When traveling in an RV, some days are simply moving from one place to another while on a journey towards a distant destination. There is nothing entertaining about these hours, and you have to create your own fun to stay alert when everything starts to look the same. This is why I have my Dead Armadillo Count, though it has now morphed into counting dead skunks, the benefit being you can smell them long before you see them.
Last night, Frank and I camped outside of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Though famous for its stunning lake, for us it was no more than a waystation where we would eat, sleep, and get diesel before embarking on a less-than-remarkable ride to Winthrop, Washington, another place I assumed would be eat, sleep, diesel-up, and go.
On some days, I have specific plans to stop at points of interest, especially the weird ones, but none were on tap for today, so the universe was left to its own devices to deliver something incredible, and it did not disappoint.
After driving through miles and miles of golden wheat fields, around noon we were passing through the micro-dot town of Wilbur, Washington, and an old neon sign that could still manage a bit of glimmer caught our eye. Billy’s Burgers held the promise of everything we love about Main Street, family-owned restaurants, so we turned Wanda into its dirt parking lot.
When we opened the door, it was clear we had found our spot. It was a classic ‘lost-in-time’ place where orders are taken at the counter and then delivered to your table by a fresh-faced teenage boy. The small room was over air-conditioned and decorated with dozens of salt and pepper shakers, some no longer culturally appropriate. Plastic table covers left over from the Fourth of July were still in use.
The smell of sizzling burgers and the sound of fresh cut fries hitting hot grease reminded me of Matthew’s Grill, a little place near where I grew up. I can still see the owner, Mr. Worth, as plain as day. Wearing a stained white apron, he made the perfect, icy-cold chocolate milkshake, and on most weekends, I would get to enjoy its thick flow through a paper straw while surrounded by a halo of smoke from my parent’s cigarettes.
Perusing the menu, I thought it odd and out-of-place that one of their selections was named The Alien Burger, but when we sat down, I saw a plaque on the wall that read, “Wilbur’s Crop Circles, Thanks to all the Aliens Who made Wilbur their Vacation Destination.”
Hold the phone. Crop circles? Well, duh. With all that wheat we had just seen, Wilbur was the perfect place for aliens to set up their visible-from-space, silent-signal operation. I leapt to my feet to go read newspaper clippings that were framed beneath the plaque.
Sure enough, Wilbur has been a hot spot for the mathematically perfect crop circles to appear, though there are more doubters than believers of their origins. While it is fun to imagine that they have been created by aliens, they are more likely the work of humans, like those large metal monoliths that suddenly appear out of nowhere in remote locations, and that folks are desperately hoping to be from ‘outer space.’
What are the chances of an unplanned ‘alien’ encounter in this speck of town? I consider myself to be up on these things, but this was pure serendipity. One of my favorite sci-fi movies that should be shown in churches, M. Night Shyamalan’s cult-classic, Signs, features both crop circles and an alien invasion while exploring the concept that there is no such thing as coincidence and that everything happens for a reason.
Since all my RV trips have an alien subtext, this was no coincidence.
Leaving Wilbur giddy with new knowledge about my favorite topic, we approached the Grand Coulee Dam. Looming steel lattice towers carried power lines across the countryside, rising across the sky like ‘guardians of the grain.’ Frank asked if I wanted to go to the dam’s visitor’s center, and not wanting to miss an experience, I agreed. But as we traveled down an ever-steeper road towards the massive structure that, in my mind, could burst at any moment, I started to feel a bit of anxiety and vertigo, so we turned around.
Dear Google decided to save us a mile and put us on rugged, sage shrub-lined back roads that cut through hilly pastures filled with columns of basalt, black volcanic rock that looked strategically placed. At this point, I took an extended nap and left Frank to navigate past acres and acres of apple orchards filled with the beginnings of a future harvest. I awoke when he pulled into a local fruit stand where we bought fresh peaches, cherries, a large tomato, and two jars of pickles. We then continued through the beautiful desolation of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, the place where If Sasquatch really does exist, this is where he/she/they/it will be.
By mid-afternoon, we reached our resting spot for the night, the quirky yet charming Pine Nears RV Campground. After getting plugged in, Frank and I walked the short distance into town in search of a meal that we did not cook for ourselves. Though tiny, the town of Winthrop is itself a destination, one that offers its visitors a chance to go back in time to a well-maintained pioneer village complete with restored log buildings, rusted mining and farming equipment, but also hotels, shops, restaurants, breweries and bars.
We did a quick end-to-end stroll past Winthrop’s quaint and curious shops that had already closed for the day, but enough things caught my eye that we will delay our morning’s departure so I can return for at least one -- a small painting of a UFO hovering over an RV.
Coincidence? I think not.
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