Encamped at the Prairie of the Tea

"And by encamped," I wrote in the email to my friend in New York. "I mean staying at the Best Western in Washougal, next to La prairie du thé."

My friend knew my location from that. He knew the Portland area well. He had been born here and had grown up here. At one time, a few years back, he was the Oregonian and I the New Yorker. Now our roles were almost reserved, at least for now, in some curious fashion.

We were old friends. My reference to la prairie du thé bespoke of an inside joke-reference between him and me, but one I'd have to explain later, because it was so obscure, even to myself. It had to do with the coincidence of deciding to blow off seeing Fort Vancouver the week before, just a few miles downriver. That place had once been the object of a completely different road trip.

My hotel there in Washougal was only a hundred yards from the Columbia. My room looked out on the green hills on the Oregon side, and the water that sparkled when the sun was out (about half the time). Next to the hotel was the Parkersville Historical Site, from the early part of the Nineteenth Century. I learned from the signs there that Washougal is the grassy area where the American traders bypassed the British authorities at Fort Vancouver, effectively allowing an American invasion of the Oregon Country. And then there was the tea thing. But that was a different life.

He was on the rebel side now, and also on the Washington side of the river. He told his friend, who was ironically staying up the Hudson, that he felt more comfortable where he now was. He could breathe. The wind up the gorge felt as if it connected one to the outside world.