Category Archives: Work Camping

Jul5

Independence Day Parking Lot Circus

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The Saturday of Independence Day weekend was normal holiday busy. I sold 87 day passes, and my co-worker sold 77. Everybody in the parking lot was friendly, no one complained, and nothing particularly interesting happened.

This is the busiest day of the season, I told my co-worker. It’s all downhill from here. I was wrong.

The Sunday of Independence Day weekend was the real clusterfuck.

I arrived at the parking lot an hour earlier than usual because I wanted to be sure I had a place to park. We got busy almost as soon as I arrived.

The problem wasn’t so much that many people wanted to park in a small parking lot at the same time. I’ve handled that before. I know that if people keep moving, the great circle of parking lot life brings cars in and takes cars out so new cars can park in their places.

The problem on the Sunday of Independence Day weekend was that people were being stupid and selfish.

One would think a parking lot attendant would not have to tell drivers not to park in the roadway. However, on the Sunday of Independence Day weekend, people were parking any old where. Twice I ran down the road that loops through the lot to tell people the parking halfway in the roadway was not acceptable.

Other people had parked partially on the pavement, just barely giving cars room to roll by. Even though the vehicles weren’t in the middle of the roadway, the way they parked barely gave big pickup trucks and SUVs room to get through. I don’t think giant motor homes could have gotten through at all.

At least three times I ran toward the parking lot entrance waving my arms and shaking my head, trying to convey NO! and STOP! when big motor homes tried to pull in. I was afraid a big RV would not be able to pass the vehicles stupidly parked halfway on the pavement. Most of the motor homes that come into the parking lot are rented, and most people driving rented motor homes don’t drive them very well. I didn’t expect an inexperienced driver of a motor home to be able to back the thing up if moving forward proved impossible. It seemed better to just keep the motor homes out.

The problem with people blocking cars began right before 1pm.

In all of last season, I never saw anyone block in a stranger’s car. I saw it happen once earlier this season, when one car parked at an angle, a little too close to a stranger’s car and made it just barely impossible for the second car to back out. On the Sunday of Independence Day weekend, some people just quit giving a fuck and began parking their cars so other people couldn’t get out.

The first guy who reported his car blocked was a large Latino man. He told me he wanted to slash some tires. When I repeated this to my co-worker, he made a good point: If the man slashed the tires of the car blocking his, when the owners of the blocking car returned, the flat tires would deep them from moving the car out of his way.

The second person to complain of a blocked car was a senior citizen, bird watching white lady. She told me and my co-worker her car had been blocked and asked if we wrote tickets. When we said no, she asked if we had guns. I’m not sure how she thought a gun would help, since there was no one in the car blocking hers to wave a gun at.

Later in the afternoon, a man with an East Indian accent told me he’d parked behind another vehicle and asked me if that was ok. I told him it wasn’t ok to park behind another vehicle if he didn’t know the people driving it. He said the vehicle was parked on a log, and he didn’t think it ever left the parking lot, and he was only going to be gone about an hour. Was it ok if he parked behind it? My co-worker was gone for the day, so I was not able to leave my post at the front of the lot to see what in the hell he was talking about. (Parked on a log?) I assured him the driver of any vehicle parked in the lot had the intention of leaving and it was NOT OK to park behind any vehicle. I told him if the driver of the vehicle he’d blocked returned first and wanted to leave and couldn’t, the driver will want to fight you! He said again he’d only been gone about an hour, and I told him again it was NOT OK to block any car. I don’t know if he moved his vehicle, but no one else complained about being blocked in, so I suppose everything worked out.

In the midst of the stupid parking and more cars than the lot would hold, a different man with an East Indian accent reported that one of the cars in his party wouldn’t start. He told me they needed jumper cables. I told him he should ask around the parking lot for a set. I was afraid if I loaned him mine, they’d get lost in the hubbub and I’d never see them again, or the people would blow up their car and try to blame my equipment. Besides, I really didn’t have time to leave my post collecting parking fees to dig them out.

Some time later, a young man with an East Indian accent came up to me as I was directing the driver of an incoming car and said, Our car really really won’t start. I advised him the nearest payphone was about ten miles away at a private campground. He said they were staying at that campground. I asked him if their group had another car, and he said it did. I told him they should probably go to the campground in the other car and use the payphone to call roadside assistance.

During a slight lull in the stupidity, a man with a Spanish accent approached me to ask if anyone had turned in any keys. I told him no. Turns out a large extended family was milling about because the keys to one of their vehicles had been lost. There were questions about what would happen to the truck if they left it to go home and get a spare key. There was checking with the campground next door to learn if the keys had been turned in to the camp hosts. (They had not.) Finally, a couple of very young women came back to the parking lot, keys in hand. The heroes! I’m not sure where they’d found the keys–on the trail, maybe. The entire family was relieved and finally headed out.

Not long after that key situation was resolved, a woman approached me to pay her parking fee. Unfortunately, she told me, my husband locked the keys in the car. Do you have one of those things? I assumed she meant a slim jim, and I said I didn’t have one. I said the nearest phone was ten miles away. She said, Well, I didn’t bring my AAA card with me. (What kind of idiot gets into her car without her AAA card?) I told her she should ask around the parking lot for someone who knew how to jimmy the lock. She laughed nervously, but that worked at least once in the past.

When I left the parking lot after 3:30, there were still lots of people milling about, cars arriving and cars leaving. I hoped the people figured out the self-pay system.

I sold 122 day passes that Sunday and lost a little more of my hope for humanity.

This note--written on the back of a day pass--was found on the day after the events of this post took place. It pretty much sums up the day.

This note–written on the back of a day pass–was found on the day after the events of this post took place. It pretty much sums up the day.

Jun29

Horse People (Continued)

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From inside the livestock trailer, I heard a man’s voice say Good morning, so I said Good morning in return.

The man’s voice called the dog. The dog ran to the gate of the trailer, then away from it. The man continued calling the dog in a low, calm voice. At the time, I thought the dog was just being playful, was enjoying being off leash, didn’t want to give up its freedom. But now I remember the dog cowering just outside the trailer’s open gate, ears flattened against its head. Like the girl, the dog was silent.

When the man had the dog, I walked around to the open gate of the trailer. The man was tying the dog to a rope attached to the trailer.

I’d barely identified myself as the camp host when the man said to me, Well, you sure don’t waste any time.

I guess he meant I hadn’t wasted any time in coming over to collect the camping fee. I thought it was a strange thing for him to say. People who stay in a campground typically know there is a fee to camp, and most people are happy to pay up and get the task out of the way.

In that instant when the man spoke to me, my whole plan changed. Maybe the look on the girl’s face had finally registered as fear. Maybe I’m particularly sensitive to dangerous men. But what came out of my mouth was, I’ll make you a deal. If you clean up after the horses, I won’t charge you the camping fee. I know y’all got in late last night.

I didn’t fear for my own personal safety. The man didn’t do or say anything I could point to as a threat. But I had a suspicion that if the man got pissed off, I wouldn’t be the one he’d take it out on.

I think he thanked me. Then he asked, If we want to stay another night, should we talk to you?

The last thing I wanted in my campground was this bad vibe man, his cowering dog, his silent girl, and his six shitting horses.

Well, I said, I’ve got people checking in on this site tomorrow, and this really isn’t a horse camp.

No, he agreed. This really isn’t a horse camp. I guess there’s no water either?

No, I sadly shook my head, no water.

We’ll just have some breakfast, he said. Then we’ll get out of your hair.

I continued about my business cleaning fire rings. I kept a watch on the family out of the corner of my eye.

A woman and two younger children emerged from the pile of blankets and sleeping bags on the ground. I couldn’t determine the gender of the youngest child, but the middle kid was a blond girl, probably seven or eight years old.

Two things struck me as strange.

First, after breakfast was cooked (on a high standing stove), the people did not sit down to enjoy their meal. Although there were three picnic tables in the area they were occupying, they stood in a loose circle while they consumed their food. I couldn’t tell what they were eating or if they used plates, but standing during breakfast is not normal camper behavior.

Second, for most of the morning, the man’s voice was the only one I heard. He didn’t raise it high enough for me to understand his words, but I could hear it drifting through the campground. I didn’t hear the women’s voice once, and at least an hour passed before I could hear the kids. Whether the woman and children were whispering or silent, I don’t know.

The man did another weird thing while I was cleaning the fire ring on site #1. He let a horse wander off from the rest of its herd. He didn’t let it go far, but I wondered why he was allowing it to move around freely. Was he challenging me, hoping I’d say something so he could argue with me or have a reason to be be mad?

Typically I would have commented on the beauty of the horse (a muscular, brown creature), but my instinct was not to chit chat with these people.

When I finished cleaning fire rings, I went back to my campsite to get ready for the rest of my day. I started hearing the children’s voices echo through the campground. The kids were not screaming at the tops of their lungs, but I could hear their happy and excited voices.

I was beginning to think I was imaging things and there wasn’t anything weird about these people when I heard the man raise his voice. I was pretty sure he was reprimanding one or more of the children, and I clearly heard him say…yelling out loud! He was reprimanding the children for their happy, exuberant voices! (And really, if a kid can’t yell in a campground at 9:30 in the morning, where can a kid yell?)

Then I heard the twack twack twack sound of something (a switch picked up from the ground? a horse-related tool?) slice through the air and hit something. When I looked up, the man was walking away, but the middle child was standing frozen, with her arms held stiffly at her sides. I didn’t hear any children’s voices after that.

Once again, I was rendered mute by a grown man hitting a little kid, but this time I’d only heard the abuse. What could I do? I know how abusers work.  Anything I said or did, the woman or the kids would pay for later. I didn’t even have an excuse to talk to the girl and offer her some small kindness.

Sometimes I feel so useless.

The day after the horse people left, I walked through the area they’d occupied and could still smell horse feces. I started poking around with the toe of my boot and found the man’s idea of cleaning up after his horses was to bury the feces. Asswipe! I ended up having to clean up the horse feces myself, and it was a more difficult task now that it was covered in duff. I will admit I had fantasies of breaking that man’s kneecaps.

Jun28

Horse People

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When I went to bed, the campground was empty.

I woke up at 12:30am, and I really had to pee. I was so groggy as I pulled out my pee bucket and found the toilet paper, but I seemed to be hearing noises in the campground. The noises weren’t right outside the van, but were somewhere within the campground. Once back in bed, I tried to figure out what I was hearing.

I did not hear the sound of a vehicle’s engine, which kind of freaked me out. If there were people in the campground, wouldn’t they have driven in? Could I have slept through a vehicle pulling into the campground? Probably. As groggy as I was when I woke up, I’d probably been sleeping really hard. If the vehicle were on the other side of the campground, I definitely could have slept through its motor running.

But what were the other noises I was hearing? There was a metallic sound, somewhat like the metal lids on the metal trashcans being jostled, but not very loud. I wondered if a bear were getting into the metal trashcans, but I think a bear messing with trashcans would make a lot of noise. I don’t think bears are carefully quiet when helping themselves to midnight garbage snacks.

I could also hear the sounds of some kind of animal(s). I couldn’t decide what kind of animal it might be.

Are the cows back? I wondered. When I’d closed up the van around eight o’clock, there had been no cows in the meadow. I don’t think cows are the type of animal to go exploring in the middle of the night. Besides, I’ve been around cows at night (me in a house or my van, the cows in a pasture or a meadow); I know what kinds of noises cows make. The noises I heard did not sound like cows.

I was back to thinking maybe I heard a bear. I’ve never heard a bear, so maybe the noises I was hearing were bear noises. Maybe it was a very quiet bear, carefully lifting the lids on the trashcans and replacing them gently.

What didn’t make sense about bears eating from the trash cans is that the campground had not been very busy in the last few days. Any bears exploring those trashcans would not find much to eat.

Maybe I had dozed off. Maybe I was dreaming. But suddenly I was wide awake and I swore I’d heard a footstep. But whose footstep? Man or beast? Bear or cow?

I waited to hear a lid lifted from a trash can or one can crash into another. Nothing.

Nighttime in a remote, empty campground can be very disconcerting. It’s so quiet. It’s so dark. I never know who or what is out there.

One of my personal rules of being a camp host is that I’m in the van with the doors locked by nightfall, and I don’t get out of the fan at night to greet strangers. If someone I already talked to and checked-in while the sun was out knocks at at night, I ‘d get out of the van and help them if necessary. But I’m not going to deal with strangers in the dark, especially if my brain is addled with sleep.

I lay in the dark, still and quiet, straining to hear any and every little noise. Then I saw the beam of a flashlight once, twice.

I was pretty sure even a Ninja quiet bear would not have a flashlight, which meant I was dealing with humans. I didn’t know if I preferred humans to bears. What were those people doing out there at nearly one in the morning? Who were they? Did they just want to camp, or were they plotting evil schemes? And what were the weird noises?

Everything must have settled down, and I must have dozed off because the next time I turned on my tiny flashlight with the red beam, it was 2am and all was quiet.

I was awake with the first light of dawn. I dressed and prepared to face whatever havoc had been wreaked on the campground in the night.

The trashcans on my side of the campground had not been tampered with. So far, so good.

I saw a big pickup truck hauling a long livestock trailer on the other side of the campground. I saw bedding spread out on site #6 (but no tent). I saw a dog, and it saw me. I couldn’t tell if it was tethered in any way, but it didn’t run over to meet me, so I left well enough alone. I didn’t see any people moving around, but at the back of site #6, I saw six horses milling about.

Oh! Horses! That was the animal noise I’d heard in the night. I don’t have much horse experience, so I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t identified the sounds I’d heard as coming from horses.

I also figured the metallic sounds must have come from the trailer–the gate opening, the horses unloading.

I did my paperwork so I could turn it into my supervisor later in the day. I swept the restrooms. I cleaned fire rings. I plotted how I would demand payment from the horse people, no mater if they protested that they’d not spent the whole night. They’d woke me (and scared me, no less), and they were going to pay.

Between 6 and 6:30, I looked over to site #6 and saw some people moving around. When I finished with the fire ring I was cleaning, I grabbed my clipboard and walked over, fully intending to write a permit and collect payment.

I noticed a person walking among the horses. The person had long hair; I thought it was a small woman. I also noticed the dog I’d seen earlier was not leashed and was frolicking around the horses. I think I said, Good morning, followed by, The dog does need to be leashed in the National Forest.

The female person did not turn to look at me.

I said, Miss? Miss?

The female person turned to look at me. I saw she was not a small woman, but a young girl, maybe 11, maybe 12. She looked at me in utter confusion.

The dog, I pointed. A leash, I said.

She didn’t utter a word. She seemed to be frozen. She just looked at me with blank eyes of confusion. I think there was something besides confusion on her face, but I didn’t realize it at the time.

To Be Continued

Jun26

I Don’t Want to Be Sick

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Yesterday evening, after I’d worked in the parking lot, after I cleaned my campground’s last toilet and poured a bucket of water on a fire campers had left smoldering, after I cooked and ate dinner and cleaned up after, I thought I might be getting sick. As I sat on the floor of my van and did my accounting of the money I’d collected in the parking lot, I felt really cold.

Of course, the temperature was pleasantly cool all day, after a thunderstorm (and what thunderous thunder it was) the night before. I wore my official company-issued jacket most of the day. But as the afternoon depended into evening, I got colder than I thought I should be.

After I finished my accounting, I took off my uniform and put on my new grey Cuddl Duds leggings (purchased new and on sale for only $3 on end-of-season clearance because to most of California it’s summer now) and my blue sweatshirt (purchased ages ago for $1 at a New Mexico thrift store). I realized not only was I cold, but I was congested too. Oh no! Was I getting sick? I don’t want none of that!

I emptied a packet of Emergen-C (bought for half price because the box was crushed) into my water bottle and chugged it down. I closed my curtain before it was even dark out and crawled into bed under my feather comforter (bought at a Goodwill Clearance Center for $6, using a birthday gift card, since I seem to be giving an accounting of bargains). I finished reading Lit by Mary Karr and turned out the light.

A woman I met at the 2016 Rubber Tramp Rendezvous told me she clears her body of all the nasty stuff chem trails leave behind just by thinking about it, telling her body to get rid of it all. I decided if it works (?) for chem trail chemicals, it should work for the common cold. So I told my body to flush out any invaders. Out, damned germ! Out, I say!  I also gave my white blood cells a pep talk. Come on white blood cells/you can do it/put a little power to it!

I was probably asleep by 9:30.

When I woke up to pee for the nth time (because of all that water before bed), I was warm enough to take off my clothes before I got back in bed. Maybe a fever broke?

I slept well (and I think I had dreams, but I don’t remember a single detail). I woke to birdsong before daylight, but tried to sleep more until a raven (or maybe a pileated woodpecker or a pterodactyl) shouted Crawk! as it passed directly over the van. Ok! I’m awake! I’m writing!

Now it’s almost 6:15, and I don’t really want to get out of bed. (It’s my day off, so technically, I don’t have to.) I don’t quite have a headache, but more forehead feels tight, my eyelids are heavy, and I have an awareness of my lower back I don’t usually have.

I have much to do today, but mostly, I don’t want to be sick. Maybe I can still sleep it off.

 

I wrote this piece on June 13. After driving halfway down the mountain to get my mail, I spent the rest of the day sitting quietly in the van creating collages. I felt better the next day and thought I’d fought off the cold. I was good during my workweek (Wednesday through Sunday) until I woke up on Sunday with a sore throat. Now it’s Tuesday again, and I am full blown sick. My throat’s not sore anymore, which is good news, but my head is totally snotty and the cough is settling in. Maybe I should have cheered on my white blood cells a little more.

Jun24

I Shouldn’t Have Said That

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It was the Memorial Day holiday and my first weekend back at the parking lot. I was happy to be back on the mountain.

A Jeep pulled in, and I approached it. The window rolled down, and I got a whiff of what smelled like weed to me. Instead of playing it cool, like I usually do, I said, It smells gooood in here!

The young people crowded into the Jeep remained noncommittal. They weren’t looking for the trail or our parking lot, but had pulled in to ask directions to some other place.

Instead of letting the weed thing drop, I pressed the issue. I can’t remember what I said, but I actually used the word weed (or maybe pot). I wanted them to know I was hip and cool and with it. I wanted them to know that I may be a middle-age lady, but I know marijuana when I smell it. I’m not sure why it seemed so important to me that they knew that I knew, but in the moment it was.

As I talked to them, my tongue went slack and my words were slipping around loosely. I took that as a sign of a contact high.

A couple of the people in the Jeep said they didn’t have any weed. I said, Oooookkkaaaay, as they drove off to wherever they were going.

I turned to my co-worker and said, I know they had weed in there!

He said, So what?! We’re in California. I love to see young people smoking dope.

I explained I didn’t care if they’d been smoking weed, I just wanted them to admit it.

Then I realized (as so often is the case), I should have kept my big mouth shut.

#1 It wasn’t my business if they were smoking weed.

#2 Recognizing the smell of marijuana does not make me hip or cool or with it. Thinking I’m hip (or cool or with it) because I know what marijuana smells like actually makes me pathetic.

#3 If they weren’t smoking weed, I probably came across as really weird.

#4 If they had been smoking weed, I possibly make them paranoid. Here’s this woman in a uniform asking them if they’d been smoking (a still federally illegal) substance. I imagined them driving away, muttering at each other, She knows. Everybody knows.

I totally should have kept my big mouth shut.

But if the people in the Jeep hadn’t been smoking weed, what did I smell?

#1 Maybe the Jeep was a diesel? I once (foolishly) lived in close proximity to marijuana of a diesel variety (sour, I think). For a long time, the smell of it was seared into my memory, and whenever I smelled a diesel engine, I thought of that weed. Whenever that happened, it was more of a dirty exhaust smell with marijuana undertones. The smell in the parking lot was different because a) I didn’t smell it until the window went down and b) it didn’t smell dirty at all.

#2 Maybe I was having an olfactory hallucination? I’ve noticed a couple times this season I’ve thought I’ve smelled weed when I was in a place where such a thing was impossible, like alone in a campground restroom.

I think those people had been smoking weed and didn’t want to tell me. Fair enough. Admit to nothing is a good guideline when engaged in illicit activity.

I’m going to work harder on keeping my mouth shut.

 

Jun21

People Are So Nasty

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At the beginning of last year’s camping season, when I walked through my campground picking up microtrash, I found a used condom. Picking up a used condom was bad, but it had been lying on the ground for a while, so was quite dry. It wasn’t as bad as it would have been if the condom had been recently used.

What I found at the beginning of this camping season was worse than a freshly used condom.

Around site #2, quite a bit of toilet paper had been left by people or scattered there by the wind. It was kind of gross to think about picking up toilet paper, so I didn’t think about it too much and just went about my work. Then I picked up a piece of toilet paper and under it discovered a pile of human feces. Gross! Yuck! Disgusting!

Who does that?

I’m pretty sure at least two restrooms in the campground were not locked during the off season. Those two are older restrooms, with no locks on the outside of the doors. I don’t think anyone installed locks on those doors in the fall, then removed them in the spring. So whoever shit on the ground most likely had pit toilets at his/her disposal. The Camping Expert website reminds readers

If facilities exist, use facilities in the area. Pooping on a toilet is ALWAYS better than pooping in the woods.

If the ground shitter was such an avid outdoor enthusiast that s/he didn’t want to use the pit toilet, s/he should have taken care of business properly.

According to the Men’s Journal website, there is a proper way to shit in the woods (which I guess could apply to campgrounds, although the article says

Make sure you get at least 200 feet (about 70 paces) away from the trail, water, or campsite.)

The aforementioned article says burial works in areas that don’t have a sensitive environment or are located near water or a canyon, or where campers are required by law to carry their feces out with them.

In soil, dig a hole at least 6 inches deep. The National Outdoor Leadership School suggests scraping the sides of the hole to loosen some dirt to stir into your poop to speed up the natural breakdown process when you’re done. Always conclude the burial process by covering the hole and tamping it down.

The Camping Expert website also advises

Put a cross or stake into your pile to warn other poopers of your pile.

As for toilet paper, the Camping Expert says

DO NOT BURY the toilet paper. I cannot stress this enough.
I know that a lot of people recommend to bury it, and that it will decompose, it is paper after all… however, I have seen lots of toilet paper that hasn’t decomposed and looks gross, sticking out of a dirt pile and once, I even saw a little red squirrel running with a toilet paper strand in it’s [sic] mouth to use in it’s [sic] nest. EWW.

Once at an infoshop, I glanced through a book called How to Shit in the Woods by Kathleen Meyer. I always wanted to read the book but have never come across it at a thrift store or on BookMooch. [amazon template=image&asin=1580083633]

I bet the person who defecated on the ground and then covered it with a piece of toilet paper on site #2 never read Meyer’s book! I wonder if that person had any idea how long it takes human waste to biodegrade (about a year, according to an article on the Mother Jones websit.) I wonder if s/he gave any thought to the person (me!) who’d have to clean up the mess.

After discovering what was hidden under the toilet paper, I walked over to my storage room and got my shovel. I scooped everything up and deposited it in the trashcan. It was a gross job; it made me grumpy.

 

Jun18

Not Very Bright

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When I work in the parking lot, I’m confronted with plenty of people who don’t seem very bright. Sometimes I think people could figure out the answers to their own questions if they just thought about the situation a little harder. I try to stay patient and upbeat and helpful, but honestly, I’m losing faith in the intelligence of humanity.

This season, the question I’m getting again and again (and we’re only a few weeks into the season) is some variation of Why are so many trees dead? (sometimes phrased as Why are so many trees brown? or Why have so many trees been cut down?) It’s as if people haven’t heard California has been suffering from a multi-year drought. Sure, someone from Des Moines or Frankfurt may not know anything about the weather woes of California, but percentages tell me that some of the people who are asking these questions live in the Golden State.

One day a man asked me why so many trees were dead, and I said, Drought. California’s been suffering from a drought for several years.

My co-worker looked at the man and said, Do you live in California?

The man shrugged and said, I live in Orange County, as if the drought had nothing to do with him.

I guess as long as water’s flowing from the tap, the drought isn’t real to some people.

Last weekend, one of the other people on the payroll of the company I work for was lamenting the drought. He said, In six years, there’s not even going to be a mountain because all of the trees will be dead.

I think the mountain will still be here, even if the trees are dead, I told him.

Later in the day, a grown man wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle t-shirt asked why so many trees were dead.

I said, The drought.

He asked (in what seemed to be complete seriousness), Does the drought pick out trees to kill? as if the drought were a sentient being with love for some trees and a vendetta for others.

I was pretty much flabbergasted and at a loss for words. How to even begin to answer such a question? Other visitors were vying for my attention (money to collect! restrooms to point out!), and I ended up telling the guy that some trees were stronger and better able to withstand the drought. You know, survival of the fittest and all of that, I told him. I’m not sure if that tidbit of information helped him.

The last perplexing question I received that day (from yet another grown man) came after he asked me if the trail he was about to visit were the only place sequoias grow. I explained about the range where the tree reproduce naturally (on the Western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains) and then he said, Why are the sequoias extinct?

I blinked my eyes once, twice, three times and said, But they’re not extinct. There’s one growing right there, as I pointed to the tall, tall tree towering over the others.

It turned out he thought the trees were dying out because they only grow in a limited area. (Maybe he doesn’t know what extinct means? Maybe he meant endangered?)

I explained that no one know why sequoias only grow in a limited area, that this is one of the  great mysteries of the trees.

I pray to the universe to grant me patience.

I took this photo of a dead ponderosa pine. It has a pink ribbon around its trunk and is slated to be felled.

I took this photo of a dead ponderosa pine. It has a pink ribbon around its trunk and is slated to be felled.

 

Jun16

Little Girls in the Restroom

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On Sunday, I worked in the parking lot until 3pm, then headed back to my campground.

I thought I would find the campground empty. I didn’t have any reservations and Sundays don’t tend to be busy with people without reservations looking for a place to stay.

Instead, when I got to the campground, I found several cars parked on several sites. Most of the activity seemed to be concentrated on site #7, where eight or ten people were standing around.

Of course, they watched me with great interest as I drove past them to get to my site. I could see them looking in my direction. Their interest increased as I attempted to back into my site.

In the grand scheme of my life, I haven’t been driving for very many years. I never received much instruction in backing up. I really only learned to back up last summer by backing into this very same spot everyday after working in the parking lot. My backing abilities are still hit or miss, especially when I have such an attentive audience. Luckily, I missed hitting anything (the logs at the front of my site, the water tank, the picnic table, the fire ring), but I did a lot of backing up-pulling forward, backing in-pulling forward before I had the van where I wanted it.

Upon exiting the van, I grabbed my clipboard and approached site #7. One woman stepped from the group. She must have been the appointed representative.

I gave her my standard, Hi. I’m the camp host. Are you folks wanting to camp?

She said no, they were just having a barbecue. Apparently they’d been looking for a place with shade to have a barbecue, and the woman at the store where I use the internet suggested they go to my campground.

Technically, it’s a campground and not a day use area, but I’d be a real mean lady if I chased people out when the entire campground is withouth campers.

I was a bit worried this group was going to cause me trouble or leave a mess. Everybody looked pretty drunk. One older guy was curled up in a fetal position in the hatchback storage compartment of a small SUV (or maybe it was a minivan). When I said to the woman that they seemed to have a man down, she told me he had back problems.

The woman said they were just wrapping up their barbecue. When it was determined that they’d be gone within an hour, I said Enjoy your afternoon and went back to my van to deposit my clipboard.

I could hear voices coming from the nearby concrete restrooms. Campers don’t realize how well voices from within those restrooms carry out into the world. I don’t know if it’s the concrete or the vent pipes or what, but it’s obvious when someone in the restroom is talking.

It doesn’t happen often, as most people utilize the pit toilets alone and do not talk to themselves while doing so. The usual scenario for voices coming from a concrete restroom is that of an adult patiently helping a small child navigate the tall plastic seat over the scary hole.

The voices I heard didn’t sound like the adult and child interaction I usually hear. There was no patient, reassuring drone of an adult. There was no mostly incoherent babble of a toddler. What I heard sounded more like straight-up conversation.

I had to pee anyway, so I decided to investigate.

The door on the left was not closed all the way. I’d noticed this door had been closing like this, with

I took this photo to show how the door to the restroom was not completely closed.

I took this photo to show how the door to the restroom was not completely closed.

no gap between door and frame, but not fully closed, as if the occupant let the door shut behind him or herself, and the door didn’t shut all the way. The door was not flush with the frame. Usually people who are going to use the toilet are careful to close and lock the door when they go into the restroom, so I expected to find empty the room with the door not properly closed.

I knocked anyway. I always knock before I enter a restroom, even if I think I’m the only person in the campground. I don’t want to see anyone’s personal business. I don’t want to cause any embarrassment.

I knocked, then pulled the unlocked, not completely closed door open. I found the source of the voices I’d heard.

There were three little girls in the restroom. All three were standing up in a tight little huddle. All three were facing the open toilet.

Two were probably between the ages of nine and eleven, the third probably a couple of years younger. The little one and one of the older girls had long, dark shiny hair and brown skin. The other girls was pale, with apple cheeks and freckles. When they realized the door had opened, they turned around and walked toward me.

What are y’all doing in here? I asked.

I was just going to the bathroom, Freckles lied to my face.

I didn’t say the several things I could have said to call her bluff. I didn’t say, You weren’t sitting on the toilet or You have your pants up.

Instead I said, Next time, you should probably lock the door.

She said, It’s not working. I tried and tried, but it wouldn’t lock.

Liar! I didn’t call her a liar, but I knew she was lying.

First of all, I know what girls (and women too) do if a bathroom door doesn’t lock: we station a friend outside the door as a physical barrier to anyone who might try to get in. Females have been carefully trained to fear strangers seeing us performing elimination functions.

Also? There was another toilet room right next door. If the first door she tried didn’t lock, she would have probably gone next door.

Finally, the lock did work. I reached over and pushed the button on the handle and said mildly, Oh look. It’s working now. Then I said, OK. Bye.

The girls filed out of the restroom, and I closed the (locked) door behind me.

No one had been using the restroom. They were just checking out the pit toilet. Fair enough. I guess they’re kind of interesting if you’ve never seen (or cleaned) one. But lying right to my face was really uncalled for. (I wonder if that technique works on her mother.)

 

Jun9

Just Picking Up Trash?

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It was my day off, but I was hanging around my campsite, tending to chores such as airing out my bedding, taking an inventory of my pantry, and organizing my food supply. I’d taken a shower in my new privacy tent, using my pump-to-pressurize pesticide(less) sprayer. I was wearing my pink house dress, sitting at my picnic table, writing and feeling good.

Only one site in the campground was rented, but those folks had driven off to do something hours before. I knew they were coming back because they’d told me so before they left.

I heard a vehicle pull in on the other side of the campground. I heard a human voice say some words I didn’t understand. I heard footsteps move in the general direction of the rented campsite. I assumed I was hearing the people who were staying on the rented campsite, and I wondered vaguely why they hadn’t driven directly to their spot. I figured they’d just needed to grab something fast and it was quicker to park on the other side of the campground and cut across the empty sites on foot to get to their site.

When I looked up, I could barely make out past the trees and the restroom building the vehicle IMG_3003parked across the way. It was a big white pickup truck. I remembered the campers who’d left for the day had a small silver pickup with a camper shell on the back. As I was contemplating the vehicle that seemed to not belong in the campground, I heard things being moved around on the rented site. Day off or not, I decided I needed to investigate.

I walked over to where I could see the campsite. There was a woman on it. She was not the woman staying on the campsite. This woman had long white hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing unfashionably long shorts that were too tight around her middle.

I said, People are coming back to that campsite.

She said, Oh! (I’m sure she was surprised to see me standing there in my pink dress with my brow furrowed.) I was just picking up trash. I thought this stuff was abandoned.

I’ve been known to do some trash picking myself. In fact, I’d say trash picking is one of my favorite sports. I know what abandoned items look like. They look dirty, like dust has blown on them, like rainwater has washed mud onto them and now the mud has dried into a thin coating of dirt with bits of vegetation embedded in it. Stuff that’s been abandoned tends to be bleached by the sun, and perhaps some pieces are broken. Abandoned things probably have old cobwebs on them and there may be rodent droppings on them too. Abandoned items are strewn about, and one sees them in the same place over a period of days or weeks. The things on that campsite did not look abandoned because they weren’t. The owners hadn’t even been gone a full work day.

It’s not abandoned, I said. The people are coming back, I repeated.

I’ve just been picking up trash, she said again. I’ve been getting all kinds of stuff.

She moved back toward the truck, where the fluffy black and white dog waited silently in the open bed.

I’m the camp host here, I told her. If you come back here, I don’t want you taking my stuff.

Oh no. I won’t, she said. I’m just picking up trash, she maintained.

As she approached the truck, she called out, Is this a free campground?

No ma’am, I said. It costs $21 a night to camp here.

Oh dear! or Oh Lord! she said as she got in the truck.

Maybe she was just wanting to pick up gear that had been abandoned. I didn’t want to discourage (or think the worst of) a fellow trash picker, but I certainly don’t want anyone taking my gear when I’m gone, and I can’t have someone coming into the campground and running off with things that belong to my campers.

Hours later, after the woman was long gone, I realized what I should have said to her.

Ma’am, I’m the host in this campground. If anything is abandoned here, the maintenance men and I will handle it. Please don’t take anything out of this campground.

Now I have my speech ready if she comes back.

I took the photo in this post.

 

Jun5

People Want to Walk That Trail

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As I established earlier, when my work season started, the trail was closed. Forest Service employees were back there removing hazard trees, and they didn’t want civilians wandering near falling trees and chainsaws. That’s why the Forest Service threatened people caught on the trail with a $5,000 fine and up to six months in prison. But some tourists didn’t want to take no trail for an answer.

My boss told me my job is one of advising and not enforcement. Fair enough. I don’t want to be some kind of enforcer anyway. But I was not shy about advising people of the possible fine and prison sentence.

My first weekend at the campground near the trail was the one before Memorial Day. Many people, upon  seeing the gate to the parking lot closed, turned into the next driveway with an open gate. That driveway belongs to the campground where I was the temporary host. My weekend (mostly on Saturday, but some on Sunday too) consisted of me repeating the following information: The trail is closed…Hazard trees…Forest Service is serious…Fine…Prison. I invited people to park in the campground and have a look at the giant sequoias (probably at least a dozen) growing in it. I told people about a scenic overlook ten miles down the road and another sequoia grove twenty miles down the road. I was polite. I was helpful. In other words, I was a camp host super hero.

Most visitors were disappointed, but understanding. Several carloads of folks did spend time in the campground. Several picnic lunches were eaten.

I think talking to someone ostensibly in authority, made people feel accountable. I guess it’s difficult for someone to say s/he didn’t see the sign when a real live person said out loud the trail is closed.

Some people managed to slip in when I was at the back of the campground cleaning restrooms. As I walked to the front of the campground, I saw a whole extended family exiting the trail. There were even more people back there, but they slipped into the trees when I hollered over, Hey! Didn’t y’all see the trail is closed?

They told me they didn’t know, as they crossed the yellow caution tape stretched across the exit. They siad there wasn’t a sign at the other entrance. (I’m 98% sure they were lying.) Well, if those other people are in your group, you might want to tell them about the possible $5,000 fine and six months prison sentence, I said as they hustled to wherever they’d left their vehicle. I’m going to tell them right now, one woman said. I didn’t ask how she planned to do that while the others were hiding in the woods.

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Trees felled by the forest service.

Late in the afternoon, I saw some young folks hesitating on the legal side of the barricade. I saw them read the flyer that spelled out $5,000 and prison. I think they were just about to cross over when I called out, Excuse me. The trail is closed. One guy said he identified hazard trees for a living, implying it would be ok for him (and his friends) to go on the trail because he knew what dangers to look for. I told them I was simply advising them of the situation. They told me they were from the area, so I said they should come back later in the summer when the trail reopened. They were relieved to hear the trail would be reopened. They thought the trail had been closed for good. I assured them they would be able to visit the trees later in the summer, and if they weren’t happy when they left, they at least didn’t seem pissed off.

Early Wednesday morning, as I walked up to check the front restrooms, I saw a huge, older motor home pull into the campground’s driveway. The motor home was towing a big trailer, upon which was painted a lot of words. I couldn’t read the words because of the angle of the trailer, but the cross painted on the motor home and my previous experience led me to suspect those words were biblical scripture.

As I approached the motor home, the driver left his seat and exited the motor home through the side door. He was a clean-cut, with short hair, a totally normal looking middle-age guy. I asked him if he were looking for a camping spot. Although I didn’t know if any of the sites could accommodate such a big motor home and trailer, I figured if he wanted to camp, I’d let him look for a spot that might work.

He said he didn’t want to camp, he just wanted to walk on the trail.

I didn’t get much more than closed and hazard trees out of my mouth before he said, They can’t do that! He seemed to think because the trail is on public land, it can never be closed to the public. I didn’t want to argue with the guy, but I’m pretty sure public land can be closed to the public when there’s a safety issue.

I just gave him what had become my standard line of Well, the Forest Service is pretty serious about people staying off the trail because there’s a possible $5,000 fine or six months in prison for anyone caught out there.

They can’t do that either! the man exclaimed. My grandfather fought in a war!

My wackadoodle sensors went off. Trotting out a veteran in the family two generations in the past or equating the Forest Service cutting down hazard trees with Nazis (which I think is where he was heading) did not seem like valid arguments to me. Even if he had made a valid argument , I wouldn’t have told him he could go out there. So I just said, Sir, I’m only advising you of the situation. If you want to park your motor home, the best place to try will be in the overflow lot down the road.

I don’t know which part of what I said turned the tide, but he smiled and thanked me, got back in his motor home and drove away. Disaster averted.

My last encounter with someone who really wanted to walk the trail happened a few hours before the trail reopened. Of course, I didn’t know the trail would reopen that afternoon, just in time for Memorial Day weekend.

A crew of about a dozen Forest Service guys were out on the trail, their chainsaws buzzing, when the white car pulled into the campground. I walked up, said Good morning, asked if they were looking for a campsite.

The driver was a woman in her early 50s. In the passenger seat sprawled a girl about eight years old.

The driver said she wasn’t looking for a campsite, that she wanted to park so they could walk the trail.

I told her the trail was closed, had maybe said hazard trees when someone in the backseat poked her head up from behind the driver’s seat. She was wearing big sunglasses and a big, floppy, fashionable hat.

Do you work for the Forest Service? she asked me.

No, I said, but before I could explain private company and concession from the Forest Service, she  said, Yeah, well, we’re going to go on the trail anyway. She spoke in the most spoiled rich girl tone of voice I have ever encountered.

I said, Well, Forest Service guys are out there working right now, and if they see you on the trail, they might opt to give you a $5,000 fine or six months in prison.

Ms. Prissy Pants deflated. I could practically hear the waa wa wa waaaaa of a losing contestant on a 1970s game show.

I suggested another trail they could go to and see giant sequoias, but Ms. Prissy Pants said they would probably go to a different grove, which she called by name to make sure I knew she was an insider.

I said, Great! Have a nice day!

The driver asked if the campground restrooms were open, and I said they were. I walked away as she was parking, I didn’t want to have any more interaction with Ms. Prissy Pants or the people stuck with her on a road trip.

I took the photos in this post.