The Golden Hour – Writing Between the Lines

Last September my son Eli and I went on a great road trip with my daughter Bea, to deliver her, an incoming freshman, to Stanford University.

Then all of a sudden Bea was at school…

…and Eli and I were back in the van on the long drive home to Seattle.

For our trip down, we’d booked nice hotels in advance. It was all about our last hurrah before saying goodbye to Bea. Maybe because we didn’t want to think about coming back without her, we forgot to plan the trip home. We were unprepared, disorganized, and we both kept looking around for Bea.

It was after midnight when we pulled into Redding, CA.

We found a place that simple, but clean, and woke refreshed and ready to move on–from Redding, and from Stanford. We were going to write ourselves a new story.

We explored a delightfully shabby gold rush town, browsed its antique stores, and bought some dusty old tomes. Back on the road, Eli read aloud from The Last of the Plainsmen, Zane Grey’s 1908 memoir of a Western adventure–about the end of an era and the start of a new one.

Perhaps inspired by Zane, Eli suggested swinging by Crater Lake National Park. It was out of our way, and we didn’t know how far because we hadn’t brought a proper map. We hadn’t been since the kids were young enough to earn Junior Ranger Badges. I recalled Crater Lake as a one trick pony, with one view of a lake, gorgeous, but unaccessible. If we couldn’t get there before dark, the trip would be pointless.

It was a gamble.

We decided to go for it. We had a few ‘Where are we going, Carl?’ moments. Like at a crossroads, where two roads both had signage pointing to Crater Lake. The sun was sinking, and we couldn’t afford to get lost. I kicked myself for not stopping earlier for directions. This was a remote wilderness, without even another car to flag down.

Do you believe in spirit helpers? I took this handsome creature’s greeting as positive reinforcement.

Upon leaving the endless forest to begin our ascent, we decided that, whatever happened, the view on the way to the crater was worth the drive.

At last we arrived at the crater rim, with sunshine to spare, but not for long.

As the sun sank behind us, the shadows crept up the side of Wizard Island, until it looked like it was wearing a little sun hat.

While we looked down on shadow, on the far side of the crater, the sun still shone.

Our goal was to visit as many viewpoints as possible before we lost the light.

Crater Lake was not a one trick pony. It was a Horse of a Different Color. With the constantly changing light, the landscape changed dramatically too.