Last week, I was driving in the rain from Oregon into Washington State along a road that I’ll call the “Terror Mountain Pass.”
Trailing in the wake of water-spitting eighteen-wheelers, I could barely see through my windshield, and had little expectation of surviving my trip, let alone being transported into raptures of joy
Once or twice as I drove, I snuck an admiring glance at the Columbia River, or I risked a glimpse at cascading waterfalls, but for the most part, my appreciation of the landscape was limited to two thoughts: One. There sure are a lot of electric lines, telephone poles, hydroelectric dams, and traffic along this winding road. Two. I wish I had been paddling a canoe down the river about a hundred years ago, instead of driving alongside it now.
Which doesn’t mean that I begrudge civilization.
Certainly, my client could never have sent me from New York to Portland, and from Portland to Yakima, Washington on the back of a mule. I value airplanes, cell phones, and four-wheel drive vehicles capable of driving through everything short of an apocalypse. And as to Global Positioning Systems, I would sooner give up my mid-morning cup of coffee (for which I live) than surrender my dashboard GPS.
I couldn’t complain about the scenery, either. Fierce mountains and sun-glazed rivers evoked happy memories of John Ford Westerns. The view was panoramic, and I enjoyed a pleasant sense of Hollywood familiarity.
What surprised me, however, was an inescapable feeling of … ho hum.
Gorgeous scenery. So what? Shimmering river. So what? Craggy mountains. So what? Curving highway precipices. So what?
That feeling of detached neutrality accompanied me all the way to Yakima, and continued hours later, on my trip back. Even though it had stopped raining, I was afraid to drive through the “Terror Mountain Pass” at night, and determined to get back to Portland before dark.
I was about 70 miles south of Yakima and pretty much taking for granted the unrelenting sameness of the scenery when I rounded a curve.
Suddenly, there was no more sameness.
My jaw-dropped and my heart flew to my mouth. Off to my left were windmills. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Like gigantic white pinwheels, crowned with stylized blades that revolved with lackadaisical grace in an imperceptible wind. The windmills crested undulating hills; they staggered up gentle slopes; they peered majestically down into gorges.
They dominated the sky.
