(written today! 😎)
Interesting night last night.
I had a crazy-vivid dream about my college girlfriend.
It was so real.
And I remembered so much of it.
In the dream, I had this impression that I was supposed to go see her, watch was odd, because I knew she was married. But I felt like I should, so I did.
I don’t know how I knew where she was, but I did: She was at some school teaching, and when I got there, she was reading to a group of kids.
Her husband was waiting for her, and I just knew and felt that he was such a good man. And I knew it was better for her to have married him than me.
So vivid. So real.
It wasn’t new information to me. I already knew she and I weren’t supposed to get married. God had been pretty clear to me about that, despite my protests and pushing the envelope, and despite the fact that I’ll probably always love her.
I’m not sure if there was any purpose to the dream. Seems odd and unnecessary and completely disconnected from my life today.
One impact the dream had on me was an increase in loneliness… 😅
Why the dream?
I can’t even remember the last time that I had a dream that I could recall upon waking up.
They’re rare for me.
And even more rare for them to be so real.
[sigh]
I slept a good long time, which I think was good for me, waking up for good sometime around 9:30 or 9:45, I think?
Once up, I was out quickly, driving away before the clock struck 10.
Today I figured I would follow through on my thoughts of driving up the west side of the lake, back into the mountains to see how far I could go, so I headed that direction.
I snapped some pictures on the way in and texted a friend I hadn’t connected with in a little while to check in.
It was a partly cloudy day, so the sun was shining a fair bit of the time, and it was hot enough to heat up my van a fair bit, so I found myself a lovely shady spot underneath a massive evergreen tree between Lake Ohau on my east and Lake Middleton on my west.
My motivation to get my journal caught up and to get moving on more important things has returned, so I spent quite a while catching up on a journal entry that’s been a little bit of a thorn in my side because I forgot to take full notes for that day, and it was a super eventful day, so it’s been quite the challenge trying to piece everything together.
I’m still remembering things and correcting the entry (from January 6th), even though I’ve already posted it.
That’s one of the things that’s been challenging about my journal catch up, trying to remember everything. It’s so much easier if I just write the darn entry the day of. 🙃 Then there’s no having to go back and look at my Google map history to see where I was and where I went. There’s no needing to go back through my pictures to see what pictures I took to help pin things down, etc.
Most of the time, I have pretty good notes to work with, but here and there, I end up with blanks.
And regardless of the number of notes, if I’m not writing day of, I’m forgetting plenty of stuff. I can tell because a lot of the time when I’m going back and filling out my journal entries from notes, the journal entries are much shorter than the entries that I write day of, because the journal entries I write day of have a lot more of the details of the day.
Anyway, spending so much time in the shade, I actually started getting a little cold, so I fired up the van and moved it over to a different part of the same little park area where I was, so the sun could beat down at the fan and warm me back up. 🙃
Aaaaand I let my battery get drained down again. 🙃
Good gravy, Stephen, really?!?! 🙃
The little park was right off the road, but it wasn’t a park that was very enticing for other people to go to, as there were others nearby that were much nicer looking. It was also downhill from the road toward the lake, so unless somebody actually decided to pull in, which had happened earlier in the day, they wouldn’t easily see my van with its hood up indicating potential issues.
So I got out my jumper cables, popped my hood, and walked toward the road to flag somebody down. The first person I tried to flag down just drove right on by.
The second car was driving so quickly that I didn’t even bother trying to flag them down.
Gratefully, the third guy, driving a Toyota Hilux, saw me trying to get his attention and pulled over. I ran over and asked him if he would mind giving me a jump, that I had cables, and he was super cool about it and pulled over.
I hooked up the cables, got myself jumped, thanked him, and headed out myself as well.
I had hopes that I could drive all the way up the Hopkins River Valley–all the way to the very end. It didn’t seem very likely, as every single similar river valley that I tried to go up had some obstacles that I wasn’t able to overcome, whether it be private property or terrain my van simply couldn’t handle, but I wanted to give it another shot on this one.
I just love getting a feel for where everything is so I can kind of visualize this whole amazing country. 😊
So on I went, up the road, snapping a handful of pictures here and there. Eventually, the chip and seal road gave way to a dirt road, and I was pleased to see that multiple of the little turnoffs next to the lake had self-contained parking signs indicating that I could actually stay there if I wanted to.
None of those self-contained areas were listed on my CamperMate app. In fact, there were no self-contained camping areas listed on the app for the entire west side of the lake, let alone the river valley north of it.
But there they were, ready and available if I needed them. 😁
My goals for the day were much further north, however, so I continued along to see how far I might be able to make it.
Shortly after the dirt roads started, I had to ford a little stream, but that wasn’t bad. The question was how would I do once I needed to cross big washes.
The road was pretty rough, honestly. Definitely not a road I should be taking in a little minivan.
But why on earth would I let that stop me? 😅
🙃
I’ve spent so much time offroading in vehicles that never should go to the places I take them.
And I’ve got fun stories to go with the adventures, and… scars for my cars. 🙃
This off-road adventure was no different.
In such a beautiful place. 😊
When I got to the very first major wash, I scouted it out and at first decided that it wasn’t worth the risk. But then I reconsidered. 😆
I walked from one side to the other, following off-road trail that made sort of an s curve starting on the south side of the wash then going west up the wash before going back over to the north side of the wash.
It was a long stretch, and boy was it a doozy.
The biggest challenges were sharp dips followed by sharp rises, with not much space between the two, which meant it would be really easy to bottom out.
It would also be super easy to smack the front bumper or tear off the rear bumper. 😅
I’ve got lots of experience, but this is a longer vehicle than I usually do this kind of stuff with. 🙃
Anyway, for whatever reason, after deciding not to do it, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot, so off I went.
There’s a lot of strategy that’s involved when going on these kinds of roads with vehicles that shouldn’t be on them. The sharp dips and rises need to be taken at angles, if at all possible, to reduce the likelihood of bottoming out or smacking parts against the ground or rocks.
Wherever possible, you have to ride the tires over the high spots to create a greater ground clearance for the other obstacles, such as large rocks, on the trail.
Speaking of trail, everything that I was driving on was technically on the map as a hiking trail. 🙃
Though clearly, it was an off-road driving trail.
Miraculously, I made it through that huge, super technical wash without any damage!
I even made a video after getting to the other side, touting how I didn’t do any damage.
Exceeeeeept, I did. 😅
When I was walking back to the van, I realized that the passenger’s side of the rear bumper seemed to be a little… off compared to the driver’s side, so I walked over to it, and yes indeed, it had been torn away from the body of the vehicle and was hanging down a bit. 😅
It had been pulled right out of the screw that was holding it in place, and it also looked like there was a bumper bracket that was straight up missing.
I didn’t think that I’d lost the bumper bracket. It looked like it had been missing for a while, so I figured it was just the bolt that had been torn through the little plastic part on the bumper cover.
Still, I wanted to be sure that I hadn’t lost any other parts, like the missing bracket, so I walked back over The whole trail all the way back to the beginning, my eyes bouncing around as I looked for something amidst the rocks that didn’t belong.
Incredibly, I did indeed find something that didn’t belong–that bracket that I thought looked like it had been missing prior. Nope, I had lost it going over one of the hairier sections of the trail.
Gratefully, and amazingly, to my other surprise, the bracket that it popped off was a press on piece, and it just clipped right back on–completely intact! 🤯
🥳
I grabbed my socket and ratchet and put the rest of the bumper back in place, and I was back in business!
A couple of zip ties when I get back to town should have it all good and peachy again.
At least as far as the rear bumper is concerned. I also noticed that the front bumper had made far too close of friends with a rock, scraping a significant amount of paint off, and leaving a dent in the bumper cover plastic. 😅
Oops.
Oh! I just realized that I forgot to take pictures!
Lost opportunity. 🙃
Anyway, I was able to pop the dent in the plastic back out. The badly damaged paint… isn’t easily fixed, unfortunately. But whatever. I don’t really care.
I was pleased to have made it to the other side, and there was only one other significant wash, at least according to the satellite view, between where I was and where I wanted to go. The next one was much bigger, so I figured I’d probably get turned back at that one given how this first big one was.
Still, on I went, over super rough road, dodging high spots here and large rocks there and mud bogs thorny bushes there.
Periodically, they were alternate trails that I could take when the main trail was impassable.
The second major wash was actually easier than the first, though it might be a pretty fair challenge getting back up the hill on the south side of the wash, as it’s a pretty steep hill and was a pretty technical drive getting down.
It will likely be an even more challenging drive going back up, as I will have gravity working against me instead of with me.
But we’ll deal with that when we get there. I’m toying with the idea of staying up this canyon until I’ve completely caught up on my journal entries. 😅
At least the written portions of them.
I’m not able to add photos without an internet connection, something I don’t understand at all technologically. Certainly doesn’t make sense that I can’t attach photos (that are stored on my device) to my blog posts (that let me write them without an internet connection). 🤷
Whatever.
On I went, further and further up the river valley until in the distance I could see a vehicle parked, facing me, next to the river.
As I looked beyond the vehicle up the glacial river valley, I couldn’t see any evidence that the road went further, so either it was hidden, or that was the end of the line which would be both exciting and disappointing–exciting that I finally was actually able to get to the end of the line in one of these glacial river valleys that I wanted to drive up, but disappointing that it was still so far from the desired destination.
As I pulled up to where the truck was, I found that it was indeed the end of the line, so I had succeeded! My little van had gone as far as the road would take anyone! There were no trails that went across the river and continued up the valley.
Nope. I’d reached the true end of the line!
🎉🥳🎉
I snapped some pictures…
And then, not wanting to be a bother to the other people who were parked there next to Monument Hut (wondering if perhaps they had reserved the hut and were inside), I drove back down the valley a hundred meters or so and followed some tire tracks through the grass toward a picnic table that I could see next to where the prairie grass ended and the forest began.
The scenery was amazing, waterfalls coming off the mountains all over, the braided river before me, the forests on each side of the river.
So beautiful.
It was exactly the kind of place that I was looking for, exactly the kind of place that I thought about just chilling for a good little while.
But it was approaching dusk, and holy moly, the sand flies were out in freaking force. 😳
Good crap. 🪰
Sooooooo… I stayed mostly in the van. 😅
I spent a good little while working more on my journal catch-up efforts, and I veged out a fair bit.
Gratefully, as the evening wore on, the number of sand flies outside my window decreased significantly.
I had thought about starting a fire in the fire pit that someone else had built near the picnic table, but with the gazillions of sand flies, it seems like more than I wanted to take on. 😅
So here I am, still in my van, listening to the wind blow, and alternating between veging out in front of my phone and working on journal entries.
It’s just a bit after 11 p.m., and I’m debating whether or not to try to write more entries tonight before going to bed.
Gosh, I want to get caught up!
But I’m so tired of writing them. 😅
[sigh]
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 