Day 10 (Going back to Oregon)
Day 10
Thanks to a good night’s sleep I was up at 5 and started
packing at 5:30, sure I just lied there for half an hour, but I also woke up a
whole hour before Jessica was waking us up. By the time Jessica did do morning
wake calls I was already up packing my luggage. Taking the tent down was so
fast no more than 5 minutes for the whole thing… I wish the air mattress was
that easy, but that one is a struggle. After making sure all my stuff was in
the car I got to making lunch in hopes that everyone finished while I was still
working, I assumed so because everyone was sitting but the second last calls
for lunch were getting called just about everyone had to make their lunch… absolute
foul, we’re better than that. After the long wait for everyone to finish lunch
so we could put the stuff away, we then got to our big task for the morning, we
had to finish our soil collection and data collection for this site. At this
point we’re pretty goated (Greatest Of All Time, G.O.A.T.) at the soil
collection and testing. We all grabbed our equipment and took Sal with us so he
could watch our soil collection process.
Big thank you to Dave, Dave had such a great time. He really
seemed to enjoy the beaver dam’s activity; he only joined us for the day
because he enjoyed that part of the trip last year. Hope you get home safe Dave
and hope to meet again.
Yesterday I left my towel at Glenwood Station after the
shower, I had left it to dry on a picnic table while I worked on my blog and
waited for everyone to finish their showers. In the midst of Jessica hurrying
us to get in the car and out of there I left my towel and was hoping Sal’s
group would notice it and bring it but they were a little busy, but no worries
because when we pulled up this morning it was still where I left it, if this
was Yakima it’d be long gone. Bless smalltown communities.
After Jessica returned the hotel key card we went on our
way. Salvador wanted me to ride along with him in shotgun because our car wasn’t
very chatty and the only person making conversation was me all the way in the
back, but because we wanted to make sure we got free tolling thanks to our
tribal members, so we let Aaliyah ride shotgun. We crossed the Hood River toll
bridge to cut an extra 1-2 hours going around.
After crossing we went to pump some gas, and made way towards
the Warm Springs Museum, where we got to meet Louie and his wife Jolene. Louie
was a very passionate man who really spoke from the heart really reminded me of
someone I know, he spoke from the heart and said what he had say without worrying
about what he could or couldn’t say he was just very forward and honest. Louie
told us about the mistreatment of the native American people or as he said “Indians”.
He was very passionate about the mistreatment of power and “the white man
taking our land away”. Louie believes that we need to stop asking how much
something is worth in dollar amount because “The white man” only sees things in
cash value, therefore he wants more native American representation in these
political environmental roles. He believes that we need to ask ourselves “what
does the country actually need, and what does it really want” because yes needing
it is wanting it but wanting it doesn’t mean you need it. We need to respect
the land that we live on and more importantly the preserved natural state of
the land before we just deface it completely. Yes, the millions of dollars and
butt loads of electricity that plant is going to produce is very tempting but
now the salmon will die off because they can’t get through, now that natural
greenery and marine life around it will also die because the plant with heat up
the water. There are many things that sound good to us as individuals but on
the larger scheme of things its impact is terrible.
We also got to meet Alysia Agular Littleleaf and her husband
Elke Littleleaf, they taught us a little bit about the historical fishing
background of not only Native Americans but also this area. He taught us about
the origins of fishing bobbers and how they were used for fly fishing. We
actually also found their picture on the cover of a Bend, Or magazine.
After an interesting lecture from some very cool
individuals, we had lunch for an hour because the museum is closed from 12-1
for lunch. After lunch we got to tour the historical museum, and while smaller
than the one we went to on the 19th, this one was new to me, and I got
to see some new things, and some were similar. Some of my favorite finds there
were the telephones that you could use to listen to some simple words in
different languages. I was actually a super big fan of the masks everywhere I
looked. Bird masks, a cat-like mask, and a strange looking face for some. The masks
were everywhere and a really nice way to fill in space and give character to
the rooms. I was also just a big fan of the indoor décor for the museum; it was
so much to look at with so little space. My only complaint if anyway that some
of the buttons for the exhibits didn’t work or they did work but would go a
good 1-2 minutes after pressing it and I’d have to come back to it. There was
also a really nice trail behind the building but was closed because some of the
trails submerged and was now too hazardous.
After the museum we made our way to Safeway for personal snacks
and some supplies for camp. I also found out that Safeway now carries claw
machines, and I am a little addict for those. I’ve been collecting little
plushes for my girlfriend as souvenirs to have something to bring back to her.
Got a little drink at the Starbuck’s inside Safeway, followed by a little geek
out session of me asking so many Starbuck’s related questions because I wanted
to compare the Safeway experience to a corporate store experience.
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