The End of the Road

 

After hours of driving the secondary highway (#20) that meanders across northern Washington state, we are in need of a coffee and something to tide us over until supper  Around 5 o’clock,  we round a bend in the road and fall upon Winthrop.   

 

 

 

 

 

The town turned back the clock in the early 1950s, when local businessman Otto Wagner, in gratitude to the townsfolk for the prosperity he enjoyed, underwrote the transformation of the town back to the way it had looked at the turn of the century.  When he died, his widow took over the realization of his dream, and Winthrop became a  living museum of early 20th century Western architecture. 

Wooden sidewalks run the length of the main street, and every building and storefront is made of or covered with wood planks.  Our hotel was straight out of a cowboy film, and even the pumps at the gas station looked at least half a century old.  The only thing missing were a couple of horses tethered to the railings.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a delightful place, and its old-style air brings in the tourists and their custom. In my hometown of Calgary, an Old West village in a beautiful lakeside setting has been constructed from old buildings, machinery and artefacts, but while an admirable job was done to recreate a showpiece of life as it existed over a hundred years ago, it is a display.  Winthrop, on the other hand, is a place where people live and work, and the place feels genuine despite its obvious tourist appeal. 

Supper was steak and pizza served by a motherly waitress at the Whiskey Bar, sitting side-by-side in a booth by the window.  If I were a beer drinker, I would have gone to the former schoolhouse afterwards, but instead we strolled through the town 

and then drove up into the hills to take pictures in the golden evening light.    From the spectacular mountain ranges of central  Washington,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the topography has changed to rolling hills and the vegetation – much of it low brush – reflects a much drier climate. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, astride saddles outside at the café, we breakfasted on cinnamon rolls, the best yeasty treat on earth provided the baker is generous enough with spice and butter. 

 

In the shade of a courtyard tree, a busker plays lovely music, but his instrument seemed a little out of place in a Wild West town.  Once I’d licked my fingers clean I went on a mission to Find Out More.   

 

David Michael’s Celtic harp was made for him 28 years ago, and he has earned his living playing it ever since,  For 17 years he had a steady gig on the Whidbey Island ferry north of Seattle but in the post 9/11 paranoia, Homeland Security declared him a threat.  His sacking made the national press, but even all that publicity didn’t save his job. 

 

He composes film soundtracks, teaches harp and for three months every summer, he busks in Winthrop.   I bought two of David’s CDs and think I might have found just the right kind of background music to write my novel by.  (According to the prolific blogger and published author Larry Brooks, music can make a big difference to a writer’s output.  Finding the right music will release a lava flow of words and ideas, I am certain, but songs with lyrics are too distracting and classical music only works if it’s not something that demands attention.  Pop music is out of the question, being full of clichés, which invariably find their way into my prose.)

After breakfast and a stop at the Frontier Bank, we head east to the hard reality that scenic routes do numb bums make.    Narrow Idaho passes in the blink of an eye, although we have a very good lunch at a slightly funky restaurant in a town where pickup trucks idle up and down the main street and the street corners are anchored by churches.     

Across from the restaurant is a general store advertising fabric, and I wander in to see if there’s anything interesting.  The proprietor is an extroverted, friendly woman who doesn`t mind that I buy nothing, and chats about the weight of good denim and parenting.    

There is no border crossing between states, but it’s immediately obvious that we’ve crossed the line into Montana.  The speed limits increase and the paved shoulders disappear.   The land gets drier and the roads straighter, and there’s hardly any traffic although we frequently spot deer in the long grass or sprinting across the asphalt ahead.  At regular intervals white diamond-shaped markers atop long poles indicate the limit of the pavement, for the winter months when snow covers the road.  After a time, I realize that sometimes the markers are in the shape of a cross, planted singly for the most part, sometimes in pairs.  They represent deaths from car accidents, obviously, but oddly enough they appear most frequently on long, straight stretches of road where the view ahead is unobstructed.  The road has only one lane in each direction, with a dotted line down the middle, and it’s not hard to imagine a fatal scenario.  At one point we pass a cluster of five crosses, and I wonder how many of them were members of the same family.   

We stay the night in Missoula, arriving too late for a proper meal and  hungry to the point of snappishness.   My personal boycott of McDonald’s crumbles in the face of an empty stomach, but I’m not sure if I feel any better after a Big Mac – hold the onions – or not.   

Heading to the Logan Pass the next morning, we have a brief disagreement about the necessity of checking the status of the spare tire, something we’ve forgotten to do from the start of our trip.  I win the round, and we unpack the rear of the car to reveal a seriously flat tire.  It’s hard to hide my ‘I-told-you-so’ smirk, but my favourite Belgian offers some statistics about the unlikelihood of impaling a tire, bolstering his case later when the trip is finished without a single blip with the car. .    

 

 

 

Disappointingly, the Going-To-The-Sun road is not open all the way through the pass – wet weather and a late spring are to blame – so we turn around at the 26-mile point and make our way back down a  vertigo-inducing striplet of road along with thousands of others who have come for the thrilling scenery. 

 

Almost out of Montana, we see an artist by the roadside, with a bumper sticker that makes me smile.  She agrees to a photo shoot when I explain that I like the juxtaposition of the pickup truck and the easel, but the more I explain, the more I have trouble talking around the foot in my mouth.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our way north to Alberta now, across the border without incident although I see no point in telling the unsmiling Customs guy about the wine or the heirlooms, since their provenance is Canadian anyway.   It’s another two and a half hours up to Calgary on a dead-straight road, with hardly a tree in sight.  The fields are green, green, though, and the Rockies rear up from the western horizon.   The vast breadth of the land is astonishing and whoever named this part of the world ‘Big Sky Country’ was bang on the money.  It’s not a sight I have ever seen in Europe. 

 

Then we’re almost there, turning onto the street where I live.  Above my house, against the backdrop of a slate-coloured sky and lit by early evening sun, a double rainbow arches prettily.  Youngest son’s leaky, un-useable car still sits under its flapping  tarpaulin, and he is just finishing mowing the lawn as we pull to the curb. 

It’s good to be home for a while, but we’ll be off again soon, headed across the water to France next week  A bientôt!!