Rebecca Henderson

At some point on my birthday/Easter road trip with my friend Jen — I think it was somewhere after wine tasting but before going crazy on cheese and fudge at the Tillamook factory — one or the other of us asked the question, “What is the difference between clams and oysters?”

Is there a difference? Seafood varieties are an important question when you’re on the Oregon coast. And we needed to know if clams and oysters are basically the same creature with two names, or if there’s really something else going on here in the mollusk world.

To satisfy our curiosity and put an end to this conundrum, Jen pulled out her iPhone — because, really, what’s a road trip these days without an iPhone? She googled “What is the difference between clams and oysters?” and was led to this brilliant page on the Big Site of Amazing Facts: “What is the difference between oysters and clams?” Slightly different from our original question, but as you can see, more or less getting to the gist of our quandary.

Now, the true brilliance in the link Jen discovered is not just the answer given in the brief article: “Both clams and oysters are a class of mollusks, called bivalves….

“One big difference between oysters and clams is that the oyster spends all of its life except its first few weeks attached to one spot. The clam moves itself around throughout its life by means of a foot, a hatchet-shaped muscle which protrudes from the shell.

“The clam pushes its foot out, hooks it in the sand, and pulls itself along. Oysters have a foot like this when they are very young, but it disappears when the oyster finds a place to settle.”

This answer was perfectly adequate to cover what we wanted to know: yes, in fact, there is a difference between clams and oysters. However, the true joy of the link is in the comments. I’ll let you scroll down on the site to read them all for yourself, but suffice it to say that people are amusing. And demanding of their anonymous internet sources.

Getting past the whiners, there are a couple of priceless comments that helped sum up part of the lessons Jen and I had been discussing as we read Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s The Wisdom of Stability (see my review from last year) during our road trip. I know it’s a leap to get from mollusks to a book by Wilson-Hartgrove, but hang with me here.

“Oysters are much cooler than clams. Oysters know what they want from life and are comfortable just the way they are. Clams are always running around seeking an identity. The only good place for a clam is in my chowder. Who’s with me? Oyster supporters unite! Oyster crackers rule!”

And then another commenter: “by the way for the clam vs. oyster, i think clams are MUCH cooler than oysters. i mean, who likes sitting around in the same spot all day? not me! though i agree the clam’s right place to be is in my chowder.”

Right there you have a nugget — a pearl, if you will, haha — of telling insight. Some people are oysters, some people are clams. Wilson-Hartgrove makes a fair case in favor of oysters. There’s something to be said for being certain of your identity, settling down and sticking to one spot, finding stability within a place and a people.

When Jen and I first started talking about taking a little trip to Oregon this spring, we intended to backpack along the Pacific Crest Trail for a few days. Until we realized 1) it’s cold in Oregon in the spring and 2) we don’t have backpacking gear. I do, however, have friends in the Tri-Cities who are happy to loan me the gear for car camping, so we decided to switch tactics.

We further switched plans when the date for our trip got closer and it was still in the mid-30s overnight, raining, and windy in the Columbia River Gorge. Not the kind of weather I want for tent camping. The Oregon State Parks website, though, informed us that we had another option for camping on the coast: rustic yurts. These are sturdy shelters modeled after those used by nomads in Turkey and Mongolia, and they’re perfect for a camping trip where you (read: I) are feeling too lazy to put up a tent or too coddled to sleep in the cold. They’ve shown up in parks and campgrounds across the U.S., but Oregon in particular has been a popular place for yurts. I, for one, am now a huge fan of yurts.

Here are a few photos from our yurt at Ft Stevens State Park in Oregon:

Behold: the yurt.

one angle inside the yurt

another angle inside the yurt

making coffee outside the yurt

On my trip up to Washington from Texas in January 2011, as my dad and I were driving on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge from Portland to the Tri-Cities, we noticed a huge mansion across the river on the Washington side, popping up in the middle of the desert seemingly out of nowhere. There was nothing else around it for a few miles, and it puzzled us why there would be such a large house stuck on the side of a mountain towering over the river. I asked a friend about it after we arrived in the Tri-Cities, and she immediately knew which house we were referring to: “Oh, you’re talking about Maryhill. It’s an art museum. Add that to your list of places you should go while in the Northwest.”

I did add it to my list, and on a recent road trip my friend Jen and I made plans to stop in and see what the museum is all about. Maryhill’s website touts it as “Without question, one of the most unusual and enchanting museums in America.” That’s a big claim to live up to when you’re perched on the side of a mountain a few hours’ drive from a metropolitan area.

Before we discuss the oddity that is this charming little collection of art, however, let me first mention the Stonehenge monument three miles to the east on Highway 14. I was driving along at a nice clip on our way to Maryhill and had to make a sliding stop and turn on two wheels to keep from missing the turn-off for the monument — but there was no way we were going to pass up seeing a replica of Stonehenge overlooking the Columbia, with a windmill farm in the background. Sam Hill, an influential Washington businessman, built the Maryhill version of Stonehenge to be a memorial for local soldiers killed in WWI, as a way of making a statement about the sacrifice of young lives to the cause of war. I really had no idea when I left my house that morning that I would be visiting Stonehenge in rural Washington before the day was out.

The Maryhill Museum itself was a very pleasant stop on our way to spend a couple of days in the Columbia River Gorge, and I recommend it for anyone traveling that direction. The varying collections on each floor are unique and seemingly random, but I was fascinated to read the placards telling how they were all connected — household and personal effects from Queen Marie of Romania (who??), Eastern Orthodox icons, a large number of drawings and sculptures by Auguste Rodin (including a plaster of The Thinker), 73 chess sets from around the world (yes, I did stop to count them), baskets from various Native American tribes, and a display detailing Sam Hill’s contributions to the road systems in Washington and Oregon. Among other things. Goodness.

It was the section on Sam Hill’s life and works that I found most intriguing. I’d never heard his name before arriving at the museum (named for his daughter), and he seems to have a rather depressing story as far as his relationships go, but I was interested to see how much he’d influenced the road system and a couple of the places I enjoy most along the Columbia. The Maryhill Loop on Sam Hill’s property near Goldendale was the first paved road in Washington state (!!) — and he was instrumental in building the Historic Columbia River Highway in Oregon and the Vista House at Crown Point, where you can stand high above the river (if the wind doesn’t blow you over) and gaze out in either direction at the grandeur of the gorge. It was also fun to note that Sam Hill was responsible for the Peace Arch at the border crossing between Blaine, Washington, and Surrey, British Columbia, near where my friends and I posed for this picture on a cold, cold day in January 2008. Who knew at the time that I was visiting my first Sam Hill monument?

A couple of weeks before my final research trip for West Texas Interlude, a friend sent me a one line email: Hey, have you ever heard of dearphotograph.com? I think you should do one on your March road trip!

Not content to stop with one, we printed out a few shots from my grandfather’s slides to take along with us. Here’s what we came up with…

Monahans Sandhills, fall 1957

Judge Roy Bean’s place in Langtry, November 1957

sign at the Pecos River Bridge, November 1957

Kit Carson rock outside Fort Davis, 1958 or ’59

The last one is kind of fudged — we never found the exact spot, although we thought we were close.

This…

and this…

are what it looked like when we scoured our locations for just the right angle. No one really asked what we were doing, although one girl napping on a picnic table beside the road gave me a dirty look, presumably because I interrupted her by climbing on a rock a hundred feet away. Oh well.

P.S. We’ve submitted a photo to Dear Photograph — I’ll keep you posted if they use it. In the meantime, you should check out their site.

The day after Thanksgiving in 1957, Bob and Ann piled the kids in the station wagon and drove from Sanderson, Texas, to Big Bend National Park. Sanderson to Jacksboro was too far a drive for the family to make for the holiday, so they stayed down on the border and made a true holiday of it by visiting the park.

Santa Elena Canyon, 1957 (notice the height of the people standing by the river, on the right)

For the last leg of my West Texas Interlude trip with Pat and Randy, we ended up at the Chisos Mountain Lodge in the national park — Bob and Ann had made a day trip of it, going all the way to Santa Elena Canyon on the west side of the park and back to Sanderson in one day, but we opted to stop for a couple of nights in the mountains. Shortly after we arrived, we went out for a 1.5 mile loop hike near the lodge and visitor’s center, taking in views of the Window below us. As we set out on the loop, we paused at the map posted at the trailhead, and I recalled a vivid memory of standing in that place with Jen and Janel a year and a half ago, after we’d finished our 5 mile hike to the Window and back. I remembered looking at the dotted lines on the map for the South Rim and Emory Peak and hoping that I would get to come back and see more of the park.

And in that moment of remembrance, I decided that I needed to make it happen. I needed to climb up to the top of Emory Peak. So the next morning, I took my laptop out of my backpack, put in a few snacks and a couple of water bottles instead, and I set off. I tried not to focus too much on the signs posted several times in the first mile of my trip, warning that this is bear and mountain lion country.

I’ll be very honest — I hope I never, ever see a bear or mountain lion. My fear of them is very rational (they’re predators!), so it’s not at all a phobia. Pretty much every step of the way to the top and back I was certain that something was about to lunge for me from the forest. I heard growling a few times (maybe). I also heard something swishing along in the brush beside me once or twice, in step with me, stalking me, stopping when I stopped. It turned out to be my ponytail swishing against the top of my backpack, but for a few moments I was sure my time was up.

Texas Mandrone and agave, on the Pinnacles Trail leading to Emory Peak Trail

For more than an hour, I hiked without seeing another soul coming or going. I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake in coming up there on my own — Pat and Randy and I all felt that it would be crowded enough on the last weekend of spring break that I wouldn’t actually be hiking alone all day. Nine miles is a long way by yourself, just you and the predators. During that first hour I sang to myself and the trees and the Mexican bluejays that hopped along the trail in front of me. After that, I leapfrogged with a couple of families and passed a few other people on the way to and from the top, solitary no more. My thoughts changed from certainty that I was being stalked, to wondering will my size in comparison with the others make me easy prey, or will it make me look less appetizing (I don’t exactly have a lot of meat on my bones)?

Four-and-a-half miles later, I reached the top of Emory Peak. Technically, I didn’t go all the way to the highest point. The last 20 or 25 feet are a scramble up some rocks where you get a 360 degree view — but I and a few others in the groups I’d arrived with were satisfied to watch the brave few climb up there while we enjoyed our slightly-less-than 360 degree view. I am unashamed that I only made it to 7800 feet and not 7825.

view from Emory Peak

I sat down on a rock to snack and rest and chat with the others before heading back down, when I realized I got a cell signal for the first time since we’d arrived in the park. I had received text and voice messages, and with my phone to my ear I heard the guy next to me say, “You’re getting a signal up here? Is that why you made the hike?”

“Yeah, I came up here to check my voicemail.”

view of the Chihuahuan Desert from Emory Peak

I made it back down to the lodge without seeing any bears or mountain lions, nor any prickly pear in bloom (almost, but not quite). Sitting at the restaurant patio with cold drinks later in the afternoon, Randy told me about this article about a mountain lion attacking a 6-year-old kid in February, causing them to close all the Chisos Mountain trails while they tracked the lion — which they didn’t find. Turns out the kid was attacked between the lodge and the restaurant. I later dug around on the NPS website and found a listing of mountain lion sightings in Big Bend for the month of February — one of the seven sightings for the month was at “Chisos Mountains Lodge, room 206, top of stairs.” I was sitting on my bed in room 215 when I read this. I guess I’m just as safe on Emory Peak as I am on the way to breakfast.

(For anyone who ended up at this blog because you’re looking to hike Emory Peak, I did the 9 mile round-trip hike with a 2500 foot elevation gain in 5.5 hours — and I highly recommend it, especially if you’ve already been on a lot of the other trails in the park. It’s amazing to stand at the top and look down at the places where you’ve already hiked.)

Several years ago a friend gave me a Chinese scroll for Christmas. On it are a painting of a tree in delicate lines of green beside a small stream and the words of Isaiah 58:11 in Chinese calligraphy:

And the LORD will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail.

A few of my wall hangings became moldy after enduring the steamy heat of several rainy seasons in Jinghong, and they had to be thrown away — but my scroll from Isaiah survived and hangs on my wall on the desert side of Washington today.

I was reminded of the words and the image of the tree by water as I drove through the desert between Balmorhea and Fort Davis in West Texas. Looking out across the landscape, I saw the foothills of the Davis Mountains covered in brush and cactus and yucca, rolling up from Balmorhea at 3,100 feet to Fort Davis at 5,050 feet. Much of this land still bears the charred black evidence of last April’s wildfires that burned more than 310,000 acres.

Here and there along the way a short line of cottonwoods would appear in a burst of bright, fresh green upon the brown and grey and dull yellow of the desert backdrop. From my far-off vantage point, it was hard to tell how a stand of trees could suddenly show up in the desert, how something so tall and so green and so evident of spring could exist in a land parched of moisture. Cross that distance to look up close, however, and you’ll find a small creek or an irrigation canal carving a curve in that corner of the desert. Where there is water, tree roots dig deep.

This afternoon the roots of my heart dig deep and search for Jesus, the living water that satisfies my desires in scorched places.

“We crossed the wild Pecos,

We forded the Nueces,

We swum the Guadalupe,

And we followed the Brazos”

from Texas River Song by Townes Van Zandt

Well, on this trip so far we’ve only crossed the wild Pecos and gazed in the distance at the Rio Grande, but this song keeps going through my head. As does this quote I recently read in Three Dollars Per Mile by the Texas Surveyors Association:

“The Pecos is a remarkable stream, narrow and deep, extremely crooked in its course, and rapid in its current. Its waters are turbid and bitter, and carry, in both mechanical mixture and chemical solution, more impurities than perhaps any other river in the south. Its banks are steep, and, in a course of two hundred and forty miles, there are but few places where an animal can approach them for water in safety. Not a tree or bush marks its course; and one may stand on its banks and not know that the stream is near. The only inhabitants of its water are catfish; and the antelope and wolf alone visit its dreary, silent, and desolate shores. It is avoided even by the Indians.” 

— Captain S.G. French’s description of the Pecos River from an 1849 exploratory mission for the U.S. Army

The Stone Village Tourist Camp in Fort Davis is to quirky hangouts and people-watching what the Eleven Inn in Balmorhea was to peace and relaxation.

Before Pat made our reservation, she called me to let me know what the sleeping arrangements would be like. She and Randy got a little motel room at this renovated 1935 facility, and I got a “camp room.”

My camp room reminded me of rural guesthouses I’ve stayed at many times in China, with a separate public bathroom a few doors down from where I slept. Well, that’s not an entirely fair assessment — the Stone Village camp rooms are clean and have an aesthetically pleasing decor, so the comparison to a Chinese guesthouse does eventually break down. My room had concrete floors and stone walls, while Pat and Randy’s room (with private bath) had wood floors and finished walls.

The thing that caught me off guard when I first saw my camp room was the entryway. There wasn’t a solid door — the entire front of the room was a screen. One section of the screen opens, and a thick curtain pulls across to give the semblance of privacy. The curtain doesn’t shut all the way, and since my room faced the main driveway leading to the highway, I felt a bit like I was on display the entire time I was in the room. I was also a little concerned at first that I might get cold at night, since the desert sky was mostly clear and the temperature would drop with the sun, but the down comforter on my bed kept me very toasty all night. Overall, I had a comfortable stay and would recommend the camp room if you’re wanting to sleep in a bed instead of a tent, but don’t want to shell out the money for a private bath.

The next morning, I wandered from my bed to the Stone Village Market across the courtyard — a fun little whole foods store where you can sit on the front patio under dried chilies and wildflowers and watch the town wake up. I drank a couple of cups of the West Texas Wildfire roast from Big Bend Coffee Roasters in Marfa (with agave nectar and organic half-and-half added), wrote a few postcards, and savored the lazy morning before getting back in the car for our next destination: Sanderson, Langtry, and the Pecos River Bridge.

It took me approximately 5 minutes after our arrival at Eleven Inn in Balmorhea to decide I wanted to come back and stay a few more days. We weren’t even planning to stay in Balmorhea when we first marked out our itinerary for this trip for West Texas Interlude, but every hotel in Pecos is currently booked solid by oil companies doing new drilling. Ironic that I’m taking a trip to visit towns once prosperous in the 1950s that have supposedly been in decline for decades because of the end of the West Texas oil boom and the building of I-20 to replace old Highway 80…and we couldn’t find a hotel on I-20 because of a new oil boom.

The boom worked in our favor by sending us to Balmorhea for the night. There are eleven rooms at Eleven Inn, each with its own quirky furniture and chenille bedspread. My room had a fuzzy stool at a wooden desk, two “distressed” nightstands (certainly not distressed to make them appear shabby chic, but distressed naturally over the years), a comfy bed, and a tiny tv perched on the top shelf of the closet. I never turned on the tv, but opted to listen instead to the glorious quiet of a motel courtyard located away from the highway. This morning I heard a rooster and what I think might have been the motel owner singing in the yard.

We made a stop at the state park and the famous pool filled by San Solomon Springs — 1 million gallons of water per hour gurgle out of the spring into the 3.5 million gallon pool, whose overflow heads to Balmorhea Lake and nearby irrigation channels. Tiny fish bumped against our toes when we dangled our feet over the concrete edge into the water that maintains a constant 72-76 degree temperature year-round.

Before leaving this morning for Fort Davis, I checked with the owners of Eleven Inn to see if they would have space for me to come back the following weekend. No worries — spring break will be over by then, and I should be able to come and sit for a while. Pat and Randy will head back to Denton on Sunday, but I think I’ll stay behind and enjoy the quiet, write in the mornings, hike in the Davis Mountains in the afternoons, and stare up at the star-filled sky at night.

You really should roll down a sandhill if you get a chance. Afterwards, be prepared to find sand in your pockets, in the cuffs of your rolled up jeans, in your ears, in your belly button, in between your teeth, and stuck to the chapstick on your lips — but it’s worth the experience.

photos by Randy Hatcher

We brought along a cardboard box and a couple of lids from plastic containers to use as sleds, but had no luck getting them to slide down the dunes. Everyone else we saw (including a girl in a styrofoam box) had a similar problem: you get going a little ways, and the edge of your sliding device plows into the sand and gets stuck.

The visitor’s center has plastic disks and surfboards available for rental, but they also have a sign posted saying they cannot guarantee disks or boards will slide. I’m just not willing to risk attempting a slide on rented gear without such a guarantee.