brie), a hard cheese, and ricotta. She’d already put various quantities of milk into pots or vats and was heating them. The milk was all fresh sheep’s milk from that morning’s milking. The quantities varied from 2 gallons for the fresh cheese to 20 gallons (I think) for the hard cheese.

She explained that each type of cheese used a different culture and required a different temperature. Some cheeses required a very specific temperature while others could be made within a range of temperatures. She let us measure out the powered cultures that came in a foil envelope stored in the freezer and sprinkle them over the milk surfaces. After waiting a short while, we used large skimmer ladles to draw the moistened culture down into the warm milk. After a certain amount of waiting time, we added liquid rennet diluted in a small amount of cool water. Again, we drew the rennet down into the milk, blending it well.

While we waited for the milk mixture to coagulate, Katha kept us busy. We visited her cheese cave — a room off the side of the kitchen with controlled temperature and humidity where cheese is left to ripen. The room was full of shelves where cheeses in various states of the aging process sat waiting for their time to come.

Katha pulled out a tray full of soft-ripened cheese and set it on a worktable. She showed us how the white rind on these cheese is actually a fuzzy white mold that gets more rind-like as the fuzz is pressed down onto the cheese when it’s wrapped. She put us to work wrapping the cheeses.

At around 11 AM, three more women showed up. Katha had been expecting them — they were last-minute participants. She caught them up on what they missed. Soon we were all taking turns wrapping cheese and coating hard cheese in wax.

Katha also pulled out some cheeses for us to taste. I think this was the best part. We tasted the cheeses she usually sells at the market and elsewhere, as well as a few new cheeses and even two cheeses she called “mistakes.” I liked the mistakes a lot — especially the blue-veined one. There was so much about this that I found odd — most of all that if you make cheese, you can’t immediately taste it to know how it came out. Some cheeses need weeks or months to ripen. These “mistakes” were good examples. She knew that she’d done something wrong — or at least something she hadn’t intended to do — but she wouldn’t know whether it would result in an edible cheese for months. I wondered how many other “mistakes” sat on shelves in her cheese cave.

Once the milk had coagulated, it was time to test it for a “clean break” — an indication that there were good, solid curds. Katha demonstrated and each of us tested one of the cheeses. We worked in shifts to cut the curd — large curd for the soft cheese and very small curd for the hard cheese. She had a huge rounded-tip spatula for curd cutting. The hard cheese, which was in the largest vat, required an extra step: curd cutting by dragging a huge wire whisk through it. This was quite a chore that required a great deal of arm and upper body strength. Who would have thought you could get good exercise making cheese?

Through the course of the morning, we scooped the various cheeses into various molds on the whey draining trays. The whey drained away into 5-gallon buckets beneath the trays. Katha told us that she feeds it to her pigs.

Ricotta for Breakfast
I enjoyed the fresh ricotta cheese for breakfast with fresh fruit.

She also uses it to make ricotta cheese, which is what we did next. She heated about 5 gallons of whey in the now-empty medium sized vat. The whey had to be heated to at least 200 degrees — but could not be heated beyond boiling because it would boil over and make a horrendous mess. It also had to be stirred the whole time. We watched it closely. When it reached the proper temperature, she turned off the heat and added a small amount of vinegar. Small curds immediately began to form. She poured off the contents of the vat into a relatively small cheese bag, letting the whey drain through onto a draining table. After draining and squeezing she had about a quart of ricotta, which she split among the five of us in small plastic containers. I ate it over the next two days with fresh cherries and blueberries from the orchard where I was living along with a small amount of honey from my bees. Amazingly delicious!

Katha took my classmates out to the field to visit with the sheep. Because of my sprained foot, I stayed behind, resting on a chair and munching on cheese.

There was more to the class but I honestly can’t remember the details. I waited too long to write it up. And for some reason I didn’t take any pictures! But I do remember paying an extra $20 at the end so I could take home a bunch of cheese — including those “mistakes” which likely won’t be for sale anywhere.

I’m extremely interested in cheesemaking and, since taking this course, have tried twice to make cheese. My first attempt was probably a success — but I won’t know for sure for another two weeks! My second attempt was a disaster, with a failure of the milk mixture to coagulate properly; I did get a lot of ricotta-like cheese to eat, though. I think my main problem right now is the size of my kitchen (tiny) and my inability to maintain proper “room temperature.” (Remember, I’m currently living in an RV and I detest listening to the constant hum of an air conditioner during the day or heater during the night.)

But I’m very glad I took this course. It taught me a lot about the basic steps of this complex process and what I should expect when I get things right. I recommend a hands-on course like this to anyone interested in making cheese.

I’ve Got the Power!

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Literally.*

Last week, I blogged about cleaning my hand-me-down temporary power box in preparation for rewiring it and installing it on my 10-acre lot in Malaga, WA. At the end of that post, I mentioned that I hoped my friend and I could have it in place later that day.

Well, I got what I hoped for. When my friend rolled up just minutes after publishing that post to this blog, he was eager to get started on the job. By the end of the day, the pole was in place.

Rewiring

Power Box After
Here’s what we started with.

The first job was clearing out the old wires to replace them with new ones. Not everything had to go. We had to remove the wires on the left side of the box and replace them with a new set that I’d bought the previous week. On the right side, we had to connect wires to the 30 amp breaker and run those wires down to an RV outlet that had to be positioned farther down the pole.

I backed my pickup down to where the pole was and we lifted it into the back of my truck with the business end on the tailgate. Then I moved the truck forward into the shade of the house under construction — now nearly finished — where I’m currently living. I fetched all the pieces I’d bought at Home Depot and the electrical supply shop the week before and got out some tools.

I think my friend was pretty surprised when he realized that I knew how to use tools. Apparently, a lot of women don’t. When he pointed out which wires needed to be removed, I grabbed the right screwdriver and got to work on it. After all, I was supposed to do all the wiring myself — that was a requirement of my permit. (In Chelan County, either the homeowner hires a licensed electrician to do all the work or does it all herself. The rule didn’t say anything about coaching from a knowledgable friend.)

I had most of the tools needed to get the job done. There were only two I didn’t have — and got the next time I was out: a good wire stripper and a hacksaw. The wire stripper was needed for obvious reasons — each new wire’s end had to be stripped before it could be fastened into place. The hacksaw was to cut the plastic conduit that also needed to be replaced.

Step-by-step we worked our way through the box. I learned about how the box was organized and what each wire did. It was surprisingly simple. And safe — it wasn’t hooked up to any power yet.

Then we were finished. It had taken less than an hour.

Planting the Pole

We closed up the tailgate, climbed into the truck, and headed out. I think my friend was more excited about getting the pole set up than I was. Don’t get me wrong — I was eager to get it set up. But when you consider that he had plenty of other things to do that day, it was really nice — and so refreshing! — to be with someone who was so focused on helping me get a job done. (That’s part of what real friends are all about.)

At my property, my friend was pleasantly surprised at the trench and hole I’d dug. After seeing me limp around on a bad foot for three weeks, I don’t think he had very high expectations. I think he’d come with the idea that he’d have to do some digging, despite the fact that I’d assured him that I’d dug the trench to specs. He later told me that out of everything I’d done so far on this project, digging that trench was the most impressive. (I have to agree. I surprised myself.)

Because he’s a man, though, he had to pick up a shovel and extend the trench a little in front of the transformer box. I’m not sure if he did it because he thought we needed the extra length or if he was trying to see for himself how difficult it was to dig. If the later, he discovered that it was quite easy to dig. After all, a middle-aged woman with a gimpy foot had done it.

I backed the truck up as close to the post hole as I could and we wrestled the pole out of the truck and into the hole. It was a bit of a struggle, mostly because of the conduit hanging loose with a 90° angle at the bottom and 10 feet of wire hanging out. But we finally got it into place. We threw some rocks into the hole and followed that up with some dirt. We realized that the fastener we’d brought to connect the grounding wire to the grounding rod wasn’t big enough. I’d have to come back and make that connection another time.

Power Pole Installed
My friend took this silly photo of me with the power pole and box installed.

The last step was putting in the two required supporting poles each in a different direction. We used the same poles my friend had used for his setup. The heads on the screws he’d used stripped immediately, but I had some long nails in my toolbox to get the job done.

My friend voiced some concern about the grounding rod being inside the hole. He seemed to think it needed to be driven in from the surrounding grade to make it more sturdy. But it was sturdy. If I could have pulled it out, I would have — just to drive it in elsewhere. It would have to wait. I could aways get another rod if I needed to.

Finished, my friend took a picture of me by the pole. Then we put away the shovel and other tools and celebrated by going out for a late Thai lunch in town.

I called the Chelan County PUD and told them the power pole was ready for inspection. I knew it would be at least 24 hours before the inspector came out.

Fastening the Grounding Wire

Later that day, while doing laundry at a local laundromat, I stopped at a hardware store to pick up the piece I’d need to connect the grounding wire to the rod. But rather than take care of it that day, I went out to dinner with another friend. We spent the evening back at the Mobile Mansion where we chatted and drank wine and I helped him fix a problem he was having with his GPS. (Once a techie, always a techie.)

The next day, I had a charter flight down to Othello and Pasco. I had to pick up my passengers at 8 AM sharp. Before leaving, however, I put the grounding rod connector piece and a screwdriver in my bag.

Helicopter Parking
Heck, why make the drive when I was only a few minutes away by air?

At about 1 PM, when the flight was done and I’d dropped off my passengers, I flew over to the property and landed at the end of the driveway. I shut down and took the connector and screwdriver over to the power pole.

ConnectionI sure did drive that rod in close to the pole.

I ran the connector through the very long piece of copper wire and made the connection to the rod. My friend had told me I could bury the extra wire. Seemed like a shame to me, but I really didn’t care. All I wanted was to pass the inspection.

The Inspection

I was home for less than an hour when the phone rang. It was the inspector. He said he’d be out on the property by 3 PM.

Thinking that showing up in a helicopter would be a wee bit too cocky, I jumped into my Jeep and made the 30-minute drive from Wenatchee Heights to Malaga. I had to stop for gas, of course — why is it that my vehicles always need fuel when I’m in a hurry? But even though I arrived early, the inspector was already there, looking at my pole and the trench and the hole.

Penny and I hopped out of the Jeep and I extended my hand as I walked up to the inspector. “What do you think of my trench?” I asked proudly. “I dug it myself.”

We both laughed.

He did the inspection, pointing out the few minor things that were wrong with the setup. Because they were minor, however, he let the pole pass inspection. He put the official sticker on the box.

Another hurdle jumped.

I’ve Got the Power

That was on Tuesday. Part of the inspector’s job is to call the Chelan County PUD and arrange for them to hook up the power. I had no idea if I needed to be present, but I figured that they had my phone number and would call if they needed me.

The rest of the week rolled by. I got busy. (I always get busy.) I didn’t hear anything about the power pole.

On Saturday, I had a charter flight. I was taking a couple up to Tsillan Cellars in Chelan for dinner. I had to meet them at the airport at 4 PM. But it was a nice day and I felt like flying. So I fired up the helicopter and took it out for a spin in the Leavenworth area where some friends of mine were hiking in the mountains. One of them had texted me his general location with some landmarks. I thought it would be fun to try to spot them from the air. And I hooked up the GoPro to get some video while I was out. (More of that in another post.)

By 3 PM I was ready to head back to Wenatchee. I needed fuel and wanted to relax for a while before meeting my passengers. I figured I’d fly by my property to see whether I could tell if the power had been installed.

Meter on my Box
The meter on my power box confirmed that power was available at my lot.

I didn’t want to land there and shut down, but I did have to get close. I hovered near the transformer box. The wires I’d left loose were buried. As I flew away leaving a nasty cloud of dust (from the digging) behind me, I realized that I now had both water and power on the property.

I confirmed that the power worked just yesterday when I drove out to take a look. There was a meter on the box and it was running. I took a shovel and finished filling in the hole and ditch.

I was another step closer to my new home.

[*Note: Thanks to my old friend Steve for inspiring the title of this blog post.]

Closure

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Unfinished business stirs my subconscious mind.

This morning I was awakened by my mother-in-law’s voice calling for help. I hurried to her. She was lying in the bed I occasionally shared with my ex-husband, her son, in our Wickenburg home, propped up on some pillows. She was talking on a speaker phone to her daughter, Suzie. She wanted me to tell Suzie something.

I never found out what. The whole thing was a dream. When I woke, I woke from that dream to find myself in my own bed in my current home 1200 miles away.

My mother-in-law, Julia, is dead. She died earlier this summer. No one in my ex-husband’s family had the common decency to tell me that the woman I’d known for 30 years had passed away. I found out through a mutual friend.

I know my husband lied to his mother about the end of our relationship. I know he painted me as an evil monster who ruined his life and abandoned him in Arizona. I know he told her that because that’s what he believes. It’s part of the delusions that drove him into the arms of the desperate old woman — his new mommy — who he now lives with. It’s part of the delusions that drove him to subject me to mental abuse, unreasonable demands, and harassment during our year-long divorce process. He believes this to be true so he tells his friends and family members.

Anyone with knowledge of the facts, however, knows better.

I wanted to say goodbye to Julia but wasn’t allowed to. When I sent her a birthday gift for her 90th birthday last September — a framed photograph of me and her son taken many years ago that I know she admired — I was accused by my ex-husband of “harassing his family members.” So I never contacted her again.

And then she died.

I tried to get some closure with a blog post written to her. But she’s dead. I don’t believe in heaven and hell so I don’t believe she knows what really happened or can read, from beyond the grave, what I wrote. She never knew the truth.

Why does it matter to me? I’m trying to understand that. It could be because of how I value the truth.

I know how he lied to her and “bent the truth” for the last five or more years of her life. To protect her, he’d say. I know that he did the same to me — although I didn’t realize the extent of his lies until much later. I don’t understand how a person could lie to someone he claims to love. I don’t understand how a relationship can be expected to survive when its fabric is punched with holes created by untruths.

But then again, our relationship didn’t survive. He saw to that by signing up for an online dating service only a week after I left for my summer job last year and moving in with the first woman who would sleep with him. Asking for a divorce came later.

I wonder if he remembers that chain of events as well as I do? Whether he was honest with any of his friends and family members about how he betrayed his life partner of 29 years?

I wonder how much he still lies and who he lies to.

But most of all, I wonder how many of those lies he believes. How far his delusions have taken him. Whether he wakes in the morning feeling the overwhelming hate he must have for me — nothing else could explain his actions over the past year or so — and how much that drives him.

But I’ll never know because I’ll never get a chance to ask. His mommy won’t let him talk to me.

And that’s a good thing. Clearly, the man I loved is dead and buried — killed as a result of a mental illness that drove him to madness and an odd form of suicide. The man who looks like him is a foul impostor I have no desire to hear from.

That’s my closure: knowing that that the man I loved is gone for good.

Kayaking the Columbia

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Not quite as exciting as the title might make you think, but very pleasant.

I spent a few hours yesterday kayaking in the Columbia River near my home in the Wenatchee area of Washington.

I bought the kayak a few months ago and, in all honesty, have only taken it out a few times. It’s nothing special — a yellow Costco special nicely outfitted for one person on calm water. My first outing was in one of the Quincy lakes with a friend way back in May. Other brief outings followed. But then I got my little jet boat running and started taking that out instead.

A few weeks ago, while out on the jet boat salmon fishing with a friend in the mouth of the Wenatchee River, I noticed a number of people taking kayaks and paddle boards up the Wenatchee River. The spring flow was long over and it hadn’t rained hard enough lately for floodwaters to raise the flow. Indeed, we couldn’t get much farther upstream with the jet boat than the second bridge because of low water. Low water meant slower flowing water. Slow enough for people to take a leisurely paddle upstream.

That’s what gave me the idea to do the same.

Yesterday I headed out with that in mind. I had a five hour window before I had to be back at the helicopter for an afternoon charter flight. Just enough time for a paddle and a shower.

Washing the Kayak
Washing the kayak is as easy as standing it up in the corner and hosing it out.

I started off by washing the kayak. It had been stored under my RV for over a month and I didn’t want to think of the creepy crawlies that might be in there. Better to just hose it out. So I propped it up against a corner of my RV, connected a spray nozzle to the outside shower, and gave it a good rinsing, letting the water drain through a normally plugged hole on one end. I let it dry while I packed a tote bag with a few things.

Mirror View
I can keep an eye on the kayak in my truck’s mirrors.

Loading the kayak into the back of my pickup isn’t difficult. I lift one end into the bed over the closed tailgate and push it as far forward in the truck as I can. Then I angle the body of the kayak diagonally across the bed. I secure it in place with a bungee cord attached to a corner tie-off hoop built into the truck. It doesn’t move more than an inch in either direction during the drive; I can watch it in the truck’s mirrors.

One of the things I absolutely love about this area of Washington is the sheer variety of outdoor activities available. The Columbia River is a source of many of these activities: boating, fishing, swimming. There’s even an 11-mile bike/hike/skate trail that goes down one side of the river, crosses a bridge, comes back along the other side, and crosses a second bridge to return to a starting point. Parking is free in the loop trail parking lots or any of the parks along the river in Wenatchee or East Wenatchee. There are three boat ramps within a 20-minute drive of my home — all free with plenty of trailer parking.

Where I Kayaked
The area where I kayaked on Sunday.

I decided to put in near the swimming beach at Walla Walla Point Park, which is about 15-20 minutes away from my home. The beach is protected from the river’s main flow by a sort of jetty with a path on it. You can see it in the lower-right corner of this satellite image. I chose this area because I could back the truck pretty close to the water and the little lagoon was a good, calm spot to launch.

I dragged the boat across the grass and down the beach to the water. I put Penny’s life jacket on her and stowed my life jacket and tote bag in the boat. Then I put Penny in the boat, pushed off a bit, and climbed in after her. A moment later, we were gliding across the lagoon. It was about 11 AM.

I could feel my arm muscles working hard right from the start — but not nearly as hard as they had to work when I exited the lagoon and got into the Columbia River’s main flow. There was some shallow water then and the river rushed over it. I had to paddle hard to get through it. I started to think that I’d never reach the mouth of the Wenatchee River about a mile or so to the north.

But then I got through it and into calmer water. I still had to paddle hard to stay ahead of the current, but it wasn’t a frantic paddling. I stayed close to shore and the water got calm. I might make it after all.

The satellite image above shows the river with the water at a higher level. Northwest of where I put in is an area that reminds me of the marshes in Newark, NJ. You know — where the NJ Turnpike goes past the Meadowlands? The difference here is that the water isn’t tidal. The little side inlets exist only as long as the river’s water level is deep enough. Although the image shows lots of watery passages between trees, on Sunday there was only one channel that went through to the mouth of the Wenatchee.

I know this because I found it. I didn’t have a map or satellite image. Instead, I just paddled close to shore, saw an opening in the trees, and decided to explore. What I found was a calm water passage surrounded by trees and water weeds and inhabited by ducks and herons. The water was glassy smooth and shallow — in some places barely deep enough to paddle over. There was the tiniest bit of current to convince me to keep moving forward, that water had to be coming in from somewhere.

Penny on the Kayak
Penny rode on the forward deck as I paddled us through glassy smooth water.

It was sort of magical in there. Quiet and private, with the occasional sound of a motorboat out in the main channel of the river to remind you that you weren’t paddling the remote Amazon. Trees hanging over the narrow parts of the waterway gave us cooling shade every now and then. Bubbles and bits of debris on the water surface cast shadows on the sandy bottom, assuring me that the water was indeed moving in the opposite direction I was.

Near the end of the waterway, we met up with a man on an inflatable boat with oars. He was alone but talking to someone. At first, I thought it was me. But then when we got near him he laughed, held up his smartphone, and said that he was sharing a virtual float trip with friends in Georgia.

The world is getting smaller.

Parked on a Log
Parked up against a log, looked down the Wenatchee River and across the Columbia River to the far shore in East Wenatchee.

The waterway dumped us out at the mouth of the Wenatchee River. I turned left and started paddling up that river. There wasn’t much current, but there was more than there had been for the past 30 minutes. I paddled upstream on the south side, pausing when I reached a log jutting out of the water. I pulled in upstream from it and let the current take me downstream until the kayak was lodged against it. I rested there and tweeted a photo (as I so often do) and took in the calmness of the rivers around me.

How can anyone not like this area? It’s got the dry air of the desert but is full of water. It rains, but not too often. It gets hot, but not too hot. It gets cold but not too cold. And all around are beautiful mountains and forests and orchards and farms and rivers and lakes. Boating, fishing, hiking, motorcycling, biking, wine tasting. Beautiful sunrises and sunsets, magnificent thunderstorms, star-filled skies. Quiet, private places to live and work. A major city less than an hour away by air or three hours away by car. And people who are friendly and happy and youthful — even if they’re not exactly young anymore.

How did I live in Arizona for so long when I had this to tempt me for five consecutive summers?

(Well, I know the answer to that question but we won’t go there.)

Finished with my rest, I paddled across the Wenatchee River into one of the water channels on the opposite shore. I paddled around on that side down one channel and up another before finding a third to take me back out to the Wenatchee River again. Along the way we saw Canada geese, seagulls, and killdeer. Penny barked at the geese.

I crossed the Wenatchee River again and headed back into my quiet waterway for the return trip to the park. This time some kids were walking along one of the sandbars, catching fish in a cutoff milk jug while a man paddled a canoe. As I paddled past him, he said, “I see your dog is getting you come exercise.” I laughed and told him she was guiding me.

Back out in the main flow of the Columbia River, I let the current do some of the work for me. I had to paddle hard to get around the tip of the jetty and back into the swimming lagoon. There were lots of people there now, kids swimming in the designated area, dogs fetching balls in the water nearby. I paddled up to shore and we got out. I ran into a friend of mine and chatted for a while before dragging the kayak back to the truck.

By 2 PM, I was back home prepping for that afternoon’s flight. It had been another great day out.