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Karen and I are going to visit Leavenworth, Washington, this week.
Leavenworth is located 20 miles west of Wenatchee, 60 miles north of Ellensburg, 280 miles northeast of Vancouver, on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. The roads are excellent in these areas.
Since the 1960's, this small tourist town features Bavarian themed architecture, German culture, shopping, mountain and river scenery, restaurants, outdoor recreation options, and nice hotels.
We are not sure about flu pandemic restrictions, but assume they are the same in Leavenworth as they are in Vancouver.
On Wednesday (10/28) we drove from Vancouver, up I5 to Mary's Corner, then US 12 to Yakima, then to Ellensburg, then to Leavenworth. We stayed at the Enzian Inn (10/28,10/29). Enjoyed the breakfast and spectacular views from the 4th floor of the Enzian, as well as the Alp-Horn playing at 8:15 am. We walked around, shopped, and enjoyed fine food. The weather was perfect for this trip. We drove home on Friday (10/30) from Leavenworth to Clem Elm, then via I90 to Seattle, and I5 to Vancouver.
The autumn leaf color was at its peak. The yellows and gold leaves were extensive and spectacular along streams and intermixed with evergreens.
An Essay on Man: Moral Essays and Satires. By Alexander Pope, 1834.
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself, abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!"
My daughter and her husband are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
Karen and I are watching our grandchildren. Both are smart, a 7th and 9th grade girl, and they worked all day Thursday and Friday at home attending online Zoom classes and doing homework. We stayed at their house in Salmon Creek, and brought our dog, Bruno. Saturday and Sunday we stayed at our house in the Orchards, and brought their dog, Roxi.
Grandparents Spending Four Days with Our Grandchildren! Aging Well How to Live a Good Life
I have been busy expanding our vegetable garden on the west side of our home. I've added 48 square feet to the vegetable garden already. I plan to add 40 square feet more this coming week. I border the new area with standard concrete two hole blocks (8x8x16'). Then I lay down a layer of cardboard over the existing grass. Then I cover the cardboard with organic matter: small wood chips, grass cuttings, fine tree debris, composted steer manure, leaves from our sweet gum tree, kitchen garbage, bagged topsoil for raised beds, etc. In a year or two, you can create some productive raised bed soil for growing vegetables in a sunny location.
"The hand is the cutting edge of the mind."
- Jacob Bronowski
"The mind has exactly the same power as the hands: not merely to grasp the world, but to change it."
- Colin Wilson
"By rubbing up against the world, I define myself to myself."
- Deane Juhan
"The upper limb is the lightning rod to the soul."
- Robert Markison
“We leave traces of ourselves wherever we go, on whatever we touch.”
- Lewis Thomas
We hold these truths to be sacred ...
"Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on."
"A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb.
When the hoe handle is loose, you will have misplaced the steel wedges.
Not to move either hand, nor clap, nor think too much are all good for zen gardening.
As you move your hands so you move your mind.
Why is it that you can find four gloves for the left hand, and none for the right?
As with most arts, gardening is an expression of our hands.
Your hand hoe will always find its way to the bottom of the weeding barrel.
Civilization is rooted in the hands of the gardeners.
You can sometimes get a handle on life, but it often breaks.
The eyes of a gardener are usually bigger than her hands.
Gardening helps us to carefully attend to the close at hand.
Chop the weeds and hose the water ... the sounds of two hands clapping - with delight.
Your rich, famous, and handsome; and, your garden doesn't care.
The difference between a pile of rocks and a rock garden - the eyes and hands of the gardener.
Getting your hands dirty," applies to more than gardening.
Better to lend a helping hand than just to point a finger.
Put your hands on the earth and feel the sorrows of the world.
Hold your hoe in your hand, sharpen it, and fully sense its meaning.
I see my hand more often than my face, and there is a lesson here to grasp somehow.
Unclench your fist to give a hand."
- Michael P. Garofalo, Pulling Onions
Touching Up An Altar
Things to touch, small art objects to hold,
Matches to light, incense to light
Bowls and bells to ring, pictures to clean
Wand sticks to point and orchestrate the scene.
Red chairs to move, floors to sweep,
Books to Read, to Study, for decades to keep.
Pictures as reminders of what insights we grasp
Pictures as reminders of what we think we know
about pagan ways past.
Tables to move and dust,
Symbols, Altars and Signs in the Shadows sans the Sun
A Book of Rituals to hold and read from,
Candles to light, daggers to handle,
Voyager Tarot cards to shuffle,
Feathers to finger, rocks to pick up
Thoughts ungraspable piling up
Tibetan Prayer beads thumbing one past and next up,
So I raise my hands and say
“Toys to play with,
Magikcal tools to play with;
With only memories to keep.”
Kind of like holding infinity
in the palm of your hand:
using a microscope or telescope,
reading a science book;
with two hands making an Apache Door string figure display,
the transfiguration of the commonplace loop of string
to help tell stories.
- Touching Up An Altar, by Michael P. Garofalo, 10/15/2020
Strings on Your Fingers, by Mike Garofalo, 1977-
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Chapter 24
By David Bellos. New York, Faber and Faber, 2011. Index, notes, 393 pages. ISBN: 9780865478763. VSCL. 
We went "camping" at Twin Harbors State Park in Westport, Washington. Karen and I left on Sunday morning (10/4) and drove northwest to the Pacific Coast at Westport. We drove up Interstate 5 to Chelais.
The drive on Interstate 5 from Vancouver, WA to Olympia WA is 105 miles. It is relatively flat, relatively straight, and from two to three lanes in one direction. From Olympia to Longview, the scenery is rather monotonous: heavy forests of evergreens and deciduous trees on either side of the I5 Freeway. A tunnel of trees. There is heavy truck and auto traffic on this excellent and well-maintained thoroughfare from San Diego to Bellingham. We take cutt-offs West from I5 at WA Road 6 at Chelais, and WA Road 12 at Grand Round.
Road 6 West from Chelais to Raymond on Wallapa Harbor is very beautiful. Ranching, logging, valley farms, and services are scattered throughout this heavily forested area. Stop at the market in Pe Ell for an ice cream cone or coffee. The scenery is quite lovely and the October traffic low. Raymond offers basic services for road trippers and campers. Then, head northwest from Raymond to Tokeland, Grayland, and Westport. The views of Wallapa Bay at low or high tide are striking along the jetty roadway north of Tokeland. The City of Westport is a small fishing and tourist town at the south entrance to Gray's Harbor.
I camped here at Twin Harbors in a tent in August 2020. The campground was filled to overflowing capacity in August, and only 20% occupied in October.
An easy long walk to the beach from camp. Many twisted shore pines in this campground, and trails leading out to the sand dunes covered in grasses. The surf was low when we were there at the beach, but you heard its roar outside the cabin. We drove on the wide beaches from Grayland State Park to the South Jetty, Chelais Point, entrance to Gray's Harbor.
The afternoon skies were clear blue to infinity. You could see the Olympic Mountain peaks from the Westport Tower viewpoint. From gray morning fog to afternoon blue, very exhilarating.
We stayed in a small wood cabin C5 at Twin Harbors on 10/4, 10/5 and 10/6. [The cabins are a little larger with a larger table, but otherwise similar in interior design as a typical State Park campground round yurt.]
Michael and April, and their two dogs, came on Monday and Tuesday and stayed in another C4 cabin/yurt. We all packed up and returned home on Wednesday, 10/7; for us, about a 3.5 hour drive from Westport to Aberdeen, Olympia, I5 to Centralia, Longview, Vancouver, WA.
Karen and I had planned to stay at the Quinault Resort in Ocean Shores, at the north entrance to Gray's Harbor, in September. However, heavy rain, wildfires, and home improvement projects kept us at home all September in Vancouver. This autumn, we will stay two nights at the Quinault Resort on another low rain day there, visit the North Jetty, Point Brown, Ocean Shores, WA.
We have travelled extensively in Washington and Oregon. British Columbia is closed in 2020 due to the flu pandemic.
The weather was cloudy with a little rain at Gray's Harbor. Mornings were foggy, damp, and cold. Temperatures generally pleasant: from 55F to 65F. You can stay warm and dry in a small cabin, have heat and light, sleep somewhat comfortably, and have some privacy. Outdoor cooking, table, and firepit are all on a concrete slabs outside these Twin Harbor wood cabins. A well-maintained campground restroom/showers was nearby. I saw only one tent and 10 trailers in the entire West Twin Harbors Campground. All the cabins and yurts were occupied; folks up here are prepared for rain. Two cabins were occupied by six college aged women, some went surfing, and they talked. like us, outdoors around meals and campfires and indoors as well.
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I've been reading a number of books by or about Pragmatism, American Philosophy, Values, Sociological-Technological-Economical-Cultural-Historical circumstances of you own era.
For completion by November, my reading list includes two books about our Native American history, cultures, and worldviews.
Wisdom of the Elders: Sacred Native Stories of Nature. By David Suzuki. Contributions by Peter Knudtson. Bantam Books, 1993, 274 pages. VSCL.The autumn colors are very dramatic in Vancouver, Clark County, Washington. The four maples in our back yard are quite colorful in October and November each year.
The Day After Sunday
By Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978)
"Always on Monday, God's in the morning papers,
His Name is a headline, His Works are rumored abroad.
Having been praised by men who are movers and shapers,
From prominent Sunday pulpits, newsworthy is God.
On page 217, just opposite the Fashion Trends,
One read at a glance how He scolded the Baptist a little,
Was fir with the Catholics, practical with the Friends,
To Unitarians pleasantly noncommittal.
In print are His numerous aspects, to: God smiling,
God vexed, God thunderous, God whose mansions are pearls,
Political God, God frugal, God reconciling
Himself with science, God guiding the Camp Fire Girl.
Always on Monday morning the press reports
God as revealed to His vicars in various guises-
Benevolent, stormy, patient, or out of sorts.
God knows which God is the God God recognizes.
[Published in The New Yorker in 1952.]
"What God lacks is conviction - stability of character. He ought to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something - not try to be everything."
- Mark Twain
"It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity .... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods."
- George Santayana
