Adventures with Luna

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Day 68 - Roseburg - Cape Blanco State Park, Oregon

We stayed at the motel until check out at 11:00 am, then headed back on the road for a couple hours. Nearing our destination, my phone instructed me to go down a road that seemed a little odd for getting to my destination, but I decided to try it out, only to find it led me right to someone’s property with a sign clearly stating “No trespassing”, trying my google maps instead of Siri, I was still directed to go to the same spot after being lead part of the way back there in a round-a-bout way that lead me through more winding roads before I realized where she was trying to take me. I gave up and drove to Cape Blanco State Park, which could well be where the Blacklock Point I was trying to get to is. The campground here is beautiful and I chose a site that looks out at the ocean through the forest. After making and eating a late lunch at the campsite, we walked down to the beach for a couple hours. I let Luna off-leash and she had tons of fun romping around in the sand and in the waves, she is more confident about going farther in to the water now, although she is still watchful of the waves, which is good. We ran in and out of the waves and up and down the beach for awhile, just having fun. I love the ocean, there is something about the salt water that I find incredibly healing. When we reached the North side of the beach I lay in the sand for a few minutes, enjoying the sound of the ocean. Luna began digging and I began building with the wet sand she dug up; it wasn’t that I was trying to create a sand castle or anything, I just enjoyed the process. Before I knew it, I had created a 3D face, I destroyed it, then started putting sand together until it began to take a certain shape, then I identified the shape and continued building what I decided would be a horse head and neck pointing forwards, but truly became quite a pretty deer instead. Seeing storm clouds overhead, I decided to begin working my way back. Luna trotted quickly ahead as we headed back, stopping, looking back, and waiting for me quite frequently, I think she was wanting to get me back to the car to feed her her supper! Arriving back at the car, I fed her and had a snack, then did some reading before becoming so cold I needed to get all cozy in bed, it is chilly here tonight. I had to blow up my air mattress again as the cold had made it practically flat.

It appears that I am running with only one foot, that my left foot has entirely disappeared?

Oh, nope, I still have both feet!

"Seriously, another photo?"

Skipping and singing a little ditty...or perhaps I am just going crazy having been alone so long ;)

Chasing birds.

Our campsite.

Day 67 - North Western Nevada - Roseburg, Oregon

Last night was the coldest yet, so cold that when I finally ventured out of my warm sleeping bag at 9:30, I found that our water was now ice. It was the first night that Luna spent a long period of time in my sleeping bag; I was sleeping badly and continuously woke up to cover her with her sleeping bag anytime she repositioned herself, finally, just bringing her in with me seemed easier and necessary with how cold her fur felt. With her in my sleeping bag and my arm wrapped around her, I finally got some sleep. My face was so cold that it woke me up at another point, once my head was in the sleeping bag as well I slept soundly. I did have a toque, sweatshirt, flannel PJs and thermal socks on along with being cocooned in one sleeping bag, having another draped over me as a duvet and my back on track quarter sheet over top, so I was warm enough if I stayed under the covers.

I have thought a lot recently about how powerful thoughts truly are. I have always been told such things as “whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you are right” and about the power of a thought, but I never really took it to heart, even though I knew I should. I feel like I am just beginning to grasp just how much thought patterns have impacted my life. One simple thing that I have found that really brings home the power of thought is having my head underneath the sleeping bag for warmth or darkness; if I cover my face at all with the sleeping bag when I am trying to get to sleep, I truly feel like I am suffocating, my throat clenches, I can’t get enough air in, I can’t handle it for more than a few seconds. If, however, I pull my sleeping bag over my head in my sleep or when I am half-asleep, I find it extremely cozy and comfortable. Even though I am well aware that I sleep with it over my head pretty much every night now, I still cannot handle having it over my head if I am trying to get to sleep, I truly experience the physical symptoms of getting too little air because of some errant thought passing through my mind. I find this fascinating, scary, awful and absolutely wonderful all at the same time. I have a lot of work to do to get my thoughts under control.

We left around 10:30 am and perhaps 5 miles in to our drive once we reached the main road, we arrived in Oregon. To my disappointment, the speed limit went from 70 miles/hour in Nevada, to 55 miles/hour as soon as we crossed the state line and remained on the exact same road. I watched as my fuel drained as we continued through the middle of nowhere. There had been several hours of driving the day before without any gas stations that were open and today there was about 1 1/2 hours until I finally reached one, it was quite a relief! The gas station was a Shell and was full service, which, posting this on my 72nd day, is what has been the case at all gas stations I have visited in this state. After getting my fuel, I parked and called my mom to tell her about the mustangs from the evening before, I had a great chat with both her and Sean.

I drove for around 6 hours, but it felt like much longer. We stopped at one point for Luna to play in the snow that was several feet high on the sides of the road. Luna was so ecstatic to have a reunion with her beloved snow, she was doing zoomies as soon as she was on it, putting her head down to grab mouthfuls of snow as she ran (yes, I had just offered her water, but she was being very stubborn about drinking it today). Perhaps an hour later we had stopped again to take photos of the difference as we were now surrounded by green - green grass, green leaves, green moss, green ferns and there were frequent small waterfalls at the side of the road. It had snowed and rained on and off throughout the day, I already missed the sun.

Arriving in Roseburg just after 5:00 pm, I scouted out their Motel 6. I was beginning to get in desperate need of a shower and was willing to splurge after sleeping free for 3 nights and knowing it would be a cold one tonight! “We got a room” I told Luna, almost trembling with joy and relief as I grinned from ear to ear, perhaps I was more desperate for a shower, a warm room and a reprieve from driving than I realized (the last couple hours to Roseburg had been long ones)! I was relieved to be able to cook supper, having spent the past few days in such windy, open areas that I had opted to snack instead and have apples, bananas and energy bars for supper. I am beginning to be so, so ready to be able to eat a variety of food and things much healthier than these meals that I toss in to some water and cook or heat up, I am beginning to feel quite unhealthy and not pleased with putting this crap in my body. The energy bars and fruit are of course healthy, but I have been eating way too many energy bars because when I eat breakfast, my fruit is fairly frozen, so very unappetizing, so I end up eating a couple energy bars instead, then I am driving and a bar is a lot easier to handle than a sticky apple that has to stay in my hand the entire time I am eating it. Ah well, there’s ways around these things I just haven’t prioritized it enough and my body is feeling it now.

My evening was spent showering, catching up online and just relaxing in the warmth, spread out on a bed. When I turned off my light, I scooted way up the bed and started to tuck my feet up, a habit now from sleeping in the car. My mattress has a built in pillow, which I had at the foot end for awhile until this evening, having placed it there with the hope that the dip in the floor would take up the bulk of it as I found my pillows way more comfy. Instead, it just made for quite a bit of discomfort, having my feet raised every night, however I didn’t get around to changing it as it is awkward, the built in pillow hurts my neck some and it scares Luna a lot when I move it, so I always found an excuse not to and regretted it every night. Finally, seeing as I had to move it around to blow more air in, I flipped it around this evening. Luna ran across it to come be right with me as she was so scared, I was touched that she climbed on to the thing she feared to reach me for comfort.

We drove from this....

....to this....

....to this.

I got several photos of Luna playing in the snow that make me laugh.

A fight match with an invisible opponent (check out the snow falling from her mouth)

Dance party.

Being serious.

Scooping up snow as she ran full speed.

Scooping up more snow.

Into the woods.

Invisible motorcycle.

The lighting here was wonderful!

Beautiful girl.

My wonderful co-pilot.

Day 66 - Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah - North Western Nevada

I had planned on getting up for sunrise, but that did not quite work out. I always set two alarms, 15 minutes between them, one to get me started on waking up so I can take my time, perhaps sleep a few more minutes, perhaps just get up then, the other if I do go back to sleep. It was after 1:00 am that I finally got to sleep, so I guess that when my alarm went off at 6:30, I was groggy enough that I shut off both alarms and went back to sleep until 9:00 am, ah well, it was a driving day so being well rested was important. Luna and I spent the next 3 hours walking around the salt flats and having some fun with photography. The salt flats are beautiful and very cool, it is just too bad that people are allowed to drive on them as the tire tracks and muck they stir up take away from what would otherwise be something even more incredible, but there were signs about these Bonneville Salt Flats being the place where some major international speed races are held. A couple people came and went, but once two vehicles were there at the same time with more coming, I decided it was time to go. I stopped in town to consult my phone for a little while, checking out where I wanted to head next and what places I might want to visit in Oregon, seeing as I had not planned to visit the state initially. I chose to head first to Blacklock Point, almost 14 hours away.

After about 5 hours of driving I was getting immensely disenchanted with the long drive and decided I would stop once I reached a place I could spend the night. For quite a long time I was driving through the middle of nowhere and with half a tank left and a sign saying there was 81 miles to go to the next gas station, I decided to stop for fuel. As I pulled up to the pump and stepped out of my car, a man with the truck and camper from the other side of the pump approached me “I hope you don’t need gas” he said “Do they not have any?” “Nope and we are clean out, we don’t have enough to go anywhere now”, thankfully, he had AAA (what the US calls AMA), so they were on their way, but he and I talked about the route I was taking as he had come from the Oregon coast and if there would be fuel in 81 miles or not, seeing as there had been a sign quite some time ago saying there would be fuel in this place. I asked him about whether much of the surrounding land was BLM land as perhaps I would just sleep in my car around there, he thought it was and said with concern “Lock your doors!”. Telling each other “Good luck”, we parted ways, me headed back in to the middle of nowhere, him, his wife and his dogs waiting on AAA. It was almost 7 hours in to the drive (thankfully we gained an hour in the drive, so it was only around 5:45 rather than 6:45) and not too long after this stop that I came across a sign for a recreation area and my beloved little picture of a tent that means camping is available. I decided to try it out, not wanting to go far off my route with a dwindling tank of gas. Thankfully it was only a mile or so down the curving dirt road to the camping area, a parking lot with an outhouse.

During my drive I had begun to think how it looked like the wild horse territory that I’ve seen in photos, I then realized the fences were gone and soon after, crossing signs with silhouettes of donkeys that must have signified wild burros and finally a sign with a silhouette of a trotting horse came up, I hoped I would be so lucky as to see some mustangs or burros, but didn’t think it too likely. I had parked, had Luna out for a play, visited the outhouse and was sitting in my car to escape the cold wind, watching out my back window for wildlife and almost trying to persuade myself to get reading or something as the chance of me seeing a mustang wasn’t high when suddenly two horses came galloping down the hill “Luna! It’s them! Oh my god, it’s them!” I said excitedly, as if we had been expecting some highly esteemed guests and they were just pulling up. I’m not sure how I managed it, but I grabbed my camera case, pulled my camera out, took off the cap, opened my upper back door and snapped two photos while I watched them and they were only in view for a matter of seconds. I expected them to almost immediately pop out the other side of the hill and bushes, but they didn’t. It was at least 10 minutes, although it felt like much longer, before they appeared again, galloping across the field, excited by the cold wind. The bay stallion was the obvious leader and the black one was very watchful, if I made any loud noises, he was the one who would stare my way, they bay seemingly trusting him to keep a lookout while he filled his belly. The bay had a roll after the long gallop, then they grazed for a bit, then both of them rolled side by side before getting back to grazing. Eventually, I risked leaving my car to watch them slightly closer, then deciding to see how close I could get to them, expecting the answer to be ‘not very’ and I was right, I was perhaps 10 yards closer to them (which was very far away still) when they trotted off, heads high. I was freezing, in my haste I had slipped on my broken flip flops rather than my wet runners (from walking through puddles in the salt flats) as well as my long, puffy ‘sleeping bag’ jacket over my pjs. My body was warm, but my toes, face and hands were starting to feel like they had pin needles poking in to them with how cold the wind was. Back in the car, I watched out my windows a little longer, but did not expect them to return (although I wouldn’t have made myself so known to them if I wasn’t ready to see them go, it was just too cold to watch any longer anyway!) and did not think any others would come. I prepared myself for what was the coldest night yet on my trip, piling on my toque and thermal socks along with adding my back on track quarter sheet to my pile of sleeping bags. I used a couple expired hand warmers that had been given to me as well, switching my hands between holding them and holding my book as I read and each hand became too cold to hold the book easily. All my unexposed flesh was perfectly cozy and I made sure Luna was as cozy as could be as well, although it is difficult as she frequently repositions herself, making her sleeping bag come off of her. In the morning, our water was frozen solid.