Running Away, Part Three

Have you ever felt like getting in the car and driving until all your problems disappeared? I think we were feeling that way when we woke up on May 11 and realized that it wasn't just a bad dream.

We couldn't drive far enough to make the facts go away, so we stopped in the old ghost town of Shaniko.

Ghost towns are weird places. The eerie quality never comes from the age of the buildings. We live in an area that boasts of a hundred houses 100 years of age and greater. It's the abandoned, forsaken feel of the place that makes it.

What's crazy about Shaniko is that it's not truly a ghost town. It's more of a half-ghost town. People still live there. But for the sake of all that's good and right I have no idea why.

Ironically, one wealthy investor spent all kinds of money years back trying to make Shaniko into a tourist destination. He bought up all the properties. He restored the old five-room hotel. He put in an RV park and a bunch of other stuff and waited for people to come. This guy essentially remodeled a ghost town.

The people never came and now Shaniko is fading away once again.

Welcome to my life.

The most disturbing thing about Shaniko is that group of a dozen people hanging around a dead town waiting for things to change. One of the hardest lessons to learn in life is that you can't go back to the way things were before.

And so things were easier. Simpler. Predictable-er. Then it all faded away. But hope returned for a moment. That was a long time ago.

You've gotta move on or you'll die with it.