9 Aug 2019 | Sisters, OR> Continued from Lakeview, Oregon up to Sisters, driving the scenic Cascade Hwy + stopping to hike along the Deschutes River, listening still to our Oregon roadtrip mixtape.

Deschutes river

10 Aug> Woke up early to hike cuz they was perdicting thunderstorms around noon, wint past Matthieu lakes trail to where it met back u w/ Pacific Crest thinking we might go further, maybe even summit 1 of the Sisters if the whether agreed but it was already raining at 8 am + cold (in the 40s) so we headed back, thru lava flows + forests burnt out from a fire in 2017. Dried/warmed up in the car driving along 242, thru the lava fields to Proxy falls + it stopped raining so did that hike. Then stopped in the lava fields + did the short paved walk thru there. Then went up the Black Crater trail but it was starting to get cold + rainy + we was burning out on burnt-out forest landscapes so retreated back. All in all 16 miles or so.

burnt out forests

new life emerging

Matthieu Lake

North Sister

2 of the Sisters

Proxy falls (lower)

upper Proxy

vast fields of lava

11 Aug | Detroit, OR> Hiked Black Butte early, was still cold (upper 40s) + as we wint higher it got windy + foggy. Cd see the 3 Sisters but Mt Washington, Jefferson + Hood were all shrouded in clouds, otherwise u kin sposedly see them all from up on Black Butte. By the time we summited we were also in the clouds + a harsh wind was a'blowin. It was only like a 4-5 mile hike so further along we stopped + hiked the PCT for a few hours down twards Mt Washington, which we might of a'tempted to summit but it was still clouded over + chilly. Saw a PCT'er as he approached 2000 mile marker so talked w/ him a bit + then sum others we saw coming along + now we're debating weather we shd do the PCT our selves next summer? But i dunno, the bugs alone are enough to make us not want to do it. Don't sound like much fun. Pressed on to Detroit, on the shores of Detroit Lake. Walked down to the lake + ate a bunch of blackberries, bean eating like quarts of them a day, along w/ blue + huckle berries.

3 Sisters as scene from Black Butte

sun over Black Butte

12 Aug | Cape Kiwanda, OR> Drove from Detroit to Pacific City, staying on the edge near Cape Kiwanda. Spent the day walking around the cape, up the dunes climbing around barefoot on the soft sandstone. Sat on a bluff + saw a bunch of whales surfacing + blowing. Watched the fisherman coming in crazy beach landings + loading their boats on trailers + all the idiots getting stuck trying to drive on the beach... quite the spectacle. Clams + fish tacos for lunch + salmon for dinner.

Detroit Lake

13 Aug | Portland, OR> Woke up + ran on the beach, finishing by 3 trips up + down the Kiwanda dune, the highest dune in Oregon (240 ft) + probly a 45° inkline... 2 steps up, 1 step sliding back. Drove thru Tillamook forest back, stopping to pick blackberries. Anywhere u stop u find millions, just happened on a cool watering hole where kids was jumping off a bridge into the river below. Back to Portland, made a blackberry pie w/ all the berries we din't eat.

Cape Kiwanda

another haystack rock

view from atop Kiwanda dune

before

after

14 Aug> Woke up + ran/walked up the hill + back down into Forest Park, doing the Chestnut/Firelane 2 loop + then sum. Boxed up the stuff pillaged from our mudder's house + sent it in a 47" x 24" x 25" wardrobe box via Greyhound. Lifting the box on the scale we weighed 220, so the box weighs 55 lb. Now reading Spain by Caren Beilin, 1 of the books Kevin Sampsell recommended to us when we ran into him at Powell's last week. Flash creative non-fictions about pig heads, The Shining, tight percolators + her nipples. About Rilke she writes "In Ronda he wrote: the cloud-torn light of heaven. I've written as much. He wrote: Shadows of clouds pass over him as if space itself were thinking leisurely thoughts for him. I've thought of that, man." We've written as much, man, tho never halve we bin to Ronda + it's been deckaids since we red Rilke. On our roadtrip to Spain earlier this year (seams deckaids ago!) we only got as far as Almería. Another time we was in Málaga but din't have time to hit Ronda. Even tho the libro is titled Spain, she don't really talk about it, least not the landscape. Our space bar is fucked again, probly sand from running the dunes in Cape Kiwanda. We was thinking if we did do the PCT we wouldn't keep 1 of them typickle day-to-day blogs (probly 1000s of those out there) but just talk about what was going thru our head while we was walking or what we dreamt at night. On pg 34 she writes: "And the writer, a Spanish writer, was one he had even admired when he was very young, like an American Brautigan whose books we have carried around, turning the pages soft—paper, if you reread it long enough, turns soft." We think she meant to say a Spanish Brautigan... assuming she's talking about Richard, from Portland, like Beilin whose equally as zany... Richard whose Abortion we red last post + yes, whose books weave also bin none to carry a round + reread (tho doubt wheel reread Abortion). In the story "Sheep + Vera" Beilin writes: "We peed in places close to where we'd be sitting, with some wine we couldn't get open." She also writes about flea bites that a farmacist dieagnosed as mosquito. We picked up sum mosquito bites that we're wondering if they're pulgas or bedbugs or spiders cuz we never saw who done it + they aint' nada como los mosquitoes en D.C. o Africa o cualquier otro lugar except maybe Puerto Vallarta.

15 Aug| PDX to ORD> We think Sampsell told us Beilin was from Portland, but seams she's from Philadelphia, w/ time spent in Montana + SLC. If it's fiction, hoo nose. We started to get bored of her being bored, the shtick of hanging w/ Bohemian artists in Spain has been done plenty before, no? No doubt she can write tho + teeming w/ pussy power unlike that flaccid Lenny Burner guy, whatever his name is leaving sum station. But still precious like so many writers of that generation, too mush for our tastes. We're flying east now between Hood + 3 Sisters (to the right) + St. Helens + Rainer (to the left), en route to Chicago. We do dig the mass napping, wish she'd write more from that space in stead of the day-to-day of trustafarian travellers contemplating their navels. A few weeks ago we listened to all of The Shining w/o watching it. Like Lynch, Kubrick is 1^st + 4-most a sound artist. Beilin is a word artist, just wish she had sumping to write about. Then again, what is there to write about no more? A lot of the stories are titled "Sheep" but there ain't any sheep in the book, except in the form of blood sausage + milk. Aint no restraints, but she is making the world softer. Speaking of napping (woke up at 4 am to ketch this flight)...

ORD > DCA> Finished Spain + now reading Tonight I'm Someone Else by Chelsea Hodson, another book we got at Powell's, not cuz Sampsell recommended her but cuz she does that workshop w/ Giancarlo in Sezze + he's always talking her up. Like Beilin, Hodson also qualifies as fragmented creative non-fiction, unless she's lying. For eggsample, the book starts w/her working on the Phoenix Mars Lander project in Tucson, witch we can't pitcher based on her gothed-out looks. But Alice Cooper + Stevie Nicks hail from Phoenix, so aint much of a stretch. We spent a deckaid in Tucson, but deckaids before Hodson, tho we may halve overlapped in NYC cuz we was living there when Martina Abramovic was inviting peephole to stare at her in the name of art.

We ended up finishing Tonight, I'm Someone Else cuz our connection was delayed + now we're flying in circles somewhere over O-high-O cuz there's a big thunderstorm in DC witch sucks cuz we got an appt w/ a locksmith to let us into our house... ever since we re-keyed the locks they're all screwy, our friend that was gonna water our plants couldn't get in so doubt we'll be able to nether.... just in case so we don't need to stay in a hotel in our own town cuz that wd be weird.

Columbus, OH> We circled so much that we was running out of gas + had to land in Columbus, Ohio to refuel. Ain't this where Chrissie Hynde hails from? Never been except maybe driving thru, but looks flat + boring from the air. We got 1 more book w/ us (Ben Marcus's new 1) but don't feel like reading no more. Ain't much in the way of movies nether + we're preoccupied wondering how we're gonna get into our house. Can't even break a window to get in cuz there's bars. Unless we got a ladder + climbed up to the 2^nd story. Fuck it, watching Return of the Jedi.

16 Aug | DC> Home sweet home. 1^st time returning "home" to nuestro casa. After being re-routed to Columbus we eventually made it home, texting or calling the locksmith guy to update him of our increasingly late arrival. Ends up we got our door open, w/ a bit of finessing, but the locksmith still needed to fix 'em so they wasn't so sticky/tricky to open. Todo bien en la casa after 2 weeks away except our weed plants was dead, all shriveled up dry. Sad. Weed nurtured 'em to almost 3 ft high + fixing to bud, but these 2 weeks w/o H₂0 (cuz our friend couldn't jimmy the lock) was too much. But reading now there's CBD in the leaves so maybe we'll vape or eat 'em.