Chieftain column, August 24

And Furthermore
Jon Rombach

“How’d you get to Wallowa County?” is a question I love hearing the answer to. Even the common responses that begin with knowing so-and-so, who had a house out here, and next thing you know … generally pack along a jewel of a side-story that doesn’t disappoint.

I didn’t come up with the idea of collecting the greatest hits of How’d You Get To Wallowa County? into book form, but I just might steal that notion if I don’t see Volume I pretty soon on a shelf at The Bookloft.

I heard a variation last week from someone who crashed and totaled their car on their way into the county, and her tale was a lovely response to, “How’d you get out?”

Shannon is a dance instructor in Los Angeles who moonlights as a river guide in the summertime. She was on her way home from Idaho at the end of her first river season, and planned a detour to check out these Wallowa Mountains she kept hearing about. A tire got onto gravel along the shoulder of the North Highway and that ended badly with gymnastic maneuvers a car is just not designed for. She made friends in the ambulance on her way to the hospital. Made more friends when she got to the hospital. Got her clearance as being shaken up but not broken, and the front desk helped her find a hotel for the night.

Her gear was still in her car and by the time she was released from the hospital, business hours were long since over. She made another friend when the tow truck driver happily agreed to return to work off the clock so she could get into her crumpled car and collect her bags. “That kind of thing doesn’t happen in Los Angeles,” she explains. I believe her.

So there you are. Wrecked car. No bus station. No car rental agency. No commercial flights. “Where are you again?” is about as far as she got on the phone with her insurance agent. Someone suggested she call the radio station and run an announcement looking for a ride to La Grande. That also doesn’t happen in Los Angeles, she pointed out. I believed her.

I mentioned that she might have gotten a ride on the Stage. “The Stage?” Well, it’s really a van, but it goes back and forth to Union County. She was glad to hear that, because now her initial stay in Wallowa County reminded her of a Northern Exposure episode and a John Wayne movie.

Shannon eventually did find a way out of Wallowa County. And she found her way back, hiring on for a few river trips with Winding Waters River Expeditions. We got back from a float trip and had the night off, so Shannon was telling me her version of how she got to the county while she sent messages to her old friends the tow truck driver and folks at the hospital, inviting them for a thank-you beer at Terminal Gravity.

After talking about how hard it was to figure out a way out of this place, she mentioned she’d been trying to figure out lately if she might reverse that and see about moving here.

So there’s your side story. Car crash and inconvenience turns into unexpected friends and a genuine attachment to a remote mountain valley with no rental cars you wouldn’t mind moving to.

How’d you get to Wallowa County? I’m collecting answers to that. Send me yours at jonrombach@gmail.com.