The entrance to the Spaceroom bar acts more like a trap then a door. It’s a double set of doors. The first resembles a cellar door, stable and heavy. This is following by a short, smoke-filled hallway enticing the unsuspecting into the interior. The second door is like a swinging gate similar to the entrance to an old western bar. When operated incorrectly it has the tendency to smack entering patrons with a back swing, not unlike being run over by a Jägermeister bus. During this summer’s Portland kayaking video party, the DVD player was missing, so my sister and I took the opportunity to run across the street for a drink (even the littlest excuse is worthy of a visit to the Spaceroom). The most common text message sent from my phone: we are heading to the Spaceroom. This trip was a little bit different. At the bar, camouflaged amongst the professional drinkers, sat our dad. He was in Portland for the movie, but there is always something a bit invasive about seeing your father at the favorite bar. Somehow it makes you think about the repetition of time and question how much power we truly have over fate. I didn’t really know how to start this year’s trip report. Over the summer I read 3 books from a group of Latin American authors. One of their reoccurring themes involves the repetition of time. The reoccurrences can become so severe that it often seems that time doesn’t exist. For instance to achieve part of this goal, Julio Cortázar fills his book Hopscotch full of sub-stories and reoccurring plots. The reader is supposed to read the book linearly once, and then he gives a chapter-by-chapter reordering to create a new story. Kind of like choose your own adventure, except it is chosen for you. Why do I got to be so much like my father? And along the same lines, why do I got to be, why do I got to be, so much like Bukowski? Maybe more like Hunter S Thompson minus the drugs. Reminds me of a math equation. Carrie arrived at Morrison Street Pub at 9 and consumed 2 tall boys. She now finds herself at the Spaceroom. She consumes a gin and tonic and a few sips off Bexxxy’s bloody mary, What time is it and what month will it be when she again runs into her father at a bar? The answer: we were late. Brett had made a slide show of our trip to Norway, the DVD player had been found, and Carrie, my dad, and I missed it.
Suppose we should start with the first trip of summer 06. Via some combination of good luck and karma, Amy had hit upon a Middle Fork Salmon permit and had 19 of us dirtbags accompany her. After Carrie and Lauren’s graduation party, which Brian and I facetiously nicknamed the dirty nurse and schoolgirl party, the drive was a bit long. Upon arrival from the 8-hour drive to Idaho, we shared my homemade bloody mary mix, some Absence, and I finally removed my red wig and stockings from the party. It took a little while to get used to the trip; I’m so used to planning our trips that it was hard to take a back seat. But medium flows and excessive amounts of alcohol made for a comfortable time. Night one (or two, it’s hard to remember) found us walking a mile upstream to a beautiful hot springs. The crew camping nearest the hot springs was extremely excited to see our entourage of female paddlers. They were happy to take pictures for their website and at the time it seemed like a great idea. But the next morning (after passing out in the grass, losing my shoes, and walking the mile back home barefoot in the cold) the girls seemed less excited about their website premier pictures. Luckily we had gained stickers with the web address. As of yet, no nude pictures have appeared on team2.com. But we’ll keep you posted.
Day four (five?, what day is it anyway) saw us camping next to a private ranch and airfield. As the shortest day of the trip, five miles, we had plenty of time for Bocci ball, hikes to Lune Creek hot springs, and drinks. At some point after lunch Mike and the girls met Mary the ranch hand (and aspiring pilot). She made us look like amateurs (drinkers that is). The horse-riders in the group took turns taking rides on the horses. After a bit Mike brought her down to the camp and introduced me. We where both surprised to learn that we had the same middle name: trouble. Just to prove that she was a bit more trouble than I; she took me on a horseback ride. Nothing quite like the experience of falling off a horse, having a slightly over weight ranch hand land on you, squishing my PBR, and having enough left inside for one final drink. Later we took rides on the tractor, do you think my tractor’s sexy? After a sweat finish to the trip, some great scenery, an awesome trip hiking up and boating down Big Creek, some almost workings in the gorge, Carrie’s broken oar, and a cool “how’s it going” note from Margi at the take-out the trip came to an abrupt end. In an attempt to prolong the trip to the last minute, we started the traditional drive-home game of “text messaged limericks.” A repeatable example among many:
There once was a man named Shane,
Who met Mary at a bocci game,
He got on her horse,
Fell off of course,
And refused to get on her plane.
These reports are strongly influenced by my summer reading schedule. This summer’s reading focused on a strong group of Latin American authors: Julio Cortázar, García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, and Borges. Also somehow related to these authors, I read about my favorite mathematicians, Kurt Gödel. Hopefully I’ll be able to explain some of the connections. In keeping with some of the themes of the previously mentioned novels, I couldn’t manage to keep this trip report linear. Let me briefly explain the genius and tragedy of Gödel by explaining a deep division in the way mathematicians (and philosophers) view a piece of mathematics. The question is did the mathematician discover the result, or did he/she create the result? If you belief that the mathematician has discovered objective truths that have always existed, you align yourself with the Platonist and therefore Gödel. Objects can exist outside human’s ability to perceive them. If you belief that the result was created, you align yourself with the logical positivists and therefore Gödel’s colleagues. Kurt Gödel was really the quintessential mathematician: quiet, clumsy, nervous, and seeking a mathematical result to change the way humans perceive the world. He listened to his colleague’s positivist comments with interest. He didn’t like to argue. Instead in 1930 at the age of 23 he discovered a proof of one of the deepest results in mathematics to help argue his point. The tragedy of Gödel is that the positivists thought that he was trying to help them. To help the reader understand the confusion let me briefly explain the result. You should remember entire books have been dedicated to the study of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. As a matter of fact, one of the main motivators for my mathematical education was to understand these theorems. He proved that number theory is incomplete. This means that there will always be results in number theory that can neither be proven true or false. He even went one step farther and found such a proposition whose truth or falsity couldn’t be established. The proposition was one of the leading questions of the day, Cantor’s continuum hypothesis. To prove these results, he stepped outside of the realm of mathematics into the world of meta-mathematics and very carefully stated the Liar’s paradox as a statement of number theory. The idea of the Liar’s paradox is hidden in the next two statements. The next sentence is true. The last sentence is false. When Gödel announced his discovery at a conference, very few mathematicians understood the implications. Over the years as mathematicians began to understand the implications, very few of them understood Gödel’s true ideas. He believed that by discovering a statement inside of mathematics whose truth could not be decided that he had found an example of a truth very similar to Plato’s abstract reality that was outside of human experience. Welcome to a world where contradictions have a place, my personal belief about Gödel’s influence on the modern world. The positivists did not understand his intentions. Ah, now I feel that I have rambled a bit much. We will return to Gödel a bit later in the report.
OK, back to nonlinearity. Took a quick trip to Wenatchee, mini-Bavaria hidden in central Washington. Kind of funny that our few nights in the kerioki bars would be small practice for many nights of drinking in Germany later in the summer. Took a quick mellow trip down the Wenatchee, let Dave and Allen do an afternoon probe of lower Icicle, and then woke up and followed them down the next morning. Met a local at the takeout who talked about playboaters running the much harder upper section and Tumwater canyon at higher water the week before. All I could think about was the Norway trip Brett and I were leaving for. After a few years of boating together in Canada I had talked Brett into an international trip. I tossed out lots of possibilities until I found the word that caught his attention: Norway. Fine, we will head to some of the hardest whitewater in the world and I’ll just pray that I can find some class four in the midst of it. Our main source of info was an online guide written by some UK boaters that we had met in Canada a few years earlier and a few random email conversations Brett had with boaters heading to Norway. One group that we hoped to hook up with was planning to bring playboats and walk all of the class fives. I just wondered if they were the type of boaters to playboat upper Icicle creek. At first the plane tickets appeared to be fairly cheap, but after mulling over the idea for too long, the price increased tremendously. When Brett’s girlfriend dropped us off at the airport the price became a bit more expensive. 225 bucks to fly each boat to Oslo. Last trip for the Huck and Nomad, we sold them at the end of the trip (back to my demon-possessed Java when I returned home). Next time I think it would buy a decent cheap boat at Next Adventure and sell it at about the same price plus the 225 bucks in Norway where it is harder for the locals to get cheap boats.
Boats on board, Brett and I went to separate sides of the airport to take different planes to Norway. I watched the first half of the Germany-Italy world cup game, zero to zero. “Is that seat taken?” Trouble on a trip with Brett seems to find me quickly. Fortunately his motivational influences (and camera) where on the other side of the airport at a different gate. But, alas, she was leaving for Tokyo, and I was heading to Oslo. She had just enough time to see the second half, but I wonder how long it took her to find out about the score from overtime. I was flying Lufthansa and found out quickly that Germany had lost. My German friend Christy would be extremely disappointed when I caught up with her later in the trip. What a terrible transmission that was for the pilot. Not the typical happy voice, “we are entering turbulence.” Instead a rather drull voice spoke of Germany’s world cup loss. What a great bonus the world cup was for Germany. When Mike, Mimi, and I visited Germany last February for carnival, it was still apparent the lack of “country” that exists in Germany. It was a stark contrast visiting from the USA and having just experienced the George “W” Bush era. Pre-world cup Germany advertised a “you are Germany” campaign to boost German’s confidence in the country. I have a feeling that such a campaign would even be viewed as ludicrous to the Germans after the cup. The German owned Lufthansa planes sport a soccer ball on their noses, great fan fare for the random flock of sea gulls.
Well, if I’m going to mention the winter trip to carnival, I should give a quick report. Mimi lost her fear of clowns, but has a strange new affliction with pirates. Germany wasn’t ready for our permanent marker tattoos. I can drink a lot more German beer then I every thought possible, but Jäger should only be used sparingly. Castles are boring, but German social life is awesome. Don’t expect to feel like partying after visiting a concentration camp. Don’t hide sexual gag gifts in a place that such person’s mother might find them. Riding a bicycle while drinking is damn fun. Being wasted from the last night in Cologne doesn’t make the plane ride back to Portland much fun. Always recheck that your substitute teachers will be showing up while you are gone. The funniest story from the trip: While waiting at the train stop we noticed a boy and his mother dressed as matching clowns. Pretty cute. Even cuter was the marching band full of matching clowns that marched up and watching the boy run up and hug his dad. They played us a few songs while we waited for the train, but had to stay behind because one of their crew was still missing. I suppose you had to be there, but at the next train station was the missing band member. He somehow managed to look sad and lost even though he had a happy clown face painted on his face. Apparently some mistake had been made about the meeting place.
Before we get to Norway, let me tell you a little bit more about Gödel. He never quite forgave his colleagues for not understanding the intentions of his Theorem. He never really talked to them; he just assumed that the result should speak for itself. He kind of just faded into his office and was rarely seen. After his first couple of theorems, he never produced any new results. During WW II he relocated to USA and was given a position at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. At the institute he completed his steps towards the edge of madness. He became very paranoid about everything. For example he was convinced that his food was often poisoned and hence ate very little. He stopped interacting with colleagues. His only real friend was Einstein. Gödel loved that Einstein shared some of his philosophical beliefs. They would take many long walks together at the university. Einstein’s life of hyper activity was in stark contrast to Gödel’s short span of work. The longer Gödel stayed at the university, the more pronounced his eccentricities became. At the end of his life Plato claimed to achieve total almost mystical understanding of the universe. Gödel spent his last days trying to find this understanding and was completely disappointed that he couldn’t.
Ok, back to Norway. The planes landed, Brett and I met in the airport, and then the complicated route to the rental car. Rent-a-wreck was the best deal we could find in a rental car. The problem was they don’t have an office at the airport. Instead Brett and I had to transfer kayaks, camping gear, and all of our food via public transport to Oslo, (20 miles or so away). You might ask why we brought all of our own food? Norway is expensive! As a random example I saw a “special” advertised for a family pizza outing. It included a large pizza, breadsticks, and soft drinks for all. The prize was about 100 U.S. dollars. Never though I’d say this, but you gotta love Dominos some of the time. So to save money we camped the entire trip and made our own food. Anyway the only day on our trip that reached over 90 degrees Fahrenheit was that first day as we toted and tossed our gear from location to location until we found the car. And then it was off to our first stop, Voss. This would become just one of our amazing drives. With so many philosophical and psychological rivers to cross, it seems that kayakers would be experts at life. Lots of extra practice ferrying, boofing, falling, bracing, crashing, and drinking. If this was the case, Norwegian kayakers should be the philosophers and psychiatrists for the world.
This year saw the release of Norway’s first intensive guide book. Its pages are filled with sick pictures of sweat drops that (to steal a line from Igby Goes Down) would make Pavlov’s kayaker’s foam at the mouth. After 25 years of boating, about 10 years of kayaking, and many close calls, a kayak guidebook like this and whitewater like Norway tends to make me extremely nervous anymore. I’m just not my 20-year-old self anymore. “I grow old … I grow old … shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. … have measured out my life with coffee spoons;” We had just missed a huge event at Voss, the Voss Extreme Games. The next time I go to Norway, we will start at the Voss games, meet lots of boaters, and leave about four weeks later after the Sjoa river festival. We found a few left over boaters at the free camping site, but they had class 5 on their minds. The problem was most of the boaters were already gone and Brett and I found ourselves boating alone. This definitely ruined my confidence and made a rocky start for the trip. To calm my nerves we spent the better part of the night at the local dance club. Managed to meet some of the locals and have a generally good time. Promised to meet them for karaoke the next night at the “pubben”. Gretchen promised to sing us Norway’s most famous song, it was once the winner of the “European song contest.” We never really followed through with the promise. We started on the class 4 playrun of the Raundalselvi. Norwegians definitely have a different definition of “playrun.” The river wasn’t that bad, but the holes had a big water kick to them. We made it about half way down the river before I lost all confidence and called an early stop at a bridge. With Norway’s long days we were able to regroup a bit and head to something more in my comfort range: a low-water creek. So we ran the Brandsetelvi, the site of the Voss Extreme Race. Without enough safety we only did part of the course, but it was a lot of fun. It included a 18 foot or so slide drop and a sweat 6 foot boof. Math teacher: convert to meters. I had to wear my pink water wings (a going away gift from Portland) for this one.
Then it was off to Bergen for some culture, the world cup game, and lots of rain. It is one of Norway’s largest cities (actually fairly small) and home to more rain then Portland. Because of the expensive alcohol we played the never empty wine class trick (keep refilling your drink with your own from a Nalgene bottle). The last time I played this game with Brett I ended up snapping a girl’s thong and in a separate incident running from cougars. This time we grabbed some relieve from the rain in a hotel’s bar. As we were heading to the next bar, Brett noticed some umbrellas and asked the hotel register if he could borrow one. Assuming we were guests of the hotel, he obliged. Pretty funny stuff, so I took a picture. Later in the evening the umbrella was ruined in a huge gust of wind. Again pretty funny, so I took a picture. But I couldn’t figure out why every time I looked in the view screen the umbrella was fixed and every time I looked at Brett in real life the umbrella was broken. Turns out I don’t know how to operate a digital camera very well and the world was starting to get blurry from the never ending drink trick. Text messaged Eric about his favorite bar in Bergen. No response. Later that night we found excellent seats to watch the world cup game from, including two cute Norwegian girls at our table. The world was blurry enough that I became convinced they should share some of the never-ending bottle. Managed to get myself kicked out of the bar. Brett was able to find a place to watch the game and I was able to pass out in the car. Later Eric responded and I found out that I got kicked out of his favorite bar. Waste of an evening on my part.
On the way back to Voss we scouted the Tysselva. After the heavy rains it looked intense. I have a feeling it always looks pretty huge, long slides and big falls. By the time we got back to finish the second half of the Raundalselvi the river levels had risen significantly. For me it was a no go. So we spent four days driving around looking for rivers and doing some ok hikes in the crummy weather. Levels seemed to be either too high or two low. In retrospect we passed up lots of runable rivers, my confidence was just shaken. It didn’t help any that our rent-a-wreck was having CD player and antenna problems. The CD player worked the first day, and that was it. The antenna was broken and a song or two would occasionally surprise us, but that was about it. You can ask Brett, I don’t talk a lot, and you can ask me, Brett doesn’t do well with silence. Ran into some unfortunate situation back in Portland, after a couple hundred bucks in phone calls in was resolved somewhat. When my sister, some random kayakers and skiers, and I were in Whistler in January I discovered the perfect way to have a fight. After an expensive, rather annoying night at the bars we were walking home in the silent snow. As a large lifted truck drove past, Carrie took it upon herself to through a snowball at them. They skidded to a stop and as the Canadians were piling out I was thinking of how to explain politely that she wasn’t my sister. Instead we all got into a huge snowball fight with the locals. Why can’t all fights be so beautiful? They would end with cold snow and sweat dripping down our faces. Then we found the lower Jori. It had been high on my list because it is also in my world whitewater guidebook. If I ever win the lottery I plan to visit (not necessarily run) every river in that book (and of course sponsor a significant number of you guys and ladies on boating trips). Beautiful and perfect in my book; a bit mellow for Brett. On the drive to the put in we ran into one of the local guide companies. Our friends Alex, Mike, and Heath had just done an intense weeklong trip with them. They had previously run the upper section of the Jori. The guide’s only comments about our friends: “they were fun, they did good on the upper section, only lost a bit of paint off their helmets, and those boys can drink!” Took forever to hitchhike the shuttle. Turns our Norwegians aren’t quite like the Canadians when it comes to picking up strangers. On that theme, let me explain the Norwegians a bit. Lets start with this: they are extremely nice, tall, fair skinned, good looking, English speaking, and well educated. But what stands out most for me is how much they hate to be placed in an uncomfortable situation. As the kayaking guidebook says, they would never admit it when they are talking to you, but inside they would really rather be back at home in the comfort of their homes. Norway is one if not the largest monetary contributor to the poor of the world. Yet it is almost impossible to immigrate to Norway, it is a very white country. As an example from the capital city, Oslo, I saw mentally ill women having a fit. She was repeating something fairly unintelligible in English. Pretty standard fare for Portland, but the Norwegians were staring and giving her a huge amount of space. Again they just don’t know how to deal with the unordinary. Brett and I stood out a bit.
While I was waiting for Brett to run the shuttle another group arrived at the take out. We all agreed that it was a great run, but it didn’t add to my confidence any that I was talking to a group of high school kids on a class trip from England. And so it goes.
Here is an idea from one of the Latin American authors, Borges. He explains fear as an event related to the future. Fear isn’t really about what is happening, it is about what could happen. How can we really compare different fears if they are really just thoughts about the future? Let me use another one of his analogies. When we hear that a large number of people are starving because of a drought, a different emotional response is evoked in comparison to when we hear that a lone hiker got lost and starved to death. But realistically don’t all people experience the same pain when they starve. It matters very little if it is just you or your entire country.
Made a slight detour through a campground along the fjords to grab a shower and Internet. We weren’t quite sneaky enough and had to pay this time. Ended up playing cards and hackie sack with the Swedish, Finnish, and Norwegian help. The conversation about different languages and accents was amazing, as was our cute Swedish host. Not only do they all know English, they often learn a number of the local dialects and languages as well. Pretty amazing to me, the local farm boy, who couldn’t see the importance of learning Spanish on the farm. Spent a long day hiking around the fjord.
Then we ran into some good luck and found a couple of paddlers that Brett had talked to on the Internet before our trip: Patrick and Rich. Their love-hate traveling relationship was amazing. Rich picked all of the rivers and all of the details and Pat drove his car right where he was supposed too. They ran a lot more rivers then Brett and I had on a similar amount of time. But somehow I don’t think they had experienced a game of hackie sack along a fjord with a Swedish and a Norwegian host. The first morning Brett was able to run a class 5 section of Ulvaa with them and that evening Brett and I where able to run the upper Rauma river. Things were shaping up! One of the highlights of the trip for me was Mini Huka Falls. The biggest single drop I ran in Norway. We pulled up to scout the rapid and chatted with a local family enjoying the beautiful day beside the river (it helped that they had a hot daughter). With such an audience, I had to run the drop. They offered to take pictures and off we went. A perfect 20 plus falls, with a deep undercut on the left an amazing boof rock in the center. Sky time. Then after the drop we retrieved the camera and they offered us local chocolate. Beautiful.
After an amazing drive we spent the next day on the Valldola, my favorite river of the trip. A low water creek that started in the highlands and quickly made its way down to the fjord. You could always look over your shoulder and see the creek’s headwaters. Definitely troll country.
Even with the low water I still walked a few things, but the slides and falls were my cup-of-tea. Watched a pair of Germans run it all except the last drop. At the end of the run we made plans to meet up again and the Sjoa River Festival.
On the way to the festival we made a detour to the Store Ula river just to find extremely low levels. The triple waterfall at the takeout seemed runnable but required a lot more safety. The fourth waterfall was a sketchy 60 footer. The fifth waterfall inspired Brett. A calm pool lead into a 25 footer with a soft pillow. Took us a while to get his boat and set safety and then it was a go. In the excitement Brett forgot to boof and melted in behind the waterfall. As he resurfaced in an indo the tail of his boat was caught on the wall and his head was stuck under water in the boil. He was convinced that he was getting worked and I was convinced that the entire situation was hilarious because he was completely safe. I’ll post some pictures for your amusement.
Then it was off to the Sjoa River Festival. Hundreds of boaters were camping together for a three-day river event. As we drove into the festival, saw a group of boaters running the class four plus, couple kilometer long gorge. The first thing we saw was how inexperienced they were. A girl swam one of the major rapids, was stuck in an eddy, and her friends took a long time to respond. On the drive in we also noticed an advertisement for a pimp and ho party the next night. Let me take just a second to mention this: kayakers are the same the world over, if you have ever met one, to a certain extent you have met all of us. Let’s talk about that party for a moment. It was about 12 kilometers away from the campground. The bar hosting the party offered a free shuttle drive to the event. Notice a ride home wasn’t offered. I don’t know what to say about the night other then we met so many kayakers and locals. Seem to remember embarrassing the locals with dance moves. Then suddenly it was decided that we should go home. Found the shuttle bus permanently parked in the back and a complete lack of taxis (we where in the middle of nowhere). So off we started walking to the campsite. Only made it a little ways before I remembered a certain redhead and splintered off from the group back to the bar. Found her quite deep in conversation with another kayaker and started walking back to the camp alone. Thank god a random van full of kayakers passed by. By the end of the drive he had picked up at least 20 kayakers in the van, included among the mess was Brett and most of our newfound friends. Speaking of the similarities between kayakers, it all reminds me of how I met the PDX kayakers. It was a pimp and ho party that I found out about on the Portland kayaking website. When I look back at the pictures I recognize most of my current best friends. That night I made out with a random girl with a red wig in the spare room. A couple of years later I moved into that room and played co-host to a number of similar parties. A few years after that I moved out of the house with a constant allergy to the mites and dust created from a constant party atmosphere (the allergy, bloody nose, and mucus disappeared immediately after I moved). Upon moving my bed I found an unopened raspberry flavored condom, a pair of biker’s sunglasses from some random costume parts, and a few other random things I didn’t recognize. As I said, kayakers are the same the world around.
The next morning we woke up to bad news. The previous afternoon a kayaker had drowned on the racecourse run, and events would be postponed until further notice. It is always hard to understand the events leading up to such a tragedy. In some sense you want to know the kayaker’s experience level, and in another sense it just scares you that such a thing can happen. In any case I changed my mind and decided that I wouldn’t be running the gorge. We headed to the upper Sjoa instead with our new friends.
Just one of the great things about Norway is the long days. All of the events were planned in the evenings so that we could run other rivers in the morning. It was a great day on the river. The group was the best complete group of boaters I had ever boated with. Good times. Portaged a huge 45 footer with a huge room of doom in the midst of the drop. Later that same day a crazy German made the first descent of that drop when he missed the portage eddy. He was solo boating the run and hadn’t completely read the description. So he ended up in the last chance no choice eddy and decided to run. At the actually race he was the winner with his bright pink bicycle helmet. Originally I was planning to use the upper takeout for the run, but I got talked into using the lower one. I ended up swimming the next drop. It’s amazing sometimes how it actually helps your confidence to take a little working occasionally. The next day we ran a river that we had walked away from previously. It was fun, I walked some, but I was feeling better. Our final day on the river we once again did a Norwegian play run. I got worked in a hole but was able to hang out for a long time and work my way out because I was feeling good! And that was the last run for a while. Sold my old school boat for a great price and I was done boating for a month.
That night my friend, Christy arrived from Germany. The plan was to go on a hike with Brett and then the two of us would tour Norway for another 2 weeks. The rest of the festival was fun. The kayaker’s parents were contacted and they wanted the event to go on. Brett raced in the qualifying round, had a great start, but missed the ending eddy (because I didn’t want to run the gorge we had made a detour to a different river that day and Brett hadn’t done a practice run). Still good times. It was a sad leaving all of our friends, but it was off to a three-day hike, the best I have ever done. Words really won’t paint the picture, but it was amazing. We left Brett at the end of the hike and it was Christy and I on a tour of Norway and Sweden.
For the next two weeks Christy and I toured around in her grandparent’s car. One of the highlights was a celebration in honor of the Vikings; Gottenheim days. Lots of fun, but I sure missed the comfortable nature of Canadian neighbors (my typical summer hangout). Norway just can’t match up to Jasper’s hip-hop Tuesday, Kicking Horse’s new stripper Tuesday, or Calgary’s ladies night. “Oh Canada, oh Canada.” But I was in luck. The plan was to make a stop in Stockholm and then head back to Germany and Tobi, a true-blue Canadian would be meeting us there. Stockholm again is amazing. An old city that really survived being ravished by the war. Amazing.
Somewhere in the middle of Germany I had a dream about flying. It was probably brought on by Tobi’s fear of flying and the amount of drugs she takes to survive the flight. I was on a trip to a distant friend’s wedding with a large group of kayakers. The wedding was for my x girlfriend’s best friend, but for some reason my x hadn’t been invited to the wedding. A lot of the kayakers were on the trip with me, but the plane was short an attendant and I was volunteered. After doing the exits are here, here, and here thing it was my job to serve all of the alcohol. After a successful bout of bartending on the plane, we were landing. Strangely we were flying by Hood and coming back into Portland. The pilot had forgot to pay the airport tax. Before we landed I needed to go pay it. So I jumped out of the plane, opened a chute, landed, stole a car, and raced to the airport to pay the tax. Once the plane landed, we decided to screw the wedding and go drink some more. Somehow we decided to go party at my x’s house. I just kept wondering back and forth down the empty halls of her large expensive house. The only other thing I remember is the end of the dream. I was trying to give my x’s daughter (she doesn’t have a daughter but it made sense in the dream) a drink of something that I had mixed up on the plane.
Christy, Tobi, and I had an amazing German tour. Among lots of things, we saw a few castles, checked out Cologne, and got drunk on a boat tour of the Hamburg harbor. Very typical Portlander and German behavior. With a few days left Christy left Tobi and I on a plane for Berlin. The plan is to someday create a fictional book that includes the experiences that I have had on these trips in a fictional account. A couple days in Berlin could be an entire chapter of the book. When we finally found our youth hostel in East Berlin it felt like was right out of a burlesque novel: trouble everywhere, 8 o’clock pub crawl, on-site bar, and lots of Jäger. I suppose it suffices to say that we didn’t get much sleep that night. Woke up early the next day to meet Christy’s brother and tour the city. I was surprised to find that it is my favorite European city so far. It is huge, but it feels small. Lots of interested buildings, history, and you can walk around with a beer in your hand. Stopped to check out Check Point Charlie. As the major route through the wall between East and West Berlin, it became a symbol of the cold war. Very interesting. That night we repeated our adventures and didn’t get any sleep in the hostel. Don’t try to keep up drinking with Irish tourists. As we spent the night drinking with mostly European travelers, a little mini play of Europe spread out before us in English. I’m sure I missed most of it, but it was fun to see the Irish fight with the Italians over the Austrian women and the young Germans in the middle of it all while the Swedes went to bed. Again made me wish we could have all our fights over snowballs. The next morning we rented bicycles to complete our tour of the city and get back on the road for home before 2. Saw a double-decker bus painted with a Jägermeister advertisement. Asked Tobi if she would take video as I biked out in front of the Jäger bus. Just wanted to reinact the scene where I felt like I’d been hit by a bus after drinking to many Jäger and Red Bulls. I’ve always survived, so I’m sure I would have made it through the bus wreck. Even made a song…
Shane got run over by a Jäger bus on his way back home last eve, you may say there is no such thing as drunk buses, but as for Christy and Tobi, they believe.
We had certainly found a way to cure jetlag on the way home from Europe. Stay in a youth hostel and stay up until 6 am (9 pm Portland time) and it will feel perfectly normal when you get home.
One of the ideas of Plato’s cave is that we as humans are discovering the world, but we do so imperfectly. We can’t quite grasp the true ideals of the world. I really believe that this is what Gödel was trying to say. There will always be truths that we can’t discover. If I ever write this book I plan to use everyone’s real name and then use Microsoft Word’s replace word feature to create a fictitious name for all of the characters (and to create a sense of the lost truth that is missing). Another theme of the book is how humans always repeat relationship mistakes and never seem to understand the true nature of relationship. To help show this, all of my x’s will have similar names; Becky, Bexx, Becca, etc, as will Carrie’s, Joe, John, Jorge, etc, and Eric’s: Colleen, Connie, Kala. Purposefully confusing for the reader but it will probably create some huge logistically problems for the writer. Especially if I have ever made the mistake of kissing a friend; I won’t know if I should name them by their code name or as some version of Rebecca. I can only imagine if they ever make a movie of the book, nothing will happen except for the three of us sitting around at bars, smoking cigarettes, and looking very existential. Order in a mad universe is created by humans; action, freedom, and decision are important. This will be in stark contrast to the world that really exists around us, making decisions and misguided intuitions for us. The whole time we will have beers in hand.
Made it back in time for our annual Lower Main Salmon river trip. Mild white water, hot temperatures, good company, sandy beaches, swimming, drunken birthday parties, and 4 days on the river are the name of the game. In a stream of misguided thought we decided to make the trip have a pirate theme: so add swash buckling and rum to the list.
Spent one more day in Portland, long enough to watch Beerfest. Listened to our dropped beers clink as they rolled down the steps. Have you ever had the feeling when you leave a movie that you are still in the movie? The pavement on the walk to the car and the warm seat feel fake. You have been a prisoner of the movie’s suspension of disbelief for so long that it is no longer clear if the parking lot pavement and sun are real. Similar to the middle of a rapid when past and present slow down and time really seems to disappear. Honestly how do we measure time, isn’t it abstract and far less physical than we really give it credit for? Finding one single place where time is repeated can destroy it. The Borges inspired group of Latin American writers were sometimes trying to show that time was temporary. Place the situations inside of the characters rather than the characters in situations. Similar to that feeling of déjà vu that sometimes accompanies a familiar bar.
Next, I took a whirlwind trip to Cananda with Jasmine while I waiting for the kayakers to join me. We got wasted with Geoff in Seattle, listened to punk rock in Victoria, hiked a small portion of the Vancouver coast, partied in Squamish, saw a rat, tweekers, and prostitutes on Hastings street, and made our way back to better bars in Vancouver. Sent Jasmine home on a Greyhound and heading to meet some kayakers for a good extended weekend.
Lisa, Andrew, Sandra, and I did the traditional kayaker tour from Lytton to Whistler. Had a great day on the low water levels of the Nahatlatch. Ran the ever fun Thompson River (I was still scared from my swim the previous year, but it proved to be as mellow as ever). A pretty awesome train wreck littered the banks near the take out. I was going to sprawl out on it for a photo opportunity equivalent to falling off a horse and getting run over by a Jägermeister bus. Partied in the First Nation town of Lytton; as the sign says, the rafting capitol of BC. Hiked up the Stein river (a long dream of mine) and ran the run out rapids from the Devil’s Staircase down. Other than a swim and a few bumpy spots, we had a great trip through one of the most sacred canyons I have seen in my travels. Then it was off to Whistler. Hooked up with a birthday party group. Birthday dude had dreads and his friends had taken the time to decorate them with condoms, lube, a joint, and other Whistler paraphernalia. The kayaking crew headed home after a fun run on the Squamish and I spent a couple of days alone in Canada. It just reminded me how glad I am to have a great group of traveling partners because I was fairly bored over the next four days by myself. Saw a few kayakers. But they where heading to big stuff. You can check out Chris Korbillics video accounts on oregonkayaking.net for proof.
While I was on the way back home, Mike picked up our German friend Milena at the Portland airport and I grabbed her roommate Faris at the Seattle airport. After a couple of bloody maries at Nateesh’s bar, watching a bus splatter a man with Gatorade, and a good night sleep, we grabbed Amy and headed to the smoke filled Payette rivers in Idaho. Some of the time we could see the entire valley and other times the wind would change and it was hard to breathe. Had some tradition PDXkayaker good times on the Lower Main, South Fork Gorge, and the Longhorn Saloon. We really showed our German friends some true Idaho spirit. After a short stop to fix some radiator problems (and some tall boys and shuffle board) we hit the Pendleton Roundup on the way home. We created a new game called the toilet lottery. Every time we visited the bathroom we added some change to coins that someone had dropped in the urinal. We figured every bar has its price and we wanted to decide how much money would be in the toilet before a local dug it out for a free drink. For some reason we talked most of the bar into joining us in the joke. Proof that it is pretty easy to drink too much in Pendleton. The last time I had visited Pendleton the locals were convinced I was gay because of my earrings, so I spent the rest of the night buying drinks for the armed forces men leaving for Iraq (to their horror). Somewhere in the middle of the night Milena decided that she wanted to stay in the USA, so we had a local Native American Shaman, Peter, marry us. In retrospect I’m hoping the fact that the Shaman was drunk and worked at the local casino nullifies the arrangement. Somehow we got the idea to hit up the Mt Angel Octoberfest the next night. Wanted to show the Germans the town I had grown up in and also show them German partying American style. Among the exceptional things I remember are a really drunk Brian, replacing the traditional stickers with a permanent marker, one of my really drunk aunt and uncles, and talking Elvis into signing my sister with a permanent marker.
That was pretty much the end of my summer. Back to work. The first month back to work saw a visit from Christy and her roommate Boris. One of our new Irish kayaking friends, Peter, came for a conference in Portland. Kala, another Irish boater, came to visit from her new home, Vancouver BC. Played in the ocean, ran the Orletta, and partied for Halloween at the Howl. I think the Irish were most impressed by our Halloween party, but that’s all for other stories. Recently I was attending my college roommate’s wedding in Phoenix when I got a call from Brett; he is now engaged to Kimberly. Sometimes feel like I’ll be the last remaining bachelor, but then again most of the Portland kayaking crowd is unmarried. Hopefully this still means I can get Brett out on the road.
At the end of his life Plato claimed to gain a complete understanding of the world and was at piece with the idea of dying. At the end of his life Kurt Gödel the mathematician tried to find Plato’s supposed peace. He had moved to the US because of the war. His wife had passed away. Except for Einstein, the faculty at his new college mostly ignored him. He was rarely seen at social events on campus. He was convinced that someone was trying to poison his food and hence he rarely ate. His relationship and daily walks with Einstein even became stressed near the end. After he passed away, his journal and notes would tell the story of his struggles to find a complete understanding of life. His only notable contributions to logic came at a young age, completely changed the philosophy and perspective of mathematics, and similar to many young mathematical savants, he spent the rest of his life misunderstood in obscurity. Borge’s group of Latin American writers had looked for that one perfect moment when time repeats itself like degavu and everything becomes clear. In one of his short stories, Borges talks about a young man who finds this perfect place in time by lying on a pillow in the basement under the stairs and looking through a knothole. From this place he can see the stars, the earth from a distance, and look into the future. In short he has found a greater understanding of the world. Unfortunately he can’t make the mortgage on his house and it is destroyed. Probably because I was thinking about all of these things for this report, I had a dream the other night about Gödel and Einstein. We were on top of a great snow covered slope and we all had a feeling that we had missed something in life. Gödel had an idea. We hopped on toboggans and down the hill we shot. I was screaming and laughing as I held onto Kurt and Einstein raced us with his own sled. It all seemed to parody my thought that the perfect moment just might be a good snowball fight and I wish all our battles could be fought with snow, especially philosophical battles.
Take care, Shane.
