Night one.
Between Spokane and Portland, along the Columbia River, close to Biggs Junction. (Look it up). It has been a very hot day, night is falling, and we are looking for somewhere to park for the night. Perhaps it is luck, or providence, or the internet, but we land right beside the Columbia River, about a mile off the road. Perfect. Even the RV advertisers couldn’t come up with a better scenario than this one: warm night, silent stars, frogs croaking, lights across the river. We sit out in the dark, celebrating with some cheese and olives and wine. Magical. Mystical. Spiritual, one could say. Makes you glad to be alive.
Night two.
We arrive in Florence, on the Oregon Coast, looking for somewhere to park. This time we wash up on the parking lot of a casino, because they accommodate people like us for 30 bucks a night. We are among many RV’s, and many trailers with dune buggies on them because that’s what goes on in Oregon. Dune buggies.
Somebody has told us that the casino has good food, so after awhile we go in there. There is no silence in here, no stars, no frogs croaking or lights across the river. It is clamorous, jarring, depressing. Nobody looks happy, which I guess is understandable when you are losing money hand over fist.
And the food, well, it is no match for the feast we had by the river last night. Neither of us can get through it, so we retreat to the moho and play Azul. Last night by the river was magical; tonite by the casino is the polar opposite. If there was a word for the polar opposite of “magical”, I would use it.
You could say, “different strokes for different folks”. You could speak of extroverts and introverts, or perhaps speculate on the jaundiced perspective of religiously inclined people.
Or, you could just say what is so obviously true, that the created order calls to us all, speaks to us all, makes us come alive, and, equally true, that casinos just impoverish us, and depress us, and make us sick. As does everything that capitalizes on our wandering desires.
Ya. By the river, by the casino. I’ll take the first one every time.
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