Near drowning at the Picket Fence - and a back story

PK and I returned yesterday from a three-day 35-mile rafting trip on Oregon's Wild and Scenic Rogue River. Our group of six included two novice river runners in inflatable kayaks (IK),—a recent high school graduate, and his 16-year-old sister.  Our trip was fun, successful, and safe. The young man debated about running Blossom Bar, a class 4 rapid, that he'd never been through. The adults made the decision for him: get a good sense of the rapid's power and the path through it, and run it next time. If you choose. My sense was that he was relieved.

It got me thinking about a 2015 trip when I witnessed another young man almost succumb to Blossom Bar's  Picket Fence, the row of rocks in the rapid that have given rafters and IKers serious trouble through the decades.  Rafts get stuck, drift boats bend around the rocks, and paddlers in IKs go over the fence and can't get out. That's what happened to the young man. 

The Rogue River's 35-mile Wild and Scenic section is touted as a "family" trip with all but three rapids falling into class one, two, or three difficulty level meaning that with reasonable safety measures, including wearing life jackets and staying sober, people who get dumped into the river won't drown.

But a young man on a recent Rogue trip nearly did drown at Blossom Bar, one of two class four rapids. Although pinned underwater at the rapid's Picket Fence, he survived. That's good. What isn't good is when we fail to take a lesson from near-disasters, which is why I'm writing this post. I invited the near-drowning victim to tell his story, which follows. I also have a personal tale about running Blossom and the Rogue in general.

A paddleboat crew stares down the Picket Fence in Blossom Bar during a 2014 mid-June trip. The "fence" comprises a line of boulders, some submerged, some not, that present a significant danger at all water levels. To miss the "fence" boaters, must navigate right, duck into an eddy behind the large rock, then spill over a narrow pour-off not visible in this photo. 

But first, let's clear up the idea that Blossom Bar is invariably deadly. It is not. Many reports state that 99.9 percent of everybody who runs the rapid does so without significant trouble.

Check out these two excellent articles:
Blossom Bar is a dangerous rapid, a column by outdoor writer Zach Urness, formerly of the Grants Pass Daily Courier.
Recent history of drownings on the Rogue River by Daily Courier's Jeff Duewel.

A 2013 rundown that starts with how Telfer's Rock in Mule Creek Canyon got its name. 

I have personally navigated Blossom Bar more than 100 times over the years, most often rowing a raft, and have never had trouble with the Picket Fence, although I've hit plenty of rocks below and almost flipped once. PK has run it successfully even more times. We have, however, witnessed numerous accidents at the "fence", serious inconveniences that have resulted in rafters abandoning their crafts, jumping into the rapid, and in one case, stabbing the raft to deflate a tube and thus send it spiraling into the current.

(Interestingly, son Chris Korbulic rowed a trip that ended July 27, 2015, just a few days after our trip. When he went through Blossom on July 26, a bunch of rafting gear was on the Picket Fence. In a rafting accident the day before, a large boat got wrapped there and all four adults aboard an abandoned ship. Before they left the scene, they planned for the raft to be rescued and emptied a lot of the gear onto the fence. Apparently, two men jumped into passing rafts but the two women were too scared to do so and spent the night on the rock! When Chris went through, the boat was still stuck on a rock in mid-rapid, and attempts to rescue it were underway. Chris didn't know exactly how the women escaped.)

That said, the majority of drownings in the Rogue's Wild and Scenic section do occur at Blossom Bar, and the victims are invariably sober, wearing life jackets, and most get "pinned" in powerful hydraulics created by the horizontal line of rocks dubbed the Picket Fence.

This mid-July trip was the first I've been on in 30+ years when someone in my group got snagged by the fence.

The potential drowning victim is an athletic 25-year-old from the East Coast who has lived in Oregon for a year. He asked to remain anonymous, citing the Internet's power to store information forever and nefarious people's capacity to misuse it.

He plays water polo and is a strong swimmer but has scant whitewater experience. On our trip, he paddled an IK (inflatable kayak). Our group included an experienced hardshell kayaker and a skilled canoeist, who coached the novice boater. He had capsized his IK a few times on Day 1 of our 3-day trip, but successfully negotiated the Day 2 rapids, including the Class 4 Mule Creek Canyon. He says:

Midway through the second day, we pulled out of Mule Creek Canyon and I was feeling confident after easily navigating the "White Snake" and "Coffeepot" rapids after they had been talked up a fair amount. Approaching Blossom Bar, we pulled off the river to scout the rapid for at least 15 minutes. I was told exactly what I needed to do and given the option to walk around if I wasn't feeling up to it. 

We had practiced my "right hand eddy turns" several times throughout the morning. We watched a few rafts go through, navigating the Picket Fence and the area below, and making it look pretty straightforward. I don't think we saw any smaller crafts go through while we were scouting. 

Note: That's because most commercial outfitters no longer allow passengers to take IKs through the tricky and potentially lethal upper section of Blossom Bar. Instead, clients walk around the rapid. MK

Eventually, I got in behind the experienced kayaker and followed close. The plan was to start left, then paddle hard to get into the eddy to buy time before navigating a narrow slot at the right end of the Picket Fence.

A screengrab* of IKs on a different trip negotiating the entrance to Blossom Bar and past the Picket Fence. This photo was taken at a higher water level than we had. But in any case, from the top of the rapid, the eddy (green relatively quiet water) that must be reached is not visible. The current on the left is extremely powerful.

It was made clear to me how dangerous the Picket Fence could be and how important it was to get into that eddy. I saw it approaching, but I was out of position and was sucked directly between the last two boulders where a post of sorts sticks up, to form a V. I tried to push off,  but my boat climbed the rocks, tipping me out.

What followed was a fight for my life, and it was instantly apparent that was what it was. I was sucked under my boat between the V-shaped boulders. I struggled to get to the surface, clinging to my boat with one hand, instinctively grasping at the floating thing above me to pull myself up. It didn't work. 

I fought for air four or five times in what seemed like a minute but was more like 20 seconds. I couldn't get my head above the water. The sensation of being sucked down, and fighting repeatedly to get air, was terrifying. I could hear my kayaker companion screaming to let go of the IK, so I did, and quickly caught a breath and found myself out of the water crouching on a rock. Keep in mind, all of this is happening incredibly quickly and was overwhelming. 

Whew! He had escaped the Picket Fence but still had a little problem. 

Anyways, when I stood on the rock at the end of the Picket Fence, I was in a bit of a shock about what had just happened. A whitewater canoeist in our group was near, and I could hear him yelling directions. But my kayaker companion was too far away to be heard.

I understood that swimming was the only way out. Getting back into the water was the last thing I wanted to do, especially as I was unsure about whether I would get sucked down again. The prospect of the swim after the near drowning was much scarier than the swim itself. I slipped into the river, floated through a couple of turbulent areas, then swam hard into the eddy on the left bank where my kayaker companion was waiting. 

I hadn't witnessed when the IK capsized and the young man disappeared beneath the "fence." But I was among those who watched first with trepidation and then amazement, at what happened next. Most people in his situation, when forced to "swim" the surly rapid, actually float with their feet in front of them to ward off rocks, working their way to one side of the river or the other. Not this guy.

His first adrenalin-fueled swim was to river left, maybe a third of the river's width, to reach his kayaking buddy. Then, after they discussed his options, he turned around and swam from one side of Blossom Bar to the other, power stroking the extreme and erratic current in between eddies. I held my breath the whole time. Especially when a commercial raft cut in front of him as he rested behind a rock. The canoeist waited on the other side with a throw rope and the kayaker stayed close to him during his heroic swim. He says:

Fortunately, frequent eddies broke up the current and provided rest stops, which allowed me to make it almost straight across to a raft waiting for me, and I didn't need the throw rope there either. In retrospect, it may have been possible to bushwhack/hike down on the left side, but we didn't consider that in the moment, and I felt ok about the swim.

A raft of rubberneckers blocked me on the last leg of my swim across, which was frustrating and got me extremely upset. If you see someone in the water, either offer to help or get the hell out of the way! Finally I made it to the far shore to one of our rafts and I climbed aboard.

I knew the person rowing the commercial raft. She didn't see him. It is uncommon to see someone swimming across the rapid.  She was fixated on the people in her group who'd walked around and were waiting to be picked up by her.  

The swimmer's brother and I were anxiously waiting in a raft for him to hop into if his swim was successful. I cringed when the hapless guide cut him off. But I got a front row seat to one of the most remarkable athletic feats I've ever seen. I rowed the two down the remainder of the boulder-strewn rapid where our relieved group 

This paddler has successfully steered around the Picket Fence and is navigating the boulder field that comprises the rest of the rapid. Photo taken in June 2014, a trip that sent four inexperienced boaters in IKs through the rapid without incident. The water level at that time was higher than on our recent trip. The red IK is just above where our heroic swimmer powered across the rapid.

 

Overall, it was a true near-death experience that I survived due to good luck, strong lungs/legs, and good advice at a timely moment from my experienced kayaker companion. I also got excellent support from the rest of the group to allow me to return to normalcy the next day and enjoy paddling the tamer rapids on the way out.

                                                     THE LESSON

If I return to Blossom Bar in an IK I would have a 90% chance of navigating it successfully. On the other hand, I have a lot of fun things I like to do not involving rivers, and I would like to continue doing them. It's not worth it to prove to myself, or anyone else, that I can do it.

Next time I would absolutely walk around or ride in a raft, and would recommend others do so until they have lots more experience and practice than I did that day. There are a lot of fun things to do and see on the Wild and Scenic trip, and skipping Blossom Bar would not take away from that at all. I also want to reiterate that it was my informed choice to try it and my mistake(s) that put me in that position.

In other words, next time he doesn't need to prove to himself or anybody else that he's man enough to take it on again. Amen!

Ok. My puny little story. 
How was it that I was rowing a raft in Blossom Bar after giving up rowing about 8 years ago? My difficult decision then had an impact on an annual women's river trip that had continued for 18 years during which I was one of four women rowers. I attempted to sort through my conflicting emotions in this August 2009 blog post and I still stand behind the major reason, which was that I just got sick of river trips of all sorts.

I now go once a year, maybe, as a passenger. I have no regrets, except that I lost my identity as a stud-woman. You’d be surprised at the people who marvel when women can do things done most often by men. You'd also be surprised at how cool it is to be a stud woman if only pretend. I knew it was only pretending because every trip I was sick with anxiety before running that damn rapid. Seriously. I did run it more than 100 times, most often without a hitch, but I never got over the anxiety. And I hate anxiety.

On day two of our recent trip, a novice rower was hurt in an incident unrelated to river running. I was the only person who could jump in and take the oars. In the meantime, he replaced me as a passenger in the raft piloted by PK. Several hours later, he recovered and was ready to row the mostly flatwater to camp.

In the meantime, I was navigating relatively easy class two and three rapids, but I knew class 4 Mule Creek and Blossom Bar were coming. I'd rowed Mule Creek last summer when the novice rower, in whose raft I was a passenger, got pitched out. I had to take the oars, get the boat into position to pick her up, then row the rapid. I was surprised and relieved to learn that I could still do it.

And so on the recent trip I found myself dipping the oars alone on the long flat mile between Mule Creek and Blossom Bar, deliberating whether or not to row Blossom. Actually, I knew I didn't want to. But my not rowing meant that  PK would have to row our raft, "park" it ASAP after passing the Picket Fence, then walk over the hot steep rocks to where I was in a holding pattern.  What is a good husband for if he can't hot steep rocks to rescue his wife?

He said he was good with it, and when I saw his face on the rocks above me, I knew it was time to boogie down the right bank to where our raft was parked about a quarter of the way through the rapid. But PK handled the hardest part.

Last words about this: I'm 70 years old. I will likely not row Blossom Bar again. Unless I really must. If I do, somebody will probably video it, and, depending upon the outcome, I will either be the "amazing elderly woman who rowed Blossom Bar" or the "the poor elderly woman stuck on the Picket Fence" or wrapped around a rock below. Or worse.

                        I think I'll settle for no amazement and go on my ordinary way.

I love river camping but not river running. Took me about 
20 years to figure that out.

SOMETHING FUN TO WATCH

                                                
           A video of another trip at Blossom Bar at the same water level we experienced.  

Check out the next video in this link above, too, the one entitled "Blunder at Blossom Bar."  No terrible outcomes, but lots of laughs. This will alert you to the rapid's danger and how hapless rowers can run amok. Or even non-hapless ones. Shit happens, even when you're experienced. Especially at Blossom Bar.

Previous  Ordinary Life posts about the Rogue

Camp cooking on the river

Korbulic family history regarding the Rogue

Bears on the river

Second thoughts about running the Rogue

Winter Camping along N. California Coast with Four-Wheel Camper

E-mail subscribers, please click on the headline to view this post on the website.

This huge Roosevelt  elk trotted past our camp along the Pacific Ocean in the Redwood National Park's Gold Bluffs campground. We saw hundreds of Roosevelt elk in the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park area.

We guessed his rack was three- to-four-feet.

PK and I have lived in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon since the early 1970s. Through the decades, we mostly stuck close to home. Limited funds. Two kids. Two jobs. Two-week vacations. You know the no-thrill drill.

No complaints, though, as we had the Wild and Scenic Rogue River at our disposal and all the weekend rafting, kayaking, hiking, camping, we could handle. Now that we're retired, we've started the exotic explorations we've always fantasized about, and in the past two years are fortunate to have visited South Africa, Uganda, and Nepal.

But we haven't forgotten where we live, not just Oregon's Rogue Valley, but the State of Jefferson, a collection of rural counties in Southern Oregon and Northern California where folks don't necessarily cotton to the mostly urban dwellers who govern both states. Hence various attempts to form a separate state have been launched, only to fizzle. Statehood probably won't happen, but in the meantime, residents of this mythical state cherish the flora and fauna that define the region. 

Elk hoof prints are large and distinctive, and
surprising to find on the beach.

PK and I hear the local forecasts on NPR each morning, which include most of the State of Jefferson. Lately, our Rogue Valley forecast has been foggy and cold, while the Northern California coast has been sunny and warm, temps in the high 50s being considered comfy. Let's go there, we said on a recent unacceptable morning during which the sun was not expected to penetrate the low-hanging gloom.  We drove a couple hours to reach our destination, but it's still close enough to call "home." And we were reminded once again why we love where we live.

One of the gold bluffs that give the campground its name. 

PK readies kindling for a campfire at our beach camp in the Redwood National Park.
Our Four-Wheel camper is perfect for such places, where large RVs, or trailers of any type, are not allowed due to the four-mile narrow rutted access road. But what a gift! An oceanfront campsite!

An early January sunset as viewed bundled up in our camp chairs. 

White crowned sparrows hung around awaiting crumbs. They didn't get any.  Multiple messages from national and state parks beg visitors to NOT feed the wildlife anything, even crumbs.

The next morning a minor stream crossing was necessary to reach the Fern Canyon trailhead, one of the Redwood National Park's favorite trails. But the car in the background could have navigated it.

Fern Canyon wasn't up to its usual glory as the bedraggled maidenhairs appeared to have suffered from cold. Or maybe they always die and come back. It's winter! What did we expect?

The redwoods, however,  never fail to inspire awe. We explored several trails winding amidst the ancient giants. 

Sore neck time.

Young redwoods cozy up to a much older tree. In time, their trunks may merge.

On the way home, we meandered along the Redwood Highway to Grants Pass, which follows the Smith River for a time. The Smith's delicate turquoise and breathtakingly clarity thrill me every single time since I first saw the river more than 40 years ago. 

Being alone on the beach is not unusual along coastal areas in the State of Jefferson. We'll be back to take advantage before the hoards descend for the summer tourist season. As daily listeners to weather updates for the N. California coast,  we believe summer visitors may not find summer conditions much different from winter. Year-round, temperatures range from high 40s to lower 60s.
However, we DID get lucky. The annual average January rainfall in this area is 11 inches.

EARLIER POSTS ABOUT GREAT PLACES IN 

THE STATE OF JEFFERSON 

Oregon Coast Getaway with Four-Wheel Camper

Bear Trip on the Rogue River

There You Have - The Mighty Rogue!

Camping and Cooking on the Rogue

Quick Getaway - Crater Lake

Oregon's Illinois River with Four-Wheel Camper

NOTES ABOUT WINTER IN THE FOUR-WHEEL CAMPER

When we first graduated from tent camping to the Four-Wheel Camper, we were old, relatively, in our 60s. We about died of happiness. After decades of erecting our faithful Moss tent in wind and rain, crawling out at night to pee, enduring an occasional rock under a sleeping pad, struggling to read with a headlamp, and waking in the dark with no place to go, our new camper was thrilling.

Four Wheel Camper About to Break Out of Slump

Where's the Four Wheel Camper? Sadly, it  is no where near Blossom Bar on Oregon's Wild and Scenic Rogue River, pictured above in late June. But the Toyota Tundra that hauls the raft also carries the Four Wheel camper, and it cannot do two things at once.  Early this summer we enjoyed several river trips in succession, and it was impractical to mount the camper on the pickup. Thus while we are rafting and having a wonderful time, the camper is home alone, sulking.

There it is, poor thing, dwarfed by landscaping and stranded on
sawhorses awaiting its next trip.

Our last Four Wheel outing was in May to visit grandchildren who live in a city. As usual, we popped the lid in the backyard and the Four Wheel became a playhouse for grandson, Noah, four, and now also little sister, Hadley,  age one. Young children LOVE campers, and ours has lots of knobs and drawers and lights and a radio/CD/iPod player that drive them insane.

We didn't buy the Four Wheel so we could camp in our son's backyard and provide a playhouse, and also endure  the cacophony of helicopters and police sirens,  barking dogs and neighbors with bad taste in music all night. But it works way better than paying buckets of money to stay in creepy casino hotels, and we kinda like the kids raising a ruckus, especially since they head inside at night, and we get our queen-sized bed to ourselves.

             Let's hope she doesn't jostle the commode on her left. And yes, thank you,
she IS adorable.

Now we're talkin! The camper is snugged into the truck bed, has a new carrier up top to haul gear for the months-long all-weather trips we're plotting, plus some new hydraulic help for lifting the lid. 

PK installed the external hydraulic assists, front and back, which make it possible for one person to pop the top and bring it down unassisted. No more snarling and snapping as we occasionally do, when we jockey for position in a tight space, and 1,2, 3 LIFT!

The Four Wheel is ready, but it's still eight days before we can get away to Washington's North Cascades, San Juan islands, and the Olympic Peninsula. Other travel plans are nebulous but persistent and include taking the Four Wheel from our home on the West Coast USA to East Coast to visit family. Then to Guatemala. Why? Check this out.  We want to volunteer gardening expertise there, or anything else needed.

Traveling cross country and to Central America will require months away. We're retired! What's the problem with taking off any time we damn well please?  It has to do with family obligations, mostly, and, for the time being,  we DO have a garden that requires TLC.

PREVIOUS FOUR-WHEEL CAMPER POSTS

Oregon Coast Getaway with Four-Wheel Camper

Steens Mountain with Four-Wheel Camper

Oregon's Illinois River Getaway

Girlfriends' Getaway to the Oregon Coast

Sunshine at the gorgeous Oregon coast with women who have shared decades of friendship celebrate birthdays (3 turn 60 this year) and the joy of life. Left to right, Nancy Fleischman, Marcy Landis, Paula Stone, Joanne Costantino, Gail Frank, Mary Walgrave, Dawn Welch, Chris Costantino, Pat Bange. In case you're wondering, I was behind the camera. But happily!

Girlfriends can be the healing balm for life's cruel wounds. Sob. They can provide shoulders for weeping, hands for holding, and ears for floods of feelings and fears. They will listen to your bitching, commiserate when you have woes, and nod in agreement when you need holding up. We need each other.

On the other hand, girlfriends can also be fantastic, crazy, epic FUN! I am so blessed with friendships, many of 30, even 40 years, duration. Too many girlfriends are far far away: Susan(s), Grace, Bev, Laurie, Patty, Terry, Jeanne, JoAnn, Michele, Margo—but I wish they all could have been along for the friendship ride the past weekend. Below are a few of way-too-many photos. If you want more, links to albums follow.

Making our way from our fantastic oceanfront rental near Bandon to our private beach. Actually, there's  no such thing as a private beach in Oregon because some long-ago visionaries, to whom we are forever grateful, went to the trouble to make sure nobody can "own" one. But access to this beach is limited, hence it was ours alone. The 30-second video below tells the tale. I haven't learned to edit videos, but most of it is lovely.

The HuffPost ran a recent blog entitled Five Reasons Why Every Woman Needs a Girls' Weekend.  The woman who wrote it is a lot younger, apparently, than our group as she included "boy talk" as a reason. We don't need no stinkin' men to have a great time, and we don't need to talk about them, either. (Ironically, many of us became friends because of our husbands' annual men's trip, going now on for 30 years! The same 10 guys. Remarkable, I think. I am so happy for PK that he has these long-term lifeline friendships. Just like most women I know.)

Friendship and fun. That's the story for the female flock pictured above. We had a couple new faces and were missing several regulars. (Don't worry. We toasted you all. More than once, I'm sure.) Speaking of toasting, we drink a lot of wine. One friend told about girl trips she's taken where the mostly retired-teacher participants drink very little. Instead they smoke pot. Ha!

Historically, this groups heads over to Mt. Bachelor near Bend, Oregon, to ski for a few spring days. But over the years, skiing became less attractive to some, and we shook out into two groups: skiers and shoppers. A coast trip brought us together. And then some.

Paula enjoys a little solitude.

Patty, Mary and Nancy yuck it up.

The Rental. Even better than it looks, and with a stunning ocean view.

Shore Acres state park is just down the road . We enjoyed the formal gardens and
the wave-lashed cliffs.

It was a jungle gym with little girls cavorting. Little girls ages 50-something to almost 70.

Gail had the idea for us to catch some Dungeness crabs with hopes of having a great appetizer, but no such luck. Lucky, however, for the two crabs of legal size that we  ended up liberating. 

Waiting to pull up the crab pots on a pier in the port of Charleston. A little beer and some really terrible but tasty junk food—jalapeno cheese crunchy thingies—helped pass the time. 

Patty's eye beams penetrate her sunglasses as she clutches her beer
and calls forth the crabs.

The Stone sisters check out the latest crabby bunch hauled up from the bay bottom. 

Just one steep slippery patch required we accept assistance at the bottom of the trail to the beach. Alpha women do not like to accept assistance. But it seemed preferable to a red-dirt butt.

Tossing a baci ball onto the beach for our upcoming game.

Throwing into the wind on a beach sloping to the sea complicated baci ball accuracy.

About 10 minutes of relaxation before moving on to the next fun thing. I think it was shopping.

Yes, we are women and we do shop. A group feeding frenzy in a chic boutique made for a happy shop owner and heated-up credit cards. There's something about trying on a garment that costs way too much, then parading before your friends to a chorus of ooooohhhhs and aaaaahhhhhs. Anyway. I have three new tops. I think I need to revisit the year during which I bought nothing new, except, of course, for food and sanitary supplies.

We made a haul shopping on a blustery afternoon at Devon's Boutique 
in Bandon, a surprisingly classy shop for a tiny coastal burg.

Learning the electric slide, one more time.

Gourmet meals are part of the deal in a take-turns cooking plan where two-person teams each plan and make one meal. This is a French fish stew called bouride. Fabulous. Thanks, Dawn and Patty.

The birthday girls in a blurry shot. Only a few days, weeks, or months
remain for them to enjoy being 50-something. Someone else is enjoying her last
months of separation from being 70. Moi. 

Frenetic game of pass-the-paddle ping pong. 

Gail was one of three birthday girls during the "year of the horse." 

Group dance to Mustang Sally made for lots of trotting action to Wilson Pickett's beat.

Wanna see more pics? Here you go.  And more? They just keep going. One more?  Clearly, I was out of control. 

Serendipity then and now

Serendipity officially means accidental good fortune. When I started this post, I intended to write about January gardening. That took me, somehow, to Africa and travel, and then to discontent with my ordinary life and then to childrearing, marriage, and the march of time. And back again. You'll find no gardening here.

 Serendipity—a pleasurable outcome of  brain exploration translated to fingers on the keyboard.  Writing.

 Ever since returning from Africa in mid-October, I've been discontented with ordinary life. No one is cooking for me. No one is driving me around. No one is concerned minute-to-minute with my entertainment. (Thank you, Kara Blackmore and TIA.) There are no giraffes, elephants, lions, gorillas, rhinos, impalas, springboks, cape buffalos, chimps, hippos, exotic birds or even crocodiles parading or posing for my enjoyment.

Oops. Forgot to mention zebras, who seemed eager to have their picture taken.

There's also a terrible absence of drifts of exotic flowers, and forests consisting of what look like giant houseplants. 

Pincushion proteas, indigenous to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town, South Africa, is among 7,000 species thriving in one of the world's great botanic gardens. We spent nearly four hours exploring the eye-blasting magic at the foot of the famous Table Mountain.

Sometimes in Uganda or in South Africa—which I haven't blogged about yet —you can't decide where to look. There's so much to see, so much to do. And the people. Suffice it to say that ordinary life for most Ugandans is different from mine. Their realities make me embarrassed about the luxuries of my privileged never-had-to-think-about-food-or-water ordinary blue-eyed life. Also makes me ponder, what do we really need?

This beautiful Ugandan teenager is making her fifth one-mile round trip from her home to the Nile River balancing 50 pounds of water, which must be boiled at least an hour to be potable. Note that her balance is so good the jerry can lacks a plug. Such are the skills necessary for survival. 

Back in rural Southern Oregon in the dead of winter, I am having to work at being delighted, excited, awed or inspired, as if those are the states-of-being I expect or, more importantly, deserve. That's what Africa did to me. I got accustomed to daily delight, excitement, awe and inspiration. I can tell you, it's not a bad way to live.

Except for a couple spectacular days at the Oregon coast in mid-December, (photos here), dullsville is where I'm at now.  Usually, when returning from a "holiday" as vacations are called in South Africa, I am ready to be home. This time, not. I'm restless, resurrecting that irresistible urge to be on the move that spurred me back in the early 1970s, before babies and jobs and house payments tethered us.

 I say "us" because I've been partners with the same man for going on 41 years. We have our own early histories, but at this point, our shared time predominates. We've been together a couple decades longer than the ages we were when we met. Who knows when you commit to someone that this can happen? If you're lucky, it does.

In Mexico 2006

When our first child arrived in 1977, the itchy feet gave way to nesting and to kid-loving to the center of my being and back. The reason most parents can put up with sleepless nights and toddlers screaming in the grocery store, is that kid-love consumes them.

Chris, left, and Quinn Korbulic, 1999

I love our adult sons, but not as viscerally as when they were babies, toddlers, young children, and even despicable (sometimes) teenagers. They're cut loose and my oh my, who they have become pleases me so. How I adore them still. We won't even get into the grandchildren. Another time.

Back in the day, and besotted with kid-love, I was content with camping and rafting and the occasional two-week summer vacation along with the pleasure and pain of raising children, sustaining a marriage, developing a writing/editing career, and getting acquainted with the Earth in our backyard: the garden, the Rogue River and environs.

I often told myself, and others who would listen, that there's more than one way to travel. Explore your life and journey philosophically, if you can't get out there into the world geography. Having two kids, two jobs, little money, and two or three weeks vacation per annum, I embraced the philosophy route. Time flew. It flapped its wings and dive bombed year after year, pecking me on the head, "You're another year older!"

Now time is pecking me in the eyes, dammit. Get away! Slow the hell down!

Still, I don't regret any of it. I would never give up having raised our sons because both are gifts that keep on giving. And life has come full circle with me being the touchstone for my 98-year-old mom who is in assisted living one mile away.

However. I'm now thinking ours would be a great place to be coming back to. Someday. In the meantime, I will continue to appreciate the small things, and large, that have made this piece of ground home for more than 40 years. It won't be long before we'll be on road longterm and so glad to have a piece of the Earth to settle back into, as birds returning from migration.

Ironically, as I was working on this post, I excavated, from the bottom of a trunk, a diary from 1972. Here's something I wrote August 24 of that year... I was 28 years old.

Driving over the Big Horn Mountains. Stoned. Looking at cows through binoculars and talking about time. A little poem:  

I'll travel til there's no wind left in my soul. Then I'll be old. 

Well, now I AM old, so I'll say the same thing today except for one word:

I'll travel til there's no wind left in my soul.

 Then I'll be dead. 

Leeks in all their glory in our garden. What you can't see or hear are the bees. The bees. Hundreds of bees. Maybe as many bees as there are in all of Africa. Right in my own backyard. Just in case.