The Road Goes Ever On and On

Just over a week ago, my wife, Janet, and I drove from our home near Portland, OR, to Washington's Olympic National Forest where we dropped our son, Garrison, at the Bogachiel trail head. We said our goodbyes and wished him happy trails, knowing that we wouldn't see him again for about six weeks. In a few minutes he would be taking his first steps down the trail on a solo backpacking journey that would span many miles and numerous campgrounds, where he would eat lots of beef jerky and Clif bars, see incredible sights, and (his parents hoped) not have an up close and personal encounter with a bear or a cougar.

Garrison had begun planning this trip months ago after deciding to leave the winery where he had been working for over two years. He left his apartment in McMinnville and moved in with us in Newberg for a few months to save money for his trip. His plan was to work at his current job until early July and then take about six weeks off before beginning a new one.

I learned from observing Garrison that a journey like this takes lots of preparation. He spent many hours researching on the Internet, learning about the trail, downloading park maps, reading the stories of other backpackers and their experiences. He learned that the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT) was a rugged 1,200 mile path spanning Montana, Idaho, and Washington. Most hikers begin in Glacier National Park in Montana and hike westward to the Washington coast, ending in the Olympic National Park. But he decided to take the opposite route, beginning in Washington and ending--well, wherever he has time to get to in six weeks. He won't be able to complete the entire 1,200 miles in that time frame. It made sense to me that he chose the opposite route of most hikers. Garrison's always been his own person and frequently makes choices that the rest of the family didn't see coming. As his older brother, Jackson, once said: the one thing you can count on with Garrison is that he will surprise you.

In addition to researching the trip, Garrison spent time training to be sure he had the stamina to walk 16-22 miles per day. Almost every weekend between April and June, he found trails from near Portland to the coast where he could do practice hikes. As the date drew closer he made several trips to REI for equipment he needed--including a GPS device so he could message us from the trail, allowing his mom to  keep track of his longitudes and latitudes. Though I had moments of apprehension about his doing this trip alone, I was somewhat comforted by the extent of his preparation and training. Suffice it to say that he was much, much better prepared than Cheryl Strayed was for her Pacific Crest Trail hike recorded in her memoir Wild.

So the day finally came. Garrison packed all the possessions he would have for the next six weeks and hoisted his backpack in our living room, testing the weight.

We loaded the Outback and, after a final stop at REI, headed up I-5. Janet and I were excited about our trip as well. Though we've lived in Oregon for 24 years, we've never been to the part of Washington where we would be driving today. I was excited to see Forks, WA, where the Twilight novels were based. Though I've never read the books, as an English prof, I'm always up for a literary landmark. I got the obligatory tourist picture by the sign.

As we drove on the beautiful road leading to Port Angeles, by Sequim with its lavender farms, and into the Olympic National Forest and its dense trees, I was surprised at how much this journey of Garrion's was affecting me. It was his journey, after all. Janet and I were just his means of transportation. Yet having observed him plan so carefully for something that obviously meant a lot to him, I felt I had become, if only vicariously, part of this adventure. And it was an adventure, a challenge--far different than a weekend at the beach. He never said, but I wondered if this was his way of testing and challenging himself. I certainly admired his resolve, moreso because it was something I would never have had the courage to do. When I was his age (he'll turn 29 in October) I was trying to complete my personal challenge of getting my Ph.D. by the time I was 30.

William Butler Yeats says somewhere that our lives are like a spiral staircase. As we wind closer to the top, we can look down and mark points in our lives that feel similar to what we're currently experiencing. So a grandfather might look down and recall that turn on the staircase when he first became a father. Maybe that's what I was doing, reading my own experience into my son's. I can tell you this: if you gave me the choice of completing another doctorate or going on a solo six-week backpacking trip, I would immediately begin researching seminaries!

As we drove toward Port Angeles, my mind turned to the summer online literature and philosophy course I was teaching and to a text called Christians Among the Virtues. The authors, Stanley Hauerwas and Charles Pinches, after discussing Aristotle's theories of happiness, suggest that it's useful to think of our lives as a journey rather than as a trip. Around the time Garrison moved in with us and told us about his plans, I had read these words in my course text:

When we go on a trip, we know well where we are going, roughly how long it will take to get there, what preparations to make, and so on. When we undertake a journey, we often have only a hazy idea of where we are going, how long it will take, or how to prepare.

The authors go on to note that virtues are required for a journey but not for a trip. Well, there was no doubt in my mind that Janet and I were on a trip (to Port Angeles and back home to Newberg) while our son was embarking on a journey--a journey that would test his virtues and his mettle and one in which there would likely be twists and turns and revisions along the way. This last point was confirmed when Garrison visited with a park ranger who looked at his trail plan and informed him that two of the campgrounds where he had planned to spend the night had been washed out and were closed. So even before he started, he had to revise the plan.  I also had no doubt that not only his plans but Garrison himself would be changed by this journey.

I was also thinking of the last two books we had read in my summer online course: Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. I've always identified with the Bilbo at the beginning of the book more than the Bilbo that emerges at the end of his adventure with Gandalf and the dwarves. This tells you a lot about me, of course, that I resonate more with the comfort loving, second-breakfast eating, "Adventures make one late for dinner" Bilbo than with the spider-taming, master thief, courageous Bilbo. It also struck me how much of the narrative content of both books is basically the recounting of a long backpacking trip. Of course, the hobbits and their companions encounter extraordinary obstacles on their journey, but at least they have Gandalf watching out for them once in awhile. It's amazing how much literature involves a journey and that the external journey is always less important than the internal journey of the hero. Somehow I wasn't surprised when Garrison told me on the ride up to Olympic that one of the audio books he'd downloaded for the trail was The Lord of the Rings.

After the Forks photo op, we wound our way further into the park and located the even curvier gravel road that led to the trail head. It felt like we were leaving civilization far behind as we went deeper and deeper into the forest. I thought about the quiet and solitude that Garrison would be experiencing over the next few weeks and was grateful that he's someone who's always needed his alone time and his space. (He's not even on Facebook, for goodness sakes, which is why I have to do posts to let his friends know about what he's up to.) And I thought of the beauties of nature he would experience and was grateful that he's always loved, like his mother and older brother, the outdoors. He told me when he was graduating from college that working a 9 to 5 job in a cubicle in an office building was pretty much the worst fate he could imagine. I was grateful too, I guess, or trying my best to be grateful, that he was the type of man who would plan and execute such an adventure--though I wonder where it came from. There must be some long-lost ancestor adventurer on Janet's side of the family he takes after. Like Bilbo, whose unhobbitlike wanderlust was attributed to his Tookish blood, there has to be some explanation.

After taking a few last family photos, we said goodbye and wished our son happy trails.

Janet and I retraced our path over the winding road back to civilization. I was feeling lots of emotions: a little sadness that I wouldn't be able to drink coffee with Garrison in the mornings and talk about his plans, a little concern, hoping he wouldn't run into danger or injury on the trail, and lots of admiration and pride that my son was doing this hard thing. I realized it wouldn't really matter if he completes his original plan. If he decides to catch the train back to Oregon in two weeks, he will still have done a remarkable thing. He will have seen things in nature and in himself that he will remember for the rest of his life. As Gandalf says of Frodo, there is more to him than meets the eye; there will be still more to Garrison, when he returns, changed, from this journey.

          The Road goes ever on and on
                  Down from the door where it began.
          Now far ahead the Road has gone,
                 And I must follow, if I can,
          Pursuing it with weary feet,
                 Until it joins some larger way,
          Where many paths and errands meet.
                 And whither then? I cannot say.