Rites of Spring

Took advantage of the opportunity to get the heck out of Dodge (or, in my case, Eugene) during spring break. My destination? Lake Havasu? Puerto Vallarta? Palm Springs?

None of the above: try a road trip to Owl Farm and beautiful Lake Wenatchee in the Miata (above). On Monday, March 22, the weather was predicted to break midweek in the Northwest, so I packed the little green sports car down with some supplies and hit the road.

Always the first flowering signs of spring in the mountains, yellow skunk cabbage (left) sprouts new life among decaying leaves near Crescent Beach on Lake Wenatchee. The name refers to the skunk-like odor of the sap (once used as a treatment for ringworm) and flowers, which draw flies as pollinators.

Baked, the short, fleshy underground stem supplemented the diets of local Native Americans.

On Tuesday, friend and neighbor Steve Steinke and son Thomas came over to Owl Farm to work on a faulty beam on the snow shed covering the travel trailer. The boys spent nearly four hours completing the job. Later in the day, I spent some quiet time down at the beach at the junction of the Chiwawa and Wenatchee Rivers.

On Wednesday, I drove down valley to East Wenatchee to purchase a new port-a-potty for the coming season. The old one, as they say, had seen better days.