The day the FBI came calling

Chris Korbulic shot this self portrait along the Apaporis River in the Columbian Amazon in April this year. The five-person expedition planned to paddle 700 miles, but something unexpected interrupted their plans. 

Hardly a week goes by without someone asking about our son, Chris, 30, who's sort of a local celebrity with tales of his kayaking adventures often making their way online and into newspapers, magazines, films, and, occasionally, TV.

It hasn't been uncommon for photos such as this, documenting Chris enjoying waterfall moments around the world to show up on media. This was in Brazil.

So I wasn't surprised in a hardware store in Grants Pass, OR, when a man behind me at check-out inquired, "What's your son up to these days?"

A store employee swung around and joined the conversation. "Yeah," she said. "Where's Chris?

I thought I'd have some fun with them.

"Oh, he's fine," I said.

"The FBI was at our house for three hours last week alerting us that he and four other kayakers had been held hostage by guerrillas on a river in the Amazon jungle. But no worries. They were released after a few days, and he's back in the USA."

I told the tale as if being held hostage by guerrillas in the jungle was no big deal, happens all the time.

Astonished looks all around.

"Sheesh!" blurted the clerk. "I'm sure glad he's not my son! How can you sleep at night?"

How many times have PK and I heard that?

I got a charge out of the stunned reactions. Now everyone within earshot was leaning in.

It was easy to be glib and milk the moment, but the actual day that the FBI showed up at our house, and the ensuing 24 hours—that was a different story.

For us it began Friday, April 21, 2017.  (For Chris and the expedition team, it began April 18 when they first encountered their captors.)

 I 'd left the house for a bike ride and saw PK talking in our driveway with two men in suits and a nattily dressed woman. I pegged them as purveyors of the Watchtower and prepared to bolt, head down, eyes averted.

"It's the FBI," Paul mouthed as I approached with my bike.
They'd already shown their IDs to PK and stated their purpose, but I was clueless.

The FBI? Is something going on in the neighborhood? I thought.  It did not occur to me that their visit had to do with Chris .

We'd received a text message from Chris within the past few days, or had it been a FB post?  Or was it four days ago? On Instagram? I lose track.

Whatever. His expedition team of five traveled with their best friend, a Garmin InReach satellite device, which enables them to send texts anywhere from anywhere. Hence, they're able to placate parents and other people who care with frequent communications.  Almost daily communicating created a sense of security. False, it turns out.

One of few rapids on a 700-mile expedition, unlike previous expeditions that have been rife with roaring falls, canyons, and cataracts.

In addition, through InReach, a friend in California was updating the team's location though the Amazon wilderness. The map link was available online to anyone interested. We'd seen it  but weren't checking every day, so we were unaware that InReach reports had stopped

Just stopped. The screen had gone blank. Big trouble.

Well, isn't that the perfect definition of "ignorance is bliss"? We would have been emotional wrecks, had we been paying attention. But after enduring 10 years of our son doing seemingly impossible feats and taking unacceptable (to us) risks, we've become calloused to his living on the edge.

He's strong, smart, humble, skilled, and somehow happily enmeshed in a culture that puts him amongst an elite group of modern-day explorers and adventurers. He continues to amaze and delight us as we live his adventures vicariously.

Not a photo a mom can enjoy. Chris on the first

descent of Toketee Falls on Oregon's North

Umpqua River in 2011.

I removed my bike helmet and PK and I and three FBI agents took seats in our living room. PK and I exchanged glances. What the hell's going on?

"It's about your son, Chris," said the lead agent, who introduced himself as a hostage negotiator.

Hostage negotiator?

The other male agent was an FBI special investigator, the woman was a victim specialist.

Victim specialist!

PK and I exchanged glances, and I know we're in the same boat, so to speak, of shock and disbelief. This can't be happening!

The reason for the FBI's visit unfolded.

Out of what the lead guy described as an "abundance of caution," we were told that Chris and his expedition team in Colombia's Amazon Basin appeared to have been detained by FARC, a rebel guerrilla group. FARC had been mostly disarmed in 2016, after 50+ years of conflict. But holdouts exist.

Some of the FARC holdouts were apparently holding hostage all five members of the expedition.

Team members Ben Stookesberry, Jessie Rice, Aniol Serrasoles, Jules Domine, and Chris Korbulic. Ben was allowed to take the photo above, the only one during their captivity. Actually, on that very day, April 21, perhaps around the same time we were hanging on every word uttered by the FBI agents, the armed group was telling the detainees that they would be released the next morning. Although the FARC rebels confiscated cameras, electronic devices and memory cards, camera lenses were returned and the rebels did not take thousands of dollars from their captives. Chris managed to hide five memory cards, losing only the one that remained in his camera.

The seven FARC members, led by a woman, didn't realize that Ben managed to hold onto an InReach device and had been surreptitiously communicating with a contact in Columbia and another in California.  Chris also had a GPS unit that was signaling the group's location.

Chris told us the only time he was afraid, and planning  an escape into the jungle with his GPS, was the night before they were to be released. He was in his hammock when Colombian military planes began flying over the encampment. The FARC went ballistic.

"They were running around, yelling, asking where is the GPS? Who has it?" Chris had hidden one on his body. The planes left. Things calmed down. The next morning, the team was released and paddled four miles downstream to catch a bush plane to a tiny airport in a tiny town. There, much to their amazement, they were met by representatives of the Colombian military and the FBI.

The greeting party was but a small contingent of the agents and agencies in Columbia and the USA interested in the case.

A brief account of the hostage situation is here:  Outside Online -  How 5 kayakers were taken hostage in the Amazon. It's a series of photos with longish captions outlining the basics of what happened.  The photos, all but one by Chris, provide a sense of the ethereal Amazon. A more in-depth print article about the episode is in the works by the Men's Journal.

I don't want to repeat what you can read on Outside Online, but PK and I  have some thoughts about the US government's response.

We are grateful. 

We were impressed that three FBI agents came to our home, and others to the families of two other US citizens on the expedition. Chris' girlfriend, then in Hawaii, was also contacted by an FBI agent who offered assistance.

We learned that when US citizens are held against their will in foreign lands, it's a no-holds-barred commitment to get them out safely. 

What I've described was a small part of what was going on. The agents informed us that representatives of various US government agencies cooperate in hostage situations involving US citizens.  The agents didn't mention the  FBI-led Hostage Rescue Team, but I looked it up and understood that had the kayaking team been held for ransom, or even detained for a longer time, their captors could have been subject to measures similar to what Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT ) teams do. Drop in, rescue hostages, take no prisoners.

Impressive. Check it out here.

What was the FBI's purpose in visiting us?

Learn about Chris 
They asked multiple  questions about Chris, most designed to determine how he might handle being held hostage.  Does he have medical issues? What kind of person is he? How does he handle stress? How might he react to being pressured?(tortured or threatened)

Admiring parents as we are, we described Chris as a "real nice guy." Humble, quiet, thoughtful, sensitive, intelligent, strong, and centered. Because of what he does for a living, we know that he's able to focus on the moment, shut out negative thoughts and maintain a calm center. We think he'd avoid stupid moves or emotional or angry displays.


Educate us about how to respond to ransom demands

A large part of the visit had to do with "proof of life, requiring the captors, should they call us, to provide evidence that our son was still alive. 

And on it went, all the way through the mechanics of "how to get you your money,"to responding to threats that the hostage will be harmed or killed. I was beginning to disconnect.

It was surreal. Absolutely unbelievable. If this was really happening, our lives could be changing forever, right here, right now.

The hostage negotiator said that if we got a ransom call, he would be moving into our house. As it was, he left us with a recording device should we receive a ransom call. If we were contacted by a captor, we were instructed to call the hostage negotiator any time, night or day.

We didn't have to. Thank you, Universe.

Instead, we learned the next day that the team had been released and flown by a US military plane based in Columbia to Bogota, site of the US Embassy. All were debriefed by FBI and Columbia officials, lodged in a hotel, provided meals and offered air transportation to anywhere they wanted to go. The US citizens were asked to stay three days to satisfy intelligence needs.

The Extreme Kayaking Athlete Moms' Club

One more thing. Chris K. and expedition leader Ben Stookesberry have been frequent kayaking partners for going on 10 years, covering thousands of miles around the world and sharing both magnificent and horrendous experiences. The worst, of course, was in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010 when a monster crocodile rose out of the Lukuga River and snatched from his kayak their good friend and trip leader, Hendri Coatzee.

Hendri's death was international news and a deep personal tragedy to Ben and Chris. Both had been within feet of the crocodile attack and were profoundly affected. Ben created an award-winning film, Kadoma, about Hendri and their expedition and tragedy, still available on iTunes.

 The 40-minute film is gut wrenching and beautiful at the same time. Hendri Coatzee was an extraordinary human being and a gifted writer. He wrote a book that was edited and published following his demise,  Living the Best Day Ever. 

PK and I were in Costa Rica when this tragedy occurred. We were pursued by media, and so was Ben's mom, Bette Campbell. During this blurred tragic time, we began communicating with Bette.

Chris and Ben were being held by the dysfunctional Congolese government. It was making us crazy. That lasted about a week before they were flown out by the United Nations.

Bette and I kept talking. And later, for a few wonderful but heart-wrenching days, we were with Hendri Coatzee’s mom, Marie Nieman, when Ben’s film debuted at the Telluride Mountain Film Festival in 2011.

Bette and I talked again on April 22 this year after we were assured that our sons were safe.

Bette told me about her interview with the FBI agents, and how she described to them her remarkable son, Ben.

"He's humble," she said. "He's generous. I'm proud of him being who he chooses to be. He couldn't handle being stuck in an office, making do with what's expected. I'm glad he is who he is."

Right on, Bette. Me too. I couldn't be more proud to be Chris' mom, and as for Chris' father, PK,  he can barely contain his enthusiasm for telling Chris stories to whatever man, woman, child or dog will listen.

We know that if  Chris wasn't doing what his soul requires, we'd worry about him being depressed and downtrodden. He's fortunate to be able to pursue his passion and have the skills, courage and inner strength to do it.

Started young. Won't quit until he must. Despite
how much he sometimes scares us, gotta love him.
But please, no more FBI visits. 

Plus we could stand a bit less of this type of action.

Joshua Tree, finally!

If you're reading this in email, please click on the headline for a more pleasing look. Thanks for visiting!

A beavertail cactus in Joshua Tree National Park bursting with fluorescent blooms

We've enjoyed tromping around the Southwest in recent years, but somehow Joshua Tree NP has eluded us. It's too far out of the way; we've run out of time; I have a headache; PK's socks don't match, or some such lame excuse. Earlier this spring we vowed to get there. It was mostly good.

Good: awesome jumbled jumbo rocks, blooming Joshua trees, cacti and other desert plants  exploding with color,  two distinct desert zones, excellent hiking. Joshua Tree is small enough to see most of the park in two and a half days. The campgrounds looked great.

Not so good:  too many people due to spring break; had to camp 14 miles from the park. 

A Joshua Tree blooming, which isn't an every-year occurrence. But when they do bloom it is usually, according the Desert Sun newspaper, "universal, synchronized and spectacular." We got lucky! We saw hundreds in bloom. The flowers are major exhibitionists, but what do you expect from something that shows up only once in a while? The trees had fierce competition from eager plants of all shapes and sizes showing off their spring colors.

  The ringed sun behind a dead juniper wasn't evident when I shot

   this photo along the Wonderland of Rocks trail in Joshua Tree NP.        

        

But back to the good/bad stuff. We'd failed to factor in how close the NP is to millions of Southern Californians, who, if they can tear themselves away from six-lane highways and movie-star sightings, just might be on spring break when we planned to visit. And lo, it came to pass. Legions of spring breakers did indeed descend on the park and snapped up all the camp sites.

It was actually grand to see families with giddy young children, college students rock climbing in  short shorts, and probably planning the night's parties at the same time, and even grandmas and grandpas with retractable hiking sticks and big floppy sun hats. Like PK and me.

Flowers, flowers all around. Which are the lovliest on the ground? 

We entered the park at a seriously inopportune time of day to find a campsite - around 3 p.m., even if it was Tuesday, a day when crowds are not usually a given. But spring break in California?! Given!

Cars and campers were lined up 20 deep in mid-afternoon to enter the park, and the visitors' center was jammed. Disappointed camping wannabes were lined up at the counter to inquire about camping outside the park. Eeek.

We ended up at the Joshua Tree Lake (ha ha ) RV park about 14 miles from both of the park's two northern entrances. Staying at the ha-ha lake (yes, a hyped-up pond) didn't ruin our enjoyment, but neither did it enhance. Extra driving is not something you want when attempting to wring maximum enjoyment from a national park. Plus, the RV park costs $35 a night and the national park, if you're old enough, is around $10. 

 

A prickly pear cactus looking good even without spring color.
The sky has the clotted-yet-striated cloud thing going on. 

The agave's bloom looks similar to
the Joshua Tree's.

Despite our camping woes, we were fortunate to enjoy great hiking thanks to recommendations from friends who'd recently visited the park and also one who treasures it as a lifetime favorite, an LA woman. (Let's hear it for Jim Morrison!) Joshua Tree was her playground. She loves the Jumbo Rocks campground, and if we're ever there again, we'll try to score a site. 

We started hiking the day we arrived, but not until after we drove 28 miles out and back to find a commercial RV park. As for boondocking in the park - no. Signs all over the place prohibited overnight parking. Outside the park didn't look that good, either.

Let's go hiking!

The hike up Ryan Mountain came highly recommended. Although it was only 3 miles round trip, it was steep, a 1,050 ft. elevation gain over 1.5 miles. I was glad we didn't start until 4:30 p.m., when the parking lot wasn't jammed, as it was when we drove past earlier.  It was also cooler, and with a slight breeze, panting up to 5,457 ft summit was doable. The summit featured a walk around where we were supposed to be able to see forever and ever, but alas, it was cloudy and hazy. Still we enjoyed. As we did all the shorter hikes we took the next couple of days. 

PK checks out a typical Joshua Tree rock formation a short distance up the Ryan Mountain trail. The trail is made partially from surrounding rocks placed to make steps.

View of the surreal rock formations from Ryan Mountain trail. 

The rock formations look better from ground level. See the elephant?

Prehistoric looking ocotillos

I'm always a sucker for back-lit cholla. These are in the south end of the park.

 Spunky barrel cactus, watermelon size, cozy between a
rock and a hard place.

Next up - A quick break from SW road trip 2017 to bring you

The Day the FBI Came Calling

Previous post about our latest road trip

Start it UP! - SW Road Trip Spring 2017

Change is Strange

Dear Readers,

And I do mean dear. Thank you for sticking with me and my Ordinary Life blog, which I have been posting on Google's free Blogger platform sporadically since my first entry on June 2, 2009.*

 

Lost in techie wilderness!

The freaking tech giant (Google) announced a couple months ago that it would be discontinuing emailing posts to blog subscribers as of July 1, 2021. They suggested bloggers find some other way to get their posts to subscribers. 

What was a techie dunce to do?  The answer arrived in a timely email targeting bloggers left in the lurch. A company called follow.it offered to take on the subscription task and extended technical help to install a new subscription "gadget" on blogs and to import existing email subscribers at no charge. I did end up paying someone to help me, but I appreciated follow.it for their gesture. 

Perhaps you'll notice on this post the new email subscription form on the right, which is larger than before. If you got this post via email, no need to reenter your email address. (If you have a minute, though, I'd appreciate knowing that this post arrived in your mailbox, even if you're reading it on Facebook.)

How and why you subscribed to my blog (thank you again!) is a mystery. Except for family and friends, drawing new readers is a challenge. You might notice in coming posts invitations to "share."  Please consider doing that. 

*That first post in 2009 was titled Another Day, Another Storm.  I accidentally discovered much later that Blogger tracks readership stats for every post. NO ONE READ IT.  Here's a screenshot of my first attempt at blogging 🤪. Probably best it wasn't seen.

Arizona - A zone of its own - Spring road trip 2017

A crested saguaro in Green River, AZ, represents a fraction of the beautiful desert flora typical of the area. Magnificent Saguaro National Park is nearby and so is the not-to-be-missed Tucson Sonora Desert Museum. We've visited Arizona, and other desert regions, maybe a dozen times over the years. I've become fond of the sun-drenched red and gold cacti-studded landscapes, and there's no matching a desert in bloom. 

Growing up in North Dakota and then spending most of the rest of my life in Oregon, I've come to think of Arizona as the place people go when they get old and just want to be warm. Not necessarily the place they actually call home, but where a person can set up a lounge chair by the pool in November, and  relax until late March when the trees up north are beginning to  bud. Then they jump into their rigs and go home.

Why is it I never thought of doing this annual migration myself? Or, rather, why haven't We  - PK, my mate of 40 years -  and I considered being snowbirds?

It's no secret that Oregon is sad and sodden three to five months a year. Depending upon your tolerance for cold, rainy gray days, or the calibre of what you have to do with your time indoors, I'm surprised anybody who's retired and solvent stays in a miserable climate for months at a time. Why not head south?

I am not forgetting, of course, the wonderous road trips we've enjoyed off and on since 2010, which in the past couple years, have become longer in mileage and months. But as with our most recent trip, we're not exactly escaping winter. We left home in early March and returned in mid-April.

Bye bye to prehistoric ocotillos in Joshua Tree National Park.

After leaving Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California, our first day in Arizona was spent driving Interstate 10 until we took a right turn south on highway 85 en route to Tucson. Interstate 10 was busy busy busy.  Not a relaxing drive at all. Much of it was lined by bushes covered with bright yellow flowers. Pollen tinged  the air and collected on the windshield. I am thankful not to have allergies.

We stayed in a drab but clean and huge RV Park in Gila Bend.  It was 3/4  empty because most winter residents had disconnected from the plumbing and electricity and were headed north.

Earlier in the day, we'd passed Quartzite, which we learned is a magnet for RVing snowbirds. A load of commercial RV parks dot the area, but the main attraction appears to be free or low-cost camping (boondocking) on BLM lands. This link describes the  temporary communities and the colorful stores and rock and gem shows and other fun stuff that come and go each winter with the adventurous RV crowd.

Somehow I'd pictured Arizona snowbirds living in upscale planned communities, but I get it about not wanting to tie down to a particular place. We met RVers all over the SW and Texas who winter in the south and relocate seasonally. A few we met were selling their wares, following the crowds from festival to festival, gem show to gem show. Some return north for the summer to live in stick homes. Others just live in their RVs, wherever that may take them.

We're not ready to do this yet, apparently. We're tied to home for a number of reasons not the least of which are friendships that span decades and a still-too-ambitious garden.  But I have to admit that during our spring 2017 road trip, I  dared to consider, for the first time, relocating south, even imagining, if just for a nanosecond, living in a planned retirement community. Based on reports from friends who've made the big move, it's not a bad idea.

PK's thought? Not a bad idea? A terrible idea!

Lenny and Dusty Friedman influencing me
about the benefits of retirement communities.
Their smiles say it all.

He may have softened a bit when we visited friends in Green Valley, AZ, a popular perch for snowbirds, whether they migrate back north or not. Our friends, the Friedmans, no longer migrate.

They used to live (and garden) a few miles from us in Southern Oregon, but moved to AZ full-time in 2016. They worked hard on behalf of our community. Our loss, Green Valley's gain.

Lenny, who'd been an entrepreneur, a middle school teacher, and a community volunteer/activist, among other roles, says that for years he doubted his ability or desire to live in a planned community.

I wouldn't be writing this if he didn't now love it. He and Dusty are totally adapted to and happy with this new phase of their life.

The Friedmans enjoyed showing us around. This is part of the wider community's raised-bed garden, park, picnic area and playground. A picnic area is behind the closed door. The park is not included in their retirement community, but is nearby and they like going there. Lenny's talents include building labyrinths, and he's working on one adjacent to this little park. 

PK joins the Friedmans in another labyrinth Lenny is completing, this one near a vast planned community under construction not far from where they live. Most labyrinths are contemplative spaces for walking meditation. I wonder if PK is meditating on spending winters in the south?

We were sad to leave the Friedman's after only one night, but were happy to be headed to a little town I've always wanted to see - Bisbee, AZ.

Bisbee has a hyperactive Chamber of Commerce, but this claim may be true. At 5,538 feet elevation, it escapes the worst of the scorching summer temperatures typical of southern Arizona. With a population of around 6,000, Sunset magazine and USA Today both named it the country's Best Historic Town in 2016. Bisbee attracted a wave of counterculture types in the 1960s and that element still enlivens the town. 

Here we are later in the trip, me decked out in my new
favorite shirt, purchased from a street vendor in Bisbee.

The "free store" in Bisbee didn't have much to offer, but it's the thought that counts, right? Definitely a hold-over from Bisbee's hippie past. 

The heart of Bisbee, AZ, as seen from the Queen Mine RV Park, which is a five-minute walk from the historic downtown. I loved Bisbee, how it's all stacked up on steep hills, full of artists, artisans, tourists, music, quirkiness, and New Age vibes. It thrives on its mining history, and a tour of the Queen Mine is the #1 thing to do, according to TripAdvisor. (We loved the mine tour.) We spent a day and a night in Bisbee, but we could have used a couple more days. Lucky for us, we visited on a Saturday night when the downtown was jumping with live music. I got a big-time dance fix at St.Elmo's bar. PK was ready to leave before I was, and walking back alone after midnight felt safe. And happy! Bisbee has also been named in an AARP publication as one of the most "alive" towns in which to retire. I wouldn't mind spending a winter there.

Dang it! The Day the FBI came calling post is still in the works. 

Earlier posts - Spring Road Trip 2017

Joshua Tree National Park  

Start it UP! - SW Road Trip Spring 2017