The Way We Were

There’s nothing better than a shower when you really need one, and we needed it after camping in Yellowstone.  I peeled my shirt off at our hotel in Jackson and rinsed off before I slipped on a pair a jeans and my cowboy boots.  The kids wanted to walk around the town on Tuesday night so we headed for the square and took a loop around the usual spots.  

It was crowded, more so than we had ever seen it, but a number of restaurants, including our favorite ice cream joint, Moo’s, were inexplicably closed.  I’d read an article that the coronavirus had reached this outpost in Wyoming due to all the travelers, and a number of businesses had simply closed to avoid the throngs of tourists.  Indeed, they were everywhere and despite the signs admonishing the merry-makers that masks were required in Teton County, the compliance was incomplete at best.

We tried several restaurants for dinner but those that were open were mobbed, so we settled for a Mexican joint and got it to go, eating at a picnic table in front of our hotel.  Even when we weren’t camping it seemed like we were camping.  We weren’t alone though, everywhere we looked, people were picnicking on the grass, on the sidewalk and anywhere with chairs.  It’s a weird time to be traveling—the virus seems to have upended all sense of normal, but people are adapting.  It all strikes me as slightly more European in a way—the picnics at the hotel and by the side of the road.  I wonder how much of these habits will remain when it’s all over, or whether it will all immediately snap back to the way it was.  I think it’s anybody’s guess.

Before we turned out the lights on Tuesday night, I asked the kids to give me the list of everything they wanted to do on Wednesday.  It was their day, and I wanted to roll their way.  Though I put the burden on them to plan the day, I needn’t have.  They picked the exact same things they’ve done every time—breakfast at Persephone, the shooting gallery and bowling.  It wasn’t quite enough to fill a whole day, but I had greatest hit I wanted to play as well—the old west photo shoot.  We had done it on our first trip in 2015 and it seemed like a fitting bookend.

We turned in early on Wednesday night and we’re on the road at 8am on Thursday morning.  I’d put more than a little thought into the route we would take home to avoid both the heat and any excessive climbs, poring over weather forecasts and trying the remember the various elevation changes on different routes into LA.  I settled on the tried-and-true I-15 through Salt Lake and Las Vegas but timed it so that we would be descending through the Virgin River Gorge at sunset, which set us up for a dark drive through the desert.

It worked perfectly, and about the time we crossed the California border, I turned to Samantha and announced that we had bingo fuel and were in towing range.  It called for a “negative, Ghost Rider, that pattern is full” type of comment, but she hasn’t seen that movie yet.  Still, she pulled her headphones down and we sang together to the treble-heavy dash speaker as we sped through the dark desert, an orange moon rising to our left.  The Beach Boys, Orbison, Buddy Holly, The Animals, Don McLean...  It was like the first road trip back in 2015, and I was glad to see that notwithstanding the teenage veneer, she still had the joy of singing at the top of her lungs like she did when she was nine. 

“Oh, Samantha, this is a great one,” I said, twisting the knob up as far as it would go and turning to look as her in the green glow of the dash lights.  Her head was resting against the window, eyes closed.  I craned my neck to see if Parker by any chance was still awake, but he had stripped off his shirt and was lying down sideways on the back seat, not quite fitting as comfortably as he used to.  I was starting down the Cajon Pass and the lights of LA were visible in the distance at last.

“You never know which one will be the last one,” I thought to myself.  I pushed the throttle down and felt the old engine come alive, kicking down into passing gear with a comforting whine, then dropping back to a purr as we stretched out, propelling us forward. The gap in the headlights of the car behind me narrowed, opening a long space of open road on all sides. The expansion joints in the pavement kept the rhythm as they clicked by underneath the tires. It was all downhill from here.

Samantha admires the breathtaking view of Jackson Lake. Nikon D800, f9, 1/640 sec, ISO 100, -2/3 stop exposure adjustment.

Samantha and Parker pose in front of the Star Chief in 2020. Nikon D800, Nikkor 24-120mm lens @ 35mm, f5.6, 1/400 sec, ISO 100.

Five years ago…

Samantha poses at the Hole Bowl in Jackson Hole. iPhone XR, portrait mode.

Parker is ready to roll. iPhone XR portrait mode.

The Beck Gang rides again. Some said it was their last ride, but others say they’ve seen strange car parts delivered to their lair in Pasadena…

What Comes at Night

We left Twin Falls in the early morning and arrived in Yellowstone late Sunday afternoon.  The traffic in the park was similar to Crater Lake—in other words, snarled.  We pulled into our campground at Grant Village and waited in a long line to get our site assignment and then slowly motored our way to F loop.  When we pulled up to our site, the only barren, treeless sprawl of grass in the entire campground, I had what can only be described as a Clark Griswold moment.

“Kids,” I said firmly, “get back in the car.  I didn’t just drive 800 miles through the blistering heat to sit here in the sun.  It’s not happening.  I’d rather leave than camp here.”  It was late afternoon and Yellowstone was an uncharacteristic 90 degrees, and I’d hit my limit.  Samantha looked at me like I’d gone mad, and I think I probably had, but Parker was cheering me on.  “Go, Dad!  Let’s get another campsite!” he prodded from the back seat.

We stood in line for another 45 minutes, which was blessing because it afforded me time to compose myself and come up with a strategy that would appeal to the better nature of the rangers manning the registration desk.  It was busier than I’d ever seen it and I guessed they weren’t going to be in the mood for an entitled Californian who had decided that the little patch of Yellowstone he’d rented wasn’t pretty enough.

When I finally got to the window, I started off slow... we’d been here many times, we’d driven over mountains and through deserts with no a/c, and we’d already seen much of the major attractions, so our plan had been to just sit in the shade and relax by our fire.  When I saw the site, I just couldn’t bear the disappointment on the faces of my children...  I gestured to Parker, whose knit mask was still smudged with chocolate and ash from Mt. Hood.  Together with his sweaty hair, it presented an appropriately pitiful exhibit to my tale.

The ranger peered out the window at Parker and then looked at me and trotted off to find a supervisor.  After about 10 minutes, during which I was mentally calculating how long it would take us to drive all the way home from this point on the map, she returned with a list of a half dozen other sites, circling one that she personally considered her favorite, with a view that backed up to Yellowstone Lake.  I gladly accepted the reassignment and then thanked her profusely before we headed off toward our new digs.  As I was saying earlier about the park service, they are truly model public servants...

She was right, it was excellent, and we spent Monday doing nothing other than stoking our fire, reading, and listening to spooky podcasts after dark.

The kids finally went to bed about 10pm Monday night, and I put our food back in the trunk, gathered up our copious trash and walked over to the car to lean against the fender and look at the stars.  It was quiet—most of the other campfires and lights were out, and I was settling into my down time to enjoy the peace and quiet.  Just then, a shadowy figure burst into our campsite, knocked over the nylon chairs, grabbed the trash bag, which probably weighed 25 pounds, and tore off into the darkness toward our tent.

I raced toward the specter and clicked on my headlamp to see two green eyes staring back at me and then disappear into the darkness. The trash was strewn about the trees going down the hill and I grabbed the bag, now with gaping holes, and began to stuff bits of plates and uneaten food back into the sack when the green eyes reappeared from the opposite direction.  I whirled around only to see them vanish once again.   They were beside me, and then behind me, then in front of me again.  I stood frozen, then spun around again, grabbing the bag and bolting back towards our campfire to catch a glimpse of what I thought was either a coyote or a wolf, but it was too dark to tell. If it was a coyote, which was more likely, it wasn’t of the mangy type I sometimes see in LA.  No, this was a the size of a large dog, with a light coat and full fur—a fast, healthy (and menacing) looking creature.  

I dashed over to the trash bin by the bathroom to put the bait out of reach and intercepted Samantha walking back from brushing her teeth with her Beats headphones on, bobbing, and blissfully unaware of the animal circling our campsite.

I shouted to her three times before she heard me and I told her to get in the tent, stay there, and get me the big flashlight.  For the next 10 minutes, the animal, having tasted our dinner, tested my defense from every angle.  Now though, with a much more powerful light that could reach deeper into the gloom, I could see it more clearly, green eyes glowing from just beyond the reach of the beam.  It was a coyote and it was hungry. It wanted what we had—badly—but not quite enough to face down the human with the powerful light.  Eventually I went on offense and chased it deeper into the trees. After a few more minutes, it surrendered and slunk away in search of easier targets.

In the morning I flagged down a ranger and relayed the events of the night before.  She wasn’t surprised by the encounter but was dismayed by the brazenness and the degree to which the animal was undeterred.

“There are two of them that have been in and out of Grant this week, a dark one and a light one... sounds like you saw the lighter one.  We’ve been trying to shoot them with rubber bullets and tranquilizer guns, but every time we get a call they’re gone before we get there.  We’re getting concerned they’re rabid,” she said.

That was sobering. It would explain the aggression, but I didn’t think so— it looked too healthy to be rabid and it still had some fear of humans, even if it was abnormally brave.  But I guess that’s what happens when an animal tastes ramen noodles and fruit loops.  Just like us, they want more.

We spent Tuesday driving north to Canyon and watching a herd of buffalo amble across the road.  At lunch I tried to rally the troops to see Old Faithful one more time but they both seemed more enthralled by the cell service at Canyon Lodge.  Exasperated, I asked them what they wanted to do.

“If you could do anything right now, what would it be?” I asked.

“Go to Jackson,” Samantha replied quickly, realizing instantly that I was disappointed by the answer.  I was, but I understood.  We’d been to Yellowstone four out of the last five years, and the initial magic had clearly faded.  After a few tries with the overtaxed cell service, I reached Quimby, who managed to find us a hotel for Tuesday night.  Satisfied that we had somewhere to crash in Jackson, we headed back to our campsite, packed our tent, jettisoned all our food and a cooler to lighten our load for the penultimate leg of our journey and headed out a day early.  It was unplanned, but it gave us an extra day in our favorite town and positioned us for the last leg home on Thursday (a day early) in what appeared to be a short window of cooler weather.  After what we had endured so far, it seemed like a good trade.

Parker throws a stone into Yellowstone Lake on our morning hike. iPhone XR

Crawling through Yellowstone with everyone else fleeing the coronavirus quarantines for a sense of “normalcy.” iPhone XR

Arriving back at our campsite, we found we had unexpected company. iPhone XR

Crossing the Continental Divide at nearly 8,000 feet. iPhone XR

Pausing for a selfie in front of the Tetons on the way out of Yellowstone. iPhone XR

The Last Dance

We packed up our gear on Saturday morning at Camp Creek and were underway at 9am, the first on-time departure of our trip.  The morning was cool (another first), about 65 degrees and we pulled the first long grade, low and slow, breathing a sigh of relief when the temperature gauge barely cracked 190.  As long as it stayed cool, we wouldn’t have any problems.

We crested the Cascades and began the long, slow descent into the Columbia River Gorge and turned east toward Idaho as the sun broke through the clouds and pushed the temperatures back across 100.  By late afternoon we descended into another depression in the earth, where the sun baked the barren soil to a rust-colored moonscape, devoid of all life, similar to the one in Oregon that rendered the old Pontiac lifeless twice, stranded and cooking on the side of the road.  I turned to Samantha sitting beside me in the passengers seat as we began the miles-long climb out of this barren frying pan of desert.

“We’re not going to make it,” I said flatly, resigned to at least an hour on the roadside beside a nameless road marker somewhere up ahead.  The temp gauge was already reading 200 and rising.  “This place isn’t hell, but I can see it from here,” I said with a touch of gallows humor.

I held my foot in the throttle completely still, holding the speed steady at 60mph, not wanting to let the speed drop, but not wanting to push the engine any harder either.  As we climbed, and the temp gauge climbed in tandem, Samantha and Parker became a cheering section for what couldn’t have been more than a few minutes but seemed like an eternity.  “Come on baby, hang in there,” I pleaded with the old car.  “Just a little longer...”

Samantha was rubbing the dashboard like a mother might caress the hair of a fevered child, while the pavement shimmered in front of us and modern cars, air conditioning blasting, whizzed past us at 80.  On each of our past several outings, we’d drawn the short straw in terms of weather, breaking heat records everywhere we went, but this was one for the record books.  Global warming is real people, you can see the evidence everywhere across the west.  Lower-elevation conifer forests are dying out, unable to survive in ever-increasing temperatures.

I had a moment climbing that hill, feeling the old engine strain at the very edge of the performance envelope that its designers ever imagined.  Sweating, both literally and figuratively, I decided that this would be the last ride of Man vs Machine in its current form.  Summer, loaded, traveling up mountains in the heat.  This was the last dance.  Maybe in the autumn when the highs are in the 80s in places like this we’ll ride again one day, but not in the oppressive cauldron of summer.  If I hadn’t wrapped the fuel line in mylar insulation, if I hadn’t reset the timing at Mt. Hood, if I hadn’t gotten ethanol free gas on the last fill up...  we were gambling with our lunch money, and our luck, sooner or later, was going to run out.

The grade finally leveled off with the temp gauge at 220 and once back on level ground, it finally began to recede as I backed off the gas to a light cruise.  The kids cheered, and I exhaled while the blood returned to my knuckles.  We ran the rest of the way to Twin Falls as the sun was setting, windows down as the hot dry air churned through the cockpit.

I chewed on it for at least an hour before I breathed out a long sigh to attract both of their attention. “Hey kids, I was thinking... maybe we should trade in our Honda CRV when we get home and get one of those Buick Enclaves with plenty of room for all our stuff and the dog.”  I knew the kids really wanted to bring our new black Labrador, Duke, on the trip but I didn’t think it made sense. The idea of being able to bring the dog with us would be a selling point. Samantha knew where I was going and looked at me with a mixture of surprise and disbelief.

“Dad, this car has been with us on every trip. It’s practically part of the family. It’s part of the magic…” She trailed off. It was true, it was part of what made every Man vs Machine memorable, but only part of it.

“I know, but I’m just not sure it makes sense anymore,” I continued slowly, realizing that I was about to say something that would mark the end of an era.  I thought about how to put this in context in a way that would honor all the incredible memories we’ve created on our trips in this art-deco chrome and steel masterpiece.  “You know how people sometimes decide to run marathons?  It’s a challenge, and it’s fun, but they typically don’t run them for the rest of their lives.  We’ve done it—we’ve proven we can do it in a vintage car, we’ve met a lot of people, but it’s become a distraction from why I really wanted to do these trips with you kids.  It’s because I want to spend the time with you.”

She was pleased with the compliment, but the end of her lips twisted upward in a smile that belied disappointment as she turned to stare off out the open passenger window, her hair swirling in a halo of golden brown in the low evening sun.  I was drip-feeding her and she knew it.  Letting the idea sink in...  I figured I’d change the topic and circle back to it in the next few days.  Then Parker piped up from the back seat.  

“Hey Dad, will it be like a newer car, like from 2016 or 17?” he said tentatively.  I wasn’t sure where he was going with this but I guessed it would have something to do with having a back seat USB plug or something.

“Yes, it’ll be new,” I said.  “Why?”

“So it’ll have a/c?” he asked.

“It sure will,” I said reassuringly.

“Cool, I’m in.”

The Emerald Forest

I took my foot off the gas and slowed to a stop in Government Camp, Oregon at about 8pm, rolling to a stop in front of the only gas station.  It was dark, so I circled around behind it and asked a couple of locals relieving their dogs where I could get ice and firewood.  They said I was out of luck with the ice but their neighbor could sell me some firewood.  We crept down the lane and shut the car off in front of a small apartment littered with beer cans, old lawn chairs and freshly split wood strewn about what can loosely be referred to as a front yard.  Egged on by the locals down the street, I knocked on the front door and was greeted momentarily by a middle aged, slightly overweight man who looked like he could have been a former boxer.

“What do you want?” he asked, peering at me through the half-cracked door.  “Your neighbors said you can sell me some firewood,” I said cheerfully.  He looked responsible for the dozen or so red and white aluminum beer cans behind me, his eyes glazed by what I guessed was an intoxication that was hours in the making.  He looked me over quickly and his demeanor immediately softened upon realizing that he had a sale that could fuel another day of his continuing bender.

“Well, you came to the right place!” he perked up, leading me over to a pile of wood strewn about the “yard”.  “It’s a dollar apiece, and it’s way better than that crap wood they sell at the general store.”  It was then that his inebriated entourage emerged from his apartment, indifferent to the firewood transaction that was taking place but drawn to the Pontiac like metal shavings to a magnet.  The old girl stood a few feet away with the running lights glowing in the cool gathering dusk.

They surrounded us, beer cans in hand, while the kids peered out of the open windows, slightly disconcerted by the sudden attention.  We discussed our adventures while they circled the car, admiring the wide whitewalls and chrome.  I loaded $10 worth of wood into the back seat, pushing Parker over against the three pillows.  He looked uncomfortable, but I assured him it was only five minutes to our campsite.  He looked relieved but kept an anxious eye on our new business partners.

After about 20 minutes, we pried ourselves away and headed on down the mountain, rolling to a stop a few minutes later on a bed of pine needles.  The kids leaped out of the car and dashed straight down the path to the creek—they remembered everything.  I started a fire in the iron ring and waited for them to come back so I could put them to work setting up our tent.  When the first battalion of wood had finally collapsed into the coals, I slapped a ribeye and a lobster tail onto the grill.  We eat well when camping—it’s one of life’s greatest pleasures.

We spent the next two days doing absolutely nothing and it was glorious.  I made the first real dent in the car magazines I’d brought with me, Samantha worked her way through the summer reading she’d been assigned when school let out, and Parker alternately played games on his iPad and poked at the fire with a progressively shorter and shorter firestick we brought with us from Crater Lake.

I needed this.  I won’t bore you with the details of our drive from Bend to Mt. Hood, but it involved two long stops, hood up, letting the car cool off in 105 degree heat, a search for ethanol-free gasoline and a timing light I purchased from O’Reilly in the little town of Madras, Oregon so I could fine-tune the timing.  There’s little margin for error in a 60 year old car with 400 pounds of gear when the mercury is over 100.  These cars were designed for leaded 102 octane gasoline, not the 91 octane ethanol infused stuff.  If the timing isn’t right on, it just doesn’t work.  

I timed the engine twice more today and ran it seven miles uphill each time, progressively adding ignition advance to see if I can get it to run cooler.  I think it’s better, but tomorrow will be the test as we climb back through the Cascades, down to the Columbia River and east to Twin Falls, Idaho.  It’s going to be another hot one.  

But for now, right now, none of that matters.  The late afternoon sun is streaming through the trees, illuminating the insects flying over the stream below me like yellow glitter in a mossy green snow globe.  The first kiss of evening air is beginning to ruffle the ferns along the water, carrying with it the scent of dampness and burning cedar.  Soon the dark arms of the forest will close around us, and hold us securely in its emerald-green paradise until dawn.

We pitched our tent beneath the majestic stands of old-growth pines in the Mt. Hood National Forest. iPhone XR.

The early morning sun streams through the canyon beside our tent. Nikon D800, 24-120mm lens, f5, 125/sec, ISO 640, -1 stop exposure adjustment.

Camp Creek in the late afternoon. Nikon D800, Nikkor 24-120mm lens, f18, .4 sec, ISO 320

Deep dish Dutch oven pizza comes off the fire on day two of our stay in the Mt. Hood National Forest. It was even better than it looks. iPhone XR.

I am, I said

We arrived in Bend in the late afternoon and I dropped the kids off at the hotel while I went to wash the car and fill the coolers with ice.  When I got back, both kids had taken a shower and changed clothes (thank God) so I grabbed their empties and started a load of laundry.  Samantha is a big fan of the store Buckle, and she spotted one near our hotel, so we dashed over to do a quick tour through the store a half hour before they closed.   She found a pair of trendy “mom” jeans and asked me what I thought.  I made the mistake of sharing my actual opinion, which seemed to make her want them all the more.  I’m still learning to adjust to having a teenager.

I paid for the jeans.  I still had to get the laundry into the dryer, so we hiked back to the hotel and both kids immediately plugged into their devices, grateful for the unlimited access to electricity and free from Dad’s constant admonishments that “when the battery is dead, it’s game over.” 

“What do you guys want for dinner?” I asked, but they were both gone, lost in the blue glow of their iPads.  It’s different from the early days of Man vs Machine, when they were nine and five.  I wondered on our first outing if they were too young to really get it, the incredible places we went, the vast magical expanses of the country and the slow uninterrupted time that we had to be together in those spaces.  Now I wonder if it’s not the opposite.  

I think it gets progressively harder as we get older to slow down, unplug and be present in the moment.  For myself, I find my thoughts wandering to what emails are piling up in my inbox, where we’re driving next, what’s for dinner.  And now I see it in Samantha too.  She’s thinking about what her friends are doing, what next year (9th grade) will be like.  It’s not that those things aren’t important but if they crowd out the now, then they need to be recalibrated.  

Not practicing what I preach, I thought about tomorrow.  We had a mere 100 miles drive north to Mount Hood and then three uninterrupted days in the most spectacular creekside setting under old growth trees draped in moss.  I reserved the same site that we had in 2016 and it offered just what I needed—nothing but the sound of water and the smell of a campfire.

I looked at them again, flopped out with their heads down.  I opened DoorDash on my iPhone, ordered us a pizza and hit play on a playlist.

LA’s fine, the sun shines most of the time

And the feelin’ is laid back

Palm trees grow and rents are low

But you know I keep thinkin’ about makin’ my way back

I’m New York City born and raised

But nowadays I’m lost between two shores

LA’s fine, but it ain’t home

New York’s home but it ain’t mine no more

“I am,” I said

To no one there

And one one heard at all

Not even the chair

“I am,” I cried

“I am,” said I

And I am lost and I can’t even say why

Bend

We woke up in Crater Lake on Monday morning and the heat was already building. It topped out the day before in the high 90’s, which (I’m told) is unusual for Oregon in the summer and even more unusual at 6,000 feet of elevation. It was so hot that after we took our picture in front of the Crater Lake entrance sign, the old Pontiac sputtered and died several times when we pulled back on the road. Instead of letting off the gas, I held the pedal down, shifted back to neutral when it died and fired it, racing the engine as soon as it lit. The fuel was boiling—the same thing that happened on the way out of LA last summer. The engine was hot from the climb and the elevation brought the boiling point down that much further. The temptation is to baby it, but I decided to whip the horse—keep her running, get some airflow and get cool fuel from the tank running through the lines again. It worked this time, and we made it the rest of the way up the hill and into our campsite. It gnawed at me though—it was hot, really hot, but something wasn’t right.

Like the day before, Monday was shaping up to be another heater, and while Samantha slept in, Parker and I completed a two-mile hike through Annie’s Creek, which runs behind Mazama Village. By the time we got back, the sun was beginning to illuminate the tent and Samantha was ready to get moving. We threw our coolers in the back of the trunk in case we wanted to have a picnic and headed to the Visitors Center to get the kids’ National Park Passports stamped. When we pulled in, it was closed due to the coronavirus, but one of the rangers saw us looking forlornly at the big “closed” sign and opened up a window. We passed her our passports and she stamped them both right next to our previous stamps from August 2016 and handed them back with a wink and a friendly “welcome back!” I saw a poll recently about which government employees receive the most respect from the public and park rangers ranked near the top. It’s not hard to see why.

When we reached the Rim Village, all of the buildings were closed except for one—the gift shop. We took one look at the line though and decided that not only was it not worth the wait, the mask usage was spotty as well. Samantha, who’s become our guardian of safety, suggested we pass. What happened next though was really surprising. As we headed west on the Rim Drive, every turn off, every vista, every viewpoint, was… overrun. If we had wanted to get out to take a look (which we didn’t), we would have had to sit and wait for a car to depart or do like the others and park well beyond the turnouts and walk back. It’s the great irony of 2020. Anything that seems like a good way to socially distance is overrun with people.

Fortunately there are plenty of places to see the lake without leaving the car, and since we’d seen it before, we just motored on by the crowds and found a small unused picnic area to have lunch. It turned out to have an amazing view of the lake if you just hiked about 200 yards. We had it all to ourselves and it was spectacular. We idled the rest of the day away and hit the sack early.

Now at this point I need to warn all of you who don’t know us intimately that the Becks are bleeders. I refer you to my 2015 blog post entitled “Samantha With Your Nose So Bright”. There was the time I cut the tip of my finger off chopping basil, subsequently painting my entire kitchen red. And then there was the time I cut my foot open on the deck of a boat off Catalina and put so much blood in the water that we spotted sharks (ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but that cut should have received about 10-12 stitches). When the skin breaks on a Beck, expect blood, and lots of it. So when I woke up on Tuesday morning to Samantha gently prodding me and saying “Hey Dad, um… looks like Parker had a bloody nose last night,” let’s just say I knew what to expect when I rolled over. It was a crime scene.

I put Parker’s clothes and pillowcase into a trash bag and sponged the dried blood off of his face and out of his hair while I assessed his filthy-looking demeanor. The showers and laundry were both closed due to the coronavirus and I couldn’t let him go another day looking like a character from the Walking Dead. No, we needed to make some adjustments. Notwithstanding the fact that we had planned another night in Crater Lake, we called an audible. We needed to cut this leg short. By 10am we packed the car and headed north toward Bend, OR to find a hotel, and hopefully a washing machine…

The masked Beck gang rides again… iPhone XR

Our private view of Crater Lake. It pays to get off the beaten path. iPhone XR