Hurricane Ian: A brief debrief on grief

It all started with a calm, uneventful hurricane season. As August turned into September and the end of September approached, I thought that finally, we would have a season free from the worry and anxiety that marks tracking a tropical system to its final destination on land or in the ocean. When Ian first formed, it took Paul Dellegatto to make me pay attention to the obvious -- once a tropical system gets into the Gulf of Mexico, there is no option but to make landfall.  I went through almost all the stages of grief, in the wrong order, and threw some more stages of turmoil in for added drama.

Denial went like this -- "Oh, it's been such a quiet hurricane season (Fiona still hadn't sunk in), that it will be all right. God is giving us a break this year."

Denial quickly gave way to...

Bargaining -- "OK, God -- what can I trade you to make Ian just go away? My new car (oops I don't have one... supply chain problems)? My great attitude (don't have that either)? My strong faith (hmm... don't have that either)? 

bargaining moved onward to...

Anger -- "OK, God -- what is the deal? Why do you allow this stuff to just keep on coming? Why can't you reach us some other way -- other than through one horror after another?

as anger faded,  a combination of begging and praying took its place...

• Breathe In -- "Push it west"
• Breathe Out -- "Weaken it"
• Breathe, Pray, Breathe

desperate prayer gave way to...

Depression and dread when prayer felt like it was going nowhere except in and out of my lungs.  The inevitable Ian just keep churning onward to smother Florida with a dead hit on Tampa Bay, one of the most if not the most vulnerable areas to storm surge in the world.  

When Ian changed his mind and headed east at the eleventh hour, depression and dread morphed into a nauseating combination of relief, confusion, and renewed dread as Ian did not weaken in the Gulf before landfall but instead barreled into southwest Florida just a hair shy of Category 5. And as he began to march across the state as if he owned it, all of my emotions surrounding Ian came together into a surreal numbness as the wind and rain moved through at a "walking pace".  Staying indoors and trying to remain distracted from the rain pounding on the windows and the wind howling past in a very foul mood, I knew what I was hearing and seeing was nothing compared to what was going on in southwest Florida.  

In the calm evening on the day after, still sitting in Orlando and waiting to head to Clearwater, I was nowhere near the acceptance stage of grief. My contention with God on these Natural Disasters (aka horrific suffering and pain) remains. I haven't even taken the smallest of baby steps toward acceptance.  While it doesn't change my faith and conviction that God exists, I have an ever lengthening list of questions to ask Him if I ever get the chance. 

• For God:  Why? Why Gigantic Hurricanes? Why Massive Fires?  Why? Why? Why?  (no platitudes or generalities please)
• for people:  what I want to ask and say...could fill a book.

Prayers ping ponging inside my head like F-16's flying around in the same hangar tonight for all those who are suffering tonight because of Ian.  

Remnants of Canada

I have a terrible habit of starting out strong with sharing highlights of road trips and then tapering off at the end to the extent that no-one knows (including me as memories fade) what happened on the last few days of vacation.  Herein lies my experiment in better diligence on the matter.  

After a smoky day in Kamloops that came with the most awesome macaroni and cheese I have ever had on an outdoor patio at a downtown brewery, we headed out of Kamloops and back into the mountains. At first, it seemed like the color coding on the map was wrong; it had led us to believe that the quality of the road would be several tiers below "free and easy" highway driving.  But, the map did not mislead; it just took awhile to reach the twisty turns, stretches of gravel, and plethora of bumps and scrapes that disrupted the spectacular scenery around us.  

But, despite the smoke, the scenery near Lilloet on the Fraser River was spectacular:

If the conditions look dry, they were and as expected, the scenery hinted at vineyards to come. The kind of grapes that turn into good wine love rocky, troubled soil and this area of British Columbia was home to another niche of the expanding wine industry in Canada:

Lazer was more interested in the buck and doe that had just travelled past at high rates of speed than the grape vines that stretched as far as the eye could see, but we all enjoyed getting out of the car for a bit to sample the regional wines.   

As we continued to travel west, the landscape evolved from sparse, desert-like vegetation to the more familiar temperate forests that we were accustomed to in Western Washington. 

While the requisite day pass and stern park ranger turned us off to a longer hike to middle and upper Joffre Lakes, the lower lake (above) was still beautiful and worth a peek before escaping the crowds to sights at lower elevation.  My favorite part of an otherwise long day of driving was a hike to Nairn Falls just outside Pemberton, in the (aptly named) Green River:

Nairn Falls turned out to be my favorite waterfall on a waterfall-laden road trip.  Nairn "fell" in multiple stages and unlike the straight and dramatic drops of the falls at Wells Gray Provincial Park, Nairn Falls did its thing through multiple dramatic curves carved into the  rock canyon.  The fact that we could spend some time alone with this beautiful piece of Canada only made the experience more memorable:

If I were a freshwater mermaid (rather than the mermaid of the sea that I longed to be when I was a kid), I would choose this waterfall.  I would spend the heat of the day cooling off in the falls themselves:

.. but the cool of the early morning and early evening would lure me into relaxing by the green pools of serenity that lay at periodic intervals along the length of the falls:

And at night, I would nestle close to the river shore, under the trees and moon and dream of what it would be like to be able to walk on land ... but that's a cliche from a movie of the 80's, isn't it?

After our waterfall binge in the previous week in BC, the third largest waterfall (Shannon Falls in Squamish) in Canada wasn't nearly as spectacular:

Clearly, I had become jaded after the Nairn Falls experience along the Green River.

(pun intended) 

In the last days of our 2022 trip to Canada, we would spend a couple of nights in a cabin in Squamish alongside yet another beautiful river, before engaging in the daunting task of many hours of traffic near and in Vancouver before we entered back into the United Staes.  Four hours to travel 40 miles. Re-entry into civilization.  Ugh!

See you next year Canada, eh?

Smoke Break

At the start of the second half (of our Canada vacation), the score was Positives 14, Negatives 2.  But, as we drove into Kamloops on Sunday evening, the mountains started to slip from view, despite the fact that we were edging closer to those very mountains with every passing kilometer.  How could this be?  

Not surprisingly but still sadly, the calamity of west coast summers had caught up with us again, and the smoke rolled into the dry Thompson valley from all sides.  By the time we woke up in Kamloops on Monday morning, the mountains had all but disappeared from the horizon.  The eerie white sky reminded me of my time in Shanghai, China, when I began to wonder if blue sky were even possible and the persistent white skies were interrupted only by the darkness of night.   

But in my cushy Island County life, poor air quality was still a rarity and to see the air quality meter resting in the middle of the scale (which was oddly labelled "unhealthy" beneath the upper two tiers of "very unhealthy" and "hazardous") was unsettling. Walking Lazer for a few kilometers, I didn't notice any difficulty breathing but by afternoon, a steady headache started knocking on the door and didn't offer much chance of backing away.

And so, while most would take a smoke break outside a building, we took a smoke break inside our hotel building, hiding most of the day from the particulates that lurked outside -- eager for a chance to coat the air sacs in our lungs.   A break from a break. Vacation Interrupted.   

Not the end of the world and certainly no reason to complain.   

There is rain in the forecast this evening. Wonderful, beautiful rain.  I'll be eagerly standing at the window this evening waiting for the first drops to fall, the particulates to be washed out of the sky, and my headache to retreat.  

And, perhaps tomorrow, the smoke break will be over!

An Irrelevant Question

Which waterfall was the best?

Was it the widest one in Wells Gray Provincial Park?  Dawson Falls...

Dawson Falls is 350 feet wide... complete with three tiers of lava flows for a massive volume of water to hop, skip, and jump down the river.  

Or was it the mere 70 meter tall Spahats Falls, seemingly more humble because it was...

eclipsed by the canyon through which it flows?

Or was it the jewel of Wells Gray -- the fourth tallest waterfall in Canada... Helmcken Falls at 141 meters?

Spewing an average of 3,800 cubic feet of water into the pool below, every second.  

In my mind,  the question of which waterfall was best is totally irrelevant... all three of the falls were unique and stunning, leaving me tired and happy, with only one remaining question.

Did all that water get tired from falling such a great distance and then rumbling down the river below,  or was it just an ordinary days' work for all that H20?

Arthur Wellesley Gray was a Canadian politician (1876-1944) who had a lot to do with creating many provincial parks in Canada... those parks which now host a very large gaggle of tourists every year from Canada, U.S., and other countries around the world.  

Thank you Mr. Gray.

Eye-Boggling Scenery at Jasper National Park

Edith Cavell was a British nurse who saved a lot of lives during WWI and helped Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. For her heroics, she was arrested and executed in 1915. In 1916, Mt. Fizthugh in Jasper National Park was renamed Mt. Edith Cavell.  

Mt. Edith Cavell is the most prominent peak in the Alberta province.   

The long and windy road up to the trailhead is well worth the effort as the peak stands in the background of a beautiful glacial lake:

Complete with floating ice:

And a glacier melting faster than it is supposed to:

And, sediment-induced artistry:

All in all, Mt. E-C gave us one of several eye-boggling experiences in Jasper National Park.  It's the kind of scenery that makes me really glad that digital cameras have taken the place of analog ones... so that I can snap away without driving myself into bankruptcy (does anyone remember how much film cost?)

Lac Beauvert

On September 6, unbeknownst to us, Canada Parks issued an update on the Chetamon Wildfire near Jasper National Park:  "Now is not the time to visit Jasper National Park." Since that time, rain, cooler weather, and strategic firefighting have managed to get the fire under control, but I feel like a bit of a stupid American having ventured to the park on Sept. 10, seemingly ignoring Canada's warning to visitors.  

A few days prior, all the power in the town of Jasper had gone out... leaving the town to run on whatever individual generator power was available.  All of the campgrounds and many hotels closed and most of the tourists headed elsewhere.   Lulled into complacency by the crystal clear skies and clean air north in Mt. Robson where we had set up base camp, we headed south to Jasper anyway.   

After a bit of hiking at the summit of a nearby mountain, we dropped down in elevation to a modest lake called Lac Beauvert.  My two French names and I (Denise and Michelle) dropped Cucumber the kayak into the "Lake Beautiful Green", and headed out for a paddle.  I would have switched Cucumber over to her French counterpart name (concombre) to make the whole experience French, but her name had a better ring in English.  C'est la vie.   

Because of the tourist exodus from Jasper, I was the only soul on the lake.  The water was so clear that I could see straight to the bottom.  In some places, this meant an expanse of glacial sediment, interrupted only by the occasional log. In shallower places, this meant one rounded rock after another, and in other places, it meant a scattering of golf balls wrought by errant swings of a golf club from the world-renowned course that sat right on the border of the lake. 

While Barry and Lazer hiked around part of the lake and explored the golf course, I paddled, being careful to slap the water as little as possible with each swing of the paddle.  Peace like what surrounded me on Lac Beauvert was so perfect and so complete that I wanted to savor each moment.  Actually, I wanted to bottle it up and take it with me every time I headed into Seattle, every time I woke up too early in the morning with a plate too full, every time life rattled me with another unknown, every time another tragedy broke onto the headlines.... 

But, the only bottle I had in hand while on the lake was my own memory. So it will just have to do for recalling peace and time to contemplate on days when either or both seem impossible.  

50, 70, 90, 100, 110, 50, 90

Sound like a winning lottery ticket?  I thought it did, but because I never buy lottery tickets, I really had no clue.   Looking it up, I found that, apparently, lottery ticket numbers only go from 1 to 45 or 1 to 50, depending on the game.  The truth, then, is obviously that I did not buy a lottery ticket in British Columbia.

Instead on Friday, September 9, we founder ourselves caught up with the "twinning" of the TransMountain oil pipeline. The original pipeline was constructed in 1953 and has safely transported oil from near Edmonton in Alberta primarily to the U.S. midwest to feed the zealous American appetite for oil. Now, for a mere 21.4 billion dollars (CAD), the duplicate pipeline (the "twin") will increase the pipeline capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels a day to enable Canadians to benefit more from the pipeline.  The new pipeline will move enough oil to replace at least 1,400 tanker truckloads or 441 tanker rail cars every day.   

Fascinating?  Well, maybe, but ... why is this relevant to two Americans on vacation in Canada?   Because twinning a 1,150 kilometer pipeline (about 715 miles) involves a huge amount of construction, much of it along Highway 5a from Kamloops to Valemount in BC, a stretch of road that made up most of our drive on Friday.  Every few kilometers, we went from a 100 km/hr or 110 km/hr speed limit to 70 km/hr then 50km/hr for a couple km, then a friendly "Thank you, Resume Speed" sign sent us back to 100+ km/hr only to throttle us back in another few kilometers.  This speed up, slow down, speed up cycle was interrupted only by the occasional "Prepare to stop" sign that sent our speed to 0 km/hr at all too regular intervals during the higher frequency fast, slow, slower, fast cycles along Highway 5a.  It was enough to drive the brakes, the driver, and the passenger crazy (and make poor Lazer carsick).   

Thank goodness for the plethora of provincial parks in Canada.  We stopped north of Clearwater (BC, not Florida) in the North Thompson River provincial park to have lunch and stroll up to a viewpoint that gave us a much needed break and a beautiful view of the confluence of the Clearwater and North Thompson rivers.

And the view at the end of All That Construction... of Mt. Robson, the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies, took the edge off of all the frustration of driving miles and miles and miles (km and km and km) of nonstop construction.

Whew... glad I didn't have to spend the whole day grouchy!

Water, Water ... and Grapes, Grapes... Everywhere

On the second day of our long awaited post-COVID (not) vacation, we are in Kelowna, British Columbia, where I am sure the grapes outnumber the residents and tourists by several orders of magnitude. 

While the orange moon still reminds us that there are forest fires raging to the south, the air in Kelowna is dry and clean, producing a sunrise that is worthy of waking up early (says the night owl).

Because over 85% of wines made in British Columbia are consumed in British Columbia, it is rare for us to enjoy Canadian wines, but today is a day to rectify this deficiency in our lives.  Our first wine tasting stop is at Canada's largest organic winery (Summerhill Pyramid Winery) which hosts a fabulous view:

A rather large bottle of wine:

And of all things, a pyramid -- built to store wine so that it can achieve clarity that is presumably impossible with ordinary storage techniques.  

No day along a lake would be complete without getting into the lake -- which is where Cucumber comes in ... that nice, durable, inflatable kayak that conveniently fits in the back seat along with our suitcases and cooler.  

The only question I have to consider when my head sinks into my pillow tonight is:  Which views were better?  From high above at the winery?  Or at ground level?

Or at water level? 

This is the kind of tough call that I expect on vacation.   

The soft, deep sadness of E.C. Manning Park, British Columbia

Still on our first day of vacation in Canada, we drove east headed toward wine country in Kelowna and passed through the over 300 square miles occupied by E.C. Manning Provincial Park. The park is unofficially recognized as the end of the Pacific Crest Trail which stretches over 2500 miles from Mexico to Canada (which is definitely outside of my hiking range and patience).   

Driving through the park, there is no possible way to be underwhelmed by the millions of trees that cover the landscape on both sides of the Trans-Canada highway.  As we pass through these dense forests, I am both awed by the sheer beauty of the dense coverage of these conifers and lost in thought as to how these trees absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide simply by standing still and photosynthesizing all day long.  As we pull off the road to find a trail map of this massive park, my reflections grow much darker as we view the first of many helicopters that are gathering in the roadside clearing to fight the forest fires that began late in the season this year but are nevertheless wreaking havoc in the ecosystem.  

As these trees burn, they will release all of the carbon dioxide that they have so diligently absorbed over their lifespan.  As we venture further into the park, the air quality and visibility continue to decline, making it impossible to ignore the tragedy of what is burning in the mountains above us.   At the eastern edge of the park, the Manning Resort is largely deserted as the winds are expected to shift tomorrow and shift air quality and visibility from unhealthy to intolerable.

Lightning Lake, normally a massive camping and day use recreation area, will remain deserted as helicopters tap the water to quench the fires. 

I am grateful for all the firefighters who engage in the struggle to contain the fires and the destruction every year during drought season.   But it is impossible to escape the sadness that the smoke and flames bring into my open heart. They trigger the kind of sadness that unlike most grief is not sharp and aching. Instead, it is softer, permeating thoughts, feelings, and fibers of being.  Despite the softness, it still runs deep... and is therefore impossible to ignore.   

While forest fires are part of the natural cycle to refresh, reboot, and nourish a healthy ecosystem, they still break my heart.  And this epidemic of fire that we see and smell year after year in the recent past of the North American West is not natural at all, but part of a global shift in climate that we seem to lack the will and care to mitigate.  

This unnatural shift in the natural world infects the sadness within.  The infection all but guarantees that the feelings won't fall away when fire season comes to an end in the upcoming Fall but will linger over the wet winter months to come.   

Bridal Veil Falls Provincial Park, British Columbia

Something I love about road trips, especially those that involve less than 300 miles a day of driving (and therefore some spare time), is the search and rescue for hidden jewels.  Treasure Hunts!

The little parks, quirky shops, interesting wineries, and other things that will rarely find their way onto Trip Advisor or Lonely Planet are well worth searching out.  On our first day out on our first real vacation since COVID-19 rudely took over our lives, we found one of those hidden jewels just east of Chilliwack, British Columbia. 

Not far off the Trans-Canada Highway, a nondescript road previewed by an equally nondescript sign suggested that we might want to turn right toward the park.  Graced by a gas station that had seen better days on one side of the road and a myriad of litter on the other side, we turned right onto a strip of pavement whose ability to hold two lanes of traffic was highly questionable.  

Once we turned left into the park, all that was marginal about this little, poorly signed road in British Columbia fell away as we entered a remarkably well kept parking lot, a picnic area, and a more than adequate suite of immaculate portable toilets that put many American parks to shame.  

I had no time to even begin a critical analysis of American vs. Canadian parks as we began our walk through a beautiful temperate forest that rivaled those on the Olympic peninsula.

Only fifteen minutes of walking left us at the foot of Bridal Veil Falls.  Even at the end of the drought of a western summer, Bridal Veil still hosted a swath of water falling hundreds of feet over delicate moss covered rock into an unseen pool beneath our field of view.  There was no roar of a massive volume of water hurling itself off the edge of a cliff, but more of a delicate symphony as water misted relentlessly down over the rocks.  It certainly wasn't the biggest, widest, or loudest waterfall in North America, but these falls were totally memorable in part because we were alone at the foot of the falls and in part because the falls were simply unusually delicate despite the high volume of water flow they hosted.   

Bridal Veil reminded me of the value of road trips that involve fewer miles per day, time to wander off the beaten path, and precious opportunities to find hidden jewels.