The minimalism of the mountains and the harshness of the season there had me unprepared for the flagrance of colour and froth which springtime is in more temperate zones.
During winter my access to the salt water is cut off by a snow barrier. Avalanches close passes with frequency. It isn't a time to plan escapes. This year was a particularly long hard winter meaning I just had to bite the bullet and stay put. Very hard for a nomad.
2. 31 am yesterday, I snuck out of Stinkwater Place, put that sleeping little mountain jail-town behind me. Stars and a sparkling Milky Way were magnificent overhead. By the first light of dawn, somewhere on the Waterville Plateau, a thin waning crescent moon rose behind me. Without a tripod, I could not hold my hand steady to get a good pic, I was shivering so much from the cold.
It was a choppy, dark water crossing in these strange humpy bumpy little lumps of volcanic rock made fuzzy with cedar and fir sprayed across the Salish Sea off the western coastline of North America. Indigo and silver surrounding. 
I have come a long way to come home in a way. Home to the salt water shoreline again, searching for the coyote-stolen heart once more in the cold salt water of the Salish Sea. In an unheated dome on the point of a headland of a tiny island shaped like the arcing Orca whale it gets its name from. I like to think of it as a variation on the tented safari camp. A far northern and somewhat chilly variation. My very own lacuna.
On the return road trip after a professional conference down south a bit, I find metal horses everywhere.
First stop is at roadside rest stop outside Ellensburg where I am surrounded by Wild Horse Wind Farm as the sun rises.
Then onward, onward to another view point stop at the Wild Horse Monument aka Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies above Wanapum Lake on the Columbia River. A whole herd of metallic equines gallop across the sagebrush, tossing manes and flaring nostrils in the wind on the skyline. Interestingly these are by (non-native) Chewelah artist, David Govedare whose metal works appear in many public places around Eastern Washington. 
Onward past Davenport where contentment is delivered in a bagel and latte from a roadside espresso stand. Just north of town I turn onto HWY 25 and find a lonely winter-bare, tree fringed horizon. Minimalist perfection!
Then a red barn topped by a wrought iron horse wind vane and red winged black birds doing a musical duet.
The historic site at Fort Spokane and Indian Boarding School north of Davenport on HWY 25, is closed for the season. I do a drive by to the parking lot in spite of the closed sign, looking for toilets, and manage to draw a park ranger from the woods or his house nearby. No, I am not planning some ancestral immolation rite in my rez runner of a road weary Ford Ranger, just looking, thanks sir. I shoot a quick picture of a brick building, which I think is the boarding school, from the driver's seat of my truck, engine still running, then flash him what I hope is an "I mean no harm" smile, shift into gear and move out of his discomfort zone. As a boarding school survivor myself, I empathize with the ghosts of this place. Old echoes of those insomniac dogs howling in the empty nights try to hitch a ride for a while. Stay, black dog, stay!
At Two Rivers Casino, where the petrol is remarkably expensive, I meet a strange medieval armoured injun thrusting a rusty fish on a giant braai (barbeque)fork at the passing traffic. What happened to cheap Indian petrol in these parts? On second thoughts this oke doesn't look too friendly, I will just feed my metal horse, pay up and get out of here, thanks. I don't want to end up squirming where that fish is.
The feather flying sky dogs galloping overhead are inspirational, however, and lift me way up there into the infinite blue. Homeward, homeward, homeward to a galloping beat and equine energy. Which is a good thing since the conference had pinioned flight in more ways than one. Thank you for resolute power of metal horses.
One of the features of road tripping in the USofA is the Interpretive Centres which pop up in places of some historical or geographic interest. These rest stops usually (but not always) have lovely, utterly useable and functional toilets, interesting views and informative displays with carefully created historical or geological information about why one has stopped (besides needing to pee of course). State or National Parks, (go Parks Service!) or sometimes local historical societies are the force behind these it seems. Another of the ways it is so easy to be informed about all kinds of quirky things in this country.
Slightly quaint language aside, and even though the flat grey overcast morning light was not the best, the sign does not lie. Dry Falls IS spectacular geology. At the Interpretive Centre I was so high above the coulee that it felt like I was in an aircraft flying over. There is a strategically placed binocular device for those of us dumb enough not to be travelling with that essential tool of the landscape scanner.The water levels are currently high fed by the abundant snows of winter in the mountains. Waterfowl were everywhere in the dawn.
It took me a while to get through Lower Grand Coulee as this great ice scoured area is known, what with all the drive stop drive stop and a whole lot of getting out to admire the atmospheric scenery.
I am glad I am a wanderer by trade and not too spooked by loneliness in a landscape. There were precious few other human species around those lakes that morning. Just me and the waterfowl and the patient geological spectacle.
Well, we still don't know whether I fit in my kayak after winter's sloth.
Lake Roosevelt is REALLY low with the annual draw down where the water level is lowered in anticipation of snowmelt. Because there has been a lot of snow this year, the draw down is dramatically lower than last year.
Amazing rocks and sandy islands have surfaced. One can almost see where old drowned settlements were. In spite of the floating flakes and chill wind, this day was the most peaceful I have ever felt on that body of water. It is almost the old Columbia River and Kettle rivers again, except of course, for the vast beaches and cliffs. 
The rocks of the Kettle Falls, once a major salmon fishing site, have emerged from long drowning. No boil and bubble of white water just liquorice clouds reflecting when I went to the St Paul's Mission overlook to see what I could see.
Iron Horse and I go for our three mile morning constitutional through the flat valley farmlands. A rising sun dazzles an all round brightness on our endeavours, making a magnificent mesmerizing creature of our shadow, long and lean ahead pulling westward westward westward with each pedal rotation.
Going home is turning east again, peddling into the light.
Took an alternate route out of town, just because I could now that the snow and ice is melting. I found a blue ghost house hunkered down in a grove of malarial yellow barked trees: an eerie place abandoned to strange melancholy spirits under a stormy sky.
One of the bad things about the receding snow is that it reveals all the litter in a landscape.
Trawling this less than half mile stretch of edge-of-town, we filled a Subaru Forester with mainly beer cans and cigarette packs, but also sundry other abandoned relics of the careless lives who leave town by the slightly sneaky, definitely snakey, south western route.
The day was not all bad though: a stump seething with industrious red and black ants surprised me at the waterline. I found a chewelah, the winding snake of this town's identity, beautifully camouflaged in the post winter pale grasses. The sun came thinly through with a hint of warmth.
A week later, having been south in more ways than one, notching another professional conference on my belt, I return to find the rock has rolled to the bottom of the mountain again. Ubiquitous blue beer cans and cigarette packs populate this little stretch of earth once more. Whispers against thunder.
It was a Saturday morning in mid-March, the snow was beginning to melt but not yet warm enough outside for any real water activity and anyway I was somewhat fragile still from the throat slitting. Convalescence cabin fever was eating at me hugely.
Paddling against a current in myself, I pushed on, however, and found a view point just south of Bonner's Ferry with historical geological markers (yes Bill Bryson's father would have stopped the family here, I thought) where one can look over a glacial scoured valley. Sections of an old miners trail: Wild Horse Trail are apparently also visible but I wasn't really sure what I was looking at apart from snow capped mountains, blue sky and puffy clouds. It was turning out a muted day of soft faded colours outside and inside.
In Bonners Ferry it was 3 pm. I found a family run Mexican restaurant which I thought might be suitable for lunch. Though the home-made horchata listed on the menu was finished and there was absolutely nothing on the menu without meat, they made me a very tasty and satisfying vegetarian burrito. The pace was slow. The burrito took a long time coming. A Mexico Paraguay football game on the big screen commandeered way more of the attention of the extended family/staff members than concocting my mid afternoon lunch order.
Iron Horse and I must have ridden about 9 miles today, back and forth, back and forth and round about, between rain showers and once even to the grocery store to bring home tahini for the week's hummus.
No swans for me today. I am grounded and without the amber liquid sunshine Ford Ranger since it died on me last night. Just when I was planning to spend my Saturday taking the Flowery Trail, venturing over the eastern mountains in search of migrating Tundra Swans.
But that doesn't mean that I am totally without wheels. At first light, when the pelting rain seemed to subside a little, I seized the moment: took Iron Horse for a wild, quick, windblown gallop to the strong brown river and flooded fields.
Rorschach nene on the Nile in flood season were what dawn had in the mailbox for me today. Not a bad substitute for swans. Oh, okay if you are a stickler for correctness: Canada geese - branta canadensis as opposed to branta sandwicensis. Cousin bruddahs,all the same. North, south, east ,west, whatever feels like home's best when you are a migratory goose and the whole world is briefly a froggy pond.
