The Hotsprings

It wasn't very long into dating the Mountain Man that he started talking about the hot springs. We were comparing camping war stories, and I told him I'd spent a lot of my memorable childhood camping in King's Canyon in the summertime. "Oh, that's a great area," he said in his casual, friendly way. It is a tone of his that I now recognize often belies much more knowledge and depth of experience on the subject than he will point out. "Let's go camping out that way. See the hot springs."

Now, we had only been dating for about a month and the thing about internet dating is that not only is it about getting to know somebody completely blind of having met them before, you also don't share any friends or a social circle. So I did the most logical thing I could (naturally) to attempt to safeguard myself against my lack of experience with this random internet person that I'd only been dating for a month.

"Can I bring Zoey?" See, because in my little world, if somebody is cool with your dog, that person is just cool. Don't ask me if it makes logical sense. Not to mention, Zoey is the dog equivalent of a 50 pound bunny rabbit with permanent symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer's. Occasionally she completely short-circuits and somehow manages to start by casually scratching herself behind her ear and end by deathgripping the base of her tail to attack "the dog kicking her ear" while violently kicking herself in the head in order to "get the dog biting her tail" to let go. Look, I can't explain her but she IS pretty cute.

Never having seen my dog before, he thought about my request for a quick moment, then shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

Dear casual internet passersby: Don't go camping with random men just because they say your dog can come.

So, not knowing what I was getting into at all, but secure in being able to bring my adorable airheaded cheerleader, I packed to go "to the hot springs". Zoe jumps into the back of his 4-Runner like her butt's on fire and I pop into the passenger's side to go "out towards King's Canyon to the hotsprings". At this point, my little understanding of what is happening has completely evolved past the reality of the situation. 

So we drive. And we drive. And we drive. And as I do have distinct childhood memories of just HOW LONG it took to get out that way on the log scale of HOW ANNOYING my brother was the entire time, so I'm pretty much cool with this. Eventually, however, the rational pessimist in my brain manages to slither slowly up from the Swamp of Uncomfortable Truths that I have mostly managed to ignore my entire day-to-day life.

Who is this guy, she hisses, it's getting dark. 

He's fine! I shoot back. We'll be at the campground soon! There will be lots of other people because there are always tons of people at campgrounds on the weekend!

Right about this moment, Mountain Man points out a car we're passing on the 395. I know that guy, he says, I climb with him. I take this as a good sign. My rational pessimist is unconvinced but momentarily silenced. She coils up to watch this new story unfold.

It gets dark and we keep driving. Finally I ask when we're going to get there. Pretty soon, he tells me, maybe in an hour. It's midnight. Where the heck are we going? I just nod, though. I mean, I'm in this far. What am I going to do, fling open the car door and hurl myself out of the car at 65 mph? Demand to stop on the side of the road and, what, hitchhike home? We've passed Lone Pine a while ago already. I reach back and scratch Zoey behind the ears.

Another 40 minutes go by and we turn left off onto the loneliest, darkest, unpaved road that I have ever seen in my entire life. There is no ranger station along this road, no orderly campground, nothing but dim moonlight, a light breeze, and more nothing.

We have to make a right turn when you see the tree in the distance, he tells me. Look for the tree. When you first see it way in the distance, that's when we turn right.

My rational pessimist is rattling her tail and her head is weaving back and forth. Look for the tree way in the distance? Excuse me, but, what the hell?

Ten minutes down the road, nothing. Twenty minutes, nothing. Should I even be looking for anything at all or should I be furiously plotting my escape?

Thirty minutes. I am in silent panic. I attempt to console myself. It's been a good run, I think. They were 28 great years. Really. And it's then that I recognize a moment that has happened to me on rare occasion in my long and winding travels. I think, either this will kill me or it will change my life.

.........
..............
....................

We keep driving ... and driving ... and then! What?! A TREE. Off in the distance to the right.

Mountain Man, completely oblivious to my silent existential deliberations, simply brightens. There it is! He turns right off onto a near-invisible dirt path.

It isn't, however, until I see the first car or two parked along the side of the little rutted road, that I begin to truly calm down. Mountain Man is miffed, though. If it's this full, where will we camp, he grumbles. Pretty soon the road opens out to a little cleared area full of scattered parked cars.

We manage to find a back corner to park the car, unload a few tubs, and make a makeshift bed in the back of the 4-Runner. I have no idea where I am. In the morning, I open my eyes to this:

Empty BLM land as far as the eye can see.

That morning, we drove out for a hike up at elevation:

   

Exactly One Year and 11 Months Later

Well, it's been a really long time. Almost two years ago, I sat down to use this blog to untangle my complex emotions about the death of a wonderful Georgian teacher. My blog posts in Georgia came when the mood struck me--and only then. Not like it was any different before, honestly. Even after deleting my Facebook profile in a fit of emotional despair a year into my service, I didn't really consider posting more frequently to make up the difference. Sorry, mom! Sometimes this blog seems integral to my life and ability to process who I am, and, sometimes, despite all kinds of very empty personal promises and threats I make with my inner writing psyche, I just forget about it completely for years.

April 21, 2008 was my first post ever here, which means this goofy, erratic little blog is coming up on its 8 year birthday. I should do something to commemorate the day like bake a cake, then plan to bake a cake every week for the rest of my life, then completely forget about that promise until a completely random date far, far in the future.

Two years ago, I was walking with a strange sense of the inevitable out of my life in Georgia. March 1st would have been the beginning of the end of the winter, only four months before I ate my last true khatchapuri and hugged my Georgian family goodbye. March 1st was beginning of the end of my service in the Peace Corps, which has had a more lasting impact on my personality, opinions, friendships, and day-to-day minutia habits than I could have ever imagined. As I've stated in this blog before, I expected only adventure. What I got instead has redefined my understanding of the depth of human experience.

Now, two years later, The Mountain Man in my life has possibly succeeded in pestering me to document our wild, windblown experiences as we weekend wander our way anywhere we can manage to drive from OC Basecamp. Let the potentially, but not statistically likely, consistent posts commence!