I haven’t written in such a long time.  Just somehow not in the mood.  But today I find myself left to my own devices and this story of circumstances wants to be heard, so I write.

Morrison is parked in a small meadow, a short distance from a one-lane road at the top of a mountain in Washington state.

An occasional pickup or ATV drives by with pairs of hunters inside.  I believe they are bow-hunting, I don’t know what their prey is.

Today is September 8, a Friday, and on Tuesday Dave and I got senior flu shots and the new RSV vaccine as well.  We spent Tuesday night at a hotel in Salem, Oregon, thinking we might not feel well after the shots.  Dave felt a little punky, but I was fine except for a sore back that I’d had for a few days.  The back issue was making it difficult for me to walk without a lot of pain, but it was relieved each morning after lying down all night.  Dave had an uncomfortable night.  He said he hurt all over, even his eyelids.

On Wednesday we drove to Oregon City to visit the End of the Oregon Trail museum.    We went in and were watching a film about the native inhabitants of the Oregon territory.  Dave told me he was incredibly tired and needed a nap.  He went out to the van to sleep.  I finished the films (there were two) and walked thru the museum displays and the heritage garden out in the museum grounds.  When I went out to the van, Dave woke up and we drove out to the “Waterfall Corridor”, seeing many beautiful falls from the road and walked in a short ways to see Multnomah Falls up close.  Then we drove east along the Columbia River and camped at Eagle Creek Campground for the night, surrounded by lots of big, old trees.  On Thursday, we decided we wanted to head up to the San Juan Islands.  We didn’t want to navigate through Seattle, though, so we decided upon a route that would take us around Seattle on the East and get us to Mt Vernon, where “maybe” there is a bridge from the mainland to the islands.  If there’s no bridge, we’ll find the ferry.  This alternate route required us to go quite a ways east before there was a bridge to cross the Columbia.  Then we headed north/northwest to Yakima  and on to Ellensburg, where Dave said he was beat.  I found us a forest service campground (using the handy app), and we drove maybe 25 more miles to find it.  It was a rustic little place in the forest.  To enter the campground you had to ford a creek (it was paved with a few inches of water running across).  We stopped there at 4:30 pm, ate, and went to sleep.  I slept heavily, but Dave felt terrible and was up and down many times.

In the morning, it was clear that Dave was actually quite sick.  I assumed we would stay at the campground.  But a woman had told us the day before that further up the road the forest opened up to meadows.  Dave wanted to go there so we’d have sun for the solar panels.  It was a bit gloomy in the campground.  He felt miserable but figured he could go a little ways in order to find a better camping spot.  Turned out it was about 20 miles up the mountain on a one- lane gravel road of multiple switchbacks.  It took a lot of focus on Dave’s part, but we found a meadow with a pullout and fire ring, so we are good to stay here now until Dave feels better.

It’s Sunday now, and Dave has improved some,still basically in bed 24/7, but feeling a bit better.  My back pain is still a problem, but I’m glad I don’t feel the shots like Dave does.  There’s a lot of traffic up and down this remote road, especially very early this morning.  Hunters seem to be in full swing.

We have just enough cell service (1 bar) to load the news headlines, but not full stories.  Sometimes we lose the 1 bar and have “SOS Only” service.

Beginning Sunday night I succumbed to the shots and discovered that camping while ill is no fun at all.  In the end, we spent 2 weeks feeling sick before finally we were well again.  Not much fun.