The first few days

We’re reached our first camp near Hells Canyon, Oregon in Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. When I set off on Semester in the West I envisioned many possible forms of discomfort—being freezing cold, having to pee in the middle of the night, being hungry, having to get up at 5:30 to cook breakfast…I was under no illusion that this semester would be cushy and happy all the time, but I never really thought I would be too wet. After all, we’re staying mostly in the desert. It doesn’t rain a lot here. The defining condition of the West, according to all of the readings we’ve done so far is aridity.

So of course, it poured rain our entire first day and night. I had packed my rain clothes in the very bottom of a stuff sack in my duffel bag, assuming I would rarely, if ever, use them. I had warm layers galore—a down jacket, synthetic puffy, multiple long underwear tops and bottoms, fleece pants and insulated overalls. I was ready for cold. And instead, I found myself relying on a single, well-worn rain jacket to keep me dry. Needless to say, I was not thrilled.

Except that camp was still fun. We had great bonding moments last night. We set up the Pleasure Dome—a giant tent shelter with room for all 24 of us to have chairs—and ate fettuccine together. We practically peed ourselves laughing when Max spilled ¾ of the pepper on his pasta because he forgot there wasn’t a shaker lid. We tried in vain to find the toilet (called a groover) after Dave explained how to get there by telling us to “walk that way until you see your headlight illuminating the handwashing station, then go through the portal and over a dead log and over another dead tree and it will be in the middle of a grove of trees”. We huddled together in the trailer and marveled at our mobile library, which has several hundred books on the West organized by subject (politics, nature essays, anthologies, geology, Native American studies, etc.) And even though it was cold and wet, I was incredibly happy.

We’ll be here for one more night, and then we’re moving not very far to elsewhere in the forest for one more night. I don’t actually know what we’re doing today yet, except potentially taking a hike to a lake where we would be swimming and meeting with some guy about something foresty. I hope the rain has stopped or else I’m going to run out of dry socks, but if it doesn’t, I’ll find a way to make it work.