Day 344

the trio of johnsons dropped me off at the ferry terminal in downtown victoria this morning. i am leaving the island. after pulling my cash from my canadian bank account i hopped on the ferry headed south for port angeles, washington, with no real way to get to where i needed to be after that. today was also my official leaving of canada and i turned in my work permit documentation upon boarding. i no longer belong here.

i was ready to test faith again today. maybe not test it, but i was ready to put faith in the forefront of my limited perspective and therefore be ready for anything to be revealed. this morning i was getting on a ferry in victoria, bc, bound for the olympic peninsula with no idea how to cover the additional 82 miles to port orchard, washington, where my friend parker's mom could pick me up. the 10 a.m. sun was bright and warm and i had my backpack and a yellow rolling duffle bag. all these things greatly excited me.

'there's no easy way,' said the direction man at the information booth on the ferry. 'there aren't any buses that go straight to where you need to go. if you hop these county transit buses you might be able to make it by seven.' i wrote down the series of departure times and bus numbers on a page of my green, back pocket notebook: port angeles to sequim to port townsend to poulsbo to silverdale to bremerton to port orchard. 'most people just cut across the puget sound on a ferry if they're on the way to seattle,' he said. 'and most people are on there way to seattle from port angeles.'

he gave me a white sheet of paper with washington's major highways crudely copied on one side. i thanked him and returned to my seat and memorized the highway routes and tucked it in my pocket as a backup plan.

i was faced with a familiar situation after disembarking, breezing through customs, and stepping back onto american soil- do i go left, straight, or right? i went right for a bit but stopped. i went back and started going straight from my origin. 'hey, my bank.' i was halfway down the block to deposit my canadian money when i stopped. no- back again. i went back to the curb across from the stream of vehicles now streaming off the ferry through customs and unfolded the white map of paper from my pocket. i'd written 'seattle?' in black marker on the blank backside. cars drove off, mostly elderly vacationers in their nice cars and straw hats. i tucked my long hair under the green coal beanie and continued to hold the sign out and tried to look friendly enough. suddenly a small, four door audi quattro pulled up and i recognized the young couple as passengers from the ferry. 'we live in seattle,' they said. 'get in.'

their names were glen and andrea and work as an artistic glass blower and in an office, respectively. they're probably in their late twenties, i guessed, and glen's blue eyes reflected in the driver's mirror and between his thick black hair and an equally dark beard. andrea was in the passenger seat and had blonde, long hair. of course i wasn't heading to seattle, but i'd written it on my paper because to get to that turnoff point would mean getting through the little trickling highways of the olympic peninsula. we talked about mountains and music and alaska and other places any of us had been during the drive that went by surprisingly fast. sixty-two miles later they dropped me at a bus stop in poulsbro, washington, before their turnoff for the ferry and puget sound and seattle. 'there's a little mexican restaurant a block up if you have to wait,' glen said as he shook my hand. i thanked the two of them and they refused money saying that it was on the way and that they always pick up hitchers. i let them know that i'd been praying for the right hitch hike to happen and that they were a literal answer to prayer and had become a clutch part of the story of the adventure. they thanked me back. i thanked them again. then we parted.

i had a forty minute wait and went to the mexican restaurant where eight dollars bought a satisfying and surprisingly large meal that was even complemented by my two good winter friends rice and beans. hey guys, good to see you again down there. so glad you're not alone this time.

from poulsbro i hopped a series of city transit buses. the first ride cost two dollars and they gave transfer tickets at each stop so i wouldn't have to buy another.

after few buses and one more short ferry ride over to port orchard i was in contact with parker's mom as planned. all in all this disconnected journey only cost about twenty eight dollars including lunch. not bad for having left canada that morning with a little bit of faith, even less money, and no plans. i don't know what else to say but i'm always thankful and amazed.



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Day 337

day 1-337 in a photo slideshow under 50 pictures? yes. however a few of them were not taken by me as will soon become obvious.




click here to view same pictures with titles and/or descriptions on flickr

Day 314

today was my last ski competition. duties as starter included standing with clipboard and radio and communicating with judges down below and announcing and sending respective skiers down for their run. age...name... 3..2..1.. dropping... this volunteer events gig has not only been fun but i think i've learned some skills that might hopefully be usable in the future. but that's kind of boring to say. here's something more interesting.


you'd think that a regular guy who decides to live in a secluded cabin for a wisconsin winter would sit around and play dashboard songs or read jack london. you'd especially expect this if this guy had gone through a painful breakup with both a girlfriend and band. i expected something altogether emo.

but that's not what i found in an album by a guy named justin vernon. he goes by the name 'bon iver', a term customized from the french words for 'good winter' heard in a northern exposure series he'd brought along with some boys choir cd to accompany his cold and wooden solitude.

i like most the fact that he doesn't seem try too hard. people who try too hard make me really uncomfortable, especially musicians who think that they're awesome at playing three chord progressions. this justin guy had some time and instruments and basic recording gear. maturing purpose developed into the creation of a record. typical, right? that's another reason i expected something altogether emo but even that's not really what came of it.

somber. howling. chorusy harmonies. sincere. and all the while the overall vibe nestles somewhere in the balance of circumstance and flow.

check out bon iver here.

Day 304

there's a second half to the poem at the top of this page. the latter section is a little different but maybe it just has two parts, i don't know. it's just the way it came out.

"to be free"

inspired by c.j.m.


bring to the shore the power of the ocean to forgive this mind of a selfish life

stand beneath the shadow of a mountain to be made small apart from my spiraling stride

bind these eyes with the eternal darkness that only stars of midnight give

shine through the wild with the deepest silence that man himself barely lets live


show me the beauty thats been twisted up in a lie

let unravel her mystery, breathing warmth from the sky

lift up my vision higher than your blind ever sees

give me the life, to be free, that few longer believe.



today was spent with some friends as we made burritos and chilled at the coffee shop and then in the sun on the mountain-facing front porch of our house. gazing at the blue mountains in the golden afternoon reminded me of that second line. that's why i'm posting the entire thing tonight.

Day 285

ultimate. this was the best mountain and snowboarding experience of my life.

the venue for day two of the adult ski competition was at the highest point of the mountain itself. that means that we had to traverse up past the highest lift and then hike for about an hour up to polar peak. there was a tiny path blazed by the narrow toes of the skiers' boots but for the thick snowboarder clogs, following these delicate steps turned out to be something close to an elephant trying to follow in the same footprint of a gazelle. there was really only white in front, white behind, and white underfoot with small don't look back. stop and breath, the air is thinner here. by the time i made it to the top i had only a base layer on and the sun was warm on the back of my head as if it were summer. from seven thousand feet there were no higher mountains in the vicinity. i could now see mountains behind the regular mountains that surround the town. the sun was bright and sky blue.

the competitors were riding a double black diamond slope from this special vantage. my only job was to handle a clipboard and highlighter at the starting gates and let people know when their turn was coming. at the end of the day, when the skiers had all taken their run, we rode down as well. intense.


there's a world wide contest in australia. the deadline for submitting a video application is less than a day away and after doing some shooting on top of the peak during some free time this afternoon, i came home ready to produce. still, i really hate talking into cameras floating at arm's length. the shots were worthless audio and personality wise. a few hours ago, finally and for the first time since hearing about the contest, i had some inspiration and reworked the footage into something all together different. internet is being horrible and i've been trying for over an hour to load the video onto the official site. my vimeo site accepted it no problems, however.

this last-second production was fun to do but i definitely tried to deviate as far as possible from the typical talking heads and shallowed reasons that i saw other applicants include in their videos. so i took away speech and added some edge. as of right now however, the video is still not successfully uploading on the contest site..

here's mine.

island reef job application from joe lieske on Vimeo.

Day 227

i woke up early today at a room in the resort on the hill. it was almost nine am and snow was falling. just outside the window the ski lifts jerked and started their slow cycle. a few minutes later, i was heading up as well. the new pair of ski goggles brought the view of the snow and cabins and mountains through a sepia tint. i paused at the top of one of the runs and sat near the edge of the drop off, strapped in and ready to go, while dusty snow whipped against the plastic mask and a fuzzy sun began to climb into the sky. this is perfect, i thought to myself. it's good to have these moments, to be alone and still at the top of a mountain before the first ride on a mint morning. i'm thankful for all this. near the end of the day, a rough patch of combined powder and soft bushes ended up claiming the life of my only snowboard. snap. i had really liked my board.. but after the goggle incident the other day, i'm kind of excited to see how a new one will be presented.

today is christmas eve. day. i'm sure everyone who has a blog has reminded the others of this fact and i'm sure an equally respectable amount of people are readily admitting that its snuck up on them. both are true here too.

there was a christmas eve service at church- obvious fact number three. but i don't think that what happened in the little, packed out building could have been readily matched in spirit and content anywhere else. the church isn't a trendy church, like an imago dei or heartland or wherever else the church people look like they work at gap and american eagle, but this small, conservative baptist church was pulling people in through an advertised hour of christmas music. the band was sharp and pastor shawn led the christmas tunes. it felt like a normal service. then, towards the end, he presented a way for the people to get involved in more than just singing along with a band. after learning and practicing a quick choir-like three part harmony, people smiled and stood and sang.

the message at the end was short. a few minutes into it, the drummer thumped a tame, repetitive beat. shawn stood in the candle light and gave an analogy of how God's creation and salvation was like an eternal rhythm. soon the bass started walking and the piano filled the upper atmosphere of the groove with crisp thirds. then guitars. same jam, same riffs, same everything. like a beat.

i looked at the nearest faces in my area to guess what they were feeling. i wondered how many of these people were making their annual church appearance here tonight. then shawn played an out of key chord. he played it loud- like he said that some people try to play their life or success or the pursuit of riches and who are still confused why its all still not sounding good to them. he tied in salvation to this too. i took mental notes of the whole moment and had ideas for what i wanted to write about later. now, i can barely remember the outline and have started from scratch, but what shawn said and did made an incredible amount of sense to me.

i've been feeling the rhythm. i'm saved and try to follow Jesus but i could still admit and identify the presence and influence of this eternal beat lately. in fact, i probably felt it this morning on the mountain. and i felt it when i received the goggles. a faith-rhythm. now i wish i'd at least jotted a few notes on a scrap of paper like normal so this doesn't all sound cheesy now, but if you've been reading for a while then i hope that the connection can be made. in fact, i'm counting on it.

however, all these little ideas and plans in my head took a sudden back seat when i heard the news. my grandpa died tonight. when i'd left illinois in may for camp i'd had it in my mind when we'd last gone out to lunch together and during the last goodbye and exclamation of 'youhooo' that this might be the last time i see grandpa bill. and i knew he'd been declining lately. even past the age of ninety-two, he was the strongest-white-haired man i'd ever know. lately, this apparent and tricky matter of death had been considered as an imminent arrival. grandpa inspired me to play harmonica and we jammed a couple times but it mostly resulted in playing along with him to classics like 'oh my darling clementine.' he also was an excellent example of style and ease in the way that he always wore a fedora hat and sweater and called the waitresses 'honey' as he shook their hand at the end of a meal to give them their tip. i first started drinking coffee during our meals together. he knew several languages and would always get angriest in his native, polish tongue. when i first got to fernie and was buying bagels and bananas for sustenance, i carried around my change in a small, plastic bag just like him, except my collection was nearly the sole representation of my current value. i talked with my family tonight back home for quite a while and things seem to be at peace all things considered. i think i'm almost at peace. whatever all-things-considered means.

even tonight as i pedaled home from church, noah gundersen's song ''poor man's son'' was repeating on my ipod. he was singing about being stone cold broke in the middle of winter and not wanting gold or silver and then there was a verse that said

"i feel a cold wind blowing dark clouds on the western sky
i gotta feeling like knowing
that everyone here will someday die"

and that's where i'm left tonight- christmas eve- with reminders that i don't need much and that everyone here will someday die.

and that the beat goes on.

Day 220

the dark creeps earlier and earlier on the valley. the ski hill closes by four in the afternoon and, not more than an hour later, thick night slides down the shadowy side of the mountain and across the cold highway with the ever-present arctic exhale. six o'clock feels like midnight. it has also always inversely been the case that midnight feels like six o'clock to me but that's a different story.

friends from all over town frequent our place by this time to watch a movie or play cards or hang out. its good. but tonight i still had a stack of books in my backpack. and there's a secret place i have. maybe not so secret after the next couple paragraphs, but i'm willing to sacrifice this for a raconteur, recreated now from a few, blue ink jots on the back of a scrap of paper.


the organic market and coffee shop is across the small street behind the convenience store of whose internet i am borrowing at the moment. this is only my second time going to this place and i wonder why i usually walk at least ten minutes to go downtown to the tea house or mug shots. the other places know me, i guess.

i don't put a coat on and throw my black backpack across my red flannel shirt and walk across the icy street.

the organic market and coffee home is titled as such because, besides fair trade coffee, they sell organic produce. although i am the only customer currently sitting in the small and homey floor space, there are several people who wander in and out to ask about buying fresh eggs or other certified-organic goods. one dark haired lady walks in and asks for scott. an oval headed, short haired man with an orange t-shirt and white apron comes to the register. the counter seems to be located in the middle of what used to be a front room back when the market used to be just a house. he answers matter-of-factly that since she hadn't ordered this morning, she missed participation on the current bread shipment. i take a sip from my small coffee and they begin to chat merrily.

there are two girls working behind the counter as well. the blonde has bright eyes and an accent that's probably australian. the other one, a brunette, reminds me of an actress because her figure and loud, enunciated speech. there's a red bandana in her hair and i caught her looking at me once when i'd happened to glance left at the counter.

i'm more than halfway through the book travels since beginning it yesterday. the conversation of the three behind the counter interjects reading. i hear the words 'american' and lower my eyes from the pages to listen. 'they're all so bloody opinionated,' the blonde says. the three of them banter about how hot coffee spills draw american lawsuits and the brunette adds that they're always ready to sue the pants off anyone for anything. i don't look over this time, i'm kind of nervous for some reason and pull an old envelope from my backpack and start making notes next to my book with a blue pen.

the blonde girl drawls that they're friendly in their own country, but they also seem to always be looking for a way to make a quick buck. i sigh a little and stare back at the motionless pages of the book. i'm forced to agree and almost catch myself nodding when the actress said that the mountains suddenly disappear after crossing the montana border. i know that route well now. the blonde girl says she wants to go to colorado. so do i. i write 'denver' down on the list on the back of the envelope scrap.

they're conversation wanders and i look around the place, noticing a vintage farmhouse image. muddled narrow floorboards and an exposed border of drywall and building structure add to the atmosphere already contributed by the old, metal coffee maker on a shelf and the artificial milkweed stems propped in a ceramic pot behind my chair. i continue reading about climbing mount kilimanjaro. now i want to climb mount kilimanjaro.

the text adventure is interrupted by a voice, soft and accented, asking if i was hungry. the blonde girl is standing next to the table. apparently they have one serving of cream of mushroom soup left and would rather not freeze the small amount. i accept in short speech, not really concerned about the americanisms earlier but still not interested in being asked where i was from. sometimes people can call it on 'the accent', whatever that means. most can't.

she offers water and routinely comes around to refill the mason jar glass. they gave me a free refill on coffee after i'd asked earlier and her and scott couldn't remember if it was still thirty-five cents or was made a dollar yet. everything in fernie is getting a little more expensive now that the hill is open. still, i decide that i like this place.

after spending a couple hours in the seat at the front window, i leave some dollar coins on the table and return the cups. the walk home takes about thirty seconds but the mental transition takes a little more effort.

still, this life is good. and expanding. tomorrow will be my first night playing piano at the resort in the big, fireplace and window room. this has been day two hundred twenty.

Day 214

hey. i gotta run. busyness has pounced and i'm running to do a gig at tea house, then have band practice, and then work hooked employees up with a free night in the resort on the hill. we've got training there early in the morning. this is day 214. details later.

post edit:

ray lamontagne is echoing in green peaked ceilings of a two bedroom suit. a snow machine is purring right outside. the thermostat produces a few quick ticks and then three flames appear around a fake stack of wood in the fireplace. i'm here, sipping complementary coffee in this resort room on the ski hill. all for free. here's what happened after i cut it short earlier.

i walked to the tea house to play for thursday night. the icy draft pushed colder and faster down the mountains and over the highway and between buildings and against my bearded chin. the full moon illuminated white peaks in all directions. i feet like the last piece of cereal in a bowl.

the tea house, and all of downtown for that matter, was dead and quiet. even by six this weeknight, the early dark and intense freeze has put people away in their apartments converted from former, main street hotel rooms or into their shared houses or has called them to the smog of loud laugher and classic rock in one of the pubs. it didn't look like anyone would come in tonight so instead of pulling out the keyboard, the owners offered me some coffee. i accepted. both the bob dylan and writing book were in my backpack.

i sat in my usual seat- the furthest, tall table that faces the door- but lowered the book and broke the collective silence, happening to create a conversation with the owners leaving me wishing i had a tiny tape recorder. or a notepad. i framed an imaginary viewfinder to balance her excited face with the coffee and tea in the background as if the conversation was being recorded.

three years ago, after leaving a successful career in book binding and forsaking the idea of opening a bed and breakfast, randy and his wife moved to fernie and opened the tea house as a specific specialty shop. struggles to find a building downtown and contractors for a complete interior renovation were overcome with sincere faith. her excitement could have convinced me that they'd just opened last week.

she asked my story as well. the summary of opportunities, faith, and obstacles excited both of us. i still remember that quick and sudden process of committing to work at camp in late april and telling my family as i left in mid may that i had a feeling that might not be back right away. i still remember that feeling. i still have it. randy's wife said i should write a book. i told her i really want to someday.

we talked about the sketchy theory of global warming and how a recent news headline told how obama was suddenly turning the market around. the tv is flickering across this resort room at the moment and i happened to just notice a cheesy commercial for some newly issued abraham lincoln/obama dollar coin. he isn't even sworn in yet. i wonder how many other presidents have been turned coin before chief. i wonder what it all means.

i was still genuinely interested in their story and asked about book binding. their machine would produce ten thousand books in one hour.

a van pulled in front of the window and headlights flashed. our band had one last practice before our first show this saturday night. we're feeling good about it. friends from montana are coming up for the weekend and we still have two visiting camp friends here too. i walked out the door with intentions to return tomorrow to hear the rest about binding books and running a coffee shop.

now tonight, the crew of newly hired resort housekeepers were given free rooms at the various resorts after our first day of training. we start again at eight thirty to learn how to clean these rooms.

this is a strange and random combination. poor. foreign. rock star. janitor. resort.

i took a walk around the place as is now tradition for larger-than-life mountain resorts. the chair lift is right outside. there's a dark and empty restaurant and coffee house and gear rental place on the main level. spas are next to the elevator on each floor. the parking garage is warm, clean, and empty. all this is within the incredible amount of stacked logs of this giant cabin. i got up here after ten so i don't know if there are many other employees in surrounding rooms but the season still hasn't started so i know that the whole property is almost entirely vacant.

Day 166

i've never experienced an autumn quite like this. there's mountains all around and cool, clean air flows through the small streets and around the corners of brick buildings, carrying in its breeze a tame and established maturity. through the bustling of workers in their small snowboard stores and novelty shops along the downtown main and the buzz of the locals and their constant replaying of snowboard movie productions, i can tell that the valley is preparing for the coming influx of snow, winter residents, and visitors. i like this place. there's one of everything that deserves such. one mcdonalds. one best western. one tim hortons. simple stability.

i was feeling restless this afternoon so i went up for a cruise around town on a longboard to get some air and to carve the streets before the coming snows blanket everything. all this happened in a fashion that happened to last the exact length, from leaving the house to coming back through the door, of an eleven song playlist on the ipod.

one of the guys at this house, scott, is the hotel manager of one of the big resorts on the hill- one where visitors will pay a minimum of four hundred bones a night to crash during the snow season. after going to the snowboarder's for Christ Bible study, five of us went up to the quiet and massive log hotel and he unlocked the hot tub. in the shadow of the mountain and the quietness of stars and tall pines, we sat around and talked about books and faith and had a good chill.

Day 162

this morning, as far behind as it now seems, started unsurely. we checked out of the best western before eleven a.m.
that stay in itself was a massive blessing made possible by a friend's parents' frequent flyer miles.

adam and i soon realized halfway through the parking lot that we were not going to get far with all our luggage. we spotted a stray shopping cart across the way (it was the only one that didn't require a deposit to unlock) and like the two bums that we really hadn't tried to become, we loaded our luggage into this cart and headed to church.

that's right. church. during earlier stays in vancouver with kirk from camp, i met his dad kent anderson, a professor at trinity western, and he'd told me that one of his former students was now the pastor of fernie fellowship baptist church. he also said that i could drop his name if it meant establishing connection. we were now headed to this church, pushing the cart and pulling rolling bags across the highway.

the pastor was out of town, unfortunately, but i immediately liked the vibe and 'being' of this church. unlike portland's imago dei, which was cool and inspiring in an equally spiritual and trendy way, this atmosphere didn't hold any pretenses of guest vs stranger cool point deficiencies and seeing that we were bringing all our belongings to church we were kindly greeted, accepted, and allowed to put our stuff with the coats. young guys led the music for the service and we ended up sitting in the crowd of younger people in the front right. the sermon by a guest speaker was solid and i knew i'd found a place i loved when one of the introduction men, probably one of the pastors, told stories about his recent hitchhiking adventures to different churches and places and shared the amazing ways that God had been hooking him up through relationships of his past. he hitches to meet people and pays them for gas instead of driving by himself. sweet.

the church needed a part time janitor. i talked to the lady who'd made the announcement after the service and ended up getting the job. this comes at a huge time because i still need to find some work.

we met a bunch of the people sitting around us and became familiarized and accepted. among these people was jeremy, who'd played guitar on stage for worship, and he invited us to stay at his house until we moved into ours. this is huge. after leaving the hotel earlier with no real place to stay, we were homeless no more. from there everything fell together. i talked to the guy who'd led worship and he said they needed someone to play piano. i'm going to practice with them on wednesday.

some of the other guys at this house are amazing musicians. jeremy, who plays mandolin and fiddle as well as guitar, sat around with me and another stellar guitarist ian and we played blues and jammed bluegrass for part of the afternoon and evening. we really bonded and we reckon we'll start pulling gigs soon in town. a group totaling eleven met up in jeremy's driveway and we walked through the neighborhood to the park and played eighteen holes of frisbee golf.


large gold leaves were thick on the ground and crisp air flowed down from the huge mountains that surround every horizon of this town. even from inside the church the peaks reached and split the skyline. as we rode longboards to the supermarket to create some sort of cheap menu to cook for dinner i noticed that the air keeps getting noticeably cooler. dusk is sudden and the cold dark is deep once the sun disappears behind the towering peaks.

i read a book once, through painted deserts, and experienced a mix of inspiration and jealously at the exciting path that unfolded for don miller. i wanted that. as i turned pages and fed imagination and perspective, i knew that i couldn't settle for the average life, but i had no way of positively pursuing any of this. i don't have any control.

still, day by day, plans and people and blessings and opportunities are being presented and humbly received and i'm starting to see that this story isn't like what i'd thought i'd read about before.

this story is real, it's happening this moment. life is now. be.

and the best part is that i fully believe that if any of it should not never have happened, it already wouldn't have.

Day 142

monday, september 29, 2008

i was ready to post up hours ago but i procrastinated. then my computer froze. then i forgot. now i missed monday, officially, according to blogger. oh well. this is for monday, even tho it's early tuesday morning.

after doing some work outside and showering tonight, i hopped on the computer and was kind of overwhelmed with the sudden rush of people that started chatting. still it's good to talk to people back home and from everywhere else around the world.

someone asked what my favorite part of these travels have been so far.

my beard. it's finally full.

i was just kidding, sort of, but i hadn't really thought about the 'favorites' of the past one-fourty-two.

- meeting hundreds of new friends from around the world is definitely at the top of this progressing list. liking them and being liked back.
- experiencing the life i'd been wanting to live in an area i'd been long desiring to visit is also up there on the list as well.
- the coolest thing in all this so far, i'm sure, is the way each leg of the journey has been slightly anticipated but miraculously presented. right now i'm living with willing friends of whom i did not know more than just over a month ago.
- visiting downtown seattle and portland and seeing places i'd read about and admired was sweet.
- finally viewing the big mountains, sometimes several in the same gaze, is a solid realization of the rhymed lines at the top of this blog site that had been written early in the spring.
- visiting several different churches and starting to get involved in college groups and helping with youth groups is sweet.
- finally using couchsurfing.com, both for a place to stay while in portland and as a networking tool for future work in fernie.
- i'm finding and pursuing a deeper desire and motivation for living right and working hard to get there that couldn't quite be achieved before.

as of this fall, i'm officially and finally able to look back a year from an achieved position of fulfilled musings and tracings left on that road atlas, now able to actually breathe the realization of their inspirations.

Day 113

naked. not empty, like it was when we first moved into the office, but eerie and now hollowed of our computers and stuff and gear and everything. after the final jones soda toast, russ gave each of the three of us an autographed hokus pick cd and we turned in our keys and headed to the final staff meeting.

although the room was filled with teary eyed staff and soon departing friends, i stood in the moment with a sense of heart ache rather than an expression of noticeable sadness. bittersweetness. the summer's over now. the word facebook resonated a thousand times amidst the room and in nearly every conversation. kind words as well. music and heart were two uplifting subjects.

after many goodbyes and pictures and final goodbyes and last second goodbyes, we got on the van that was taking five of us to victoria. so many times, during the half day we had after each camp, we had travelled that road to longboard around the town. kings of crown town.

i put myself in the shoes of the two that were catching flights home that evening. the other three of us were on our way to seattle, where i sit right now. although i had a strong feeling before flying out of chicago that i wouldn't be coming back at the end of the summer, i could in this moment in the van imagine the return home and facing the intense longing for this life that i would feel for thisa west coast and people and style and ease.

heartache began to fade as parker and i boarded the vintage ferry and bobbed across the water towards the mainland mountains of port angeles, washington.

once back in the usa we went to jack in the box. not five minutes passed before a lady came storming in and up to the front counter complaining about the missing cheese in her burger. the defensive night shift manager held down company policy and refused to give the lady the cheese or even the thirty cent discount because of the lack of a receipt. there was anger. the lady stormed back outside, smashing the cheeseless burger into the sidewalk in stride of her unctuous stomp to her idling car.

welcome back to the u.s.a.

Day 112: the last day

where to start..

has it really been nine weeks of consecutive camps? and now, in a sudden and final ending of fun and friends and sharing and music, it's all over. and not just for one week's pause before the a new camp and new faces, but the end of the end.

youth camp is the grand finale of summer where the campers are fourteen to eighteen years old and there's a huge overall amp in the week and program.

part of this is the banquet where many work hard to set and prepare a classy outdoor dining area on the field. banners and white strings of lights hang from poles like a circus tent skeleton and an atmosphere not much unlike prom has filled every camp outlet with blow driers and whatever else girls brought in preparation for this night. from the stage along the outer circumference, the sun is seen fading behind the mountain and i feel like a lizard in the warm glow of the nearby standing stage lights. they take effect as the mountain begins to sleep in the growing night and i think that i'm content because i'm playing piano as the six hundred campers and friends and staff are seated and laughing in the ocean air. friends dash up on stage at random times to take pictures and the music doesn't stop and there was jazz and octaves and seventh chords and the purest, cleanest, most-fitting recreations as i can pull in this moment that has now become the realization of a long and deep desire for an outdoor audience and piano and mountains and everything.


now, much later, i'm in my office for the last night. i'm only half way through the dvd label stamping and case filling because i couldn't bring myself to leave the fireside. the campers shared stories about broken pasts and broken homes and lives that they're scared to face again tomorrow afternoon. why do i have it so good..

i'll be awake again in a few hours to make it to the final breakfast and my first in several weeks. i'll clean the office, pack my bags, say goodbye to camper and staff friends, and the lights will go out suddenly after such a long and beautiful and admirable summer.

i don't know what else to say right now.

Day 108

the days go by fast. very fast. i've started the process of packing already so that when youth camp ends and the momentum of the summer marathon and sprinting finish falls to the ground, i'll be prepared to move forward.

in the meantime, the week has grown consistently rainy and cool. hoodie season is here. west coast by coconut records is stuck in my head. all day. especially the line about rain.

i've been appreciating the mountains and water as much as possible this week during my daily coffee gathering at the balcony. i wish i could stay with the horizon forever.

Day 98: an awesome day

another week ends. the whole week was smooth and the kids were well behaved. today was really hot..

now for a vagabonded raconteur:

our crew left camp for the precious end-of-the-week time off. we headed down the highway to the sweetest swimming hole i've ever seen or heard of. clear waters glided forty feet below a solid cliff face. another forty feet above that, the roadway buzzed overhead across a steel truss bridge. the darkness of the deep heart mellowed on the opposite bank where smooth rocks melted into the flow. prime. after several jumps and videos and pictures of the area and our antics, we moved on to

montanas, canada's version of lone star and typical midscale man-food chain restaurant, faced mountains and the highway. eight of us sat at the porch and enjoyed the warm breeze. the sun was bright and we sheltered our faces with the menus but were soon distracted with the arrivals. we had our fill of steak, ribs, roast, corn bread, and the such while bob dylan played in the background and the olympics buzzed on the tvs inside. one surprise birthday party later, we were on our way

to the ocean. richard thought he knew where it was, so only our car went looking and the other guys headed back. after a short drive and a walk through blackberry bushes and gravel paths, we found the ocean. the distant mountains. the sunset. the coast. together. during magic hour. second to the outback's, this was the most ultimate sunset i've seen. i hadn't brought my camera bag because when the trip started, we had originally headed off to go longboarding and the following events hadn't really been planned. the others had theirs and i'll have some of those before too long. as the mountains took burning yellow and red across the marching waves in front of us, the opposite side of the rocky island we had waded to platformed a red and rising moon. after a quick swim in the warm water and summer night, the day was complete.

Day 94

starwood is going well. camp is running smoothly so far and this fourth week of junior highers is by far the best behaved group yet.

during break today, an australian friend and i went among the thorns to get berries. eat berries. my legs and arms are kinda scratched, but it was good.

tonight, our boss russ took us to his house down in crofton for a video team cookout. a new angle of the mainland mountains caught my eye from the view on the back porch and dill dusted buns were an extraordinary compliment to awesome grilled burgers. we sat around and shared random funny stories about traveling or heard various adventures his band had back in their touring days.

the same girl keeps making comments about the remaining days of camp. i think she said it's now around nineteen or something. unbelievable.

Day 85

everyone's back. even the distant mainland mountains were visible, snow-peaked and serious, from across the waters of a pristine and sunny afternoon. i have re-noticed the freshness of the mountain air here after spending some time in the metropolis. still, vancouver's exhale didn't seem as coarse as chicago or the waterbody-barren rockford.

on our various adventures, we've come to an understanding. this verbalization, called the watershed theory, is the moment where, like a raindrop hitting the peak of a shed, the drop will go one way or another for whatever reason and then be required by the flow of those behind and the legalities of time and gravity to continue. plinko. God.

two months are already over here. as i turned my back to the water and ocean earlier today and realized that last summer's australia lasted two months and at the end of the trip, i was definitely feeling the grain of time, even after a massively productive and exciting adventure and ministry. today, it doesn't feel like two months. it doesn't feel like time at all. on of the other video guys turned twenty-two today and i'm relatively young to the majority of these people, but it's good. good things are happening and God has a hold of things and everything's exciting right now.

tomorrow, we start another week of starwood dv and working one-on-one with kids and video. should be good.

Day 12

it's hard to believe that this has only been the twelfth day of this summer in this new place. so much has happened- new friends, awesome adventures, hard work, and seeing God work through only one short family camp are only a few of the things i can think of at the moment.

today two new zealand guys, shaun and paul, arrived to join staff and tonight we all went into town to go to the super wal-mart, the only 'super centre' in western canada apparently. after the store and climbing some mountainous hills to watch the sun set, we went and jammed with guitars, harmonica, piano, and jimbay. very good. i missed sleeping out on the dock again tonight because i don't feel like walking all the way down there after midnight to pitch a tent in water-surrounded darkness, but it'll happen soon enough.

i've finished another small video today. there's more to do tomorrow and i'm really looking forward to the summer now because, even though it will turn into week after week of almost non-stop action and work, the ability to apply and thrive in the big picture will really have been dependent on this time to settle, prepare, and commune. this has been the twelfth day.