WTF?

"Good bye Jack.” I looked back at Earl as he turned away, and kept turning, and was gone.

Mean Birds

"Ha. Yeah, multi-talented. Well, tell him I said thank you.”

"I will, and I'll leave out the creepy part.”

"Good. I wouldn't want him mad at me.”

"Probably not.”

"Well, If you get done and are headed home before we close, stop by for coffee and tell me what happened.”

"Ok, I'll do that. And Alice?”

"Yeah?”

"What did the door mouse say?”

"Feed your head. Of course. Weren't you listening?”

"Bye Alice.”

"See ya later Jack.” and she was gone. Hmmm... Trouble. But nice.

"Quark!”

"Caw! Caw!” I looked up and saw half a dozen crows quarreling in the branches above me, and a drop of something warm hit me on the cheek, on the scar the Dead Guy's cane had left there. I batted at it, cursing, thinking one of the damned birds had shit on my face. Remembering a seagull in seventh grade PE class who'd done the same I screamed, “Shit!” and leapt back, scrubbing at my cheek, then looking at my hand. It was streaked crimson. That wasn't shit. It was blood.

I heard a meaty thump and looked up. Right where I'd been standing there was a dirty white blob. At first glance I thought it was a plastic grocery bag knotted around some sort of trash. Then I blinked and it was a bundle of blood spattered white feathers. I looked closer and finally realized it was the body of a good sized white pigeon with gray and black feathers along its wings and breast, and a large bloody red spot where it's head belonged. Seriously, it's head was gone, torn off at the birdy equivalent of a collarbone. No head. No neck. Not even a stump, just a bloody pink nub of spine and a bloody black hole of throat at the top of the body cavity.

I took a step back and said, “Fuck.” quietly and with feeling.

Looking up in the tree I saw the crows, six of them, perched in the high branches staring at me. The biggest one, perched highest, said “Quark!”

"Caw! Caw!” the others replied. Then they all dove and spread their wings, gliding over my head and deeper into the park.

I looked around for awhile, but I couldn't find the pigeon's head anywhere.

Standing there and shaking my head I mumbled, “Now that's kinda creepy.” I paused and lit a cigarette, dragging deep. “And kinda scary.” I headed out of the park and along Colfax towards Broadway, wondering what the hell the crows were up to, and trying to convince myself that I was nobody's pigeon. I stopped at the Jeep on the way and put the Glock in its shoulder holster on under my leather and picked up my computer bag containing the laptop and .45. Better safe than sorry.

The dead don't rest.

After rehashing my encounter with the Dead Guy and finishing my beer, I went back inside, killed the yard lights, and went back up to bed. I slept better, no more scary dreams, but I remember one in which I was talking to the Catepillar with the hookah sitting on the mushroom umbrella at Wonderland. He kept asking me “Whooo are Youuuu?”

Thinking of how to make this blog exciting and popular.

Thinking...

I have been doing most of my writing in another forum, entirely contained within my computer for now. I am working on my novel again. Started it over actually, and weaving what I wrote before into the text as back story. I am up over forty thousand words. Some of those words are even pretty good. Today I have been doing research for a friend of mine. I need to start actually flogging this blog, doing  doing daily posts that are interesting. Hmmm...maybe I will start putting in teasers from the novel or something....must think.

Angel Lake, Part Three: The Crash.

Borrowed this picture from http://www.elkorose.com/angel_lake.html since all of mine seem to have disappeared for now.

We were standing there, telling the tale of our days adventures, listening to Kent tell of his twenty-five mile trek to the lake around the other side of the ridge while being menaced by bears and cougars, and watching the last of the fire-Rescue guys on top of the cliff with binoculars while he coiled and packed away the ropes and harnesses into gear bags.

Susanne described her feelings as she sat on the rock and drew the landscape and talked to God. I mostly complained about being tired and drank a bunch of water, Kent talked of hiking through the wilderness with a mischievous gleam in his eye, Annie fussed over Susanne and snorted at her husbands liberal use of hyperbole, while the fireman finished packing the gearbags and went to sit right at the edge of the cliff near where he had been dropped off earlier.

After a short while we heard the helicopter's engine turn over and begin winding up. Then it took to the sky and went back across the lake and touched down in the same place it had dropped the rescuers off earlier. The last rescuer picked up the gear bags, tossed them into the chopper, then climbed in himself. Susanne and Annie had the binoculars at this point, Kent and I were using the old eyeball mark 1 viewers, and our conversation was on hold.

The 'copter picked itself up, rotated in place to once again face down canyon, moved forward slowly a couple of feet, and then turned nose down and dove at the lake. Someone gasped, I said “Oh Shit.” For a second I thought that the pilot was making a flamboyant exit as pilots are wont to do. Then the 'copter disappeared below the curve of the hill and the Aspen trees and there was an enormous tearing sound as though Gods own weed-whacker was mowing the Aspens on the other side of the lake. Time stretched out, telescoping as I listened for the crash, but the grinding noises just continued, and then the 'copter came lurching back up over the slope of the hill heading straight at us as it spun widdershins about the axis of its rotor-shaft. The tail-rotor and a big piece of the tail was gone, the broken end was smoking as the machine screamed through the air about twenty feet up I was looking at the left side of the copter, and noticed that the landing struts were also missing, then the tail swung my way as one of the left doors opened and a man, accompanied by several red bags went flying out the side. I was running for the lee of Kent and Annie's motorhome, visions of rotor-blades slicing through all opposition dancing in my head. Looking now at the right side of the approaching behemoth as it suddenly appeared to be flying backwards, then turned on it's left side and slammed down into the ground with a crashing roar. The turbine was still running, the rotors broken off, as I came around the rear of the motorhome and found myself sprinting towards the crash praying, “Oh God, please don't burn, don't explode, don't burn.” I could almost see the pale wash of blue and yellow flame engulfing the downed bird, but it did not happen.

I was either the first or second person to reach the 'copter, not sure, everything was quite confused. At first the pilot looked dead, the right side window had exploded inward on impact and he hung loose in his harness, head bloodied. In the back the fire-Rescue guys were moving about, apparently unhurt but dazed. Struggling to get out. The turbine was still running, whining in the afternoon sun sounding like the worlds biggest pissed off bee and reminding me of fire. The pilot started moving and then the turbine died. “Thank God.”

More people arrived at the crash-site, the fire-Rescue guys and the pilot all climbed out under their own power, and the man who had been thrown came stumbling out of the aspens also unhurt except for scrapes and bruises. The helicopter had hit on its left side, just off the road, not five feet from the bathroom, ten feet from a tent where a woman had been napping with her baby. Luckily she was down in the tent because it soon became apparent that a piece of blade had gone through her campsite at about head height and headed for the lake. The other police and Sheriffs got there quickly and moved all us helpful souls back away from the crash-site. Susanne and I had a front row seat for a bit because our camp was directly across from the bathroom, the nose of her car maybe thirty feet from the belly of the chopper. It was inconceivable that no-one died that day, but no one was even seriously injured. The worst was the pilot, and he simply needed some stitches in his scalp. Other than that, the rescue guys had some bruises and abrasions, no campers were hurt though a few missed being pureed by inches...Angel Lake is aptly named it seems, for surely something was keeping an eye on all of us that day.

Shortly thereafter, we were asked to leave our site as it was being roped off as part of the crash site, and dozens more law enforcement people showed up. We went back over to Kent and Annie's site and Annie made dinner for all of us. We ate a healthy, vegetarian, taco salad and it was wonderful though the salsa could have been hotter. Then they told us we would have to move our camp to another site, and before that the Sheriff's lieutenant wanted to talk to us and get a full account of the day and how we came to be stuck and what we had seen of the crash. We talked to a dozen or so other people about what we had seen and done and what they had seen and done. The camp-hosts helped us move to a higher campsite out of the way, and we eventually found our way to our sleeping bags and crashed hard around midnight.

The next morning we filled out witness statements for the Forest Service and the State patrol, drank coffee, ate breakfast, exchanged contact information with various other campers who promised to send us pictures and video of the previous days events. We swam in the lake, or rather I got in and splashed around in the freezing water for a minute before retreating to the sunwarmed shore and Susanne swam around the entire bloody lake...mi loca.

Then we headed on down the road, We took showers at a truck-stop in Eastern Nevada and crossed into Utah that afternoon. After traversing the Salt Flats, we reached the Great Salt Lake just at sunset. Susanne once again had to get in the water and once again I waded, just wetting my feet and tried to avoid squishing the millions of dead brine-shrimp that rimmed the salt muck and contributed their unmistakable aroma to the fetid air. That night we slept in the car on top of a pass just East of Salt-Lake City and were serenaded by thunderstorms. We had gotten in too late to get a campsite, and needed to stay in the area to take care of tire problem the next day. We were exhausted and ready for a rest...we got one over the next few days...but that night was long and uncomfortable. Our days rest had turned into a day of terror and exultation, not restful at all, but definitely a sign that God was watching over us both. He does not want us dead, but neither does he want us to get bored or to take our lives for granted.

Angel Lake is Aptly Named it Seems--Susanne Survives

By the time I reached the campsite I was parched and shaking from exaustion and reaction. I used restroom to pee, got a glass of ice water from out watercooler and chugged it, risking brainfreeze. God, it tasted good. Then I headed farther down to the Campground hosts trailer. On the way I ran into Annie, the lady we had talked to the night before. I told her that Susanne was stuck on the rock and I was looking for help to get her down.

“Where is she?” She asked. I pointed her out, and annie went to find binoculars. I kept going down the hill, promising to keep her informed. When I arrived at the camp host's trailer, both the husband and wife were sitting out front with citronella candles burning in the heat of the day to ward off mosquitoes.

“Y'all got a couple hundred feet a' climbing rope?” I asked. “Susanne is stuck on the rock,” I point, “right there.”

“Huh? What? Where?”

“Ok, my friend Susanne and I were hiking up the hill this morning, trying to get to the peak—there. When we got to the base of that big rock outcropping we decided it looked like a pretty safe climb, but that it would be chhallenging, so we decided to try it. We worked our way up there, then traversed over that way, then got stuck there. You can see her head if you look close. She's sitting down right now, just to the right of that shadow, near the small pine tree growing out of the face in the white section there, above the red stripe. I managed to get across that crack and come for help, and I almost fell, but somehow I made it down, and now I need help to go get her. If I had a rope, I could do it myself, but I don't.”

“Ok, slow down. Where is she again?” the wife said.

I stood next to her and pointed over her shoulder, “there, to the right of that Pac-Man looking shadow. The lower jaw points right at her. Just above the narrow point on the red stripe there. In between those two big channels.”

The husband came out with an enormous set of binoculars, They looked like some air-raid spotting glasses from WWII I have seen, meant to be mounted on a pintle, and set them on the picnic table. “Where?” he asked.

I went through it again. “OK, I got her.” he said, “Damn. How the hell did you get up there.?”

“Carefully. It seemed a lot easier doing it than it looks from here.”

The Campground Host lady spoke up, “I hiked up to the top of that thing a while back, but I wen't up the side. Damn, you guys are crazy.”

“Yeah, well, probably, but I still need to get her down.”

“Ok, we got a State Trooper camping with his family up the way. Let's go see if we can find him. Maybe he has some climbing gear with him...come on then.” She walked to her big blue truck, lighting a cigarette, and climbed in. I jumped in the passenger side, and rolled a smoke while she drove up the way to a camp above ours that was occupied by a nice trailer. She talked with the teenaged girls by the trailer, who told us their dad was fishing, so we went off around the lake to the day use parking area and looked along the shore for him. No luck.

“We'll keep looking, but I'm going to call the Sheriff's office and get them headed out to help.”

“Ok, I just want to get her down, however we have to do that. She is safe where she is, but it is hot up there and she doesn't have all that much water.”

“Oh. How much does she have?”

“Most of a quart and a Mountain Dew when I left.”

“Mountain Dew's not so good.”

“I know, It was in my pack, so I left it with her, better than nothing.”

“People dehydrate fast up here, particularly in the direct sun like that.”

“I know that too. We were stupid, ok. But, We weren't planning on getting stuck on the frigging rock when we left.”

She called the Elko County Sheriff's office and got patched through to a deputy who was down the Mountain at the Angel Creek Campground. He said he was on his way up, and that he would coordinate with the rescue guys.

We headed back over to the State Troopers campsite, and met up with him about the time the Deputy showed up. He was a K-9 officer, with a beautiful and irritable sheppard in the back seat of his Bronco.

The State troopers wife offered me a bottle of water, and I accepted it gratefully. More calling back and forth about what to do, and they determined that a climbing crew would be coming up either by car or helicopter, depending on whether or not they had the available people in Wells, or if they had to come from Elko.

After a bit of standing around and drinking water, listening, and feeling like a fifth wheel, I went back to our camp, re-filled water bottle with iced-water from the cooler, had a couple bites of meat and cheese, took a pee, then went back to the Troopers trailer and told them I was going back up to talk to Susanne.

“Don't go back on the rock.” said the Trooper.

“Don't worry, I'm done climbing for the day. I kinda shot out my arms and shoulders getting down, and we don't need me stuck up there too. I'm just going up to the base of the outcropping to holler at her and let her know what's going on. Then I'll come back down.” I replied.

“Ok then, tell her help is on the way.”

“That's the plan.”

So I trekked back up the path, then climbed up through the scrub at the base of the rock in the hot sun. I could feel my muscles trembling, and the heat boiling in my head, and the altitude getting to me for the first time, making me nauseous; I realized that I should have eaten breakfast as I swayed, dizzy for a minute. Reminding myself that Susanne was alone up there in the heat, I ignored it. Keep moving pussy. You can stop when she's down safe.

Getting to a position directly below her I shouted, “Susanne!”

No reply.

“Susanne!” Louder! “Susanne!” Damn, hearing aids. Hope they are on. “Sussaaannnneee!”

“James?” I hear her, “James? Are you there? Do you have a rope.”

“It's me Smiley. No one had a rope, so we had to call out for help. They are on the way.”

“How long, do you know?”

“Not sure. They might be driving up, or they might come in a helicopter. I just came back to make sure you are all right, and let you know what is going on.”

“I'm ok. I've been sketching and talking to God.”

“Cool.”

“It's hot, and I'm thirsty, I've been saving the water. If they are on way, I can drink it.”

“You might want to conserve some, I don't know how long they'll be. You'll be down today, but I don't know how soon.”

“Ahh...ok...damn.”

“Yeah. Sorry I couldn't find a rope.”

“It's ok. I found a place I can get my head in the shade if I stand up, but I can't stand there for too long at a time.”

“Be careful with the moving around up there beautiful. If you fall I'll follow you to hell just so I can drag you back and kill you again. I'm not done with you yet, and neither is the world.”

She laughed. “I bet you would.”

“Yeah, not likely you would end up in hell though, and they might not let me in upstairs, so be careful.”

“I will.”

“OK, I'm going to go back down now so I can keep track of what's going on, I'll come back up if they are going to be too long.”

“Hey, I'm all right here. There is plenty to do, I have my sketchbook and a beautiful view of the lake and the mountains. Go do something fun for you while you wait. Sit on the beach and read for a while. Go swimming or something.”

“Ha! Leave it to Susanne. Not likely, don't think I could concentrate on a book right now.”

“Really, take it easy, I'll be fine.”

“I'll see what I can do Smiley. See you soon.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” and I trekked back down the hill. Back at camp I got more water, then went looking for information. I found a young blonde girl who was related to the State trooper, and who was a police explorer, who told me that they had moved down to the lower parking lot to wait for the helicopter bringing a rescue team in from Elko. The rescuers were apparently either on the way, or soon would be. The camp host and law enforcement on scene were clearing the lot so the chopper could land.

I checked the time, it was about three. We had left to go hiking just before ten. I had made it down to the camp host's spot at a little after twelve...time flys—having fun or not.

When I got down to the lower lot I met the Host lady again and realized I still didn't know her name. No time to ask, she started talking as I approached. “They are sending a helicopter in from Elko with a couple of Fire-Rescue guys to rappel her down. The 'copter just took off, so they should be here soon.”

“Cool. Susanne's doing good, but says she is hot and is running low on water. She can get some shade, but can't stand where the shade is for very long at a time. Crazy girl told me to sit on the beach and read for a while, enjoy the day. She's been drawing.”

“Well they'll be here soon, it is about a half hour from Elko by helicopter.”

“Ok, I'll go back up and tell her.”

I headed back up the hill and ran into a woman who asked if I knew about the girl stuck on the rock. “Yeah, I'm going to tell her the rescue guys are on the way.”

“Were you with her? How'd she get stuck.”

“Very carefully. We just went a little too far and she couldn't get down. I barely did, and Susanne is just not quite tall enough to reach the next place.”

“Wait,” I hear a yell from below and look back. “The pilot says not to go back up close to the rock. They'll be coming in in a few minutes.” The camp host lady is chugging up the road towards me.

“Ok. I don't want to be in the way, I'll just wait at the trailhead up here.” she catches up, and we walk up to the bathrooms and onto the trail. There is another woman there with a nice digital camera with a huge telephoto lens. She talks to the Camp host lady, then to me...I go through it again.

She says, “My husband noticed her up there and wondered if she was in trouble. So I put the lens on her and it just looked like she was sketching. I figured she was ok, just enjoying the day.”

I replied, “She is. She just can't get down, and she's getting thirsty. Susanne's a trooper.”

“Well, I'm getting a bunch of pictures, I'll be sure y'all get copies.”

“Thanks. I've been taking a few, but I don't have much zoom, and I've been kinda distracted.”

A few minutes later the helicopter arrived. First the distinctive thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap of the rotor noise echoing off the surrounding mountains, then a pale dot growing in the northern entrance to the bowl of the lake like some huge dragonfly, then we could see it clearly, a pale beige and yellow four doored bubble with a long tale and the blades blurring above it. He came in pretty high and circled the valley, near the walls, but far enough out for caution. After the first pass, he came around again and hovered over the rock outcropping she was trapped on. Then he settled down neatly on the top and three men carrying gear bags climbed out. The 'copter lifted off again, rotated in place, and moved on down to land in the lower lot.

We watched the rescuers move around on the top of the cliff, yelling down to Susanne, figuring routes, finding things to tie their ropes to.The pilot came hiking up the hill, a lean guy with a gret beard, sunglasses and tan boonie hat. The Camp host lady greeted him as Dale. After a few minutes the pilot headed up closer to the rock and I went with him.

The rescue guys communicated with Susanne by shouting back and forth, she had a hard time hearing because of distance, deafness, and the vagaries of hearing aids, so lots of stuff was repeated. They tied their ropes off well, belaying to three different chunks of granite to be extra safe, and then one of them headed down on a line payed out by the other two. He got to Susanne and harnessed her up, then had her lay down and ease herself over the edge while he held her to get her used to the harness. Fifteen minutes later, they were down at the bottom of the rock.

Turned out the guy who roped her down was named James too—there sure are a lot of us.She thanked him and gave him a hug. I thanked him, she gave him her name and date of birth for the record and we were free to go. We hugged each other and headed down the hill. Both of us a bit unsteady on the trail.

We got cold water, then went to the next site to talk to Annie and Kent (Kent was back from his hike) about the day's adventure. We didn't know it, but it wasn't over yet—not by a long shot.

Angel Lake is Aptly Named it Seems--Part 1

Stardate: 7.23.2010.

Well, we learned some lessons and cranked up the adventure level to new heights on Monday. Sunday the eighteenth, after leaving Mill Creek, we headed into Battle Mountain, got coffee then rolled on to Elko where we stopped at WalMart hoping to get two front tires, but their compressor was out of commission, so we were out of luck. We picked up ice and some greens instead, and headed on down the road looking for another camp. At Wells we saw a sign for Angel Lake, so we headed on up the Mountain and discovered a beautiful bowl valley at 8400 feet. Lush and green with stunted Aspens surrounding a lake fed by springs and snowmelt still running out of patches of ice high up on the surrounding mountains. We found a campsite and hiked around the lake to the falls, meeting an older couple (Kent and Annie) from Bishop, Ca, on the way. We continued on with them, chatting about nature and life, and listening to Kent wander off into tall tales, luxuriating in the cool evening and the flowering herbs growing along the path.

At the waterfall, I dissuaded Susanne from trying to climb up through the tumbling wet on the rocks knee deep in the falls. She is a water sprite, like the mermaid who traded in her tail and gills for feet—for love of a sailor—always trying to get back in the water. Everywhere I go with her, if there is water, she gets in it even if it is freezing. Smiley is a lot of fun to travel with, though she often talks me into getting into water that makes me want to levitate out of it it is so bloody cold.

The mountains around the bowl are over ten thousand feet, and Susanne and I decide we want to hike up to the rightmost peak in the morning. We trace a possible route that looks reasonably safe up the side of the mountain, how to switch-back to get above that big rock formation, then follow the talus slope around to the right to catch the ridge below the peak from where it will be a relatively simple scramble to the top.

Kent is a retired heavy equipment operator, and Annie a retired middle-school teacher, they were married in 1960, eight years before I was born. They have been married for fifty years. There is hope. I pull out my bag of tobacco to roll a cigarette.

Kent asks, “Are you smoking marijuana?”

“Ha, nope, just tobacco. Cigarettes have gotten too expensive for me to buy tailor-made.”

“Well, I wouldn't care. I figure a guy should be able to smoke what he wants. I've never tried it, but I hear it is not as bad for you as alcohol, and that's legal.”

“That's a fact. I'm not gonna say I never smoke marijuana, but I don't smoke it often anymore.”

We talk with Annie about teaching, and tell them we are moving to Colorado to look for work. They are also going to Colorado, enjoying the country, and planning to visit old friends. We talk about stupid politicians, beautiful country, and D-9 Caterpillars. They are nice folk, and I enjoy their company. So does Susanne, but then she loves everybody.

After a while, we all head back to our individual camps, saying goodnight and we'll see ya in the morning. We make dinner, talk, read, and go to sleep.

The next morning we get up around eight, Susanne eats some yogurt and fruit while I drink coffee and smoke. We wash our faces, clean up campsite, use bathrooms, and pack water, Mountain Dew, sketchbooks, pencils and pens, pastels and cameras into our daypacks, and set off around the side of the lake that we had missed the night before on the trail from which we had decided to start our climb.

The crushed granite path takes us up out of the aspen groves and into low scrub brush and grass dotted with wild flowers as the lake shimmers and ripples below and the mountain rears its broken granite crown above us. We come to the base of the huge rock outcropping we had discussed getting around the night before and notice a steeper but probably easier path up the near side along the base, and we note that the granite is fissured and stepped in a way that makes it look eminently climbable. There are shelves running most of the length of the face at intervals, and what look to be fairly short, and thus reasonably safe channels between them. I ask Susanne if she wants to go up the side or to try to climb. She says that she was planning to climb it by herself before I said I wanted to go. She had been planning on switchbacking up the face towards the lake, but agreed that this side (which we couldn't see clearly from the falls) looked easier.

I came up behind Susanne once she was secure, and we stopped to rest. This shelf was not as good as it appeared from below, but there was a good place to sit, and we had been on the rock for over an hour, so we sat and rested and drank. We were tired, but (we thought) getting close to the top. The problem was that the crack that went further up was not safe. Nope. The shelf we were on sloped more than it looked like from below and was slick with glacial polish. The crack that led up was overhung a bit, and the glacial polish continued above it. Furthermore, to continue forward required crossing a channel of polished granite too wide to reach across and nearly vertical with only a few slick bumps of stone for purchase, like a devils slide into the rocks at the base of the cliff. After a while, we began to be seriously scared that we were trapped. Going back would be very dangerous because the ledge at the bottom of that last short climb was quite narrow and covered with little bits of gravel. Not a good place to catch yourself if you slipped. Whoops.

It was hot. I was terrified, and so was Susanne. She had climbed up to look at the way forward, I said, “Come back, you can't cross that high.” She froze.

After a few seconds she said, “Hold on, I feel nauseas.” A minute later she slid back down.

I said, “Ok James, get a grip, fear is the death of reason.” and took control of my breathing.

Susanne said, “Please God be with us on this mountain.”

“Amen to that! Ok, breathe.” I drank another Mountain Dew Whiteout, thinking again how much better tasting they were than the regular. Crisper, lighter, not too sweet. “Ahhh...” relishing the irony of drinking Mountain Dew stuck on a frigging mountain, and thinking that I am some kind of fool. A few minutes after that I stood up and said, “Through fear and out the other side. I think I'm ok.”

She said “what?”

“Let me look at this again.” I glued myself to the edge of the rock and crept forward. Carefully studying the protrusions, the slop[e, noting where on the other side of the trough the rock changed from the polished white granite, to a rougher and more broken reddish version. Noting a good sized step about six feet down with handholds above it. Too far for me to reach, no handholds on this side close enough. Wait, there is a good one, and this slopes away from the trough...Hmmm...

I backed down. “Susanne, come over here.”

“Ok, what'd you find.”

“I think I can get across if you brace me from here. If you lay down and hug the rock and hold tight to this ridge here you should be able to reach out far enough that I can reach across if I get my right foot on that bump and swing my left out to that one.”

“Ok, you want me to hold on here and stick my legs over?”

“No, if we tried that and I slipped my weight would pull us both down. I want you to lay on your front, with your shoulder here and your left hand holding this tight, your legs down this slope for friction see...”

“Ok, are you sure.”

“I'm sure that if I fall you'll be able to hold on to the rock, and you'll probably be able to slow my fall enough that I can stop myself on that ledge which is where I'm going anyway. Then once I'm across, I might be able to bridge you over, and if not, I can get down over there somewhere and go for help.”

“All right, lets try it.”

It wasn't really that simple or that clean, but the dialogue is pretty close. We often find ourselves talking in old sayings during times of crisis. It steadies the nerves I think. It worked, and I got across. I couldn't reach very far back towards Susanne and there were no good handholds that would support both our weight against a fall down the shaft. Susanne said, “I can hear God telling me not to try it.”

I replied, “OK, I'll go for help.” I had her send over both walking sticks, and her's fell. I ended up sending mine after it, deciding that it would be more hindrance than help. I took the camera and phone out of my pack and tossed it back to her with the last Mountain Dew.

She said, “Be careful.”

I replied, “I will Smiley, I'll be back with help as soon as I can.” and off I went. I ended up running into another dead end in a channel at about forty feet up with a very slick dangerous section between handholds. No good spot to wait here, I would fall from exhaustion before anyone could come get me, so it was my turn to pray, “Please God, don't let me fall off this fucking rock.” and I went for it. Hand on either side each pushing into the rock, legs dangle towards that one inch lip down there, back to the rock, face towards oblivion for the second time in an hour. Except this time I didn't have Susanne's hand to hold onto. But I had to make it, to get her down. Dip, stretch pray some more, drop. Caught, twist, grab, safe. Panting, catch breath, then move down, slowly, but it's easy from there. Move down the hillside till I'm under her, “I'm down. I'm going for help.”

“Good, I was soo worried.”

“I'll be back soon as I can, but it might be a while, depending on if anyone has rope or if we have to call out for help.”

“Ok, I'll conserve the water. I think I'll just sketch.”

“Bye Smiley...”

I jogged on down the trail.

Colorado Bound

Stardate: 7.16.2010

On the Road Again.

Yesterday Susanne and I departed Modesto for points East. We've been planning this run for a while, since her friend Olivia told us she wanted us to come to Colorado back in early June when she visited. Unlike our Artwalk, we are driving this time. We finished packing in the morning and headed out around eleven thirty taking the US99 to the CA120 East and headed for the Mountains. At Sonora we switched to the 108 East and traded oak for pine and fir, following the asphalt path deep into the heart of God's country. In these mountains Earth and Spirit are close to the surface. The Forest creatures more at home than most humans among the trees, hummus and granite. I love it here. If I were not so tied to the hurly-burly of human interaction, to the networks and the nodes, I might just retreat up into these hills forever.

But I can't do that, at least not yet. I am the Rhetorical Boy, the Electric Gypsy, and there is no net access here—Not even cell service. So, the mountains call loudly from the plain, and I go, but then the net starts calling, and after a few days I am drawn back into it's wwweb of facebooking, YouTubian, Blogging, Googling, Yahooooooo madness. One of these days mobile satellite uplinks will fall into the realm of affordability for the impoverished vagabond, or I will fall into some serious money, the question will become moot, and I will be able to live in the high places full-time without giving up my electric umbilical. Until then, these brief adventures sooth and renew my soul.

When we came up here for Memorial day weekend we camped on the West side of the Sierra crest, so this time we decided to continue on over the Sonora pass and camp a night in the Eastern watershed. The real High Country (over seven thousand feet, where the Aspens start mixing in with gnarled old pines and the trees thin out) is breathtaking. I feel the spirit world so strongly here, as if the bones of the earth push the spirit ahead of them into the thinning air. The scent of coniferous trees, birdsong, the rush and gurgle of the water running merrily by as the car strains in low gear striving for the crest at twenty miles an hour with the jagged peaks rising around us, and pockets of snow and ice still melting into the river in the middle of July. We stopped for a while to admire the Middle fork of the Stanislaus river where it is bridged at nine-thousand feet. The river runs deep through a channel carved through the center of an immense granite mountain shoulder, clear and turbulent among the boulders and the trunks of great trees that try to slow it's headlong decent towards the valley now fifty miles below in the west.

The twin bridges are inspiring also, a marvel of human achievement, the old bridge of wood, huge beams growing at odd angles out of the rock below, is now closed to vehicle traffic which takes the reinforced concrete path just upstream, and it is hard to imagine how either was built in this place. I take short videos all day so I can share some of this majesty with my digital friends, but in this case, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but the awesome silence with which we greet the landscape cannot be communicated in either. I stood upon the stone, feet planted and arms raised high like a wizard with his staff (mine is a Eucalyptus branch, flash dried in the fire that burned my boyhood home, carved and sanded smooth—I gave Susanne one much like it), calling the lightening, and I prayed for God to show me what to do next, and to continue to provide me with sustenance. Susanne smiles like the sun at everything and radiates joy in the environment.

Though she is a bit tense driving on these narrow, steep, winding roads that we share with Harleys and White Semi-tractors towing huge red shipping containers. WTF are those things doing up here? I asked myself, this is NOT a shipping corridor. When we crested the pass and started down I may have got an answer to that. Looking out to the East from the crest of the past we find the way east much drier, the peaks form a dividing line between the fertile valley of California and Nevada's dessert.

Stardate: 7.18.2010.

Anyway, We camped that first night at Sonora Bridge campground ($17.00, I hate paying to camp out, but it was a nice place with beautiful views and a friendly campground host). We had Chicken tacos for dinner, played a partial game of chess that was interrupted by a thunderstorm, and retreated to our respective tents to read and sleep. Saturday morning, I slept in while Susanne went for a bike ride, then took her sketchbook out to a viewpoint and drew the mountains, and apparently stopped and drank coffee with some other campers who told her that they'd been coming to this campground for forty years and that this was the first time it had ever rained in the summer.

After I finally dragged my ass out of my bedroll, we went for a hike, broke camp, and drove on down the mountain. We passed the USMC Mountain Warfare School (where I suspect the big trucks came from) and then hit the 395 North to Carson City. Carson City seems a nice town, at least the people we ran into were friendly, So we hung at Starbucks for a while to plan our next leg, stocked up on ice, water, and food, filled the tank, and headed East on the US 50. That night we camped at a reservoir ($15.00), Where the wind near sundown was enough to make tent stakes mandatory. The wind died with the sun. Susanne went swimming and I waded, then we had a cold dinner. We both had a hard time sleeping and after two or three hours sleep, ended up on a blanket outside the tents looking up at the stars and talking through much of the night. We went back to sleep around dawn and slept for a couple hours.

We both swam in the morning and then continued on our way. We noticed that the right front tire is nearly bald and decided to get tires. We stopped at a Walmart, but the wait would have been too long for our itchy feet, so we continued on until we hit Austin. Nice little Mountain Town, advertises itself as the Turquoise capitol. There we got coffee and fries, and found out that the lady at WalMart really did not know what the hell she was talking about when she gave us directions. Furthermore, either I was mistaken about our route, or google maps has the Berlin-Itchyasaur State Park 100 miles north of where it actually is, so we would not be going there.

On the way we ran across the shoe tree, the damnedest thing. A huge tree, growing up out of the middle of an arroyo five miles from the nearest building, and upon this tree hangs a veritable plethora of shoes. Not just shoes: sandals, boots, a pair of ice skates, flip-flops, sneakers, a pair of crutches, ski-boots, and more. They hang in pairs, they hang in bunches like Daliesque grapes, they are stuck in the forks of branches, and the ones that missed (or have fallen) are mounded around the base of the tree. In a life full of movement, adventure and the abuse of controlled substances, this tree is one of the most surreal things I have ever seen.

So, from Austin, we headed North on the Nevada 305 towards Battle Mesa and the I-80. We quickly realized that we were not going to get tires at WalMart that day because it was nearly five, and that is when the tire shop closes on Saturday, so we began looking for a good place to camp. We found a BLM site at a place called Mill creek, about twenty miles south of Battle Mountain. I don't see how anyone ever ran a mill off of this creek, it's awful small, but there are trees and such. It was also totally deserted, and free. Yay! We had our pick of sites, and I started the fire for dinner, and began food prep while Susanne set up the tents and such. Pork tenderloin, charbroiled over a mesquite fire, potatoes fried with onions and garlic, and slaw with a lemon vinaigrette. Yummy, dinner was great, and the process of cooking it quite interesting under the circumstances. I'll never forget making that meal...

After dinner, we read until dark by the stream, then retreated once more to our respective tents. This morning, we got up about eight and went for a hike up the creek Lot of cow shit out there, the rangelands start about five-hundred feet upstream. Don't want to drink this water, but the little canyon is pretty enough, and we saw Jack rabbits, lizards, Robins, and various other critters.

Back at camp, Susanne made corn dumplings with sausage, cheddar and blueberries in them. Sounds odd, but they were damn good. Now it is time to pack up again and head on down the road.

I am getting that itchy feet feeling...

Getting ready to leave Modesto again, for a time anyway. Colorado, then where the wind blows. It will be interesting to go back to Colorado after all these years. I left Co in 1993 the last time, after living there for about five years. It will be a trip to see my old stomping grounds again after seventeen years. I have high hopes of teaching overseas in the near future, and Colorado will be a good first step, I have not left California, except for vacations in the Caribbean, since 1994. It is time to start travelling again, over longer distances, and see what the world has to offer and God plans to bring me to...I am getting kinda excited.

I never finished trip chronicle

I was running Ubuntu through windows with wubi and it crashed taking my post with it. Bogus. Time to move on to new stuff, need to post often...

Negative Ions

Down by the river

the feral cats wait by my tent

hoping to be fed from 

my stash of ham and cheese

they don't pay rent but

neither do I and they ask with their

sinuous pacing stares but

they won't let me touch

even a hair under the trees

I can't blame them for being scared

things are rough out here with

the spiders, ticks, and bees

for those born under roofs

into families and coddled warm 

fed until the day--poof  

it's all gone and they wake from a dream

to find the rush of traffic overhead

their new roof bridge and sky

calico fuzzies fight those who came before

--the ragged greys and blacks--

for the muskrats and the mice in the grass 

down here by the water in the spring

where they can hear the fish 

flopping and splashing under the stars

on moonlit nights they hunger

hated water in the way

so they chase the snakes instead

and weave around my fire

hoping to share the spoils I bring 

to this clearing in the nettles each day

sometimes I wake to find one 

curled against my warmth, purring 

as I turn to pet a share of their negative ions

they take flight back into darkness 

so I roll a cigarette and smoke 

staring out at moonlight 

dappled water sliding by 

I sigh into memories of

other days wondering 

how long I will wait 

for the ferals to share their ions 

like I share my meat.

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Who is the coolest person that you have ever met?

That depends on how you define cool, and the mood I'm in, and the year, and other random environmental factors, so it is really a meaningless question. All of my friends are cool as far as I'm concerned. Even the ones who would be considered big dorks by some.

Furthermore, no one who is not my friend can possibly be cool, no matter how hip they might be. After all, in my world, which is this world, I am the final arbiter of coolness.

Here are to my cool friends, Nick, Susanne, Denise, James, Bren, Brett, a couple of Ellens, Heather, and Mike, and a handful of others. You rock guys.

Ask me anything

The Lord will Provide: Part 1: Showers, Beds, and Art in the City.

Stardate: 04.15.2010

Ok, let's play ketchup again, It is now Thursday, the Long Walkers are in El Cerito, and the title of this blog is neither a metaphor, nor an exaggeration.

Monday morning, I signed off with the news that we wanted to get out of Pacifica and into San Francisco before the end of the day and that we were waiting for Susanne to be able to contact her friends there. Well, as it turned out, she got ahold of someone at YWAM San Francisco only to discover that there was a large group of church kids already installed in the rooms and recreation areas because of Easter break (aka Spring break, but this is a Christian organization and therefore exempt from the separation clause), and she was unable to contact Earl who might have been able to work something for us as well. Neither could I contact my families friend John in El Cerito, so we did not have a destination in the City.

In any case, long about noon, Susanne decided that she just couldn't take sitting at Starbucks anymore, even in the rain, and suggested that we just go and figure it out on the way. Nick and I concurred, so we walked across the street to the Linda Mar Park'n'Ride to wait for the 110 bus that would take us to the Daley City BART station. We got wet crossing the street, used the restroom at the gas station next door to the stop, and huddled in the roofed shelter waiting for the bus, then climbed aboard. Bus drivers get this look when they see us coming, most of them are friendly enough, but you can tell that they are not thrilled by the size of our packs.

We have good gear, and the huge packs mark us as travellers instead of homebums but we still run into prejudice and averted eyes as often as we run into friendly interest and conversation. Carrying your house on your back is beyond the pale in America these days, probably because so many are afraid that they are only one paycheck from losing their homes and living out of a car or a backpack themselves.

Nonetheless we managed to find three benches open (with the pack you take up at least two seats) and rode out of the rain into a beautiful sunny day as we crossed from San Mateo county and into San Francisco county. At Daley City we worked the phones again, and Susanne's mother Linda (by far our greatest benefactor so far) came through with a donation to allow us to get a room in the City. We called around and found the Presidio Inn on Lombard near the Golden Gate end. Then We caught the Blue line to the Civic Center, and a bus from there to the corner of Chestnut and Divisedero, about two blocks from the hotel. The room was nice, with two large beds which works well (Nick prefers sleeping on the floor anyway because of his back) and a microwave, sink and mini-fridge equipped kitchenette as well as the typical closet/bathroom/dressing area—all at a very reasonable rate. I would recommend the place for staying in the City on a budget as it was about twenty dollars cheaper than anything else we could find.

That night we stayed in, even though we had planned to go out and look at the city after dinner. I cooked while Nick and then Susanne took showers and watched a movie. Potatoes, parsnips, cabbage, spinach, jalapenos, zuchini, and mushrooms sauteed with butter garlic, onions and red wine vinegar. Serrved with rice and a salad of shredded cabbage, spinach, mushrooms and Pepper-Jack cheese in a citrus vinegarette, savory brown rice, a gluten-free bread of almond and rice flour and corn tortillas. Everything was cooked in the microwave (except the bread and tortillas which I toasted with butter on a steel plate on our propane burner) and it came out perfect both in texture and flavor. That is an achievement.

I had to wake Susanne up to tell her dinner was ready, then wake her up again to hand her her plate. I guess the poison oak adventure, followed by an all-nighter at Denny's and a busy day wore her out. She was asleep again within minutes of finishing dinner and slept through the night.

Nick and I enjoyed the meal, I took a long hot shower while he made coffee, then we gorged on sweets, and watched Slumdog Millionaire. Great film, absolutely fantastic, though disturbing at many levels. I ended up staying up till like three in the morning, but slept well once I went out...

Tuesday I woke groggy on four hours sleep after skipping a night to the sounds of Susanne and Nick clattering about, got a cup of coffee and dragged my cranky ass into the shower before I said much since I had nothing cheerful to say. The shower and coffee fixed that and I emerged looking human and feeling cheerful about a day in the City.

We ate while we consulted our map, our memories of earlier San Francisco excursions, and the phone book looking for likely looking places to find art or do art. Finally we decided to wing it by heading back towards City Center, planning to catch a bus or the BART at some point and end up in the Mission District where there is an innovative arts center that provides living and working space for disabled artists to work, show, and sell their art. We checked the place's website, and it looked like a very cool setup—just our sort of thing.

We started walking East on Chestnut, occasionally consulting a map, and it was like flying. Being free from our packs for the day was wonderful. Susanne had her buttpack, and I carried my computer, sketchbook, novel, and some art supplies in my daypack, but the difference between carrying seventy pounds and carrying fifteen pounds is enormous. We could have been in a RedBull comercial even though we were fueled by coffee and tea. The sun was playing tag with interestingly shaped clouds so we just kept walking, it was so easy.

Eventually we decided that we would walk down Fisherman's Wharf to the BART there, and then catch BART where we wanted to go. We walked and took tons of pictures of random cool stuff, spent some time in a huge art gallery with tons of way expensive stuff in it (like a $160,000 clock and pornographic Japanese Ivory minatures for $3,600, see photos).

We learned, yet again, that when walking in San Francisco it is wise to use every bathroom you see, so as to avoid ducking behind a tree, for that is exactly what I had to do behind the Fog City Diner, irrigating their backyard while Susanne and Nick distracted pedestrians on the other side of the hedge. Next door to the diner is a beautiful little park where we sat and smoked for a bit, ate chocolate and took more photos. There we discussed eventual destinations for a few minutes, having realized that it was after three. We wanted to see more art, and were debating the relative merits of the gallery/workshop in the Mission District vrs the Palace of Fine Arts and not coming to any useful conclusions. Nick and I were rather neutral, neither ever having been to either—either would do, and Susanne could not make up her mind, so she importuned a couple sitting on a bench near the little waterfall there and asked their opinion. The young Asian hipster said he had never been to the one, and the last time he had been to the Palace was years back, but that he would recommend the Palace.

Thus edified, we gave up on the BART and headded back the way we had come, but by a somewhat different route that took in some interesting alleys beneath the Coit tower on the way to Crookedest Street, and thence off down Lombard towards our hotel and the Palace on the other side.We split up at that point, with Nick continuing to walk back towards the hotel while Susanne and I began looking for a bus as the hour was getting late and we were afraid we might not get there before closing.

To make a long story short, we got coffee to acquire change for a bus we never found going the correct direction, and wound up back at the hotel not long after Nick. We decided to go up to the room and use the computer and phone to find our way and check on the hours which we had of course missed by then. So we stayed in the room, made another good dinner and contented ourselves with the days walk, good food, coffee, Noepolitan ice cream, and another couple of movies. That night we all got to sleep at a reasonable hour and woke prepared to abandon the City the following morning.

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Further After Easter:

Further After Easter:

Stardate: 04.11.2010:

So, I was caught up to Friday the 9th... James C. left us to return to Modesto, leaving Susanne, Nick, and Me at the Starbucks at the Linda Mar Shopping Center, we hung out there most of the afternoon, and into the early evening, doing some writing, checking email, and so forth. Susanne went searching for Art shows and such in the area when she was online and discovered the Chavez Arts Center just up the road was opening their annual “Arts on Fire” exhibit and contest, including a forty minute belly dancing performance, fire dancers, BBQ, Dessert, beer, wine, and so forth.

Seems like Fridays are the Days for Art on this trip because the week before was the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. I'm not complaining, there was a bunch of cool art on display, and the belly dancers were impressive—also the fire dancers, call me Captain Obvious. Unfortunately, I did not get many pictures of the Art, although above you have a flaming guitar sculpture made of welded steel and gears and such (it moved), a couple of huge paintings that look like satellite maps, and the file of belly dancers coming out before the show.

Anyways, after all was said and done we enjoyed ourselves and so did everyone else I saw or talked to. We left as things were winding down about nine and walked back down to the beach, putting us at a paltry three or four miles for the day.

When we got to the beach it was already dark and we (again) didn't know what the tides were going to be like except that one guy we talked to who also had a big backpack and camped out locally told us that the “[...] water comes up pretty high there, I sleep up on the hill.” We followed the upper part of the beach for a bit and finally pitched the tent under a couple cypress trees between the edge of the sand and the bike path. Susanne cooked a rice mushroom and chilli curry for dinner that we ate with chips and the mussel shell spoons she collected for us at the beach in Montera. That rice was frigging GOOD, and we talked and ate candy and drank coffee afterwards and slept until we woke and did not get hassled...excellent 1st night in town.

Saturday we spent most of the day at Starbucks then hiked up the hill and set up camp in a mountainous county park at the top of Linda Mar Blvd. We saw several deer on our way in, and camped in a place where they were obviously in the habit of sleeping in because of circles of flattened grass. Had a nice evening, ate, smoked, talked, drank coffee, Susanne and Nick fell assleep, then I got out this computer and played Free Cell Solitaire until the battery died.

Yesterday morning Susanne got up early and went for a hike—I was sensable and kept sleeping till she got back, and Nick woke up somewhere in between. When she got back, it had begun to rain a bit, and we made coffee (tea for Susanne).

We were getting ready to make some grits for breakfast when we heard a thundering engine and a County Park Ranger showed up to kick us out. He took our IDs, ran our names, and told us to break camp while he was waiting to hear back. Then he asked us who wanted to take responsibility as the leader of our little band. Since I figured this meant that he only felt like writing one ticket, I replied “I'll take it.”

By that time he had mellowed in his behavior towards us, commenting that we had packed up fast , clean, and thanking us for picking up our trash. We took turns saying stuff like “Pack it in—pack it out.” and other such true platitudes. Then he had us throw our packs into the back of his truck and climb into the backseat so he could escort us out of the park. That saved us a mile worth of walking, and saved him the worry that instead of hiking out we would simply dissappear into some other crevice in the landscape that was better hidden.

It was not until he dropped us off back at the road, in a steady drizzle, that he gave us our Ids back and told us we were welcome to come back when we could follow the rules. “No hard feelings, there is nothing personal about this, I'm just doing my job.”

I asked him if he had ever tried to backpack the coast and pay for camping every night, he said “It's getting pretty tough these days.”

I said, “Well, don't worry, we'll stay out of your park for today, but like you're doing your job, I'm just doing mine. What's an unemployed English teacher supposed to do for fun anyways?”

He said, “Yeah, it's rough out there.”

We walked away.

Back down the hill to Starbucks by about noon where we stayed until almost five waiting for a good break in the rain. Then we decided to head back South a little way on the 1 and try to find a good camp in the State preserve on the edge of town. Found one, but only after a disasterous detour through a poison oak infested hillside (my bad). Susanne was not happy as she is violently allergic to the evil shit, I was not happy, and I don't think Nick was either though it can be hgard to tell with Nick sometimes he is so generally quiet it is exceptional when he starts chattering, but it does happen.

Instead of camping, we hiked back down to the beach bathrooms, washed our feet, lower legs, and shoes off thouroughly with soap and cold water, then headed over to the laundrymat by the Starbucks. There we washed and dried all dirty clothes and shoes (which needed to be done anyhow) to get rid of potential poison oak contamination. By the time we finished it was well after nine and we decided to repair to the Denny's, get coffee and food, and wait out the rainy night. So we did. We all ate a ton, drank coffee, talked, Susanne read some, and so did I. Nick balanced coins, forks, spoons and so on to create artistic arrangements, I started this post and played some more free cell, Nick slept sitting up for a while. Then, at a little after five we moved back over here to Starbucks. Today, Monday, we are planning to get into San Francisco. Susanne is trying to get a hold of some people she knows who have a couple of Hostel like rooms, and we are hoping to stay there tonight. The place does not open till 9:30, so then we will find out what the deal is and decide on an appropriate course of action.

After Easter and so on...

Stardate: 04.11.2010

Monday April 5th dawned sunny and mostly clear, with only wispy clouds between the Lighthouse point we started walking from and the sun. Walking away from the Hostel we all felt renewed, clean, and triumphant. Beforte we even made it out to the HWY-1 I smelled onions, looked over and saw that the Hispanic pickers in the field at the side of the road were harvesting leeks. Visions of leek soup floated across my tastebuds and I importuned the closest migrant with a smile and a wave, “Como esta amigo,” I said, “Un Leek para mi?”

“Bien...si.” he replied, handing me one enormous green onion and smiling that patented smile that is reserved for crazy gringos.

“Gracias man, muchas gracias.” I ended and swung on down the road whistling and using the leek like a conductors baton. We were heading for a little tyown called Pescadero because it had the nearest market and we were almost out of food and cigarettes, and Pescadero was four miles up the coast and two miles inland according to the old hippie guy who ran the hostel and was either stoned or just very laid back at all times dude. We found a connecting road that cut off a bit and we also saw many beautiful things on the way (including a pile of abandoned, but fresh, leeks and a fennel bulb which we promptly added to our load) and we made the distance in about two and a half hours over hill and dale.

Pescadero is a nice, friendly, small town that intends to stay that way. They have one gas station/taqueria, and two Deli-markets next door to each other, none of which take food stamps so I shopped cheap. The legs and thighs of a chicken, a couple potatoes, some jalapenos and some frosty Mountain Dew for the road. Susanne got some Cranberry-Pomegranite juice and a couple other little things, and J.C. And Nick pretty much sat outside and enjoyed the break.


Then we set off down Stage road towards the town of San Gregorio seven miles to the North and back on the 1 (or so we thought). By then it was about three in the afternoon and we were looking for a campsite from the moment we cleared the outskirts of Pescadero, but we were entering horse and ccow country and the road was either bordered by poison oak among the eucalyptus trees, or by inhospitable barbed wire fences. We found what appeared to be a good site, up a dirt road, after about three miles, but it also turned out to be infested with poison oak, so on we trekked getting more tired and cranky by the yard. Finally we found an unfenced property with no “No Trespassing” signs that had been planted with cyprus and pine at some point. Poison oak does not like pines, so we were safe.

Susanne had a brief freak out and wanted to go by herself to beach, but was talked out of it and settled down to cut vegetables for dinner while Nick and the two Jameses set up camp. Later she attacked her tent, but the thing about Susanne is that she is so consientious about the feelings of others that she appologises even when she does not need to, so it is easy to just get past bursts of temper. We all figured that it had been a long days walking with heavy gear (10-12 miles), and we were hungry, so a bit of temper was par for the course. Dinner was cooked over a fire for a change to conserve propane, and because we needed several things cooking at once. Potato-leek soup, tortillas, and grilled chicken (cooked on a steel plate) was terrific and made everyone feel much better. The ground was sloped and bumpy, but we still slept well and awoke refreshed.

Tuesday we hiked another two miles into San Gregorio (which, as Susanne mentioned in her blog, I kept mispronouncing in a variet of ways) and I caught a snake on the way.

There we enjoyed the General Store's ambience (totally cool place, check it out if you are ever in the area. I bought two stickers “Art Junkie” and “Not All Who Wander Are Lost,” for my computer. Susanne and J.C. also bought stickers, and we had beverages. There turned out to be a bus stop right outside the store that we discovered would pick us up at 6:30pm, so we walked another mile down to San Gregorio State Beach where we lounged the afternoon away and waited for the bus.

There was a stop right across from the beach, so at the end of the day we caught the bus there and rode it up the coast to Half Moon Bay where we went to Safeway and were looking for a campsite when we got interrupted by a ranger. She told us where we could camp for $7.00 each. We said ok, waited for her to leave, then hiked off in the opposite direction and camped on the dunes. The next day, we caught bus up to Monterra State Beach where we spent Wednsday, and Thursday nights. Fabulous place, we enjoyed our two days there quite a bit, though it was hella windy. I'll post some photos and such from there later, but it is almost time to go find camp for tonight, and the rain has stopped for now, so I need to finish this quick.

Friday we caught another bus into Pacifica, and J.C. left us at the Linda Mar Shopping Center Starbucks to return to the world of the day to day. That night we camped on the beach right across the street...

to be continued...