September 2020

September brought a new set of trials to our lives. After six months of living through and adjusting to a pandemic, Oregon was plagued with ferocious wildfires. Before and after the hazardous smoke descended on Portland, we spent a lot of time outdoors and enjoyed our time as a family. I think all of us will agree that we will never take clean, breathable air for granted again.

Hiking Time with Friends

We spent some time hiking with our friends. One morning we met our friends Sadie, Jack, and Benny, at Powell Butte. We saw a deer as we pulled up and then enjoyed a leisurely walk through the woods together.

We also started meeting up with our homeschool group again. Because of the uncertainty of the pandemic, we took the spring and summer off from regular activities. It was so nice to meet up again and feel social and normal! We hiked around Tryon Creek together and had a great time.

At the end of the month we met up with our friends, Anya and Mitzi, for a last hurrah at the beach at Mary S. Young. We enjoyed having the beach to ourselves and taking one last dip in the river before the temperatures cooled for Fall.

Labor Day

On Labor Day we  biked over to a new food cart pod on 82nd for lunch. We took our food to Essex Park for a picnic and enjoyed our time together. Later that night the wind picked up to hurricane speeds, setting the stage for the wildfires to start. We had no idea what we were in for.

Wildfires

After Labor Day we started hearing about wildfires that were ravaging the woodlands of Oregon. On Wednesday afternoon (two days after Labor Day) the kids and I took a walk. We watched with dread as a wall of smoke blew in from the south. It cleared out a little bit and then completely overtook us for a solid week.

As I write this, I can't believe it was only one week that we were plagued by the smoke. It was so traumatic. Every day we watched as the Air Quality Index reading stayed in the hazardous range. Sometimes the reading was too high for the meter to read. It wasn't safe to go outside for any amount of time. I couldn't even exercise in the garage. The air was yellowish grey and everything stunk like a dumpster fire.

There was some concern that we may have to evacuate our home. We watched the fire line approach Portland and we heard updates from friends in Oregon City, Gladstone, and Clackamas that were being evacuated. Our friends in Beaver Creek were literally 3 miles away from the fire. As I write this in March 2021, they are still displaced from their home because of smoke damage.

I gathered a few items and made sure that our important documents were accessible. I read up on what to pack if we needed to evacuate. Luckily, it didn't come down to that for us, but many in the state were not so lucky.

We ran our HVAC fan constantly to try to clean the air in our home. By Sunday night it was making a very loud wheezing sound. We discovered that the filter was completely full, blocking the flow of air. Luckily, we had extra filters on hand. They were completely sold out at the stores! You couldn't even order an air purifier online. They were completely sold out everywhere. Ben cleverly used one filter to construct an air filter using our box fan.

I remember going out to fill up the car with gas, just in case we needed to get out of town. It felt like the apocalypse, it really did. Nobody was outside. Those who were wore giant gas masks to filter out the smoke. Businesses closed, the trash pickup was delayed, the library hold pickup was cancelled. We limited our outside activity to once per day to get the mail and pick up any packages.

This was the first experience I have ever had where it was literally dangerous to step outside the door. It was frightening, depressing, and traumatic. We were trapped. I don't even know how we coped. I remember taking a bath and doing some yoga inside. I remember doing science experiments with Clara and napping. I remember crying a lot.

We had a reservation to go camping at Cape Disappointment at the end of the week. However, we didn't want to go camping if the air wasn't breathable. We decided that on Thursday morning we would check the AQI and either go camping or drive east to Utah to stay with Carson and Desiree. We felt like climate refugees with nowhere safe to go.

Luckily, things on the coast started clearing up first. When Thursday came around it looked safe to go to Cape Disappointment, which is what we did. Hallelujah, did we have a great time breathing the clean air!

Cape Disappointment

Ben took the afternoon off work, we packed up, and left as soon as we could. We could not wait to get out!

The closer to the coast we got, the cleaner the air became. By the time we stopped for dinner in Astoria, the smoke was a light haze and the smell of the ocean overpowered the putrid smell of the wildfires.

We got settled into the yurt and then walked 5 minutes to the beach. We stayed for an hour or so that first night and just breathed in the cool, fresh air. I saw people online describing it as an "air snack". That first night we literally took deep breaths and enjoyed our first time outside in over a week. I almost cried as I watched the kids run freely in the sand, twirl in circles, and jump around.

That night we slept deep and well. We were awakened (everyone but Clara, that is) by our smoke alarm chirping around 1:00am. It was annoying, but we honestly didn't even care about the inconvenience. We were SO grateful to be safe and to be breathing fresh air. It was a lesson in letting the small stuff go.

The next day was Friday and we spent the entire day outside. It wasn't very cold, but it was the coast so everything was damp all the time!

We played at the beach all morning. The pictures and videos tell the whole story better than my words can. We ran around, played in the water, and walked down to the end where the water crashed up against a cliff. The kids picked up driftwood and built little houses with it. We listened to the waves and the birds. We tasted the fresh air. I'm not sure the sun came out at all, but we didn't care. It was a beautiful relief.

The girls and I took a warm shower after our morning at the beach. That was one of the highlights for Clara :)

In the afternoon we played games at the picnic table and drank tea. The kids and I played hide 'n' seek in the forest behind our yurt. We didn't have a campfire because there was a strict burn ban, but we didn't care. We didn't even want to smell fire at that point!

On Saturday we woke up, packed out, and did a little walk out to the lighthouse. It was cool to see everything from above. There was a ton of fog so we didn't get to enjoy much of the scenery, but everything we saw was gorgeous.

By the time we arrived back in Portland, the air had totally cleared. A heavy storm with lots of rain hit on Friday while we were gone and washed everything clean. It felt like a completely different world than the one we left.

Seaquest State Park

One week after returning home from Cape Disappointment, we went camping again in Washington. This time we went to Seaquest State Park, just over an hour north of us. It is located on the road up to Mt. St. Helens and, despite the name, is not near the sea.

We met our friends, Adam and Jamie Bird, at Seaquest. They live in Seattle and have become our camping buddies. Their kids are the same ages as our kids and they are really chill and great to hang out with.

On Saturday we ventured up to Johnston Ridge at Mt. St. Helens. The Vistor Center was closed due to COVID, but we walked around and got some good pictures. The clouds never parted all the way for us to see the full volcano, but we saw bits and pieces. We hiked along the ridge a bit and willed the clouds to clear. It rained on and off and we had a great time.

When we returned to camp the kids just played and played. It was so wonderful. They ran around together and played volleyball in the field, stalked rabbits, and played card games at the picnic table. I even took a little nap in the yurt while the other adults chatted and the kids kept each other busy. We learned again that camping with friends is the best possible scenario!

On Sunday we packed up and played a few last games. We made arrangements to go camping with the Birds again next year and drove home. Ironically, the sky was completely clear as we drove back to Portland. Mt. St. Helens laughed at us all the way home from her uninhibited viewpoint. Oh well.

Shenanigans at Home

September was such a crazy month!

 

Between the wildfire trauma and two amazing camping trips, we did find time to play and learn at home. School started officially with Tommy in 6th grade, Lily in 3rd grade, and Clara in preschool. We decided to overhaul our curriculum and try something completely new. I ordered a bunch of Moving Beyond the Page units which brought with them some satisfaction and some frustration. This is the best first day of school picture I could coax out of the kids:

Clara and Lily put on a ballet performance for us one evening. It was so delightful.

September was filled with lots of trial and lots of joy. It took a few weeks to come down from the trauma of the wildfires. Healing came from spending time in the woods and at the coast with our family and friends. Even though it was a turbulent month, I really learned again to appreciate the small and simple things: time with family, the ability to move and breathe freely, our comfortable home, clean water to drink, and the companionship of my husband.