Breitenbush River Hike

The other weekend, we went with some friends and hiked along the Breitenbush River, near the Breitenbush Hot Springs.  The Hot Springs were closed, and we would have needed reservations to get in, so we didn't visit them.

We'd done the hike once a few years ago, and I'm remembering the river being lower and the air being hotter, so I'm thinking we went in late July or August (I'm not finding an entries in the blog about the hike).

This time around parking was a little challenging -- everyone had been chaffing under the COVID-19 lockdown, and the usual pull-over at the trailhead had been commandeered by a bunch of folks for camping (?and dog training?).

The hike is a little challenging in places, as one has to go single-file over fallen trees which have been repurposed as bridges.   For the most part, though, the trail meanders alongside the river, alternately winding between evergreen trees and brushing up to embankments.

Eventually, we had to turn around because a flood had taken out a bridge over a major tributary to the Breitenbush River.

The wildflowers we saw were mostly finished, I'm thinking if we'd come the first week of May we would have seen more blooms.  The only ones I recognized were trillium, (I want to say) larkspur, and columbine.  There was a lot of Oregon grape.

Another semi-washed-out trail led to an overlook above a deeply carved gorge.  There was a kind of ladder, really a downed log with some notches carved out of it as anti-skid holds for one's feet, but they were slippery.  Just as I finished saying, "Well, this isn't so bad; now watch me fall on my butt," I slipped and nearly landed on my camera.

The view was cool, though; it was the sort of place you'd expect a re-enactment of "Das Rheingold."   It was also the sort of place that you wouldn't want to fall into.


Along the way back, I took a ton of photos of the shadows of trees, and flowers, and mushrooms, and leaves.  I only got a little behind everyone, no more than a minute or two.  Or maybe five.

Siuslaw River Bridge

Sunday we escaped the pollen in the Willamette Valley and headed to the coast.  Mark decided that since we usually head north when we get to Highway 101, we would head south instead.

We walked along a very windy jetty and watched osprey at Honeyman State Park and wound up in Florence.   As we drove over the Siuslaw River Bridge, the finials and art deco-ish bits caught my eye and I said I wanted to photograph the architectural details of the bridge.





We walked through Florence and up the stairs to the bridge's deck.  I've taken photos of the bridge before, but usually from a distance.  I am a little confused about how the bridge's structure works as a bridge, because I'm not used to seeing concrete used in a suspension arch -- maybe it's concrete-clad iron girders?







In any case, the bridge has aesthetic lines in the arches.  The 1930's decorations remind me of the Empire State Building.










We walked along the eastern side of the bridge, which was a little alarming because the sidewalk didn't seem to be far enough away from the traffic.  I took a few detail shots and realized that I wasn't going to get good detail on the various designs embossed into the concrete unless I crossed 101.  So I did and was rewarded with much better lighting (the hight contrast on the concrete caused by direct sunlight confused the light-meter on the camera).

I think scaled down columns like this would be fun in our back yard... it might be too imperial, though.  And I can hear Mark saying how they might tip over onto someone or a cat.

The arches had decorative wings on them.  The details came out much more clearly on the west side of the bridge.

One of the things I like about 1930's American architecture is that they took the time to put little decorative details on otherwise utilitarian objects; it gives a animistic or spiritual aspect to structures.

The timing was perfect for this photo, and I didn't realize until I got home that the shadows of the feathers were lining up with the feathers beneath.

I really do think the columns were inspired by the Empire State Building.  Or maybe the Chrysler Buildind.

Or Orthanc. 

I'll have to keep how they sculpted this column in mind the next time I'm making sand castles.  I think a simple triangle-cut plank could make a good tool to get this effect.

Mark gave me a hard time for crossing Highway 101, and I replied it wasn't like I clambered under a moving, two-ton, ATHLETE (All-Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra-Terrestrial Explorer) robot at JLP (yes, I saw a photographer do this--the engineers all collectively gasped).

I took a final, obligatory photograph of sunlight slanting underneath the bridges gothic arches.

Dream: Driving Through Floods

Dream:  I was driving in the family car in Eugene.  I was driving down a street like Chambers street from 28th.  I was going to meet Mark at a movie theatre, probably at Gateway Mall, and rather than traverse a diagonal through downtown Eugene traffic, I was going to zip along Chambers until it met something like the Beltline and then zip along the Beltline until I hit the Mall.

It didn't work out that way.  I zipped along Chambers, which became more and more rural (almost like Greenhill Road).  The road became more narrow, and weeds and tall grasses began to sprout up on the shoulder.  I was driving through fields.  The day became more cloudy and rainy.  I zipped around a long curve in the road, and the road was flooded.

I started to drive through the water, but somehow turned back.   Then I decided to try to get to the underpass on the other side of the flood.  So I gunned the motor and drove as fast as I could through the deepening, surging, swirling water.  Brownish water frothed around the wheels and half-way up the doors.  I think in real life the engine would have been flooded or car would have gotten swept off the road.

I made it to the other side and parked the car.  The dream shifted, and I was waiting with a bunch of other folks for a bus.  There was a woman who was a bus representative who was taking customer's money and answering route questions.  The stop was under an underpass, and the roiling flood was near-by.

An older lady in a white convertible drove through the flood and parked her car next to the queue of folks waiting for the bus (to take them to the mall?)  The next thing I knew, I was in the white convertible with the lady, and she backed us into the torrent.  She tried to drive us forward, but we were swept back and into a kind of dark culvert with iron grates.  It almost was like being in a lock.  The bus lady was shouting instructions to us, and the car floated under the road and into a dock of sorts.

There was a break, and I was Tsunami Books.  This dream version was in a large Victorian house in a rural area.  Lots of wooden porch, wooden stairs, and segmented rooms.  I was letting people in or somehow in charge of a craft fair.  I was looking for an ink stamp to stamp people's hands and someone else was looking for a cash box...   There was something about waiting in line for a bathroom... but at one point I told Connie Newman "I dreamed the car got caught in a flood, and we floated into this dark culvert.  I need to write down the experience so I can use it in a story."

...And then the dream went on to other things, and all of us were on a flat-bed truck, and a youngish woman was in a speed boat on the river aside the road, yelling at us, "Have you seen [I'm gong to make up a name, Dexter, a large white horse]?  He was supposed to be in the paddock behind the house..."

---

It occurs to me that there were mostly women in this dream.

Driving a car through a flood is an anxiety motif I've dreamed since I was four.

I'm not sure why I would mash up being in charge of Tsunami Books (I lock the place up after Wordos meetings) and running a craft fair (Mark has run a holiday craft fair at his work for the last several years).  Oh, wait.... flood = Tsunami?

Crossing a river to an otherworld, frequently with a white horse, is another dream motif I have... although I'm reading "The Two Towers" to The Child and Shadowfax is carrying Gandalf between the Ents and  Helm's Deep.

Dream: Rhyton Priest

I had this dream October 16 of 2012.  I thought I posted it to the blog at the time, but apparently, I hadn't.  The dream was part of a FaceBook Discussion.  I'm posting it now because it's a particularly meaningful dream for me.

Just before I went to bed, I read a post about a Christian straight man from Tacoma who pretended to be gay for a year so he could write a book about his experiences.  At first I had several conflicting emotional responses ranging from, curiosity as to what he had did, cynicism about writing a book about his experiences, and a sense of betrayal and cultural appropriation.  But... I haven't read his book and I wanted to wait before responding to the [FaceBook] post [by David Raines, I think, asking for reactions].

As I expected I might, I had a dream which I think addresses this... (and no, I still haven't read the book).

The dream started out about rentals and insurance, and then transitioned.

I was in a dry land, with lots of large stony blocks.   I have an image of a river emerging from the fallen stones.  Somehow we were either performing "Jesus Christ, Superstar," and/else we were living in the historical time of Christ as an adult.  I have a recollection of togas or white robes.

A group of about six of us formed a procession into the shallow cave from which the river issued.  There was some sort of ritualistic taking of water or wine from a rhyton.  I'm trying to recall if the rhyton used was carved or not.  My sense was that it was plain, and gently curved like a horn.  I think it was stone or ceramic.  It was large and heavy with the liquid inside.  

(Here's some examples of non-plain rhytons)

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/30005340

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/130017295

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/130007897

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/130011051

We passed it around, squirting the water into each other's mouths.  Having taken the waters together, we processed outside into the bright morning sunlight.  I had the full, heavy rhyton (I have a sense of it resting on my shoulder), and was taking its contents back with me to distribute (I'm not sure where or to who).

A woman (a religious Christian person I know from real life) with a kind of crown of nails (points outward from her head -- in waking life she reminds me of Mary Hansen's painting of The Queen of Swords) was at the gathering outside on the stone blocks.  

She was of a different faith, but my sense was that we were all priests and priestesses together, so I offered and she accepted the spurt of liquid that shot from the rhyton when I removed my finger from its opening.  I have a sense that there was another woman there in brilliant white robes (there was a short conversation, or the brilliantly garbed woman explained something to the other woman).  The water shooting into her (the Christian woman's) mouth was a thin stream, as if from a garden hose spigot only slightly opened or an atomizer.  In waking, this seems wildly Freudian (it could only be more so if milk came out of the rhyton instead of water), but in the dream the emotional emphasis was the satisfaction of sharing water in order to quench another's thirst.   

To interpret this dream... If you want to understand the message of the waters, you can drink from the source, or you can (less immediately) drink through an intermediary.  Also, this dream is a metaphor for my understanding of the male expression of deity...  

So, yay for Tacoma guy for trying to experience what it's like to be discriminated against for being perceived as gay, and yay for this guy questioning his religiously-motivated intolerance, but his message of the grace of queers would have been stronger had he actually been queer.