The highs and lows of winter road trips

Modern life is so safe that people have to uncouple themselves in order to feel alive. For my family, one of the invigorators is the winter road trip. We begin with a general plan but no reservations. We pack up and go.

On trips like that, stuff happens. Years ago, when our son was about 11, we rolled into Trail, B.C., just as it was getting dark. Trail has an old downtown, and I spotted an old brick hotel, probably from before World War I. At the door was the owner, locking it up for a weekend.

"I sure wish you were open," I said. "I love old hotels like this." It was an unusual thing to say, I suppose. The owner wanted to know why I thought that way, where I was from, and who I was.

By and by he said, "I guess I could open it up for you. But there won't be anyone here. You'll have to let yourself out tomorrow morning and lock the door behind you."

We agreed and paid for the room. Then he took out a key, opened up the whole front of a candy machine and said to my son, "Which one would you like?"

My son's eyes bugged out. There was power.

Sometimes bad things happen on winter trips. We've hit snow many times, and once had to get a push from a farmer on a lonely road, but it wasn't until two years ago that anything really bad happened on account of snow.

It was Christmas Day. We were driving toward Morton, Lewis County, and it was snowing big, wet flakes. Twelve miles short of Morton our car slid off the road into a ditch and gently flipped over, thunk, leaving my wife, my son and me safely hanging like a cluster of bats. We had the quick help of the State Patrol and a ticket for $175.

In Washington it is illegal to run your car into the ditch — no matter how hard you tried not to.

Still, there was an upside. People stopped to help us. Strangers gave us a yellow blanket. A family friend drove all the way to Morton and retrieved us, and we ended up at his relatives' place — people I had never met — enjoying a warm and sympathetic Christmas dinner.

This year's winter road trip found us in a snowstorm in Portland. It was a wet, slippery snow like that one two years ago, and traffic slowed to a walk. After we started seeing cars abandoned on hillside streets and freeway ramps at odd angles, and started slipping sideways a bit ourselves, we looked for a place to hole up. My son saw a small sign: Northwest Portland International Hostel.

Hotel, hostel — I didn't care. We had to get off the road.

I've been to hostels — in Europe in 1971 and 1972 as a backpacker. I'd slept in communal rooms and had bread and jam for breakfast. I'd meet other backpackers — some of the same folks I'd met before, in another country. There was camaraderie to it.

And suddenly here it was again. We had a private room but with a shared bath, kitchen, kitchenware and condiments. Bread was free — and good bread, too — but your main food you had to bring yourself.

There was a fridge for storing private food, which led to a mini-crisis next morning when two young Koreans complained that someone had stolen their yogurt. We gave them bananas, started talking, and were soon joined by an English teacher from Japan.

We had a fine time. It wouldn't have happened without the hostel, the storm and the winter road trip.

It's a good time of year for it. Take food, warm clothes, blankets, good maps and — most important — make no reservations.

Just go.

Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is bramsey@seattletimes.com