My friend Andy, who lives up in Seattle, got married a couple weeks ago to the lovely Angela, whom I haven’t met but am eager to. He just sent notification that a photo gallery from the wedding I could not afford to attend was posted. While looking over their honeymoon photos (get your mind outta the gutter–these are family pictures. The other pictures are kept under lock and key), I had a sudden bout with nostalgia. They honeymooned in Vancouver, and a few of the pictures feature a rushing, Pacific Northwest-style river in the background.

This instantly reminded me of the trip Ari and I took to Seattle in 1996 to visit Ari’s aunt. One of our day trips was up to the Granite Falls area, along the Stillaguamish River, to the Old Robe Trail. We parked along the highway just outside of Robe and then wandered deep into the forest until we finally came upon the river. Remnants of the old Monte Cristo railroad were there despite the years and years of flooding and general erosion that have eaten away at it. In a few places, we found fat rusted tie nails. Ari’s aunt told us a little about the railroad, about how it was shut down in the early part of last century, partly on account of it being washed out too many times by the swollen Spring river. In 1936, the iron track was dismantled and sold to Japan. From about 1941 to 1945, the iron gradually came back to America in the form of bullets lodged inside of American soldiers.

That day, along the Stillaguamish, the sodden gray sky was almost too bright to look at. Have you ever experienced that, a cloud cover so white and full of the sun that it’s as blinding as the sun? We finally ended up at an area along the river that became too craggy to pass. Our raincoats were glistening wet even though it wasn’t raining. Had we been more experienced hikers, we might have braved the slippery rock to continue on. But we decided that the river was too angry to be challenged so we turned around and headed back to the car. We walked back in silence, only speaking once or twice in small, quick sentences. Just before we veered back into the forest, with the rage of the river still filling my ears, I swear I heard fighter planes looming above the clouds.

Funny how the mind works. All this from happy honeymoon photographs.