It was just over two years ago that I was spending many lonely nights and long wintry drives to work on the phone with my mom. She, like myself, was going through her first full on mountain town winter. We moped and moaned about how cold it was, how scary the driving felt, but mostly about the never-ending annoyance that kept falling from the sky, which, irritatingly, most people in the valleys we lived in happily rejoiced about.
Unlike those locals we hadn’t been privy to growing up on a pair of skis. In fact we had lived a life quite the contrary to extreme weather living, where even the prediction of the fluffy white stuff would close down the entire metropolitan area. Needless to say we felt trapped, unable to escape the valley and most off bitter that we were uneducated about the activities that could actually bring joy to our self-imposed winter wonderland.
Fast forward a few years down the road and my mom has nestled quite well into her little home in the Methow Valley, Washington. I on the other hand have since moved away from my winter wonder hell, as Joe aptly named it, and “lived” in around 4-5 other locations. So on our recent trip to visit my mom’s new mountain abode I was interested to see how she’d come to terms with the inevitable long winters there and why she had even begun to, gasp, like them.
What I saw was as the snow melts away the summer in Winthrop uncovers perfect hiking paths, trail runs and bike rides all with photo worthy back drops. But it wasn’t just the summer that had calmed her winter nag. It was in my mother’s garden where I recognized the real answer to what had changed for her in Washington. Each flower and vegetable that sprouted was physical gage that showed the time and attention someone has to give to any new place to make it home.
And despite what some people think we are actually only just reacquainting ourselves with out most recent home, the van. The truth is we rarely camp in the van this much and it’s been pretty fun (read dirty and inconvenient) getting back into the groove of van life. It’s even more fun hearing my step-father talking about our life “in the van” as if we’re purposely being “totally alternative” and “anti-establishment” for fun by living in a car.
I think we all know if the pacific northwest climbing was all within a one hour radius of itself we would no doubt be renting a condo in some centrally located city, showering it up everyday and refrigerating like mad men. At the same time it’s kinda fun to think you’re alternative and cool, cause in reality our van smells like a mix of stale tortilla chips and climbing chalk, and sometimes you even get stalked by weird Seattleites in the woods and that’s just not cool.
