Traveling Alone: Let them know where you are

I am nearing 16 years as a traveling guy for a Fortune 500 and the side benefits are out of this world.  I personally have managed to visit all 50 states as probably many of of you all have.

Most of us have a little spot in us that gives that drive to do that special interest that appeals to you deeply.   I believe there's one TFA whose soul purpose is to visit a Starbucks in every state and there's one I know that can't pass up a chicken and waffle restaurant.  One of us out there collects Harley Davidson pins and visits a US National Park every chance he gets.  All these penchants are fun and usually do not expose you to any inherent dangers.

For me, it's photography and when I get that call for a new assignment, I start hitting google maps trying to figure out where and what I want to shoot.  However, I seem to sometimes get in a jam with my avocation.  You just need to think about your surroundings and be careful.  Things and situations can change quickly.

Case(s) in point:
Years ago, the HQ Team Leader called and sent me to Oregon.  Being from Louisiana, I was just mesmerized at the mountains as I drove south to Roseburg stopping often to snap a picture thinking I'd eventually run out of mountains.  Once there, I began to hear about Crater Lake so that was all I could think of until the weekend came.
 

When Saturday arrived, I pulled out my maps (no GPS for me then) and struck out on my quest.  Riding along, I noticed a waterfall coming off the side of a steep hill so I pulled over, grabbed my camera and began climbing a pile of rocks to get that perfect and up close shot of the cascade but as I began to make my way down,  my foot slipped on a mossy rock and found myself bouncing off a half dozen boulders before I came to a rest in a heap 15 feet below.

My camera was OK but I managed to break an elbow.   In pain, I continued on to Crater lake and took a couple of pics before getting back to the room and dosing up on ibuprofen until I could see a doctor the next day.


Then there was the time at an annual conference in Saint Louis that I got the brilliant idea to go downtown and take a picture of the Gateway Arch at night.  It was a full moon.  I parked my car and made my way to the plaza, wandered around a while to choose how I was going to do my shot.  Not having a tripod, I had to lay down on the concrete,  propped the front of my lens on a book and sited through the viewfinder and squeezing off a dozen or so different shots with various exposures. 

As I fidgeted with my settings, I caught the glimpse of a very large foot next to my head.  Now, if you're lying prostrate on the ground in an unusual place, there are just not many options for a quick escape if there's trouble.  While there were people off at a distance, I was pretty much alone.

Not wanting to make any sudden moves, I slowly turned my head to the direction of the pair of well worn boots and traced the image with my eyes upward to reveal the face of a guy bigger than me with lots of hair and big nasty beard.

"Something I can help you with?", I asked.  It sounded pretty dumb but I was at a loss for words and I was making a vain attempt at appearing cool and not appearing as a victim here.

"Got a buck?", he grunted.

Without a word, I slowly reached into my left jeans pocket, felt a bill and slowly pulled it out and handed to him.  I have no idea how much I gave him.  It could have been a buck or it could have been a twenty.  I didn't know or care at that point and was hoping he wouldn't produce a knife, hammer or screwdriver.

"Thanks!", he said and wandered off into the dark as I pondered if I needed that one more shot of the fountain and arch.   Things could have gone so wrong.


Once while in New Mexico, I thought stopping off at a turn out near Cloudcroft and climbing down into a canyon in search of a small waterfall might be a grand idea.  There was one other car so it had to be safe, right?  Anyway, I took a cell phone pic of the license plate of my car along with the GPS tagging and emailed it to my brother letting him know where I was in case I really didn't come back.

Finally, after crawling down lots of boulders and not encountering rattlesnakes, I reached the bottom of the arroyo and began get my photo groove on.  Somewhere in the distance, I heard thunder.  How nice, it might rain and be cool.  Then I notice a log lodged in the middle of a tree limb about 8 feet above my head.  Yikes, his could become a flash flood in minutes!   I quickly gathered up my camera bag and began crawling back up the boulders not so careful this time.  As an old guy 20 years away from being in shape, I began to wheeze and pant for breath.   I could hear someone coming up the canyon behind me and they were moving fast.  Not to appear in trouble I quickly sat under a mesquite bush and played like I was taking pictures of the surroundings, just as this 30 something local and a couple of teenage kids scurried by me.


The older asked, "You OK, Sir?  You need help?"  I'm certain he noticed the bright red complexion of my face and felt sorry for me.  I tried to appear non-nonchalant and said, "Oh no, I'm fine. Thanks for asking."  I was such a liar.

After they left I took another 20 minutes to get a few more feet to my car.  I called my brother to let him know I was back to my rental.  He said he would have been calling the cops in another 30 minutes if I hadn't called.  As it turned out, I'd injured my knee and developed an infection with a lot of pain that took weeks of meds to cure.

I've got a ton of similar tales but the important thing to remember (particularly for me) is to be aware of your limitations, let someone else know where you are and if possible, don't travel alone in unknown places.   Nowadays, I have an app on my phone that my wife can tap into that will reveal my whereabouts within 100 feet.  I'm long past caring about that kind of privacy and still email my family the license plates of my rental cars.

Quick visit to Oregon and Washington

After a quick ejection from Victoria, Texas, I found myself on a red-eye flight to Portland, Oregon and a job in Vancouver, Washington.

My co-worker and I, Toni, pretty much worked 10-11 hours daily and when Sunday came, it proved to be constant rain that dampened (was that a pun?) our sight seeing along the Columbia River.

However, as I was finishing up work mid afternoon last Saturday, I looked on the Weather Channel and saw there would be a 3 or 4 hour window of sunshine over at Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Wasting no time, I went back to the hotel, put on jeans and grabbed the Nikon for a 2 drive westward on highway 26.

Raining most of the way, there would be short bursts of sunshine and couldn't resist stopping off for a well timed selfie at a rest area with a really nice rainbow.













Moving on to Cannon Beach, I walked down on the beach near the Haystack rocks to take a few pictures.  Something that massive caused people to just stand at the shore and just gawk.  So did I.

It was just simply amazing.

Even though the sun was shining, the sunlight filtered through the haze like a flashlight shining through a dirty glass.

As sundown finally came, I drove the two hours back in the rainy darkness hoping I wouldn't meet a deer or elk along the way.

On early Sunday morning, I loaded up again hoping to find a little more scenery I could enjoy and drove up the Oregon side of the Columbia River past Troutdale toward Multnomah Falls which I've had the pleasure of climbing up the zig-zag trail beside it.

Today, there was just a whole lot more of rain than I was prepared to deal with.  Oddly enough, as wet as it was, I only saw one umbrella there wielded by a couple of Japanese tourists.  The locals just shrug it off.  I didn't have an umbrella either but it was because I'd failed to bring one.

I did drive up the road on old Scenic Highway 30 and took some hiking trails by some other falls and streams.

It was really nice walking under the canopy of trees which acted like a natural umbrella.

This trip is going to be short lived and expect to be out of here in a couple more days.  It's too bad I wasn't able to get my wife up here because she really enjoys this area.

I can't remember how we got into the conversation but

Gina, my office administrator and I were discussing kindness, personal giving and generosity in God's eyes and how it is returned to us, when a guy walked past our door.  He nodded and smiled to us then stopped, turned around and headed back to our door.

He walked in and Gina asked, "Hello, may we help you?"

"I'm not sure," he shyly replied, "but I hope so.  I'm a volunteer for the Milwaukie Meals On Wheels and wonder if you can help in some way?  We provide food and assistance for the elderly who can't provide for themselves."

Gina and I looked at each other knowing we were experiencing a "God moment" and immediately hauled out our wallets.

It's days like this that reminds you that He is listening to every conversation and the quality and substance of these circumstances are open invitations for Him to place another person in your life.

I realize he didn't necessarily identify himself as a Christian person or imply religion at all but it didn't matter.  All we had to do was respond to God in our lives and know that we responded to the scripture (Matthew 25:44), "Then they will reply, 'Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or in prison and not help you?' "

Gifts like these are small, like grains of sand but the mightiest ancient buildings were not made of just a few parts but millions of tiny grains of sand in the mortar that hold the bricks together.