The sunset from the View House in downtown Littleton.
Last night, I got to travel to my old stomping grounds of Downtown Littleton. It is the place I used to work as a bartender, and the building which housed the brewery still stands though the brewpub is no longer in operation. It is not the only changes that have come from this quaint section of metropolitan Denver. A street that was filled with barber shops and dive bars has turned into a neighborhood filled with apartment buildings and high-end restaurants. The only thing that is holding this place back is the main streets that have cars traveling through to get to busier parts of the city. I was told that during the pandemic that they closed off the streets and allowed these restaurants to spill their tables out into the roads so they could stay in operation. It created something that could be found in Europe with the walking streets, giving it a feel of something more out of the 18th century rather than modern times. If they would just add cobblestones over the pavement, they would have something spectacular. People would take the light rail from Denver to this exciting location, and certain buildings that have remained empty might actually get filled up again, adding more to the atmosphere.
There are other places that I know of that would benefit from this kind of arrangement, downtown Castle Rock in Colorado, and downtown West Linn in Oregon, but I also know the biggest argument against them as well. The roads that would be closed happen to be main thoroughfares that would have many motorists mad if they were changed into a place where only walking people could go. These places already have sidewalks, and people can wait for the lights to change before they walk across the street.
I do understand their points, but at the same time, the pedestrian outdoor areas are the busiest places in Europe. They are always filled with tourists looking for ways to spend their money. They also add a certain amount of charm to the cities they reside in, making people want to visit more. There are a couple of these locations in Colorado that I know of: Pearl Street in Boulder, Old Town in Fort Collins, and 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver, and they are always busy. As some of the older parts of smaller towns are looking to revive their older parts of town, I can see them eventually make this slight change to bring back the business they lost, and this is the best time to do it. Many of these proposed locations did the same thing that downtown Littleton did during Covid, and they can see how the conversion can transform their part of town.
Bend is proposing to do this right now with Minnesota Avenue. Some of the trendier restaurants in Bend are on this street, and they want it to stay the pedestrian mall that they had during the Covid crisis. The town is currently considering this, but it is meeting with the same resistance that other places will meet, traffic, and why should people put up with this for something that will only be in use for at most six months out of the year.
It is just a trend that I noticed last night as I visited the place where I used to work, and I wonder if it will take hold or not. I am pretty sure that if it does, it will take a couple more decades before it is considered because the American society is not ready to go there yet, but I am sure there will be a couple more of them popping up from time to time as towns start to see the benefit to them.
When Covid started and I was stuck inside a lot more, I looked for ways to entertain my wife and myself, and I went back to one of the hobbies that I enjoyed so much in my youth, board games. I did a lot of research to find games that would be fun and had a strong enough theme that would draw my wife into the gameplay. Two names kept popping up, Wingspan and Everdell. Both of them had huge fans and they both seemed to have a little bit of a rivalry going on between them. Any time that you look at Board Game Geek at their ranking, they will be some place in the top twenty and usually right next to each other. Still, I had only money for one of the games, so I went with the cute woodland creatures building a forrest city as opposed to the collection of birds in three different ecosystems. This did not mean that my intrigue for the game that won numerous awards in the years 2019 and 2020 did not still grab my attention, and I always had a desire to play the game. I searched people out who might own the game, but I could only find versions made in Thai because Stonemaier Games believed that nobody in Thailand would want an English version, and considering the amount of reading involved in the game and the fact that I can’t read Thai, I knew I had to wait until I made it back to the United States. Well, after a couple of years waiting, I finally had my chance to play the game, and I can now give a definitive answer as to which game I prefer over the other by looking at their themes, gameplay, art work, interactivity, and expansions.
THEME
Both games have a story to tell, and do a great job of tying their story into their game play. Everdell tells the story of a group of woodland creatures living a year in the meadow underneath the Evertree. They gather their supplies consisting or twigs, pebbles, amber, and berries to carve out their little location in the forest and attract other woodland creatures to live there. Every other player is trying to create their own little town and might take the resources you need or even the building that you want to construct to make the perfect place.
Wingspan tells a similar story, but only involving birds. Instead of woodland creatures building a mythical woodland town, you are an ornithologist attracting various types of birds to your ecosystem that consists of a forest, grasslands, and wetlands. You attract certain birds by collecting food from the bird feeder. Once one bird is in a specific ecosystem, it will lay eggs, collect more food, and attract more birds until you build a thriving bird habitation.
A lot of people I have talked to about Wingspan complain that the theme does not really fit with the game, but I disagree. There were many times while we were playing that I would talk about the food that one of my birds collected, or how my owl could never catch any food, but my hawk was an amazing hunter. I loved how some of the birds worked together to create a complete picture of the ecosystem they lived in. It is there and if you let yourself dive into the theme, you can have a lot with the game.
With that being said Everdell does a better job with theme. It is fun to talk about what kind of town your woodland creatures are creating whether it is designed more for production of resources, or if it caters to the intellectual endeavors of schools and universities. Each town I have created while playing this game has its own flavor and I don’t think I have ever created the same town twice. I also love watching other people’s towns as they are being built, and I did not feel the need to see what other people were doing when I played Wingspan. They both do a great job, but on a whole, I enjoy the story that is created while playing Everdell.
GAMEPLAY
The whole reason to play a game is to immerse yourself in a puzzle and see how well you can operate in that system, and both of these games create a great puzzle with many different ways to victory depending on which route you choose to go down.
Everdell is a worker placement game where you send off you cute woodland characters to collect resources so you can build structures and eventually attract woodland creatures to your town. Each card you play, whether it is a structure or a creature has an ability that helps you build an engine so you can collect more resources and build greater structures. If you don’t like the cards that are in your hand, you can pick from the ones offered in the meadow which are cards available to everybody. There are permanent locations that are always the same every game, but there are other cards that are placed on the board that open up other locations, and allow for each game to be different. You can also collect certain event cards if you meet the requirements to gather them. All of these collect points that at the end of the game you count, and the person with the most points wins.
Wingspan has a similar goal. The one who has the most points wins. The way to obtain the points is a little different though. You are still trying to create an engine, but this one is based on the birds that you place in three different ecosystems: forest, grasslands, or wetlands. Each ecosystem allows your workers do different things. The forest allows you to collect food. The grassland offers you eggs. And the wetlands will get you more bird cards that you can pick from three that are in front of everybody, or you can pick from the large pile of birds at random. Each bird has an ability that is triggered either when you play the bird, play on the ecosystem, or if one of the other player triggers the special ability. Each bird is also worth a certain amount of points, as well as the eggs, food, and other birds they collect along the way.
The engine that Wingspan has is a lot more complicated than the one that Everdell has and there are so many different cards that the possibilities of how to build that engine are endless. The last round of a game of Wingspan fizzles out though as everybody tries to add more eggs because those are guaranteed points and you don’t know what you are going to get if you keep on trying to collect birds. This happens a little bit with Everdell as well, but there are more options to pick from, so the end of the game feels a little more exciting, but the edge goes to Wingspan in this category.
ARTWORK
I know that a game should not be dependent on the artwork, but a lot of publishers have upped their game in recent years in this area, and both of these games are great examples of what a game can look like. Everdell’s box just draws you over and makes you want to open it up to see what it inside. It does not disappoint. The little forest that is created with the three dimensional Evertree looming over the board makes it even more exciting to play. The resources are a tactile experience you will never forget. I have not met one person yet who hasn’t touched one of the berries yet and exclaimed, Oh! They’re squishy. All of this is enhanced with the cards, each with it own masterpiece or either a woodland creature or the structure they would live in on it. The only complaint I have about the cards is that the print on them is a little small, making it difficult to read sometimes, but this a minor flaw that a pair of good reading glasses can fix.
Wingspan also has an impressive collection of cards. Each card has a different picture of a bird on it with informative bits about where the bird comes from, its wingspan, and an interesting fact about each of them. Each player is given their own board with a nice landscape painted on it, but it looks a little boring until the cards get played on it as well as the eggs. Then it starts to look impressive. The food is not as exciting as they are punched out circles of cardboard, but the special dice that come with the game are fun. And if that wasn’t fun enough, the three dimensional bird-feeder that you use to roll the dice adds a lot to the aesthetics of the game.
Though both games are pretty to look at, I hear more about the artwork with Everdell than I do with Wingspan. I know it is the most subjective thing with this review, but I have to agree with those people that are drawn more to Everdell. I love the artwork, and would even love to have some of the paintings framed and placed on my wall. And I didn’t even talk about how great the meeples are that come with the game. This one easily goes to Everdell.
INTERACTIVITY
One of the reasons that I got back into board games after being away from them for so long is because it gave me an opportunity to interact with my wife in a different way when we were stuck in the house for so long without any contact from other people. When Covid restrictions loosened and things opened up again, I also wanted to have a great excuse to have my friends back over to my house to play some games. I was a little nervous when I started looking at both of these games because Euro-games are not known for their interactivity. Players can be off doing their own thing without others worrying about what is going on in their individual boards.
I would have to say that this was my biggest complaint with Wingspan. I never looked over at other players’ boards and there were only a couple of ways that we could interact with each other. The biggest way that you can mess with other players is with the bird-feeder. You can take something that they might want, but that only happened a couple of times during the course of the game. Though I find this to be a disadvantage, some people might like this because it will make the game more friendly. You are not going to worry too much if you are hurting your friends’ feelings by doing something mean.
This kind of friendliness is also there in Everdell. There are enough spots to place your workers, especially early in the game, that you will not interfere much in other players’ plans. When the game builds and you collect more workers, then things start to get a little more crowded, and the jostling for position becomes a little more intense, but for the most part, it is still a friendly game. I think they found a sweet spot in their interactivity here though that places this as one of the more enjoyable Eurogames that I have ever played, and Everdell wins this category because of this.
EXPANSIONS
When a game is new and shiny, I always want to pull it out to play it again and again, and ignore the other, older games that I have collected. The publishers know this and want to make sure that you are always pulling their games off of the shelf to play, so they add expansions to add new twists on an old game to make it feel new again. Both Wingspan and Everdell know this, and have periodically added expansions to their games. Wingspan has added bird sets with European birds and Oceania birds. The expansions add a new collection of cards with birds from these areas in the world as well as the nectar resource to add a new dynamic to the game. The cards are worth it because they add new skills to the engine and create new combinations that make the game fresh.
Everdell also has added three expansions with the fourth coming out soon. Each one of them connects to the board to allow it to spread out on the table even more, making it really important that you have a big table if you wish to play with these. Each of the three adds a new dimension to the game with Pearlbrook adding a new worker with a special ability, Spirecrest making the change of seasons move in the game more exciting, and Bellfaire adding some asymmetric gameplay for each one of the woodland creatures that you can play. They recommend that you only play one of the expansions at a time, but this is a suggestion, and it makes for a really intense gaming experience.
All of the expansions make both games fresh, but the gameplay really changes with Everdell making it almost a new game with each expansion you add. Not all expansions are equal for this game with Spirecrest being the best of all of them. It does get a little pricey, but Everdell’s expansions are worth it.
OVERALL IMPRESSION
I know this review lends itself to saying that Everdell is a better game, and I do think it is. It is harder to find, and Wingspan seems to have made it all the way to the shelves of Targets as well as your local game stores. Even though I do think Everdell is a better game, it only barely edges out Wingspan in each of these categories. The ideal would be to have both games in your collection because they are both different enough and easy enough to learn that anybody can pick them up and play instantly. Both of them do take at least two play throughs before you can really wrap you head around the engine, but if you can only afford one and both of them are in front of you, I would go with Everdell.
Castle Rock used to be this small town in-between Denver and Colorado Springs on the I-25 corridor. It took a little bit of time to get to, but it was always a fun little place to visit. Things have changed over the years, and slowly the metropolitan area of Denver continued to spread south and eventually incorporated this small town. There is still a little divide that happens on your way there, but you really have to pay attention to notice when it happens. Basically the spaces that have existed along the Front Range in Colorado have been slipping away and soon the I-25 corridor will become one big city. The unnamed They have been talking about it for years, and I never thought I would see it through my lifetime, but now that I have not seen this part of the world for over two years, I have really noticed it happening.
My brother recently moved into a new house in this sliver of space that still exists between towns. It officially belongs to Castle Rock, but it is easier and quicker to get to downtown Parker than it takes to get to downtown Castle Rock. It makes it really hard to figure out exactly which community you are a part of. My brother told me that the place is actually making its own traditions and building its own sense of community, but it will take some time before all of they all take hold. Until then, the old farms and ranches that used to own this land are still in the distance reminding people of a time when this place used to be something completely different.
I get why this farms and ranches are selling off pieces of their lands right now, especially in places like Colorado, Washington, or Oregon. People are flocking to these places in the United States and builders cannot throw up the houses fast enough to accommodate the influx. The price of that land has grown exponentially and it is really hard to turn down a big wad of cash when somebody comes along and asks you to build on the land. It will take awhile but all of this land will become a sprawling suburban center filled with large houses and people creating a community.
It makes me wonder if we are losing or gaining something by doing this. There is a natural beauty that will be replaced by manicured lawns. There is a free roaming of wildlife that will be replaced by a community of neighborly Americans. Do we want the landscape or do we want the community? They both have their advantages and from what I have seen with this new community and other ones in Castle Rock, they have done a good job of incorporating both aspects together to let the beauty of the American landscape blend together with the beauty of the American people, and I hope more places going through the same growing pains try to establish that same balance.
I am already thinking about winter. It was one of the chores that I knew I had to do while I was in the United States because I knew that the clothes I had shipped to Jordan from Thailand would only be appropriate during the first couple of months out there, and then I would need some long sleeves, pants, and hats. I had some of that stuff in Thailand because my thought was we would travel to cooler places to get away from the tropical heat, but then, Covid. So I do have a weeks worth of clothes that will allow me survive in those conditions, and they are not for the really cold temperature that Amman can sometimes get to.
So this is why I have been thinking about winter.
Growing up in Colorado, and visiting Oregon often means that I do have these clothes, but I pushed them in some boxes and bags and left them in storage some place in one of these two states, and even then, I am not sure where I left them in those states. It has been a little game of hide and seek so far this summer, rummaging through this box and that one trying to find what I know is out there, and yesterday, I went to my storage unit in Colorado.
Lo and behold, I found the missing clothes among piles of things that I am not sure what they are anymore. This little game made me realize what has become of my life, and my things as they are strewn across the world. Of course right now I am living out of bags and have to rummage through them every morning to find the things that I need to be a part of society. I have some rare discs and records tucked away in a closet at my parents’ house, and a couple boxes of random stuff at my in-laws’ house. And somewhere, en route, there is a shipping container full of more stuff and things finding its way to my new place in Jordan. I have truly become a man of the world, and like a teenager does in their room, I have left myself wherever I just happen to drop it.
While looking at my stuff, and all of the places where it is, I am constantly thinking about a story I taught a couple of times early in my teaching career by D.H. Lawrence called “Things”. It told the story of a couple who started taking teaching jobs overseas. Of course, they did not want to bring all of their stuff with them, so they put some stuff in storage here, and other things in storage over there. They bought art and mementos along the way, but they did not have a place in their house to display them, so they stored those in other countries. They ended up having places all over the world to hold their stuff for them. I now thing of that story and realize that I am now living it. (I will put a link to the story at the end of the post if you are interested to read for yourself.)
There are a couple of themes that could be looked at while reading this story, but the one that stuck with me and the one that I always return to is how we no longer own our possessions, but instead they start to own us. Part of the lives of these characters was to tend to their things, and I am participating in the same ritual. Some of these things are easy to attend to; whereas, others are going to be a surprise when I return to them years later. I will have forgotten that I have some of these things, and it will be like a return to Christmas when I find them again. But it makes me start to wonder how much of it I really need, and how much of it I can give away.
My wife and I always talk about going to the storage unit every summer and reorganizing it to move to a smaller storage unit, but something always comes up that makes us put that off for another year. Basically, it is easier to maintain my things than to deal with them, but someday I will have to deal with them. Until then, I will just lock the door to the storage unit, push that box in the corner of the room where I found it, and track my shipment over the internet until it arrives, and I will continue to play this game with my things.
I can once again find west. All I have to find the mountains and I know which direction I am pointing. It makes a Colorado boy feel like they are home. During the summer, another part of home for a person that grew up on the south side of Denver is visiting the place where all of our water comes from, Chatfield Reservoir. Any time I came out here to visit, it meant that I had reached the farthest spot in the south west portion of the metropolitan area. There were a couple of buildings past the waters that were collected here, but they were highly restricted areas owned by Martin Marietta, but a lot has changed since I have been back. The boom in the area has caused housing to spring up all over the place, but nothing has been able to touch this treasure because long ago, the ones in charge decided to give this big plot of land state park status.
It has always held the distinction of being one of Denver’s playgrounds during the summer months. There are other reservoir that people flock to depending on where they are located in this ever-growing city, but for those of us on the south side, it was always Chatfield. The water rises and lowers depending on how much rain the state is getting, and when I went out there, it was the deepest I have ever seen it. Most of the time the man made beaches would stretch past a line of cottonwood trees, but the water had reached the roots of these trees. Apparently, Colorado has received an excess of rain this year, and all of the reservoirs are reaching the same levels. It was almost as if the dry weather that Colorado usually gets was traded to Oregon this summer for its rain.
People are taking advantage of this fact this year and Chatfield was also a lot more crowded than I remember it being. It could also have been that it was a long holiday weekend and people were getting in their last hurrahs before heading back to work the next day. I hung out at the Roxborough Cove where many kayakers and paddle-boarders come to spend the day. There are a lot of places along the coast where people can set up their day camps as they go out on the water and come back in for a little bit of time. Most of the people bring their own boards or kayaks, but they are available for rent as well. I would suggest to reserve them ahead of time because they are not always available if you just show up. They even have instructors that will give you a couple of pointers before yo shove off.
This is not the only activity that happens at the reservoir. Many people bring their motor boats out and spend the day on them. There are a bunch of no wake zones, mainly Roxborough Cove and the Gravel Pools, but motor boats can still slowly make their way into these areas even though I rarely see that. Most of the time they come out to speed around the center of the water as they take people out waterskiing. Or they look for the deeper parts of the reservoir where they can catch a few fish as there is always a good amount of them in the water.
Some people take the trip even further and make plans to spend a couple of days there. There are some campsites available. I haven’t used them in a long time, and I remember them not being that great. They do have all the facilities that a camper could need, but the rest of the city is always around you and the shrubbery does not lend itself to a beautiful landscape. But if you are there to get to the water quickly in the morning, it is a great option to have.
Chatfield Reservoir is a great getaway spot for a hot summer’s day. It is not far from anybody living on the south end of Denver, so there are always people flocking to this spot. There is a fee for anybody wishing to bring their car in, but they let bikes and runners just blow past the check-in station. It beats sitting around the house all day and it brought back many memories by making it out there again while also seeing how it has grown and matured over the years. It will always remain a staple of southwest Denver, and I can’t wait to get back there again some day.
Hau Hin a couple of months before the pandemic started
I know I have said in the past that I am more of a mountain man rather than an ocean man, but that does not mean that I don’t appreciate a good beach, and Thailand has a lot of them. It does have mountainous terrain to the north and I do enjoy those places, but it is mainly the beaches that I will remember from my stay of living in Thailand.
Kata Beach on Phuket island
I was pretty lucky also. Most of the time, the beaches in Thailand are crowded with people and it can be hard to stake out a place on the sandy shore. But than Covid happened, and the usual stream of tourists were no longer allowed to come into the country, giving the beaches back to the locals who should have a chance to enjoy them as well.
Rayong! I don’t need to say more
This meant that there were many times we had the beach to ourselves. It is an odd thing to see, a long stretch of sand next to the warm, tropical waters just begging for toes to be dipped in. Most of the time, this was a welcoming sight, but there was a little bit of a down side to this as well. The Thai people usually do a good job making sure these beaches are pristine and free of trash, but with the loss of the tourist dollar, they were not able to keep all of the beaches clean. That meant it was a hit or miss affair where sometimes the beach would be clean, and there were other times where I had to watch where I was walking because I didn’t always know what I would be stepping on.
A monitor lizard on Koh Lipe island
But on those beaches that were clean and the people were still not flocking to them, there was another sight that wasn’t as common in the past, wildlife had returned. Of course, I still saw the crab scuttle along the beach, or the birds flying just off the shore, looking for a quick bite, but I also saw monkeys and monitor lizards just basking in the summer sun. It meant that any time I went to a beach, a new adventure was just around the corner.
Princess Beach on Railay
The beaches were only just a place to walk and lie in the sand, but there were many opportunities for water sports as well. I went snorkeling a few times, and paddle-boarding as well, but my favorite activity had to be kayaking. The rentals of these were still available in most places, and sometimes they were even a free service with the hotel we were staying at. It was a great way to explore the coastline and see other beaches that sometimes were not easy to get to.
Nai Harn Beach on Phuket island
Even if I did not have access to any of these floatation devices, I could still run out and play in the water. During the summer months on the southern beaches, the surf was pretty big on some of the beaches. What surfers that were still in the country made their ways down to these beaches to catch these waves, but there was still plenty of space for people like me who love to jump into the oncoming waves and keep my balance. I know it is not the safest activity in the world with the danger of the undertow, but it is probably one of my favorite things to do on a beach.
A sunrise on Koh Lipe island
And with all of that available, the beaches in Thailand are the perfect place to lay back with a good book and relax. I know that there are many places out there in the world that offer the same kind of relaxation but I really fell in love with this activity in Thailand. The country does really have some beautiful landscapes and I know that they will get overcrowded again as things start opening up all around the world, but I will always look back fondly on the ways that I was able to enjoy the beaches while I was living in Thailand, and it will definitely be one of the things that I will miss from there.
The time I spend in Oregon always seems a little short. It feels like I get there and before I know it, I need to move on again. Most of the time I get there after a long grueling time of work, and I need a big break. By the time I leave, I feel well rested and ready to take on another year of teaching.
This time was no different.
I spent most of my time in Central Oregon during my last visit, and though it was incredibly hot while I was there, I still found time to get among the forests and mountains that surrounded me. It was exactly what I needed. I have learned a lot about myself over the last couple of years, as I am sure that many people have. The biggest thing that I learned after spending time on beaches and diving in the ocean is that I am a mountain man. I need those rugged landscapes, and the opportunity to play in the lakes and trails that take me to hidden gems.
Oregon allowed me to visit these again after a long time away from them.
I also learned that I am a dog person. I really always knew this already, but after spending a good month with Maggie, a new dog that my in-laws rescued, I got remember how great it is to have a dog around all the time. She was a little nervous around me as she is with all males, but after a month of getting used to me being around, she started to allow me to pet her and even put a leash on her to take her out on a walk. We created a bond that I hope she does not forget about by the next time I come around again.
That unconditional companionship brings a smile to my face even thinking about it.
Even though I have been to Oregon on numerous occasions, I am still able to be surprised by the beauty that it has to offer. Around any corner in the central part of the state, I don’t know what I will find around it. It might be the perfect landscape picture. It might be a herd of deer or elk frozen in jump waiting for one of us to make or move. Or it might be a rainbow reaching over the trees framing one of my favorite places in the world.
Thank you, Oregon, for the time I got to spend with you, and I look forward to the next time we will meet again.
As my time in Oregon started to come to a close, I took the opportunity to get out on one of its many lakes one last time before I am able to get back out here. I am pretty sure that it will be in a year, but I have said stuff like that before and was disappointed in the results. I also don’t see another world wide catastrophe happen again any time soon that would cause me to delay this plan, but at the same time I understand that I need to make the most out of the moments while they are still available.
This time I went behind the Sisters and up by Mount Bachelor, one of Oregon’s premiere ski resorts, to check out one of those lakes. There are many lakes in this area, and I have been to Elk Lake before even though that was many years ago, so I decided to check out the other big lake they have out there, Sparks Lake. This is one of the more popular lakes in the area, and is one of the ones that allow motor boats though they cannot travel faster than ten miles per hour while out on the lake.
I was really surprised that they allowed motors out on this lake, and I didn’t see anybody out there with one while I spent the day there. The lake is sprawling and it is rather deceptive about the area that it covers. I entered on the eastern side of the lake, and the water was not that deep over there. In fact, there were many times that I was worried that I would beach my kayak as I tried to navigate through the weeds and the rocks that were all over the place. I couldn’t imagine how difficult this would be if there was a motor attached to the boat. I think most of the people that were out there thought the same way, and that is why the whole lake was covered with canoes, kayaks, and paddle boards.
Once I got over to the other side of the lake, the depth changed and landscape changed drastically. There were many places over on this side where I could not see the bottom, and there were a lot of little tributaries that I could explore. The coastline of the lake was also covered with lava rock that gave for many interesting formations to stare at and ponder. As I looked closer at the coast I could also see a yellow line where the pollen in the area showed where the height of the water reached recently. It shocked me to see that the water in the lake was easily a foot or two below where it usually rested. It explained the problem that was occurring with other side of the lake and why the water was so shallow. It also reminded me how dry Oregon has been this year, and makes me worried about what might happen in the next couple of months if they do not start getting some rain.
That did not stop the wildlife making its way to the lake. You have to look carefully in this picture, but beyond the ducks, there are a couple of deer grazing on the edge of the lake. I tried to get a little closer to get a better picture, but as soon as they heard me creeping closer, they dashed off into the wilderness. I am sure that on any given day out there, the opportunity to see the wildlife is always present which just adds to what this lake has to offer.
Sparks Lake is a treasure, and a great place to go out kayaking on. Just to warn you though, I have been told that it gets rather busy during the summer and it might be hard to find a place to park. It is also a little more rustic than other lakes in the region, but there are plenty of places to camp, and if you get there early enough you should be able to stake out your own spot somewhere along the shore. The road in has not been groomed recently, so if you are going out there, you will want to go with an SUV or truck though I did see a couple of sedans struggle up the path just fine. It will probably be really busy during the Fourth of July weekend, but after that, it is a great day trip if you find yourself in Bend or the surrounding area.
Don’t get me wrong. It is pretty cool, and it is fun to have this dedicated place where you can get a drink, and a choice of some delicious food from five or six options. But I did not know that food truck stops have become such a big thing. I traveled down to Bend last night to visit with an old friend at one of these places, and along the way I could see a collection of food trucks gathered together like a small herd at many locations along the way. According the local news, there are even more of these spots all over Bend. I was even invited to go to a different one while I was staying outside of Portland but couldn’t make it because I was still under quarantine protocol at the time.
My point is that I have been away from the country for a couple of years, and all of a sudden, it has become a thing. I know that the food truck is not a new thing. It had been around long before John Favreau highlighted the story of a man’s adventure with one in his great movie, Chef, and I had even eaten from a few of them from time to time. I also knew that there were places where they would gather in order to sell their feasts; I had visited them in Colorado and Seoul, but usually during some kind of festival so they had a reason for gathering. It is just that they are all over the place now, and seem to be more ubiquitous than a regular restaurant, especially in the Central Oregon area.
The one I went to last night was called On Tap, and it was located by the St. Charles hospital underneath the shadow of Pilot Butte in the eastern part of Bend. It boasts of having the most beer on tap than any other location in Bend, even though it does not brew any of the beer that it serves. Most of the selection comes from local breweries even though I did see a couple from the east coast and one from Colorado on the list. They also had a nice selection of wines, and various ciders (which has also become a thing while I was gone). You go up to the counter, order your drink from a couple of pushy bartenders (they could have been a little more patient as I read through the selection), and then find a spot at one of the many picnic tables found on their grounds. It has a very communal atmosphere, and I would imagine would be even better if people did not have to socially distance themselves due to the straggling effects of the pandemic still lingering on. I don’t know what happens during the winter. The bar is located in a permanent structure that can be closed up with some seating still available, but the amount is severely reduced because of this. But then again, Bend is a big tourist destination during the summer, so maybe On Tap can make a bigger chunk of its money during these months, and allow that to give them what they need to coast during the rest of year.
The food I had was really good as well. I had a shrimp po’ boy, and it was nice to have some cajun food again after not seeing a place where you could get for so long. It was really tasty though I wish it could have a little bit more of a kick with it, but then again I am in the Pacific Northwest, and this is not something that is always offered with the food out here. They had a lot of other selections as well with vegetarian, Mexican, Asian fusion, bar-b-q, and Philly cheese steak sandwiches. Of course, I couldn’t taste it all, but the food that I saw being carried around all looked delicious.
Families and dogs were even welcomed. I saw many children run and duck through the tables, and they even gathered on the grassy patch at the far end for a game of tag. The dogs were always looking for a piece of dropped food or a pat on the head from the people passing by. The food, drink, outdoors, and people created the perfect atmosphere for a great summer evening. It does not mean that I will hunt out another one of these herds every night, but I would enjoy finding different ones, or coming back to this one so I could try some of the other cuisine. It was all around a fun evening.
I guess I now understand why this has become a thing.
In the land without air conditioning, many people are asking themselves how to stay cool during this period of unprecedented heat. If have heard some unique solutions to that problem, some of which I am sure worked and some that might still be in the developmental stage. Some people would sleep with ice packs wrapped around a towel and resting on their necks. Some people would stand in front of the open freezer, or if they were lucky enough to be at a place that had them, would spend time in a walk-in cooler. Some people would run over to the faucet in their kitchen every once in a while to run the head underneath the cool running water. The main thing that everybody in the Pacific Northwest had in common the last couple of days has been that they have been looking for a way to beat the heat.
One of the most obvious ones has been the neighborhood pool. It is a staple that can be found in many of the communities across America, and it is on days like these ones that it really brings the community together. All of the neighbors can come to this place to shed their work clothes for a more casual approach, relax in the shade with the good company of neighbors or a book, and cool off in the water with family or friends. All pretensions seem to melt away at this place, and people can really just enjoy themselves. The place is made for relaxation, and becomes hard to do anything else while being there.
Growing up, this is where I would spend most of my days during the summer. Both my mother and father worked, and they did not want anybody at our house while they were away. They did allow us to go to the pool though and we would arrange to meet all of our friends over there during the day. I know now that it was because we could be supervised while we were there, but I look at how the herds of children move around the pools now and think back to those days when I was among their numbers. It amazes me how we could be easily entertained all summer long by diving after different things we would throw in the deep end, or show off our skills by jumping and eventually diving off the diving boards, or playing intricate games of keep away with all of the other kids in the neighborhood. They have become some of my favorite childhood memories.
The pool that we went to had ten minutes at the end of every hour designated for adult swims. It was basically a time during every hour where nobody would be in the pool and we always wondered why they would do this if nobody took advantage of it. I wonder if it is still a thing at some pools because I have not run into it for years, and I still can’t think of what the purpose of this time was. Even though I would complain about it as a kid, I still enjoyed those ten minutes every hour. It was a time where we get our drenched bodies out of the water and lay down directly on the hot concrete around the pool. That heat always felt so good on the skin, and I remember enjoying the way it would dry me off after a good hour of swimming.
The Snack Shack was also a favorite of ours. We would scrape together our nickels, dimes, and quarters, and bring them with us every time we went to the pool so we could spend it on candy. A snickers bar got quickly devoured; whereas, a box of nerds became a treasure that we would slowly share with everybody else in the group as we experimented with the combinations of all the different fruit flavors. It is probably where I developed the sweet tooth that I still have today.
I may not be as active when I go to the pool anymore, but I still enjoy going. I’ll hop in every once in awhile to cool down while trying to find a corner where I can talk with my wife while avoiding all the kids that are around. (Maybe that is what adult swim is for.) Most of the time, you will find me in the shade with a good book, and of course, I will always find a reason to visit the Snack Shack if they have one. Nothing exciting every happens at the neighborhood pool, but that does not mean that I still don’t get excited to go to it when I have a chance. I am glad that I had one growing up, and if you find that you have one in your neighborhood, you might want to think about checking it out a couple times this summer, just to see what they are all about.
John Collings 