The Reward of Our Anxieties

The Pacific Ocean is shrouded in fog. Giant rocks not far from shore jut up from the sea and host a colony of gulls.  I approach the short waves crashing against the brown muck and dip my toes into the water.  The cold sends a shriek through my nerves.  I’ve never seen a beach like this advertised.  The image before me isn’t programmed into my mind like the white sands of the Floridian gulf.  The scene is more beautiful because nobody is trying to sell it.

From Washington’s Olympic peninsula, we drive south along the scenic coastal route until the darkness renders the scenery moot.  Off the highway in a small town, we stop at a McDonald’s for a snack to keep us awake long enough to drive to Portland’s outskirts.  I am waiting in line when an entire grade-school football team trickles inside the restaurant.  Back on the road, I take the night shift.  I bite into my burger and taste mustard that shouldn’t be there.  I tell Erin this and she volunteers to wipe the mustard off the bun with a napkin.  I am hard-pressed to think of a more affectionate gesture.

On an expansive, uphill bridge a sign welcomes me to Oregon.  Below me, the Columbia River dissolves into the Pacific Ocean where Lewis and Clark reached the western terminus of a growing empire.  While summering in Yellowstone I started reading Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage, an in-depth account of the Corps of Discovery’s journey through Louisiana Purchase lands.  The book inspires me to retrace parts of their expedition.  Well past sundown I follow signs to Lewis and Clark National Historical Park.  I want to see the ocean from their vantage point, to glimpse what it means to traverse an enormous continent.  Erin tells me it’s a silly idea because I won’t be able to see the ocean.  And besides, she continues, the park might be closed. 

We are on a tight schedule and are due in Portland tomorrow, so I press onward despite Erin’s advice because I don’t know when I’ll be in this corner of the country any time soon.  I worry that the park may be closed, and Erin is right.  The entrance is blocked off.  I park the car in front of the gate and consider my options.  The path beyond the gate dissolves into blackness surrounded by trees that could host animals with sharper teeth and better eyesight than me.  The temperature has dropped and the wind is blowing cold.

I suggest setting off on foot and ducking under the gate.  We can use our headlamps.  If we don’t see anything in five minutes, we’ll turn around and drive away.  But Erin wants no part of this plan.  I try to convince her with the thrill of adventure.  And what a fitting place this is for adventure.  She tells me I can do whatever I want, but she’s staying in the car.  I’m disappointed by her response but I also understand her hesitance to leave the safety and warmth of the passenger seat.  But this attachment to comfort is exactly what I fear.  I don’t want to be a passive observer on this trip.  I don’t want to watch things happen; I want to make them happen. 

    

I grab my headlamp and step into the chilly air.  A feeble beam of light illuminates a small tunnel through the eerie landscape.  The night is alive with the sound of insects, the wind shaking the branches.  The Chevy’s motor hums.  The headlights shine through the gaps in the gate, but still I cannot see how far the road goes.  I could walk for a mile and not see anything. 

In spite of what could go wrong or what type of disappointment awaits, I am tempted to try because Lewis and Clarke did much more than that.  They canoed westward from St. Louis half-expecting to find the dinosaurs that Thomas Jefferson believed were roaming the Great Plains. 

I gaze into the unknown and realize there’s probably a parking lot with a visitor center ahead.  I visualize myself groping in the dark, searching for something I can’t see.  All the while Erin waits in the car alone and worries about bears and my irrational decision.  I step back into the car and resolve to see the place in the first light of tomorrow.  We backtrack over the river once more to Washington, where I find a rest stop.  I roll the windows down a smidge and lie down in the backseat.  Before I drift off to sleep, I can hear the water lapping against the Columbia’s banks.