September 2019 trip: Farragut State Park

Farragut is a large park, much of it an a natural or at least unimproved state. It would bear another visit, but at a carefully chosen date–there is much evidence of heavy use, because of its proximity to Spokane I assume, and as large as it is, I would prefer to be there along with fewer people. There were a couple of disappointments: while there are extensive trails, they are virtually unmarked, and the park doesn’t have a good map of them for visitors; and they don’t allow dogs down by the water. This seems to be an Idaho thing–dogs were not permitted by the water at Ponderosa either. So no swimming after sticks for Scamp there.

The unmarked trail thing drove me nuts. There were posts in strategic places that essentially said “Trail”. No kidding–I could see that for myself. Which trail, and where it goes–no info at all. Or incorrect or misleading info–I got lost at one point by following an arrow indicating a loop, and it cost me at least 30 minutes and an extra half mile or more of hiking that I hadn’t anticipated.

(I find myself becoming disorientated more often as I age, and it distresses me every time. I’ve never had the ability my brother used to have of always being oriented to the four directions regardless of where he was or how many turns he’d taken, but I’m used to being able to use landmarks or major roads, along with a mental map including where north is, to stay oriented so that even if I don’t know exactly where I am, I know what direction to head in to get un-lost. This is no longer always true. The problem happens when I lose the correlation of my mental map with what’s around me–can’t spot landmarks and/or lose where north is. It’s why I hate the follow-your-nose view when using a GPS map–it causes me to lose that vital orientation when in unfamiliar territory, since it swings the landscape around me instead of showing my movement within the landscape. It scares me and pisses me off simultaneously. It reminds me of the scene in On Golden Pond where Henry Fonda gets lost while taking a walk he’s don’e many times before, and panics. I want north to ALWAYS be at the top on my devices’ maps, AND I want to be able to zoom in or out as much as I want to without losing that. Apparently Google and Apple think that is weird–they prefer the follow-your-nose view, and only grudgingly accommodate my preferences.)

Anyway, once I had located my assigned site, I decided to drive around for a bit before setting up. I was glad I did–as I said, the place is huge and there’s no way I could have explored it as thoroughly on foot. Got back to the site in time to do a nice leisurely setup before wine time, and proceeded to start to deploy the awning because rain was in the overnight forecast. Now for reasons he didn’t explain, the guy who coordinated my van conversion, when I picked up the completed van told me that when deploying the awning I should extend it completely, then retract it to the position I wanted it to be in, which I’ve generally done. However, this time when I tried to retract after it was fully extended–it wouldn’t. It made a noise that sounded like a gear slipping, and would not retract. I tried several times, but didn’t want to do further damage, so freaked for a minute or two (you can’t exactly drive a van down the road with an awning sticking out seven or eight feet from the side), then finished setting up. And freaked some more–it’s a necessary stage of coping with such things for me.

Adding to the crisis was the fact that cell service was almost nonexistent there, several miles off the highway and out by the lake. Too bad I hadn’t taken my bike on this trip.

My first step toward coping was to climb up on top of the van to try to open up the casing over the motor that powers the awning and see if I could see what was wrong. I got the casing off easily–it was only precariously help on by two screws and a rivet (!). The screws were easy to remove, but when I tried to pivot the case around the rivet, it broke (of course–I don’t know what idiot thought rivets were a good idea there anyway), but that meant the case was entirely free. Unfortunately, all I could see were thoroughly encased and protected parts of the motor–no gears, which were further in. It was clearly going to take more skills–and tools–than I had with me to deal with this. (One of the frustrations is that the van conversion guy had given me a little handle thingy that would allow me to deploy the awning manually in case the electric motor failed for some reason. Unfortunately, this tool was at home, in my basement, in a bin along with some never to be used again van stuff. I knew exactly where it was–650 miles away. It is now in the van. Somewhere.)

Sat around and thought awhile. E&J (brother and wife) were at that point in Coulee Dam for her HS reunion. I decided to hike out in the morning to the visitors center/park entrance where I had had a bar or two of cell service, a mere mile and a quarter or so away. I didn’t have much of an idea what they could do, but I wanted to let them know what was happening, and besides I wanted some sympathy. Having a plan of sorts, I let it go and proceeded to check out a nearby trail with Scamp.

Sticks, excellent sticks, were plentiful. She carted this one quite a ways.

And worked at trimming this one down to size.

(As you can see, sometimes I was a good law-abiding citizen and kept her on leash, and sometimes I was what one of my sisters likes to call a scofflaw and let her off.)

The next morning we did the hike to the visitor’s center, where I had hoped for wifi. No wifi, but I did have a bar or two of cell, so called my brother. Besides commiserating, he was able to find a phone # for a nearby RV repair guy and texted it to me. However, this was Sunday; knowing I could do nothing until the next morning, I relaxed for the day. With the cats mostly, apparently.

Cooked pasta for lunch again, since there were a couple of servings of the ingredients left over from my birthday.

Shadow has been getting the last bits of milk from my breakfast, and was acting interested, so I offered him the last of the pasta. Much to my surprise, he ate it. If I remember correctly, there wasn’t even any left for Scamp, but she got to lick out the pan so she was OK.

Went for two or three more walks with Scamp that afternoon, including the one where I got lost, but it was kinda gloomy so I didn’t take pictures. I had forgotten how gloomy the panhandle can be. I spent a year teaching up there in Clark Fork, and the clouds just sat there, a few hundred feet overhead, for days and months on end. I remember when spring finally arrived and the sun came out–in May, I think–It was SUCH a gorgeous day we all just walked around looking stunned (or stoned–take your pick) by how beautiful it was. On this visit, it was partly sunny on Saturday, but increasingly cloudy and damp the rest of the time, so the beauty wasn’t impressing itself upon me.

Monday morning I woke up knowing that one way or another, I was going to have to cope with the awning. Once everything else was packed and loaded, I thought what the heck, let me just try once more to bring it in–and lo a miracle occurred! as I like to say. Actually, as someone pointed out, it was probably that the temperature changes had shifted things around just enough for the gear to fully engage. Regardless, it was a great relief–the van was drivable.

Nonetheless, decisions had to be made. I was unwilling to deploy the awning again until it was fixed, or at least I knew what the problem was. The weather to the north, where we had planned to head on Tuesday, was looking gloomy, wet, and cold. My primary use of the awning is to make camping in the rain easier and more comfortable. Phone calls had revealed that no one in the area was prepared to fix the awning, or even knew much about this particular brand. The van was nearly due for a major servicing. On the one hand, it was looking like perhaps the most sensible thing for me to do was to abort the trip and head home. On the other–I didn’t want to, both for my own sake and because both E&J seemed to want me to travel with them as planned.

A guy at a van conversion company in Bellevue, Idaho (south of Ketchum-Sun Valley) was willing to take a look at the awning, making no promises, in a week. I drove down to E&J’s hotel, and taking all these things into account, the three of us came up with a compromise travel plan, essentially eliminating the Canadian portion but retaining much of the rest. I figured out how to camp in the rain without the awning. (The cats are the problem–they sleep in their crates outside. Tarps and bungie cords are the solution.) I drove back north for one last night at Farragut, and the next day, instead of heading north to Cranbrook BC, we headed east to Kalispell. I was feeling better, but still somewhat unsettled. And apologetic–this is the second trip in less than a year where we’d planned to travel together across a U.S. border (it was Mexico back in January) and aborted that part of the trip because of my van issues. I’m hoping they haven’t entirely given up on me . . . .