Tag Archives: California

Sep28

L-E-Os

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The big fire was still burning, but word was the smaller fire—started by a lightning strike—was under control. Word was the one route back up the mountain was open again, although the road I found the quickest and easiest way from civilization to my campground (although not exactly quick and easy) was still closed.

I began the slow, curvy drive up the mountain late in the afternoon.

When I got to the area where the lightning had struck and started the fire, I didn’t see any flames and very little smoke. What I did see were firefighters. The firefighters who weren’t actively fighting whatever fire was still burning were milling about on the road’s narrow shoulders, eating sandwiches, drinking water, catching a little rest. I reduced the van’s speed even further. I don’t ever want to hit anyone with my large motor vehicle, but I particularly did not want to be the asshole who hit somebody working to save the forest.

As I got through the main congestion of firefighters, I noticed a truck was behind me. At the next turnout, I pulled off the road so the truck could pass me, which it did. I noticed it was a Forest Service truck, which didn’t concern me. I’d just passed at least a dozen Forest Service vehicles and wasn’t surprised to see one on the road with me.

I hadn’t gone far when I saw the same Forest Service truck parked in another turnout.

That’s weird, I thought. What kind of game is the driver playing?

I passed the truck and it pulled out behind me.

It’s just going to have to go slow while it follows me, I thought, because I’m not pulling off for it to pass me again.

I slowly made my way through the mountain road’s curves while the truck followed behind. Just as I approached a large turnout, I saw the truck had lights on its roof, and those lights were flashing.

What the fuck? I thought, as I realized the truck was carrying at least one L-E-O.

“L-E-O” stands for “Law Enforcement Officer.” L-E-Os work for the Forest Service and carry guns. They’re tree cops and I think of them the way I think of any cops: don’t trust ‘em—don’t like ‘em.

Immediately after maneuvering the van into the turnout, I fumbled around to silence the podcast playing on my phone. I was listening to Risk, and I didn’t want a bawdy story or salty language making the upcoming interaction unnecessarily awkward. I also didn’t want to have to shout to be heard.

The second thing I did was put my hands on the steering wheel. I didn’t want to get shot because a tree cop thought I was reaching for a weapon.

There were two L-E-Os, actually. One came to my driver’s side window. He was probably in his early 30s, tall, with dark hair and beard both clipped short. He would have been handsome but for his chosen profession.

I told him through the small triangular window on my side of the van that the main window on that side doesn’t roll down. He said he’d go around to the passenger side, where the window goes down halfway.

Right off, he asked me if I were alone in the van. I told him I was.

He said, Because I can’t see in there. I don’t know if someone’s in there pointing a gun at me.

I thought, If I had a job that made me constantly worried about being shot, I’d get a new job. I succeeded in keeping the thought to myself. Instead, I repeated that I was alone in the van, and I told him I had no guns. Then I told him I was a camp host heading back to my campground.

I thought I’d probably been pulled over because there were so few people headed up the mountain. Maybe I looked suspicious by virtue of being on a road currently barely traveled. I thought when I said I was a camp host, I’d immediately be sent on my way, but no.

First, the L-E-O wanted to know what campground I was the host at. Fair enough, so I told him. Then he wanted to know the location of the campground. He was new to the area, he said, and he didn’t know his way around. Riiiiight. I know when my story’s being checked out. But I went ahead and explained the campground’s location.

I suppose he had to justify his reason for hassling me, because he told me he’d pulled me over because of the cracks in my windshield.

Really?

Those cracks have been in my windshield since I bought the van. They do not obstruct my view. No city or county or state cop in New Mexico or Arizona or Nevada or California had pulled me over because of the cracks in the windshield, but suddenly a tree cop was worried about it? Is a cracked windshield really a federal issue?

I was both annoyed and trying not to laugh at this guy. I told him I was working as a camp host so I could get the windshield replaced as soon as I returned to my home state. (I didn’t bother to tell him I’d planned to get it replaced last year but the $500 of transmission work, the four new tires, and the installation of a new fuel pump had blown my windshield budget.)

The entire time I was talking to L-E-O #1, L-E-O #2 (a young, short, bald guy) was walking around the van, looking underneath it, trying to peer into all my windows.

Then L-E-O #1 asked if he could see my driver’s license, if I had it handy. (I wonder what he would have said had I told him in fact it wasn’t handy.) It was in my bag next to my seat, so I fished it out and handed it to him. He walked off with it; I think it’s a good bet he took it to his truck to call in my name and license number. Surely L-E-O #2 had already called in the number on my license plate.

When he returned my license to me, L-E-O #1 said that while having a cracked windshield was a ticketable offense, he wasn’t going to give me a ticket since that doesn’t seem to be what you need right now.

(Does anyone jump into her or his vehicle and think, What I need right now is to get a ticket because I have a cracked windshield I haven’t been able to afford to replace?)

Then L-E-O #1 thanked me for driving carefully around all the firefighters. To me this meant he and his little tree cop buddy had to make up a reason to pull me over since they hadn’t seen me violate any traffic laws.

When I got back on the road, the L-E-Os followed me for about a quarter of a mile. I thought they might follow me all the way back to my campground, but they must have gotten bored with my slow and careful driving, because they turned around and headed back toward the firefighters.

No one else has had anything to say about the cracks in my windshield since that afternoon. Getting the windshield replaced is as the top of my list of things to do, just as soon as I get out of super expensive California.

 

 

Sep18

Closed Waterfall

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The following is an actual conversation I had with an actual family in the parking lot on a Saturday afternoon:

Mother: Is there any way to get to the closed waterfall?

Me: Which waterfall is that?

Daughter: The one with the “closed” sign.

Me: Well, if there’s a “closed” sign, I’m pretty sure that means it’s closed.

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Good grief! I’m not exactly sure how even the Forest Service can “close” a waterfall, but a sign reading “closed” is a pretty good indicator the Forest  Service doesn’t want people hanging out in that location. Even if I knew what waterfall the women were talking about (which I didn’t at the time and still don’t), and I knew another way to get to it, I’m pretty sure my job description does not include  telling tourist how to circumvent Forest Service closings.

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I took all three photos of waterfalls in this post. They were all open when I took the photos.

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Sep10

During the Fire

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I wrote the following poem (as the title says) during the fire which happened near my campground. I wrote it the day after I had an extra day off, thanks to a second fire that was put out quickly.

During the Fire

Three days off and

1, 2, 3, 4–I don’t wanna work now more.

Fire on the mountain

and not one’s up here anyway–

no campers

no hikers

no visitors to scrub toilets for.

I need to find some task to do.

Like the union man in

Darlington County said,

“He (meaning she, meaning me)

don’t work and

he (meaning she, meaning me)

don’t get paid.”

How long will the company

let me sit in the parking lot

with podcast and yarn project

waiting to collect parking fees

from cars that never arrive?

There’s some raking I can do

in the campground.

Best put on the uniform

and get to work

while I can.

I reference two very different songs in this poem: “Fire on the Mountain” as performed by the Grateful Dead and “Darlington County,” which, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlington_County_(song),

is a 1984 song written and performed by Bruce Springsteen.

Sep9

Fire on the Mountain

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In the middle of August, a fire started not far from my campground. I heard different reports: fifteen miles–twenty-five miles away. Whatever the actual distance, it was too close for comfort.

The last I heard, the cause was “under investigation,” but my boss said the Forest Service thinks the fire began as an illegal campfire in a dispersed camping area. The folks who started the fire lost control of it, and the fire went wild.

The fire started on a Tuesday afternoon. On Thursday, my boss came to my campground in the morning and told me what was happening. When I got to the parking lot, my coworker said he was leaving work early to pack up his important belongings so he’d be ready if he had to evacuate. The sky was hazy with smoke.

That evening, I climbed in my hammock and zipped up the mosquito netting to avoid the the tiny, annoying flies. Around 7pm, I looked at the sky and saw one part of it was dark. At first I thought a big storm was on its way, but then I realized it was the smoke from the wildfire darkening the sky.

On Friday morning, my boss was back in my campground, this time to tell me my coworkers had evacuated and wouldn’t be at work for the foreseeable future. He also told me that a group with reservations at a campground closed due to the wildfire would be staying at my campground. Those campers pulled in early, before I left for the parking lot.

The trail and the parking lot was much slower than usual for a Friday in August.  Word of the fire must have already spread. People were staying away.

Although parts of the sky were dark, other parts were blue and weirdly bright. Sometimes the sky looked hazy; other times it looked as if a storm were moving in. The sunlight was a strange orange color, unlike anything I’d seen before. It was beautiful and scary too, because I knew it was the result of the too-close fire.

All day ash fell. It fell on the parking lot and continued to fall in the evening when I returned to my campground. When I touched the ash, it was cool, but it was creepy to see it drifting down, knowing it was another sign of the fire’s proximity. I thought about the eruption of Mount St. Helens and the story of how the Grateful Dead played “Fire on the Mountain” in Portland, OR as ash fell on the city.

Mr. Carolina gave me this Stealie, which represents the song "Fire on the Mountain." In addition to the mountain on fire, there's tea for two, a yellow sky, and a sun that's blue.

Mr. Carolina gave me this Stealie, which represents the song “Fire on the Mountain.” In addition to the mountain on fire, there’s tea for two, a yellow sky, and a sun that’s blue.

According to https://volcanism.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/the-daily-volcano-quote-the-rock-band-and-the-volcano/:

Perhaps the most incredible Weather Control story involves the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. The Dead was reportedly playing at Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon. A short way into the second set, the Dead played the song “Fire on the Mountain”. Legend has it that while the band was playing a particularly “hot” version of that song, the volcano erupted. When the show was over, Deadheads emerged to find volcanic ash falling everywhere. Though it was never explicitly said that the Dead “caused” the mountain to erupt, everyone agreed that the intensity of the song and the eruption were somehow connected. In fact, the Dead did not actually play in Portland until June 12, 1980, almost a month after the major May 18 eruption of Mount St. Helens, but they did play “Fire on the Mountain” at that show, probably as a tribute to the volcano…

Revell Carr, ‘Deadhead tales of the supernatural: a folkloristic analysis’, in Robert G. Weiner (ed.), Perspectives on the Grateful Dead (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), pp. 209-10…

“Fire on the Mountain” is a fine song, but it took on a whole new significance when there was actually fire on a mountain I love. I don’t want nothing to do with a fire on my mountain!

Around noon, a Forest Service fire patrol truck pulled into the parking lot and the driver asked me if anyone had come to talk to me. I said I hadn’t heard anything about it since morning.

The Forest Service guy told me I might have to evacuate my campground. He said if an evacuation were ordered, I’d probably have about four hours to get ready to leave. Suddenly the fire seemed even closer than before.

I finished my shift at the parking lot, then headed back to my campground. The first thing I did was talk to the campers who’d arrived that morning. I asked them if anyone had come by to tell them about the possible evacuation. They seemed surprised and said no. I explained we’d be given about four hours to pack up and get out. They didn’t act panicked, but within an hour, they drove over to my campsite to tell me they’d broken camp and were leaving. The older woman in the group said she was praying everything would be ok, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, she told me.

After I ate my dinner, I began to prepare to evacuate. I had my privacy tent and a small backpacking tent I’d been using for storage to take down. I had to take down my brand new hammock too. I didn’t think it would take me long to break camp, but what if I got less than four hours notice? What if notice came in the middle of the night? I didn’t want to leave anything behind, and I didn’t want to pack in the dark, so I decided to prepare to leave at a moment’s notice.

Taking down the hammock was easy. It’s intended for backpackers and other travelers, so it goes up and come down easily.

My storage tent, before it was covered with sap. Thanks Auntie M.

My storage tent, before it was covered with sap. Thanks Auntie M.

Taking down the storage tent wasn’t bad either. Most things I had inside (folding chair, cooking box) went right into the van. A few things that I knew I could live without (foil, citronella candle, cardboard box) went into the campground’s storage room. The biggest problem with the tent was that it was covered with sap from the trees overhead. It was sticky when I rolled it up, and I don’t know what will happen when I try to pitch it again. The sap may have made the whole thing a ball of sticky mess.

When I researched privacy tents, I read a lot of reviews that said the tents that pop up easily are really difficult to take down. How hard can it be? I thought. I’ll deal with it when the time comes, I thought.

My privacy tent

My privacy tent

Now the time had come, and folding the tent was as difficult as the reviews had said. I read the instructions repeatedly, but nothing worked. I couldn’t twist the top into much of a circle. If I used my knee to hold down the top, I could get my little Tyrannosaurus arms to reach the middle of the tent where I was supposed to twist the lower half into another circle. I chased that tent all through the dirt of my campground, but in the end, while the tent and I were both filthy, it was not at all folded. It fit (barely) into my storage room, so I decided to leave it there. Maybe the concrete walls would protect it if the fire came. Maybe not. But no way could I live with the dirty thing in the van with me.

My boss showed up in my campground again that evening. I told him the folks on site #3 had left. I told him I had folks with reservations scheduled to come in that day, but I suspected they weren’t going to show. My boss told me if I didn’t want to stay alone in the campground, I could stay at the campground down the road where the other camp hosts would be babysitting their campers. He said it there were an evacuation, the Forest Service might forget to come down my road to tell me about it. This information (which I now think is untrue), made up my mind for me.

By nearly 7pm, the campers with the reservations hadn’t shown up, so I left them a note and drove down the road to pass a very peaceful night.

By Sunday, all but one road on and off the mountain were blocked by California Highway Patrol officers. There was almost no one in the parking lot or on the trail. After my shift in the parking lot ended and I scrubbed the toilets in my campground, I went back to the other campground and took a bath in the plastic livestock trough doing bathtub duty in the back of the other hosts’ bus. From there, I took the only road out to a campground on the other side of the mountain where my boss said I could stay during my time off.

On Tuesday, while in Babylon, I found out where my mail had been evacuated and decided to drive out there to get it after I’d gotten the van’s oil changed and before the employee appreciation pizza party. As my van was going up on the rack, I was returning my boss’s call to learn another fire had started the night before due to lightning strikes. The one road that had been open was closed for part of the day, maybe was still closed. The pizza party was postponed and my boss suggested maybe I wanted to spend another night in town. He said there was no one at the campgrounds, no one at the trail or parking lot. I thought he was telling me to take another day off, so I did, not returning to the mountain until late Wednesday evening when the second fire was out and the road was surely open.

I thought I knew quiet, until I returned to the nearly deserted mountain. Although the quiet was absolutely natural, it felt entirely unnatural and eerie. I spent the night parked near the other camp hosts in their otherwise empty campground.

About that time, people stopped talking about evacuation and instead discussed the ever increasing percentage of containment. By the end of the month, the fire had all but burnt itself out and the firefighters were going home. We had our pizza party and my coworker was able to return to his intact home. No lives were lost, and I put my privacy tent back on my campsite.

I took all of the photos in this post.

 

 

 

 

Sep5

Deadheads Are Everywhere

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I was on a remote road in California.

This was not a road that went from town to town. This was a mountain road with forest all around it. This road went past a couple of isolated campgrounds. This road went past a couple of hiking areas. In other words, this was the type of road one would only be on if one were going to a specific, out-of-the-way place. This was not a highly trafficked road.

I was looking for a waterfall. I never found it. The map I had made me think I’d see the waterfall from the road, but I never did. Upon looking at a more detailed map later, I realized there was a short hike to the waterfall. Apparently, there’s no sign announcing the existence of the waterfall or giving a trail number. Apparently, folks who want to see the waterfall need to already know where it’s located.

I drove up the road, well past where the waterfall was supposed to be. When I didn’t see the waterfall (and assumed it had dried up in the California drought), I drove back down the road.

There weren’t many signs on this road. The mile markers on the side were mostly blank. Had there never been numbers on them, or had they worn off? I had no way of knowing.

As I zoomed past one of the mileposts, my brain registered….What? Was that a Stealie? On a milepost in the middle of nowhere? How? Why? Had I really seen a Stealie? Or had it been some other red, white, and blue design, and my brain had filled in what I wanted to see?

Welcome to milepost Grateful Dead.

Welcome to milepost Grateful Dead.

I pulled over into the next wide space on the side of the road. My camera was already in my pocket, as I’d planned to take photos of the waterfall. I walked on the narrow shoulder, back to the the mile marker sign. (There was no traffic. I was in no danger.)

I really had seen Stealies! On the milepost, someone (who? when? why?) had stuck four Steal Your Face stickers. Deadheads had been here!

It’s so nice when the Universe tells me I am not alone.

According to http://gratefuldead-music.com/article/grateful-dead-symbols-de-coded-part-4-skull-and-lightning-bolt,

Designed in 1969, the logo was the collaborative work of Owsley Stanley and artist Bob Thomas. Owsley was inspired by a freeway sign he happened to pass by—a round shape divided by a bold white line into an orange half and a blue half. The general shape and colors stood out, and Owsley had the notion that a blue and red design with a lightning bolt with make a cool logo. He shared his idea with Bob Thomas, who then drew up plans of the design.

Originally, there was no skull face—the logo was simply a circle divided with the lightning bolt. The skull face was added on a few days later, as a way to symbolize the “Grateful Dead.”

The band first used the logo as an identifying mark on their musical equipment, and later the symbol appeared on the inside album jacket of the self-titled album The Grateful Dead. The logo later appeared on the cover of the album Steal your Face, and has been known as the Steal your Face symbol ever since.

Steal Your Face Right Off Your Head

Steal Your Face Right Off Your Head

I took the photos in this post.

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Sep4

The Cows Came Home

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Last season there were cows in the meadow bordering my campground–not just one or two cows, but a lot of cows. How many cows does it take to make a herd? I don’t know, but I think there was probably an entire herd in the meadow.

For most of this season, only a couple of cows spent time in the meadow, and only briefly. That was in June. Both cows were black. One was huge and had a white face. The other was smaller–maybe a teenage cow. They looked at me inquisitively as I walked by on the dirt road leading to the campground. The cows were gone the next day. I have no idea where they went.

Last season, the cows in the meadow chomped down all the grass and either ate or trampled the corn lilies. If any wildflowers began to grow, the cows ate them before they bloomed. Those cows kept the vegetation short. Last summer, the meadow looked as if it had been mowed.

Corn lilies growing in the meadow.

Corn lilies growing in the meadow.

This summer, the lack of cows in the meadow has lead to glorious grassiness. The grass has grown tall (above my knees). The corn lilies are tall too. Also, wildflowers are flourishing in the meadow. There are white flowers I think are  Queen Anne’s Lace. There are orangey-yellow flowers with brown middles–what we called brown-eyed Susies when I was a kid. There are purple flowers too, but I don’t know their name.

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Brown-eyed Susies

I enjoyed having the cows around last summer. They were nice to look at, and it was comforting to hear them going about their bovine business at night. Sometimes I talked to them when I was particularly lonely. However, I’m also enjoying this summer’s beautiful meadow view. (I can almost understand why Californians are so damn fond of their meadows.)

Last year the cows moved in late in June or possibly in July. This season, June came and went, then July did the same and all I’d seen of the cows were the two black ones who seemed to have only spent one night in the meadow. Then one evening during the second week in August, there was another brief bovine visit.

It was dusk. I was sitting on the floor of my van with the side doors open. I was making a hat and listening to a podcast when a noise outside my campsite caught my attention. There was one set of campers in the campground, with a site way on the other side, but the kids had been running around the whole place all evening. I figured it was them I was hearing. But when I looked up, I didn’t see any children.

I saw creatures–big creatures–ambling in my direction. At first I thought the creatures were horses (and I imagined they were being ridden by cowboys), but pretty quickly, I realized I was seeing cows!

There were four of them. Three were all black, but one had the all white face I’d seen earlier in the summer. They were on the road, heading in my direction. They were moving at a steady pace, not running, but moving briskly. I said something like Hello ladies, and they froze. I hadn’t yelled, just spoken in a normal tone of voice. That apparently was enough to stop them in their tracks.

I wanted a photo of them, but I knew it was too dark for the camera on my phone to produce a visible image. I also knew that moving around to find my real camera probably would make these shy, half-wild mountain cows nervous enough to leave. No way would they stick around for another photo once the flash went off. So I sat tight.

The cows regarded me calmly, but with suspicion. I watched them, curious to see what they would do next. Long minutes passed while we looked at each other.

One of the campers must have been in the nearby restroom because a door slammed, and the noise was loud in the quiet of the evening. Three of the cows bolted. Their hooves thundered in the dirt as they ran toward the meadow. It was a very small stampede!

The fourth cow didn’t seem bothered by the noise. It didn’t run at all, but instead followed slowly behind the others.

I don’t know where the cows went, but I didn’t hear them in the meadow later in the night.

The next day when I came back from the parking lot, I saw four cows near the front of the meadow. Where these the cows of the night before? Had they broken off from a larger group to form their own herd?

The cows were gone again the next day. I haven’t seen them since.

Cows in the meadow, summer 2015.

Cows in the meadow, summer 2015.

 

I took all of the photos in this post.

 

Jun12

Pileated Woodpecker

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It was a slow afternoon at the parking lot. I was sitting in my camp chair, reading Bless Me, Ultima between talking to visitors. Suddenly something flew in front of and past me at eye level. I caught a flash of red as I looked up. The large bird had flown within a few feet of my head. My eyes followed it into nearby trees.

It landed low on a tree trunk and stood there for many seconds, maybe even a minute, maybe two. Time stretched long as I regarded the bird.

I could see its long bill and the red crest of feathers on its head. I knew it was a woodpecker, probably because it did actually bear a resemblance to Woody Woodpecker of cartoon fame. It didn’t laugh like Woody or use its beak to extract insects from the tree, but I was certain it was a woodpecker.

An older couple exited the trail across the street, and while I tried to signal them silently to be quiet and look over there, the woodpecker flew away.

The next day I told my co-worker (a third generation Californian who lives in the area year-round) all about the bird. I described it as big, woodpecker, red head. My co-worker said I’d seen a pileated woodpecker. He told me this is the bird whose pecking we hear reverberating like a jackhammer through the forest.

I looked it up in my book The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada by John Muir Laws, and my co-worker was absolutely right!

The books says the bird’s scientific name is Dryocopus pileatus. Its habitat is the forest, and it’s the size of a crow. The males and females look quite alike, with the males having a red stripe on its face under its eye, where the female has a black stripe. (I wasn’t looking for the red stripe, so I don’t know if the bird I saw was a male or a female.)

Interestingly, none of the other woodpeckers in the book have a crest of feathers on the head, so I probably would not have identified any of them as woodpeckers, unless I had seen them actually pecking at a tree. But the pileated woodpecker I saw looked like the Platonic ideal of a woodpecker.

I was pretty excited to have seen the bird, even before I knew what it was, especially since it had flown so close to me. My co-worker told me many people would give their eyeteeth to get a glimpse of that bird. I love getting paid while I’m spotting wildlife and enjoying nature.

I’ve seen the bird (or one of its close relatives) twice more since the first sighting. My co-worker saw it the other day too, and said it is probably a female, based on its smallish size. He thinks the bird hanging around the parking lot is a good omen.

I wondered why I never saw the bird in the parking lot last season. According to https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pileated_Woodpecker/id,

Pileated Woodpeckers are forest birds that require large, standing dead trees and downed wood.

Last season we didn’t have so many standing dead trees and downed wood. I think the pileated woodpecker moved into the neighborhood because  now there are many dead trees and down wood. The bird is a kind of silver lining. Many trees may have died, but they’ve brought a pileated woodpecker to the area.

 

 

Jun10

My Campground

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I wrote another poem. I went from zero to two in a couple of weeks, which isn’t a bad speed as far as poems go.

I was writing a letter to my friend and told her I didn’t have words to describe my campground. Then, as is my way, I fired off some words to describe my campground. I contemplated the words and decided they were quite poetic. So I added some words to the original words, then played with the order and finally turned it all into a poem.

I think of it as a poem that resembles an impressionist painting.

My Campground

Trees tower green.

Ladybugs alight.

Campfire smoke tickles nose.

Surrounded by songs of invisible birds.

Occasional mosquito buzzes and bites.

No noise of cars.

Sinking sun illuminates vibrant, verdant meadow.

Gentlest breeze whispers through leaves.

Sky high above crowns, blue one step from grey.

Temperature slowly dips.

Squirrel scampers on the outskirts.

Nature’s peace.

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I took this photo of the vibrant, verdant meadow.

Mar28

Mean Lady

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When Mr. Carolina and I left Milton and his community, we really didn’t have anywhere to go. Mt. Shasta had been the light at the end of our tunnel of plans. Since neither of us wanted to spend a cold winter in Northern California, we knew we had to hit the road and head south.

After bidding adieu to friends old and new, our first order of business was to get some fuel in the van’s tank. The few dollars worth of gasoline Milton had put in two days before was nearly gone from the driving from the camping spot to the church with the community dinner, back to the camping spot, back to the church for the clothing giveaway, and to the camping spot again.

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I made these hemp bracelets with malachite stones. These are not the bracelets I was trying to sell in Mt. Shasta. These bracelets are no longer available because they have all been sold.

Since Mt. Shasta is a woo-woo little hippy town with shops selling crystals and new-age books and jewelry, I thought I might be able to sell some of the hemp bracelets with healing stones that I’d made. I decided to walk from store to store on the town’s short main drag of local businesses and try to make some money for us.

I went into several stores. Nobody was buying. Oh, the people in the shops liked my bracelets, but they all had reasons they couldn’t buy: the busy tourist seasons was over; the person authorized to buy wasn’t in; my jewelry didn’t fit with the other inventory in a particular store. Everyone was really nice, but I was getting discouraged.

I hadn’t given up, though, and I walked into yet another shop selling shiny rocks and angel figurines and books on spirituality. An older woman, plump with long grey hair, was sitting at a desk at the back of the store. I walked up to her and explained I wanted to sell bracelets I’d made so I could buy gas for my van and get out of town. I told her the bracelets were made from hemp and showed her that each one sported a healing stone. I told her the name of the stone on each bracelet and showed her how the slip knot clasps on the bracelets worked. She wasn’t super encouraging and didn’t even smile at me as I went through my spiel, but when I paused for breath, she asked how much I wanted for the bracelets, which was farther than I’d gotten with any of the other shopkeepers.

I explained I usually sold the bracelets for $4 each or three for $10, but since I really needed gas money, I’d sell them to her for $2 each. I felt a little sad to sell the bracelets off so cheaply, but I wanted to contribute to our getting out of town. Besides, I had more hemp and drilled stones, so I could make more bracelets.

The store owner’s attitude wasn’t making me feel any better. She acted as if she didn’t really like my bracelets much at all. She acted as if she were doing me a huge favor by taking the bracelets off my hands. In a way, she was doing me a favor, but I knew she was going to sell the fruits of my labor at a profit.

The shopkeeper picked out sixteen bracelets she wanted to buy. I was ecstatic! She asked me if she could write me a check. I explained again that I needed the money to put gas in the van, told her that I wasn’t from Mt. Shasta and didn’t have a bank account, so I really needed cash. She acted entirely put out, but rounded up $32 in paper currency for me.

I was feeling really good. Not only had I earned enough money to get us out of town, I’d found someone who liked my work enough to pay me for it and sell it in her shop. I was all smiles when I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of my business cards. (Yes, it’s true, I was living dirty and broke in my van, but I had business cards to hand out.) I want to give you this, I said to the woman as I thrust the card at her.

I don’t want that, she all but sneered at me. It’s not like I’m going to order anything from you.

My bubble was burst. It was all I could do not to cry as I took my money and left the shop.

I tried to sell the remaining bracelets at a few more stores, but no one was buying. We used some of my earnings to buy a fast food lunch and put the rest in the gas tank before we headed on out of town.

SDC10082

I made these bracelets from hemp. The stones are turquoise. These are not the bracelets I tried to sell in Mt. Shasta. These bracelets are no longer available because they have all been sold.

 

I took all of the photos in this post.

Mar27

My Time in Mt. Shasta

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Almost as soon as we pulled into the town of Mt. Shasta, Mr. Carolina saw his friend Milton. He pointed out the guy (an thin, older man), but we were on a mission to drink from the headwaters of the Sacramento River. After we’d filled our bottles and drunk our fill, we headed out to look for Milton. He wasn’t difficult to find, as he hadn’t walked very far from where we’d seen him. Mr. Carolina pulled the van into a nearby parking lot and he and Milton had a huggy reunion.

Milton needed a ride up the road to Weed. Yes, that’s the real name of a town.

Weed is a city located in Siskiyou County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the town had a total population of 2,967…

Weed is about 10 miles (16 km) west-northwest of Mount Shasta, a prominent northern California landmark…

The town of Weed gets its name from the founder of the local lumber mill and pioneer Abner Weed, who discovered that the area’s strong winds were helpful in drying lumber. In 1897, Abner Weed bought the Siskiyou Lumber and Mercantile Mill and 280 acres (1.1 km2) of land in what is now the City of Weed, for the sum of $400.[7]

Milton said his errand wouldn’t take long and asked if we could give him a ride. He said he’d have some cash after his errand and could give us gas money and treat us to lunch. Mr. Carolina and I readily agreed. I was really hungry, but all our money had gone to buy gas to get us to Mt. Shasta. I’d told myself all day that when I arrived in Mt. Shasta, someone would feed me. It looked as if my prophesy would come true.

After the errand was run and the hamburgers were eaten, Milton invited us to stay at the free camping spot on public land  where he pitched his tent. We drove out there and met the motley crew making up his community. There were several young men living there, a middle-age woman with a history of mental health issues whom they’d taken under their collective wing, and several dogs. These folks planned to spend the whole winter in that spot, living in their tents.

We hadn’t been in the woods long when the group suggested we drive to a free community dinner at a church near town.

The meal was pretty good: pasta with red sauce, salad, and garlic bread.

At the dinner, I recognized a couple I’d met a few years before at a music festival and again later on  Further lot. The world felt really small to me after randomly meeting up in Northern California with acquaintances I’d made on the other side of the country.

After the meal, we went back to Milton’s community for the night. I slept in my bed in my van and passed one of the coldest nights I can remember. I had my sleeping bag spread over me like a blanket, but it didn’t do enough to contain my body heat. I couldn’t wait for the sun to rise. I worried about the folks who planned to sleep out there in their tents in the winter snow.

My recollections of the second day with Milton’s crew are vague, although I do remember a few things. I remember we went back to the church where we’d had dinner for a clothing giveaway where I got a pair of white and blue billowy pants. I barely remember the guys shooting a pellet gun; I took a turn and to my delight, I hit the target. I remember shocking Milton with one of my stories (maybe the one about the man offering me $40 for a blowjob once when I was flying a sign), and him saying, I didn’t see that coming, sister. I remember one of the guys (a Southern boy from North Carolina, I think), always referring to me as Miss Blaize.

Late in the afternoon, the community members invited us to stay for dinner. Mr. Carolina seemed hesitant to stay another night, but I didn’t want to get on the road so late in the day. We agreed to stay for dinner, spend the night, and leave early-ish in the morning.

On the menu that night was chicken of the woods, collected locally by someone in the group. I’d only heard of chicken of the woods a few days before, and had never tasted it.

Wikipedia says,

Laetiporus is a genus of edible mushrooms found throughout much of the world. Some species, especially Laetiporus sulphureus, are commonly known as sulphur shelf, chicken of the woods, the chicken mushroom, or the chicken fungus because many think they taste like chicken. The name “chicken of the woods” is not to be confused with the edible polypore, Maitake (Grifola frondosa) known as “hen of the woods”, or with Lyophyllum decastes, known as the “fried chicken mushroom”.

The mushroom can be prepared in most ways that one can prepare chicken meat…

In some cases eating the mushroom “causes mild reactions . . . for example, swollen lips” or in rare cases “nausea, vomiting, dizziness and disorientation” to those who are sensitive.[5] This is believed to be due to a number of factors that range from very bad allergies to the mushroom’s protein, to toxins absorbed by the mushroom from the wood it grows on..to simply eating specimens that have decayed past their prime.

There wasn’t much food in the van, but we were able to contribute cooking oil for frying the mushrooms, and I think we offered up rice as well. I was glad we had some food to share with the group, food that was actually going to help make the meal delicious. (The Southern boy who was doing the cooking maintained it was the process of frying in oil that brought out the chickeniness of the mushroom.)

The meal turned out to be tasty. The mushrooms did have a meaty texture and a chickeny taste, and I enjoyed myself until the guys did the dishes by letting the dogs lick the cooking pots and then washing the pots with cold water. (At least they did use dish soap.) I tried not to think about the dog germs that were probably on the pots before dinner was cooked. I tried to convince myself the hot oil had killed all the dog germs in that pot, but what about the pot the rice had been cooked in? There was no hot oil to kill germs there. Gross!

After dinner, I retired early to the van. I got inside my sleeping bag, so I stayed plenty warm. However, it wasn’t long before I had another problem: a rumbling tummy. Scary thoughts ran through my mind. Had the person gathering mushrooms gathered something poisonous instead of chicken of the woods? Had I gotten food poisoning from the unsanitary kitchen? Was I going to die?

I needed to use the toilet, but the free camping area was free of amenities; there wasn’t even a pit toilet. I was going to have to dig a cat hole before I took care of my business, and I wasn’t sure I could deal with that in the dark. I cowered in my sleeping bag all night, my stomach rumbling, feeling a bit nauseous, hoping I wasn’t dying, trying not to shit my pants.

I was relieved to make it to first light, when I was able to exit the van, dig a hole behind a bush, and let what was ailing me out of my system. Oh relief!