Day 93, Boise, Idaho to Bend, Oregon

There and Back Again

Note: There will be some epilogue posts on an irregular schedule, but this is the final regular post. One of the epilogues we would love to do is a Q and A, so please send any questions you have. Everything is fair game, and ask as many as you’d like. The comment section is the easiest place for me to retrieve them, but email/however else you want to send them is also fine.

Fireworks were going off like crazy until 11 last night, wide availability in Boise no doubt playing a part. I wasn’t sleepy for the second day in a row, going to bed late and getting up at 6:30, the toll to be paid at a later date. We were out by 7:30, hooking up the trailer down to 4 minutes. 315 miles to home, about 5 hours. And as America’s Foremost Documenters of Bathrooms, we have to leave you with one more doozy.

Amongst the questions raised:

1. What necessitated this sign?

2. Is it OK in the Women’s Bathroom?

3. Was the occurrence really so frequent so as to necessitate the sign?

4. Is this low key a big problem across the country, but only Boise has the guts to step up and say no?

5. Seriously, what necessitated this sign?

We hit the road, out of trash bags, bananas, paper towels, oats, beer, and a whole bunch of other stuff, good planning getting us to the finish line with the perfect amount of a bunch of things: none. 15 minutes west and there’s nothing, farmland and dirt, mountains to the north that are low and steep with flat tops. 40 total miles and we were in Oregon, and I’ll be honest: the first stretch made me miss Idaho. Thankfully it gets better, which is more than I can say for Indiana. The corn looked healthy, and there were John Deere and Pepsi plants, leafy greens next to the corn fields.

20 West takes you almost the entire way, into valleys full of farms and back up and over the next range. People once again pumped our gas, even in the middle of nowhere, 68 miles to the next petrol stop, one of the most remote areas of the entire trip. The hills were green, red, and tan, pretty for stretches before they disappeared, trees lining the river but scarce otherwise. Cell service was nonexistent. The road tracks the river and we saw weeping willows, a favorite of mine. Eventually forests start, pine and juniper dotting the hills, and we entered the Pacific Time Zone. Our final stop was in Burns, the beer in the cooler all from Bend, a sure sign we were almost home.

135 miles to go and the Juniper really kicks in, the first stretch of land past Burns empty and desolate. 50 miles out you can see Mt. Bachelor and the Three Sisters, still covered in snow. The trees become thicker, dirt and sagebrush the only things beneath them, reminiscent of Joshua Tree. The High Desert takes full form as you come over the last range, cell service kicking in, the valley surprisingly green, a canyon to our right, the Oregon Badlands Wilderness. Bend doesn’t look like any place we visited on the trip, reminiscent of Montana and South Dakota but without their precipitation, huge mountains and tall pine but without grass. Horse farms dominate the edge of the city. We settled in at 21.2 MPG for the trip over 12,200 miles and arrived home just before 12, purple flowers blooming along the irrigation canal to welcome us home.

Kari’s mom, Denise, was at the house doing farm work and had picked up dinner, BBQ from a fantastic local spot, Susan’s BBQ. We had a celebratory Half Hitch from Crux, our favorite, and got updates on the farm and our construction project, the workshop. I would once again be remiss to not thank Denise, Mamo, Keith, Allison, and Gerald for all of their help while we were gone.

Keith and Allison brought their daughters, Evelyn and Isabella, for Sunday dinner. Chloe was beside herself, surprised to be home but taking to it quickly, thrilled to have many of her favorite people over. We checked out the workshop and I got to see the view for the first time, the Cascades somewhat obstructed but nonetheless beautiful. Everyone brought us beer and we shared our spoils from the trip. Allison and Keith made dessert, Brownies and a Cherry Clafoutis, both delicious.

Izzy chased Chloe and checked out our cabinets, which seemed to hold up to her scrutiny. Evelyn got a bit hyped on the brownies, the Mayoral clan departing shortly thereafter for entirely related reasons. We enjoyed a bit more time with Gerald and Denise before they departed, and the only thing left to do was write this post.

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There’s a quote I like from Nassim Taleb about the nature of writing a book:

“Books to me are not expanded journal articles, but reading experiences, and the academics who tend to read in order to cite in their writing--rather than read for enjoyment, curiosity, or simply because they like to read--tend to be frustrated when they can't rapidly scan the text and summarize it in one sentence that connects it to some existing discourse in which they have been involved.”

Put another way, if you wrote a book that could be summarized in a sentence, why the fuck did you write a book? I think about that idea a lot because I struggle with the need for summary, namely because I’ve never found myself to be easily summarized. Most people aren’t, but I think it’s fair to say my path in most things is an unusual one. I certainly wasn’t a conventional marketer, product manager, VC, consultant, teacher, or farmer, and whatever else lies ahead probably won’t be conventional either, in no small part because it must be defined by what came before.

History, in this way of thinking, has mass, and the more of it there is the harder it is to move. I’m genetically predisposed to novelty seeking and therefore avoiding history, but that only lasts so long. Eventually you have to balance the desire for new, and progress, with the need to conserve what you’ve already built. Finding that balance personally is difficult, and I tend to bounce between either extreme. We don’t have enough time to unpack all the ideas behind managing that balance, but the one I’ve thought a lot about lately is this: that if the accumulation of history has mass, and therefore gravity, that will tend to manifest as either an anchor or a foundation.

The anchor will pull you to the bottom, while the foundation will let you build higher.

The anchor will hold you down while the foundation lifts you up.

The anchor will keep you in place, or maybe even drag you backwards, while the foundation will let you see further.

I spent a lot of my life running from history because it looked like an anchor, even when it wasn’t. I didn’t always know what I wanted to be, or do, but I knew it wasn’t something I saw, which necessitates exploration and a commensurate separation from where you started. And that has consequences: forsaking history means distance from the people who made it. I was lucky enough to find the things I wanted earlier than many, and I’ve spent the better part of the last decade trying to parse through that history and right wrongs, to find a way to merge where you come from with who you are and make them work together. And I think we’re getting there.

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I didn’t want to take a trip you could summarize in a sentence, because what would be the point of spending 90 days on a trip you could summarize in a fucking sentence? I wanted to see more than I thought I could, more than a reasonable person should try to see. I wanted to see as many of the places that changed other peoples lives as possible, as well as the ones I knew would change mine. I wanted to engage with the country I’ll always be a part of, anchors and foundations everywhere, and decide which was which for myself.

I knew it would be great. I didn’t have any doubt that we would make it so. But as someone who has a painful desire to be understood, one of the maddening things about experiences like this is how hard they are to communicate. How could I summarize this trip? How could I show anyone, let alone everyone, everything we saw, and did, and felt, and learned?

And I couldn’t have, without the benefit of this here (whatever this is). It has meant so much to hear so many kind words from all of you about this space, and how included you felt, and how much you enjoyed it. More than anything it has given us an incredible gift: that the best experience of our lives isn’t something we have to try to convey, it’s something the people we love the most in the world already know. You were there for all of it. You all have your favorite parts, characters, locations, posts, activities, jokes, and bathrooms. You shared in all of it. And it helped us make something we’ll have forever, all the time, energy, and effort spent not lost because we did so much in such a short time, but instead documented for posterity, to whatever end we deem fit.

So with the utmost gratitude I say: I sincerely hope this was whatever you were looking for. I suspect it was different for most of you, and that’s great. We did our best.

Thank you to Mike, Alicia, Chris, Jess, Simon, Taylor, Bones, My Dad, Paula, Denise, Gerald, Grandma, Kevin, Patti, Angela, Pam, Mappy, Yoda, and Jessie for meeting up with us and/or housing us.

Thank you to Mamo, Keith, Allison, Gerald, and Denise for all your help with the farm and the house.

Thank you to Mamo and John for showing Kari so much of the country in your RV, giving her the skills and knowledge to plan this trip. John commanded The Archerfish, and our trailer is named The Archerfish 2, Archie, in his honor.

And I already said that we didn’t want a trip that could be summarized in a sentence, so I won’t try.

-Chris and Kari