A Trail in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest
I’m back from my trip up north to Washington State. Judy and I spent four days in a primitive cabin (no electricity, no water) in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest that the Forest Service rents out. My family used to go to this area often, and I still love it. It’s in a thick forest—undeveloped wilderness.
Once again, I found that getting some distance from the book helped to clarify some important issues that were slowing me down. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. The path keeps leading me to the answers. I’m back at work on the outline now and hope to make rapid progress.
When I got back from the cabin, I learned of an amazing coincidence. While in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest I went to visit another old cabin that my grandmother once owned. I used to spend part of every summer there. The cabin is no longer in the family, and I had some questions of the new owners. I left a note on the door asking them, if they would be so kind, to get in touch. Shortly after I got home I received an email from a woman who told me she’d found the note on the door and thought my name sounded familiar. Later that day, she started reading a book she’d picked up at the library expressly for her stay at the cabin and realized that the author of the book and the author of the note had the same name. She didn’t think much about it until she came to a passage in the book about a cabin in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest that the author used to spend his summers in. The book was, of course, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. Neat, huh?
