Failure...Failure...Failure...Failure...Failure...Success!!!

Good God, sweet Jesus, Buddha and Mohammad! I did it!

I have finally successfully booked a 3 night stay at a Lookout tower! A three year quest completed! At one point, maybe the fifth time I had set my alarm for 6:55am and had been usurped again from my rightful place in the woods (I just didn't care about the freaking Lookout tower anymore) I knew this wasn't about camping anymore.  This is not the way to start out for a relaxing trip away from town.  But my competitive nature greatly outweighed my desire to camp in a Lookout tower--and I couldn't stop once I'd started.  I've been determined to WIN the Lookout tower no matter how long it took--and it got a little ridiculous. 

Relavent Backstory:
I moved to Portland in 1991 having never even seen a picture of the city (note the date: pre-ubiquitous internet availability). I needed to move to a town or city far enough away from the Bay Area that no one could visit me casually, but close enough that I could visit the Bay Area when I felt like it. I applied and was accepted to the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA). Even though I was fairly physically active at the time of the move, I am more sedentary by nature—and I believed the rain culture would serve me well. I like reading and drawing, watching TV--stuff that I can do in bed. California is outdoorsy in a weird vanity-driven way, and I wasn’t interested in being tan or buff or wearing neon spandex. Rain seemed like an excellent excuse for remaining indoors.
 
I quickly learned that rain was no excuse for an Oregonian remaining indoors.
 
In my ignorance, I had no idea I was moving to Outdoorsy Central. Many people ONLY live in the Portland area for the amazing access to the multi-faceted outdoor life. Within 60-90 minutes one can drive to the mountain for mountain-related activities, one can go to the beach for beach stuff, or one can go into the Columbia Gorge for Gorge-things. In case you don't know, this covers a lot.
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Mt. Hood and Portland

Oregon Coast

Columbia Gorge

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When I first arrived, I wasn't really interested in any of these things.  However, I met a lot of people who were. I found myself tromping through a wood, wading in a river, walking next to an ocean, bathing in a hot springs, riding on a bike, hanging on a rope, scrabbling on a rock, stomping down a trail...It was here, in Portland, that I first discovered a part of myself I had never really known: I hate doing most of these activities. They last too long. The sitting down part was okay, but everyone always wanted to walk or bike everywhere--on trails no one had ever seen to places no one had ever gone. I found it exhausting. My favorite thing to do really was to get loaded--and drugs and alcohol worked just as well in the city as anywhere else. In fact, drugs and alcohol worked better in the city than anywhere else. I loved the city more than I loved the woods. I felt connected to the city the same way a lot of people feel connected to nature. I spent a lot of time in the industrial areas of Portland, in the Warehouse district, the night- night- night-life of music and art openings and performance. Bars, small music venues, tiny cheap restaurants---these were the small out of the way places I sought—walking streets few had walked and going places few had gone. Only I could drive there in my car and get home a million different ways. I wasn’t trying to be cool or alternative or hip—I was trying to get my needs met. I needed drugs, I needed alcohol and I needed noise. Nature can be so quiet and my brain felt so loud---I craved anything that shut that racket down.
 

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​I would be willing to camp or hike or climb if there was the promise of that chemically induced oblivion—but most nature folks weren’t into the quantities I was into. They might want to sit on the beach at sunset* and share a joint between 5 people, or maybe share a bottle of wine between a couple of people---and it was never enough for me! I would find myself stuck in these unbearable situations, out at the fucking beach or in the middle of the God-damned woods --not one liquor store in sight, not one dealer lurking in a corner ready to sell; jonesing for that next drink. It was only fun for me if I knew I had enough of what I wanted—and I rarely gauged that correctly. Even if I planned ahead, I often thought there was enough—but there wasn’t. I didn’t know that there would never be enough of what I didn’t need—but I learned that later. If I didn’t believe that I could voluntarily score more of whatever I needed, I felt the lack. As you might imagine, it was difficult for me to feel secure outside of the city. The City held a promise for me that Nature never could.
 
Plus “city clothes” are so much cooler than “fancy-pants outdoor gear”.
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                                VS.

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​Portland, in 1991, by the way, had a SPECTACULAR city culture for a 21-year-old art student, and after a while I rarely felt the need to go to the outlands. Portland was a city that was strongly defined by youth and innovation. If had not yet fully established itself for a new age and it was constantly seeking new territory. It was NOT Seattle, nor did it want to be. It was its own thing—driven by people who did not want to be anywhere but where they were. It was affordable, accessible and alive. I’ve stated before that I was born in Boston, I grew up in San Francisco, I’ve lived in Paris and Washington DC, I’ve spent time in large international metropolitan cities—and Portland was like nothing I had ever seen—like no where I had ever been. It was so easy to slip into it and be a part of it---it was not holding onto something it had been—it was looking forward to where it was going. I loved it. And I loved getting loaded in it. Life was perfect.

Portland circa 1991

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​So…how did I get from there to here? Details don’t always matter---suffice it to say, I am sober now, trying to live a spiritually principled life. I have cleared away decades of wreckage and made a certain peace with my past. My brain, that over-used tool, always thinking, my constant enemy—is gradually quieting down. My need for noise has greatly lessened. My desire for ongoing distraction from self can now be achieved in different ways. And, even though I still yearn to check out, I don’t use drugs and alcohol to do it anymore. I have other ways of navigating my life. Conscious ways.
 
The biggest surprise I’ve had in a long time came shortly after my husband and I purchased the Vernonia property. We were going out there regularly to work on our cabin and other tasks and I started to realize not only how quiet it was, but also how good the silence felt. I’d never experienced silence as a relief, really. The more quiet time I’ve “logged” in my life, the more chaotic and noisy the city has become.
 
Suddenly, getting out of town and going somewhere peaceful has a great allure. 
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Vernonia circa now
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​So, that ALMOST brings us back to the topic at hand: the epic tale of booking a 3-night stay at Fivemile Butte Lookout tower.
 
The subject that exists between my early life in Portland and the quest for the Lookout tower is this: how the city of Portland and the surrounding area have changed dramatically.
 
Like I said, I didn’t recreate a lot then and I don’t recreate a lot now—I have only heard stories of how things have changed in the mountains, at the ocean, in the Gorge. The fact that it took me technically 3 years to book a Lookout tower (2 months of sustained planning and scheming) is what brought it home: there are way too many people here in the Pacific Northwest. So many, in fact, that it has changed the tenor of how it feels to live here. This city is not set up to support the amount of in-coming citizens. I’ve heard people say Portland now has all the problems of a major metropolitan city without the benefits of such a metropolis.
 
There are at least 19 Lookout towers in Oregon alone, most available 365 days a year. In order to book one I’ve had to plan ahead in six month increments. I’ve had to set an alarm on my phone to wake me up a 6:55am (9:55am EST) so I can log-in to recreation.gov and prepare to battle. Every time I clicked “Book This Date” at exactly 7:00am, someone had beaten me to it. And every time I would check the next relevant six-month date and set another alarm. I had lists of dates on my refrigerator for various Lookout towers--
 
Green Ridge Dec 20 Dec 25 Dec 27 Jan 2
Indian Ridge Dec 30 Jan 4 Jan 9
Fivemile Butte Dec 18 Dec 25 Jan 1 Jan 7 Jan 9 Jan 11

I made notes on my computer to access webpages quickly:
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​The trouble was I only had one shot each time a date came up. If Green Ridge and Fivemile Butte came up on the same day, I could only try for one because the other would be gone by seconds after the hour.
 
That’s how I know my competitive nature out lasted my need to camp in a Lookout tower---I just didn’t give a crap about camping anymore—I wanted to WIN. Win the tower. It became a puzzle, a game, a riddle—and I was going to keep trying until I booked one.
 
And then, suddenly, after all this planning and action--just like that, I got one! On this particular morning at 6:55am I decided to employ an eBay tactic: keep clicking over and over, starting before the appropriate time and hope that my click would be the one to be right on that line when the clock turned…and it must have worked because--I WON.
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The Winner!

​I still get this rush of pride and bewilderment when I remember I don’t have to set my alarm anymore.  When I told my son for the first time he pretended to faint he was so impressed (he’s good to me!) My family is now used to me suddenly yelling out, “I got a Lookout tower!!”
 
I feel a little sheepish—like driving through rush hour traffic to get to a yoga class. (My gramma used to say, “Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait!”) But, like I said, this was more about winning than anything else.
 
Winning accomplished!
 
But the lingering bitterness over the necessity of the effort is a little disconcerting.