Yes, the Beagle is back out!
A short trip to test a few items:
Leaving from the new northern home base (Boise), how badly I will miss River,
will I be able to get a first-come site mid-week, and will I ever get back that
joy of the open road?
Moving (aptly named but may I suggest “displacement”?) is moving and I am sure all of you have done it; after a week
of unpacking boxes, setting up gadgets (like Ethel my robotic lawnmower, who,
it turns out is smarter than Lucy my decade-old robotic vacuum, but not quite
as smart as The Countess, my upstairs robotic vacuum) and cowering in the
afternoon heat of Boise (hovering at 100), I decided I better get up to the
mountains and remind myself what this relocation was all about.
Despite my love of Beagle, it was difficult to make myself
hit the road—even for just a couple of nights.
That last trip, the ten-week and over 3,700 miles of snow, rain,
concussion, flat tire and leaking Wurzig really zapped my adventuresome spirit. But set out we did: Opus and I hit the road toward the Sawtooth
Mountains, that vast area of wide-open meadows backed by towering, jagged peaks,
which made me fall in love with Idaho last summer.
But sadly, no River. She
died a few weeks ago. As some of you
know, she had a wonderful life. As I
wrote in my journal, “River was born in California, she died in California and
in between she visited eleven countries…and peed on a castle.” Here she is with Alan in Switzerland, maybe they are together again.
***
It’s still hot up here at Stanley Lake Campground, mid-eighties
and four-thousand feet closer to the sun than Boise. But the lake cools me during the day and the
nights drop to forty which is delightful.
The minute I pulled in to my first-come site with a view of the jagged
mountains, I knew I had made the right decision. Here was my idea of paradise, no reservation
needed, and only three Beagle hours from home!
As nice as it is to just have Opus for hiking and hanging
around Beagle (he does not bark at other dogs passing by whereas River would go
ballistic), I do miss River. Some of you
have heard her “Roo-roo-roo!” and seen her circles, experiences I doubt I will
ever hear or see again, but only one other human has ever seen her clever use
of shade.
A decade ago, when Alan and I were hiking with her and Rosco in the hot California Sierra’s, she would stop underneath the shade of a tree and wait there until she lost sight of us then run forward to the next shady spot and wait again. Probably the smartest thing she ever did—she was not known for being clever. (To be fair, she had tough competition with Rosco ahead of her and Opus bringing up the rear.)
Today I feel like River:
It was even too hot to sit by the lake after swimming so Opus and I
walked from shady spot to shady spot until we were back underneath Beagle’s
Moonshade. Here we await the cooling
afternoon breeze, of which I feel the slightest hint at the outer edge of the hot,
puffy gusts.
***
And that adventuresome spirit? I eventually did feel it, albeit not until I
was headed home. Leaving the campground,
I turned south on Highway 21, checked out Beagle in the rear-view mirror,
looked ahead at the open, curvy road and felt that tinge of excitement, that thrill
of the open road, that security of knowing you are carrying everything you need
and the smack of freedom when you realize that you could just keep on driving.
-K
