Back to Lake Coeur d’Alene. We’re taking a summer vacation, maybe our first one in years, both together, Cheryl and I. Heading out to Montana, where daughter Shaine has been organizing for health care reform this year. We plan on biking most days, while we hang out around Missoula, and do a circuit through Glacier Park.
But first, we have to get there. This involves the familiar drive over the Cascades, through the central Washington desert, and Spokane. Because I apparently can’t go more than 24 hours without swimming, biking, or running, I give Cheryl a choice.
“We could either swim in the Lake for a mile or so, or take a short ride on the rail trail.”
“What I really want to do is see Shaine. Her director is having a barbecue, just for us, and I don’t want to be late.”
We’re already one day late from our anticipated departure. The day before we were to leave, Cheryl heard from Dan Kopec, a documentarian with the local PBS affiliate, KTBC. He’s been putting together an hour long piece for TV on the Residential Parenting Program at the Washington Corrections Center for Women – the exact same subject Cheryl used for her thesis work/show last month and this. She has warmed a bit to his entry into her special turf. The station (a poor second cousin in Tacoma to the big sister in Seattle) was putting on a fund raiser at the Museum of History and Industry, using a 26 minute rough/early cut of Dan’s show as the bait. Cheryl wanted to go and make connections, but he emailed Wednesday evening, saying the date was Thursday – the day we would be going.
We got a late start anyway, as I had been on call the night before. As we drove through Tacoma, she started moaning about missing that event. This was the first I’d heard about it; she’d only been invited the night before. I had a secret goal as well – to watch the first mountain top finish stage of this year’s Tour de France. This way, I could stay and watch the expected fireworks on Team Astana LIVE on versus, and we could still leave and do the barbecue and all.
So there we are, already having gone across the bridge and paid out $2.75, when Cheryl begins her moaning.
“I wish we could have stayed and gone to the prison video event…”
“Huh?. What’s that?”
“I don’t really know. It’s in Seattle at the Museum of History and Industry. The KBTC people are doing a documentary on the residential parenting program. They invited me yesterday to come attend. I think it’s a fund raiser. But I don’t know – we’re already on our way, we’re all packed. Let’s keep going.”
“What?” This sounded like a plea, in Venetian, to turn around and go back. But she was too fearful I might have an all ahead full mindset about the trip in place. I’m usually so pre-planned and all, and have tight time lines and specific schedules.
This time, though, I actually had off the five days FOLLOWING our planned return. He only reason we were doing the trip in this specific schedule was to accommodate another of Cheryl’s activities, a Digital Story Telling workshop. But that had been canceled last week, so we really had quite an open ended opportunity for this trip.
“Well, we could turn around and go back,” I said as we rounded the corner from 16 to I-5, and neared the Tacoma Dome.
“Oh, we don’t want to do that. You’re probably already into the trip, and really want to get there.”
“No, not really – I have five days free after we get home. I can start tomorrow just as well as today.”
It went on like this for another couple of exchanges, like those very polite arguing Minnesota couples you hear Garrison Keillor mock on his radio show.
Finally, I turned of the freeway at Portland Ave. This totally shocked Cheryl. As I knew she couldn’t handle the idea of me doing something from totally altruistic motives, I noted, “Well, today IS the first mountaintop finish on the Tour de France. This’ll give me a chance to see it live tomorrow morning. Then we can take off right after, and still make Shaine’s boss’ barbecue Friday night.”
Cheryl seemed relieved that she wasn’t the only one with selfish motives for wanting to stay another day. We headed back the way we came, disrupting our two adult children back at home who were hoping to have no geriatric supervision for a week or more (Cody is spending his enforced time of work by going back to his VW camper van rebuilding project.)
An aside on the Tour – as of Friday, the favorite, Contador, is in second by 6 seconds, with Lance Armstrong 2 seconds behind in third. I won’t recap the race, but only say that if Lance beats Contador in the second time trial the last week, it will make the final climb up Mount Ventoux VERY interesting. I’ll revise my predictions, and now put Contador first, Armstrong second, and Andy Schleck as the first non-Astana rider, either third, or fourth behind Levi Leipheimer. Damn Yankees!
Deja Vu all over again; we head out Friday morning, and hit CDA by 2:30 PM.
“Well, we’ve got two choices”, I announce. I know Cheryl is antsy about getting to Missoula in time for Shaine’s boss’ barbecue, which has already been delayed a day just to accommodate us. (Had we left the day before, we would not have arrived until after 9 PM, so they re-scheduled for Friday so Shaine could show us off.)
“We could take the tandem out on the bike path, or go swimming in the lake.”
“When will we get to Missoula?”
“Oh, we’ll get there in plenty of time – by 7 or 7:30, I guess.”
“Well, I just don’t want to disappoint Shaine and her boss – seeing her and giving our time to her is more important to me than riding or swimming. I know you have to do you training, but I really want to get there in time so we don’t delay their dinner.”
A quick mental calculation aimed at how to keep everybody moderately happy: let’s see, biking will take too long for any real exercise – putting the bike together, getting dressed, re-stowing gear – even if we rode only 45 minutes, we’d still show up nearer to 8 than 7; swimming, maybe 30 minutes in the lake would get us there by 7:20 to 7:30.”
“So, let’s go down to the lake, and swim for 30 minutes or so.”
Cheryl of course did not want to swim at all, as she had no way to dry her hair and make herself presentable for Shaine and her friends. So I grabbed my wet suit bag, quickly changed in the lakeside restroom area, and popped into the lake for 30 minutes or so. The water was 68 F cool, about 18” below the surface. But the sun had heated the top portion up to a tepid 78 or so, and I kept trying to churn the cooler water up from below. Added to my misery, I had forgotten to put in my contacts, and did not have my prescription swim goggles. SO while I could see quite well UNDER water, looking to to get a sense of where I was going was kind of tricky. Luckily, the trees lining the lake at quite tall, and the sun was out, so I used those to sets of landmarks – the green blur of the shoreline, and the prismatic light angling into the water – to keep myself oriented and more or less straight.
We left CDA at 3:45, and proceeded to lose an hour crossing time zones at the Montana border. Pulled into the barbecue at 7:38, and seemed to actually be on speaking terms with each other as well as our daughter. This boded well, I sensed, for the rest of the trip.