As the November rains fall
Standing atop Mount Si in North Bend, Wash.
The leaves are still golden here in the Pacific Northwest but we’re feeling the bite of winter. One of my happiest achievements in the past month was climbing a particularly difficult local peak called Mount Si, which is just east of Seattle. The climb was a 3,150-foot gain; the second-most difficult hike I’ve done. (The first was last year in Olympic National Park and the group I was with left me behind, so I never finished it). This time, I went by myself on a lovely Sunday – All Saints Day in fact – and made it up in three hours, 15 minutes. It’s an 8-mile round trip. The view of nearby North Bend was lovely and of course Mount Rainier was out. I’ve found a Meet-up group that likes to do hikes, so I’ve done two with that group that I otherwise would not have tried alone. But Mount Si is the most popular hike in the state, so it was OK to go alone, as the trail was quite crowded. And that was in November. Hate to think what it was like this past summer.
It’s good I got out when I did, since so many things statewide are being shut down because of Covid spikes. I was exhibiting at a local bazaar yesterday and all the other exhibitors were upset with how thin the turnout was. Our state governor has been unrelenting in Covid fears, meaning my county never got out of Stage 2 all year. And now things are being clamped down more than ever. This has affected my visits with Veeka in that parents are not allowed to meet with their kids inside a building, so we have to do family therapy and visits outside. Yep, last week she and I were shivering in 42-degree weather – no joke – because the facility is not allowed to set aside a room for us. It’s beyond inhumane and I’ve been calling Bureau of Health Administration officials about this to the point they’re not returning my calls. So a few of us parents plan to mount a phone campaign to other state officials, pointing out that it’s hypocritical of them to sit in their warm homes while telling us to freeze outside.
Some parents are just throwing in the towel, giving up their visitation rights and settling for Zoom calls. But we were (illegally) kept from seeing our kids for 24 weeks and I am not going back to that. Veeka really lives for that one time a week she can see me.
Entering a basalt canyon on Oregon Hwy 26
I am still busy with writing assignments. One story that kept me particularly occupied was covering Sean Feucht, an evangelical Christian musician out of California, where the state restrictions against church meetings are the worst in the country. So he started having worship “protests” outdoors and ended up giving 45 such concerts around the country, culminating in one on the National Mall in the rain on Oct. 25. My long story about him in Politico (my first for that publication) came out that same day and I worked very hard on it, especially after he refused to give interviews.
I had also done an earlier story on him for Religion News Service. I’ve built up myself a specialty in covering Pentecostals and charismatics because so few other journalists understand this group. I’ve also been covering how a subgroup who believe in modern-day apostles and prophets are front and center in today’s church. These folks are declaring that the 2020 election was stolen and that God wants Donald Trump in power. My story on that came out in ReligionUnplugged on Monday and I wrote about this phenomenon for GetReligion last week.
I can’t say I’ve traveled a lot recently, but I did attend a travel writer’s conference in central Oregon last month and stopped by the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument on the way. I’d heard of the lovely “Painted Hills” section of the monument and had long wanted to go, but it’s 6-7 hours of hard driving from Seattle in good traffic. So I first dropped by my friend Dorothea Schultz’s place so I could hike the lovely Cape Horn trail in the Columbia River Gorge, then set out for two days in Mitchell, Ore., so I could visit the fossil beds. I already have three media outlets interested in stories on the place, so I should be able to earn back what I spent in gas and lodging. Fortunately, I hit a week of very decent weather in mid-October to see the place.
One view of the stunning Painted Hills in eastern Oregon.
I cobble together what income streams I can, as I’ve done no substitute teaching since March and am not sure whether they’ll even call us back this year. I’m still teaching beginning journalism on Outschool.com, providing web site content for new start-ups in the Seattle area and planning on putting together some videos on business writing; that is, how to write decent emails and how to submit proposals. In terms of travel writing, the big word is local, local, local, so I’m pivoting toward that. It’s hard to know, in these crazy times, what will work. Thanksgiving here will be quiet but at least I’ll get to have my mother over to enjoy a meal with me. Thank God for that blessing.
