We never intended on leaving The Dalles so abruptly. Between the new job and finishing up the house, I really didn’t have time for much else. That includes my family, both immediate and extended. Fortunately, my brothers and sister all made trips to see us off before we left, but it was also to help as the clock wound down. I knew I’d need to travel back to see everyone again, so we tentatively planned for Elijah and I to go out and spend time with everyone we could.
This was our first long trip, just the two of us. We flew out of Bozeman, since Alaska operates a non-stop flight to Portland from there. Jess dropped us off and made the trek back to Helena. There is so much unbridled energy to Elijah. Simultaneously, a source of joy and exhaustion. He did well though, playing with the few toys we tucked into his bag. After just a couple hours, we landed and my parents were waiting for us.
We arrived at their house late in the evening and went straight to bed. We had a solid itinerary for the week we’d be there and it started with me doing a bit of side work. I will talk more on that later, but the short version is I had the opportunity to film a commercial for a private Christian school in Hood River and it lined up well with this trip. Before my first session of filming, I got together with my brother for a late breakfast and then spent the remainder of the day covering a family and sports event at the school.
The next day, we visited the church we attended when we lived there. While it was nice to see a few familiar faces, I didn’t really feel like I missed much. It was kind of an odd choice for us to attend that church when we lived in The Dalles. It was in Hood River, so there was always a drive involved and it wasn’t a church that fully agreed with my theological viewpoint (This is not to call out my disagreement, just that it wouldn’t be the church that I would typically attend. Christians need to be more forgiving on many issues that have become contentious and divided us into so many factions). But it was where, and I’m still confident in this, God had us for that season. It was the first time in almost a decade where I wasn’t hook, line, and sinker involved in a ministry. I still helped out, but my focus was on my family and the other projects that we had in our lives.
We spent a full day with my parents and Elijah had a blast playing in the snow. It brought back so many memories of growing up there. For those of you who don’t know this about me, I lived off-grid with my parents from age nine through eighteen. And by off-grid I mean no running water, outhouse, no power-lines, solar-power and wood-fired heating. I do plan on writing some about it, but that will have to come later. I also helped git rid of some of the remaining wooden debris from my home renovation in a bonfire.
We also took a trip into Portland, OR and visited OMSI for an afternoon before meeting up with my sister and spending the night with her in Vancouver, WA. Elijah has some pretty amazing aunts. She hosted us like kings and we enjoyed our time very much. We spent the next morning walking along the riverfront, taking in all the progress made there, before heading back through The Gorge. I was able to meet up with a friend for lunch and then with my parents in The Dalles. We also met up with a family we got close to while we lived there and stayed up too late.
Our last full day there, Elijah stayed with my parents and I filmed the rest of the commercial. It’s been a while since I’ve just worked on a media project all day. While I get to do more media work in my current line of employment, it’s intermixed with web design and application development. It was a long day of filming, but it is always a joy to create something.
And like the flash of a shooting star, we were headed back home. Jess and Fitz spent the last part of the week with her sister and visiting friends around Bozeman. She picked us up and we had dinner with her sister before driving home.
I had a lot of moments to think about life on this trip from multiple perspectives. As a father, I relished in the moments of joy my son had being with friends and family, playing in the snow and seeing familiar places. As a son, I enjoyed my time with my parents, wishing we weren’t so far apart. As a person who moved away, came back and then, moved away again, realizing that my home is with my wife and our hearts are in Montana.
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