The dark

Today it rained all day, and the darkness after sunset was, as the poets say, velvety to the touch. To say it rained, I mean, there was steady precipitation, something between drizzle and rain drops, at all times. Not unpleasant (I think the landscape was prettier looming behind misty clouds than in the full sun we had previously, where you can clearly see the ugly fields of clear-cut woods and the leafless birches stark against the spruce) but definitely wet, and more definitely, thickly dark out on the airport.

So of course my car died. I think it is just the battery, although I still have headlights and dome light and fan (but they are slowly fading). Our nice participants this evening (a couple who moved here from Hawaii, following the waves -- they surf just west of here, and own a small surf shop to support their avocation) tried to give me a jump start. Even 20 minutes of priming didn't stop my car from going "click click click" when trying to start it. (There is the possibility we wrecked what little battery was left by charging a Mini Cooper with a pick-up truck's much larger battery, but I'm not going to think about that.)

It was inconvenient, but no worse. I couldn't train people sitting in my car as I had been doing (no lights), so I stood in the rain and leaned in to their cars to train them. I couldn't ferry people out to the guys, so Glenn had to jump in the third car we have (the big SUV under the canopy can't be moved, it's very carefully placed) and drive back and forth and then get back into position every time. And while between participants I could have read a book by the dim light of my flashlight, I hadn't brought one, because I didn't think I'd have the time (usually I and the participant sit in my car and chat during the inevitable gaps in our procedure, which is how I'm hearing so many stories about the airport, the crazies, the cougars, hunting, self-sufficient farming, the war between city council and the independent types who live in Forks -- and not Seattle or Port Angeles or any other less remote city -- for a reason, and the other war still being fought between private logging industry and environmentalists and the local Hoh and Quilleute Indians).

I had two long hours, alone, in the dark, in the cold, with the car dead while the guys completed their part of the study. I was pretty damp from toes (walking through puddles taught me that my hiking boots aren't waterproof as I thought) through shoulders (two layers of fleece were soaked by the steady drizzle-rain). Saw no cougars, no elk, no black bear (another rumored denizen), no mating couple of coyotes (who left scat and a thick brush of moulting fur near our arc of traffic cones the first night we were here). It was pretty silent, but for the croaking of frogs and occasionally a bird call -- apparently there's a bird here which cackles like a witch.

I made a little video of the experience, standing next to my car, panning a full 360 around, but it's in the wrong format. I'll post it tomorrow.