On Sunday we packed the kid, a cooler full of leftovers, and some sunblock into the car and headed to Sauvie Island. We reached the bridge in about ten minutes, then spent about fifteen minutes driving the winding roads to the beach, passing by grazing cows and berry farms and fruit orchards. We found parking, set up on the sand, and proceeded to relax and congratulate ourselves on living so very close to such a beautiful place, and being such very good parents to have made such a good, simple, outdoorsy day for the child.

There was picnicking.

I dug my toes in the sand and watched Billy and the kid play in the Columbia River. The kid put his face in the water to blow bubbles for the first time ever, and the breeze coming off the river made me not mind all that direct sunlight.

The kid came out of the water shivering and chattering, begging to go back in, then let me snuggle him warm while he ate an apple.

Ah, life in Utopia.

And then, we tried to leave. What we found was a line of cars full of people who had already been trying to leave for a good hour or so.

A brush fire up ahead had closed off the only road off the island, and they were saying it would be at least two hours before they’d be able to reopen the road. (No, I’m not sure how law enforcement etc are able to accurately predict when a brush fire will be out, or if they were just pulling numbers out of their asses to be able to tell us SOMETHING.) A hundred or so people all ready to go home, trapped on a dead-end road on an island. Beach and river on one side, open fields of a wildlife sanctuary on the other side. Sounds like the plot to a really bad movie, yeah? I was half-waiting for nightfall and the slow, sure emergence of Lord of the Flies logic. (Okay, so I tend toward the melodramatic and catastrophic. What can I say?)

Billy managed to snag a parking spot in the shade before all the parking got snapped up and we opened our windows, freed the kid from his car seat, and settled in for the wait. We still had a cooler full of food, and jugs of water in the trunk stashed away for emergencies. Apart from my strong dislike of Portapotties, we figured we’d be okay. Except for the whole Toddler aspect.

People tried to make the best of it, tossing frisbees, turning up radios, breaking out their hookahs. (!) Seriously. Maybe I’m just old, but who brings a two-foot-tall hookah to the beach? They looked pretty happy to have it, though, and there was quite a crowd gathered round it.

Just as we passed the one-hour mark of the wait, and folks started to have a little less fun and get a little bit more anxious to get home, we inadvertently did our part to make things just a wee bit less pleasant for everyone. I’d locked the car doors so the kid wouldn’t tumble out as he ranged around and explored his newfound in-the-car freedom. (We were in the car to get him out of the sun for a while.) I was in the passenger seat, and Billy needed to get in, so I unlocked the doors from my side. Immediately (as these things tend to work), the car alarm starts blaring. I pop the key in the ignition, and the engine won’t turn over. And the door won’t unlock. The kid and I are trapped inside the car (with windows open, so not THAT dire), the alarm is going off, already agitated people all around us are getting more agitated, and we have no idea how to turn the fucking thing off. Agitated people come over to try to help us in a sort of tense, not-so-helpful manner, and we sorta snap at them because we’re pretty fucking agitated too, and finally we call my mom, because the car is a handmedown from her, and she tells us what to do. (Which was the embarrassingly simple act of putting the key into the driver’s side door lock.)

Yeah.

So that kind of sucked.

And then the road reopened about an hour and a half after we’d been told it would be two hours, and everyone smiled like they’d been granted an extra thirty minutes of life, and drifted back to their cars and went on their way. As we drove back along those winding roads, past the sleepy cattle and the farmland, and the giant walls of baled hay, I was a little sorry it had ended so quickly. I thought I’d wanted to get the hell out of there and go home, but now that I was free to do so, I kind of wished we’d been stuck there until nightfall, when we could have pulled out the hoodies we had in the car, and made a bonfire, and shared our extra food with someone who hadn’t packed quite as much. The kid is now old enough that he might have remembered a night like that the rest of his life. Nighttime on a beach, and the grownups strangely excited, and bonfires and people playing guitars (because of course there were several people there with acoustic guitars). Easy enough thing to wish for once you’re safely headed home, of course. At least I never did have to break down and use the Portapotty.