the old-school guestbook archives
my amazon wish list... my favorite astrologer... my favorite artist... yerba mate revolution! erowid: a travel guide for interior journeys... no more war: MoveOn.org United for Peace and Justice True Majority seek the truth: Common Dreams Unamerican Activities The Nation people I adore, diaries I read: rev.raikes ariana cubiclegirl epiphany glitter333 laurakay wammo the music: the asylum street spankers backyard tire fire blue highway bill camplin wendy colonna freedom tribe joules graves guy forsyth band hamsa lila hanuman libby kirkpatrick leftover salmon pamela means medeski martin & wood the motet the nice outfit nickel creek open road rose polenzani railroad earth south austin jug band string cheese incident taarka tha musemeant the devil makes three tim o'brien band trolley wild sage keller williams yonder mountain string band |
dancing in the carnivorous dark ~ October 20, 2001 - 2:03 a.m. someone found my diary through a google search for "american flag baseball cap"... I'll betcha they didn't find what they were expecting. I can't believe some of the things people are looking for when they hit me. ozone read something in the paper about how demand for american flags was so high that chinese laborers are working overtime to keep up. glad all those five-year-old labor slaves making less than a dollar a day are doing their part for the american way. anyway... camping was good, really good. we went to the pinnacles, my first time there, and it's beautiful. we had the campground pretty much to ourselves, since it was the middle of the week-- gotta love not having a job. the campground was full of deer that were totally unafraid of us. we also saw wild pigs, coyote, and a hawk flew across our path carrying some kind of rodent in its claws. the biggest adventure was the hike we took yesterday. roughly fifteen miles. well, it didn't feel that rough until about halfway through, when the trail started going up, and just kept going up. you don't realize how out of shape you are until you're in the middle of something like that. the view was fantastic, though, and we were right at the top of ridge at sunset. gorgeous colors. ummm... sunset?! perhaps the more sensible among you are wondering... yes, we completely misjudged how long the hike would take us. by the time we hit the downward side of the trail, the sun had gone down, and within about half an hour, things were getting seriously dark. we did have a flashlight, but we avoided using it for as long as we could. flashlights actually make it harder to see, in a lot of ways. but when we got back down into serious forest, it was pitch black, and we needed light just to see the trail. for a while we used ozone's little blue LED flashlight, which doesn't mess up your night vision. then, we heard something big crashing through the brush a little ways away. something that didn't sound like a deer. I don't think either of us believed it would come near us, at first. you know, wild-animals-are-afraid-of-humans, and leave-them-alone-and-they'll-leave-you-alone... oh yeah, I almost forgot: the night belongs to the carnivores. that's something like rule number one. so we didn't really think it would come near us, but then suddenly it was crashing through the brush on our right, and then it ran across the path, maybe ten feet ahead of us. I was behind ozone, he had the little blue light, we both froze. he didn't quite see it. he'd tell me later that it was smallish and dark and moved like a dog. probably coyote. he got out the big flashlight then, the mag light, and after a minute we kept on walking. I mean, what the hell else are you gonna do? as soon as we got to where it had crossed the path, we heard it crashing through the brush on the hillside just over our heads-- and we grabbed hands and ran. I was thinking oh god, not a mountain lion, please... mountain lions are kind of famous for jumping down on their prey. and they're vicious. so we ran down that narrow mountain path, somehow not tripping and falling and becoming mountain lion food. and anyway, I think it was a coyote. we left it behind. maybe it really was as scared of us as we were of it. I'm glad we didn't have to find out. so we weren't feeling all that secure after our little adventure... actually, we were paranoid, shining the flashlight at every rustle we heard, checking out rock ledges for possible mountain lion hangouts. and then there was a bit of a worry when we passed a sign that ozone thought we'd passed before, and thought that maybe we were walking in circles... but we weren't, and finally we were out of the woods and sneaking past the ranger station-- the park had closed an hour earlier. we still had a couple of miles to walk back to camp, which was torturous. my legs were killing me by then, ozone's back was thrashed, and we were both exhausted. I tripped out for a second when I saw something big running towards us on the road-- and then it turned on a flashlight. one of the rangers, probably, out for a night run. he jogged on past us and we limped down the road. there was a shortcut we could have taken, but right as we were about to turn onto the path, we heard the unmistakeable yelp of an animal becoming prey. the night belongs to the carnivores. we stayed on the road. we collapsed on a bench in front of the camp store for a few minutes when we got there, and watched a doe and a buck walk quietly past, and then two giant wild pigs (warthogs?) walked across a circle of streetlight-- stately, like a parade. finally, we limped back to our camp, and I somehow managed to find the energy to make pasta and sauce on the camp stove. sometimes a hot meal means everything. yes, camping was good.
(((rings))) |