Welcome to Packwood, Memorial Day Elk Rules Edition

 Welcome to Packwood! Memorial Day kicks off Visitors’ Season* in our tiny mountain town, high in the Washington Cascades. Please enjoy your visit. For your elucidation, I have put together a list of guidelines that will make your stay more pleasant. 

For me.

The Rules Governing Elk

1) Elk don’t follow rules. 

The Rules Governing Visitors and Elk

1) Elk don’t follow rules.

2) Don’t be like Elk.

3) Please enjoy the spontaneous elk parades that will take place at random intervals. Elk will wander out into the highway so that you can stop and enjoy their majesty. Please do.

4) Please watch for elk that will dash out in front of oncoming vehicles. There is almost always more than one. It is not considered a parade. Consider it a threat.

5) No, the Elk are not trucked in by the Disney Company. They do not talk.

6) No, you should not try to pet them.

7) Or feed them. If you really want to feed elk, I suggest you buy an alfalfa truck and park it, fully loaded, in town. This is the traditional way of feeding elk. Google it.

Googled it for you

8) Do not let them have your IPA. Elk are terrible drunks.  

9) Yes, you can take one home with you. In fact, every visitor is allowed to take home six elk, each. Per visit. Did I say allowed? I meant REQUIRED.

10) Please do not allow the elk to drive. Actually, don’t allow them in your vehicle as elk are terrible back seat drivers as well, and have been known to chew on the upholstery.

11) U-Haul trucks are available in town to transport your elk. Yes. That’s why they’re there.

12) Once you take the elk, they are yours. DO NOT TRY TO RETURN YOUR USED ELK.

The Rules Governing Locals, Elk and Visitors 

1) Elk don’t follow rules.

2) Visitors are leaning the rules. Please back me up on these rules. Especially the six elk/each, thing. I really think it might work.

3) Deer Season starts September 1. Permit required. Limit one.

4) Elk Season starts November 6. Permit required. Limit one.

5) Visitors’ Season* starts May 26. Please remember that no permits for hunting visitors will be issued.

The Summer that Wasn’t

Welcome to September! I don’t care what the calendar says about the official start of the season but Fall is in the air-- can you feel it? The nights are cooler, the sunshine seems to have more shadows in it and the sun doesn’t have the same bite.

It doesn’t really feel like we had Real Summer though, as so many of my summer traditions were put on hold in the interest of public safety.

In Packwood, we are used to celebrating both ends of the summer with a huge, outdoor Flea Market. The biannual event brings tourist-- vendors and visitors fill the town, parking is at a price and come Monday, there won’t be a loaf of bread left on the grocery store shelf. Well, maybe the low carb, high fiber kind made from sawdust and broken promises, that nobody likes---but all the Good Bread will be history. Good for local business, bad for sudden cravings of grilled cheese.

In addition to the Summer bookend events, I’m used to watching the Loggers Jubilee Parade, while simultaneously exploiting my cute grandkids as candy magnets. Since I still have half a bag of purloined candy left over from last year’s event, I considered driving thru Morton in the middle of the night and sprinkling candy over the sidewalks and along the gutters—as though some sort of Ghost of Parades Past had visited the town.

Then I got into an argument with myself about litter and creating a public nuisance and spawning at least three dozen different conspiracy theories as to the origin and purpose of the candy and never got around to implementing my plan.

 I like helping serve at the Fireman’s beef BBQ—my job is either Jello scooping, condiment dispensing—do you want sour cream with that? Or—at my last promotion-- assistant back up to corn-on-the-cob conveying. "We need more butter over here!" All key roles, to be sure.

Then there’s the Rod Run, noting all the cool cars that their owners so lovingly display and wondering how cool would it be to go for a Road Trip, convertible top down, hair blowing in the breeze, the smell of fresh cut hay scenting the air...

No Fair this year, with its cotton candy and 4H animals, no midway with the lights and motion and screams, no crowing at the chickens in the chicken barn, and eating scones—scones are THE BEST FAIR FOOD EVER, amirite?

Summer of 2020 is now officially in the books, before it ever got out of the blocks. We will keep wearing our masks, and social distancing, and looking forward to a Real Summer in 2021-- with all its events and assorted glories.

In the meantime, might I suggest you go make yourself a s’more? Because that is one summer tradition I’m still hanging on to.