The Beat Goes On

After Glacier, Craig had to get home but I still had a couple more weeks of vacation left. We had to drive to Boise, Idaho and Craig flew home from there. On the way to Boise, we decided to stop and see the Hell’s Canyon area. It was still fairly early in the season though, and we found that the road we were trying to take up into the area was closed by snow past a certain point. We parked along the side of the road and hiked up (a couple of miles) and walked around for a while.

While we were up there, because we were old motorcycle riders, Craig asked me if I could hear a 2-stroke bike off in the distance. I told him that I could and, as we listened, the sound got louder and closer. A few minutes later a guy came over the top of the snow bank blocking the road on a little yellow dirt bike. Nearly sliding out and doing a face-plant as he did so. He saw us and stopped and we talked for a while. Nice guy. He said he had to go back down, but, if we were headed for McCall keep an eye out for him. Look for the bike in the back of a white mini-pickup truck. He took off.

Later, as we hiked back down, there were some interesting marks in the snow that we speculated was our friend crashing.

When we got back to the truck, there was a note stuck on the windshield from our friend. He asked if we saw his “crash & burn” marks coming down and said he hoped he’d see us later.

We drove down and went into McCall. Nice little resort-type town. Good size lake. Lots of boaters. Also one of the entry points to get back into the Sawtooth Wilderness. As we drove through town we saw a battered white mini-truck with a yellow dirt bike in it parked at a restaurant/pub (The Brass Frog if I remember correctly). We laughed, made an abrupt turn, and parked. We found our friend inside and we all had a good dinner and talked about travel, motorcycles, forest rangers (he was studying to be one), and Idaho (he was from Pocatello), A very pleasant evening. He gave us some good tips on other things to see in Idaho.

The next day, we were going to take my 4-wheel drive truck and go back over a few logging roads back into the Sawtooth wilderness. That plan didn’t last long. Even with all of our preparation, the logging road had so much debris from the trucks on it that, only about five miles down the road, we punctured a tire on some ghastly looking shard of metal. We changed it and limped back to McCall where we had the tire repaired and called it a day.

Thoughts Like Molasses

In the late 70's I went on a long vacation out west. While in Tucson, I had the opportunity to get a job with a camping outfitter. Now, my dream, my fantasy in life was to move out west to live. I did not take the job. "Why not you moron?" You may rightly ask. The answer was a woman. I was in a very deep relationship with a girl and I refused the job to come home and be with her. Less than a month later, we had a very ugly break-up when I found out I was only one of several guys she was very adeptly juggling. That was a great heartache, and incredibly angering all at the same time. It tainted my relationships for several years after that. So, I blew my chance at my dream, and dumped the two-timer who broke my heart. A really rotten summer.

Before that though, one of the fun things about travelling by myself was the opportunity and chance to have some very interesting intimate encounters. I didn't spend all my time looking for them, but, if they presented themselves, I was hardly the one to turn them down. I met some really nice people and had some very nice encounters. I helped a girl in Colorado on a rather chilly morning whose car had stalled. The help was genuine and I had no other motives in the assistance than to help. Afterwards, when it was obvious the car had breathed it's last, she invited me in to warm up a bit and, after getting to know each other a bit, she "rewarded" my help. I met a really nice person in the Grand Canyon who was a waitress there. We talked for a while as she was getting off work and she and I decided to hike into the canyon together the next day. It was a fun day. She was a great person. Wonderful personality and sense of humor. Smart and sexy. We snuck off the path several times to enjoy ourselves. On another Grand Canyon trip, I met a girl while hiking in the canyon. We talked for a while just exchanging general information. She was going "up" as I was headed "down." I gave her my cabin number and half-jokingly told her to drop by later. I expected never to see her again. My surprise. She dropped by and spent the night.

Travel can be very rewarding.

Captain Nemo Loves to Read

Yes, it's been a couple of months. I told you this would be random.

Writing has always been a strange thing for me. I like to write, but, not all the time. The spirit needs to move me. I took writing classes in high school and college and I could write for assignments and get good grades. But I did not always like what I wrote when forced into it. I write my best when I need too. That sounds weird but it is true. Occasionally things come into my head and I am just compelled to write. The thought and the words hammer at me relentlessly until I put them to paper. At other times, it's just a hobby and a fun diversion. This blog falls into the second category.

I keep copies of what I write and someday I may decide to publish the short stories as part of this blog. We'll see.

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In high school, Joe and I had a fascination for language, and the way people killed it every chance they got. We eventually started keeping track of really great sayings, and really great killings, of the language by people we knew. By our senior year, the "Quote Book" was getting rather lengthy and, with a bit of horror, we realized it was almost becoming an obsession. We decided to give it a proper sendoff and be done with it. A burial at sea sounded like a good choice for our endeavor. So, Joe found a large mason jar and we folded up the "Quote Book" and placed it inside. We added gravel to fill any extra air space and make it quite heavy. Joe then used wax and other stuff to completely seal the jar. We then took it out to the end of a large pier on the lake near our homes, and, after giving a proper eulogy, we heaved the thing as far as possible into the non-briny deep.

Sometimes I think about ti and wonder what really happened to it. Was it destroyed during some storm and the book turned into just so much lake litter? Was it buried intact so that some future civilization may one day uncover our tribute to weird English? Did aliens steal it as proof that no intelligent life lives on the planet? Who knows.

One of the best quotes in there was Joes. He was talking about something one day and he suddenly announced, "Hey, I've just come down with an idea." Imagine, an idea being something like an infection or an virus. You come down with a cold, a flu, or some other malady. Joe comes down with ideas. It was great.

Big Sky Country

Craig and I went on a backpacking vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana. Beautiful place. Not the raw altitude of many other parks in the Rockies so you can still breathe, yet, the trails and terrain are quite rugged and beautiful. Bears everywhere. We saw or had encounters with nine bears in our short stay. We took two days to hike in to Red Eagle Lake, stay overnight, and hike back out. About a 12 mile hike using the long trail around the back end of St. Mary Lake. Really gorgeous. There are two campgrounds at the lake. When we got to the first campground the only other people there were three guys who were just morons. They had a huge smokey fire going (they had cut down a small green tree and were trying to burn it, rather than using the dead wood) and for dinner they were cooking ham and bacon. Friends, Glacier is bear central. Their dinner was a big red warning flag. Plus, they were cooking right next to their tents and all of their gear was piled nearby. Craig and I looked at each other and decided we didn’t want to hear the screams in the middle of the night as those three jerks were eaten. We moved on to the back campground. We were the only one’s there and we set up shop. That night, it was a New Moon so it was really dark. The entire sky was clear except for a thunderstorm over the mountain across the lake. Stars in the sky above, while we watched lightning flash over the mountain peak and hear the low rumble from the thunder. So bloody cool !!!!

Craig and I made a good team camping. I’m a morning guy and Craig is an evening guy. As I faded late in the day, he was setting up camp and being productive. In the morning, as Craig sat comatose with his coffee, waiting for consciousness to arrive, I was taking the camp apart and packing up. Synergy.

We also took a day hike back to a campground where we spent a day enjoying the scenery. Again, no one in camp. When we came out later we checked in at the ranger station and had a conversation that went kinda like this.

You boys have a good hike?
Yep. We spent all day back at this campsite (pointing to map). It was really nice there.
Um …. You were at that campsite?
Yes.
All day?
Yes. Why?
Weren’t the chains up?
Chains? No. Why?
Yeah. That campground’s been getting ripped up by Grizzlies lately. We closed it. Chains and signs should have been up to keep everyone out.
No chains or signs we saw.
Hmm. I’ll have to go back and check later. Bears probably ripped them down. I’ll have to put them back up. You say you spent all day back there?
Yes.
Well, you boys had a run of good luck then.
OK. Well, nice talking to you.

Dale Addendum - Stupidity II

Dale liked blowing things up. Well, everybody needs a hobby.

One day we decided to try to make a bomb out of a can of butane used for refilling lighters. Not one of those little skinny refill cans. In those days you could get a can about the size of a spray paint can. We used duct tape to attach an M100 to the can. Although reckless, we were not stupid or suicidal. We recognized the potential explosive capabilities of the butane and decided we needed to find a way to set it off with a large safety factor. About a half-mile from Dale's house they were building new homes. Several lots had the hole dug for basement and foundation but nothing had been poured yet. Just a couple of big 'ol holes in the ground. We attached an electric model rocket igniter (or several, I forget) to the M100 fuse. We then put the thing into the bottom of one of the holes (this was about 1:30 am - night stealth can be good) and moved a long way away from the hole. As far as we had wire for the igniter. When we pressed the igniter button it took our breath away. The entire foundation hole filled with a red fireball that billowed out and looked every bit like an
atomic mushroom cloud as it rolled up to the sky. We booked out of there as we expected the neighbors would be calling the police. The next day we slinked back and checked out the hole. The walls were peppered with metal shrapnel from the can.

Impressive and cool ..... but we never even discussed ever trying it again

Surprises Ain't Always Good

Joe and Randy had built a nice darkroom in Randy's basement and Dale had a darkroom in his too.  Each one was set up slightly differently and occasionally one group asked the other to do some processing for them.  Joe and Randy, in particular, asked Dale for special processing because Dale, good scientist that he was, liked to buy the photographic chemicals and, using a formulas book from Kodak, he mixed whatever developer was good for the film or papers he was trying to process.  

Also occasionally, since we were all pranksters, one group or the other would sabotage the other for a little fun.  Joe and Randy asked Dale to process a roll of film one day and I went with Dale to help.  After carefully mixing ingredients and going through a good half-hour of work to get the "perfect" negatives for Joe and Randy, we were finally able to open the developing tank and discover that the film was bogus.  It was actual film, but there were no photographs.  It has been completely exposed and the message "Ha Ha to You Too Sideburns" was scratched into the emulsion.  Dale had some rather large and bushy sideburns in those days so the reference was true, but the time we wasted to discover this was irritating.  Dale decided to strike back.  

From some dark corner of his darkroom he produced a glass bottle with a NASA label.  I have no idea how he acquired this, but, the bottle contained about six ounces of 80 molar hydrochloric acid.  I went out to find an old plastic film can and, while I was gone, Dale donned a mask and poured a little of the HCL into a stainless steel developing tank and dipped the film we had just processed into it.  The emulsion just liquified.  I didn't know Dale had done this and when I got back, before he could warn me, I walked into the darkroom and in less than one second, with a single breath, my lungs just locked and I literally fell backwards out of the darkroom.  The HCL was so reactive it was fuming and my first breath burned my lungs and made my body decide not to breath anymore.  I went outside to recover while Dale cleaned up.  Later, after the basement had cleared, we took the blank cellulose and the remnants of the melted emulsion and shoved them into the film can and returned the film to Joe and Randy.  What a mess.  

It hurt every time I breathed for about three weeks, but I never told anyone and never went to the doctor.  How could I explain it?  "Yeah doc, I burned my lungs with some fuming 80 molar HCL acid stolen (most likely) from a NASA government facility." "No problem kid.  Take two aspirin and call me from jail."

Dale also tried to destroy his neighbor's house one day.  His neighbor was having his yard graded and shaped and there was a front-end loader/grader working in the yard.  The operator would bring the bucket, very carefully, right up to the side of the house and grade the soil back towards the street.  Dale hated his neighbor.  He took a metal garbage can out and put it by the street next to his neighbors yard.  As the grader driver was approaching the house, Dale threw a lit M80 into the can and slammed on the lid.  When it blew the noise was tremendous and the can lid flew into the air.  The grader operator literally stood up in his seat and turned around to see what had happened as the grader continued forward.  He then realized he was still moving and sat down just in time to stop the bucket of the grader about two inches from the neighbors wall.  Disaster had been averted and Dale was PISSED that it had.  He sooooooooo wanted to see that thing go through the wall.  

Dale also got a copy of a formula for smokeless gun powder.  He mixed a huge batch in his garage and, with confidence that the formula was good and he had mixed it correctly, he put a big pile on the garage floor and threw a match in it.  Pea-soup fog is transparent compared to the blindingly thick smoke cloud that filled the garage, and then his house.  Minutes later his dad came home from work and ... well ... let's just say that "it" hit the wall.  

Thus, some of the adventures of Dale.

How Do You Spell "Rod Serling?"

After our snow adventure, Joe and I decided we wanted to see Coffeyville, Kansas on the way home to see the site of the Dalton shootout. The quickest way across to kansas cut across Colorado on some rather dubious roads. We decided to do it anyway and, with a full tank of gas (no services for well over 100 miles) we set out to cross Colorado. Late in the evening, after seeing nothing but fences and fields for hours, we saw a huge glow of lights in the distance. Soon we drove into La Junta, Colorado.

We thought we had entered the Twilight Zone.

La Junta is situated roughly in the middle of no damn where. Yet this speck on the map was brightly lit by streetlights. There were large buildings, major hotel chains, and restaurants. People were everywhere. There were theaters, movie and live. We saw ladies in furs and diamonds and real-live Rolls Royce automobiles driving next to us on the road. Mercedes Benz, Aston-Martin, and Jaguar were also common cars on the streets. We were convinced that if we looked on the right corner, we’d see Rod Serling laughing and waving. As they say today …… WTF !!!!

We stopped at a restaurant and went in to eat dinner. There we were in Levi’s work shirts and jeans and the place was filled with people in suits, tuxedos and evening dresses. We asked the waiter if we were supposed to be there, were we dressed ok, and he smiled and said sure.
We later found out that all of the fences and fields we had passed were huge ranches. The road we took in was used as a back access road to many of these million-acre ranches. La Junta was where the roads and the railroads met. It was where all of the obscenely rich ranchers in this part of Colorado went to hobnob, show-off, and talk business. We had walked into “Cattle Central” and didn’t even know it. We stayed the night just to say we had, and moved on the next morning. Still in shock over this discovery in the Colorado countryside.

Blue Light Means Snow Plow

My sister lived in Colorado for about eight years. When she moved there, she enlisted myself and Joe to help her move. I had a full-size van (the White Rabbit) and she had very little stuff, so it all fit into the van. We left with Joe and I in the van and my sister Connie driving her car and following us. She drove sooooo sloowwww that we had to keep slowing down and waiting for her so we wouldn’t lose her. This lasted until we hit the state line and then we’d had enough. We pulled over, put her in the van with me, Joe drove her car, and we got to Colorado without aggravation or incident.

After we dumped her stuff, we decided to take a couple of days extra and see some of the sights in Colorado. This had been planned all along and, since we were moving her in February, we brought along stuff to survive winter in the Rockies. To our surprise, they were having an exceptionally light winter and we were just cruising along. We saw Black Canyon of the Gunnison and then drove down to Silverton to spend the night.

Since it was not tourist season, Silverton was basically deserted except for a few locals. We found a motel and went to the office to check in. There was a sign on the office door, “In town for dinner. Back soon. Rooms are open. Pick one and we’ll get square later.” We found a room and moved in. Sure enough, about an hour later, the owner came by and we registered and gabbed a while. Like a majority of Coloradans, he was an import from another state. Sometime during this talk he looked up into a perfectly clear mountain sky and said, “Yeah. Looks like it might snow tonight.” Joe and I looked at each other and thought, “Yeah … right!”

About 4:30 am I was awakened by Joe kicking the bottoms of my feet while I was sleeping. I asked him what he was doing and he said, “Get up. We have to leave NOW!” I was still half asleep and asked him what the $&% he was talking about. He threw open the motel room door and there was a blizzard going on outside. There was already four or five inches in the doorway and it was snowing incredibly heavy.

We threw our stuff in the van and took off. Here were a couple of flatlanders trying to crawl through the San Juan Mountains, on a road we couldn’t see (but we could see the dropoff at the edge) in the middle of a blizzard. It took about four hours to inch our way to Durango. With our eyes shot and our minds exhausted, we stopped at a little restaurant in Durango for breakfast. The place was packed. We couldn’t figure out what so many people were doing there, but, it was a nice diversion. About halfway through breakfast some guy came walking in the front door of the restaurant and yelled “plow’s coming.”

The place emptied in minutes!

They weren’t stupid like the flatlanders. They were waiting for the plows to clear the roads before they attempted them. Joe and I looked at each other, took the hint, paid, and got the hell out of there and headed east.

BLUE LIGHT MEANS SNOW PLOW!

We had to stop before we went up to Wolf Creek Pass and put chains on the van (required). Luckily we had brought some anticipating a problem like this. We had put them on in a dry run back at home at everything worked fine. When we tried to hook them up in the snow, they appeared to be too short. They wouldn’t go around the wheels. We stood flabbergasted. Then it hit us. We had gone up several thousand feet in altitude from home. The tires had expanded from internal pressure. We checked the pressure and, indeed, it was high. We let out some air to make them normal and the chains fit. We crawled through the pass.

On the back side of the mountains, the skies cleared and, within a few miles, the only sign of a snowstorm was the foot of snow on the van roof. We stopped at the base of the mountains for gas in a little station. The owner came out and asked if we had seen a red jeep off the side of the road a few miles up. We said no. He said his son had called him because he had run off the road “again” and he’d have to take the tow truck up later to look for the car. We wished him luck and took off. When we started the van to leave, the radio was on, and we heard that Wolf Creek Pass had just been closed because of an avalanche. We’d decided that was enough adventure for this trip and headed home.

Dealin' Cards with the Old Men in the Club Car

From what I’ve been able to gather over the years, our class in high school was remarkably unique. Most high schools are very “cliquey.” You have the popular people and the druggo people and the geeks and the sports folks and they keep away from each other and hate each other.

Not in our class.

We had one of the most un-cliquey and unified classes I’ve ever heard of. We seemed to understand that each group had strengths and weaknesses and we organized and worked together to cause massive mayhem in our high school. We discovered early it was MUCH more fun to torture the teachers and administration as a unit than waste time screwing each other over. I am convinced that the teachers and administration had a huge party and celebrated when we graduated and they were able to get rid of us.

This meant that we had a lot of friends and connections and, years later, when we began having reunions, we all got together and had a great time. No cliques forming around the sides of the hall. Everyone just moving around and visiting and reliving great old stories. It went on for hours and everyone had a great time. It also means that we all have a lot of connections across a myriad of professions. Auto mechanics, teachers, lawyers, artists, doctors and other professionals all came out of our class and we all know each other. Good networking.

When our class was having elections for class officers, we had a friend who was pretty much just a rebel and we decided we wanted to make him President. Since our class was pretty wild, the idea of having this guy as President was pretty appealing and he had a wide support base. However, the Administration was completely against this idea. They wanted some “young republican” type to be the class President, not some freakin’ hippy with long hair. To just aggravate the administrators more, we started a button campaign with the slogan “Put Some Life Into This Joint.” The buttons had fake “joints” on them. With our unified class, EVERYONE helped make and distribute the buttons. This really enraged the administration. They didn’t think drugs were anything to joke about and hated the buttons. They accused us of poor taste. Ha … fooled them …. We didn’t have poor taste ….. we had no taste at all. To make sure we had the widest possible coverage, we deliberately started a rumor that every 100th joint was real. Well …… you couldn’t keep them on the shelves after that. The school was buried in the buttons and the administration was ticked off beyond words. The final blow was that our candidate won by a landslide. We heard that the administration had a special meeting and considered nullifying the election for a number of reasons but, in the end, they gritted their teeth and took it on the chin.

The Quiet Sound of a Whistle, Far in the Distance

I plan on relating stories as they come to me, not in a chronological fashion. Live with it.

During this holiday season, I’d like to relate a little story. In high school, the “downstairs cellar gang” had a very strong feeling that Christmas had become way to commercial and greedy. We
felt that we needed to do something, as a group, to reject that commercialism and bring us back
to reality.

One Christmas Eve, we decided to take a night walk from our homes, to a state park about 25 miles away. The weather had been fairly bad for the week before, but, the evening that we
started the walk, it was cold, but clear with little wind and it was not snowing. We started in the evening and walked to the park. It was incredible.

When you drive a route, your mind sets up a timeline. This, then this in a minute, then this in
two minutes. Plus, because you are watching the road, you never look back and have a visual reference of what things look like behind you.

When we walked, we could see the distances between the intersections. We could look back to see where we’d been. Since it was Christmas Eve, the traffic was fairly light so most of the walk was quiet. The road to the park went mostly through country areas, not city, so it was dark and pleasant. You could hear trains and other sounds very far into the distance because of the quiet.
We went through one small town where the town center was a small park. The sidewalks around it were lined with the candles in paper bags (I forget the name for them) glowing in the silence. It was really very nice and very peaceful.

Yet, as a reminder of the intrusion of Man on the peace, at 2 am, when the bars closed, there was about 30 minutes of relatively high traffice flow as the drunks headed home. The activity surprised us, and, when we thought about what was causing the activity, it just made us sad.

When we got to the park, we spent a couple of hours hiking around and enjoying the peace far, far from the “commercial” world. Finally, at a pre-determined time, Joe’s brother Larry drove to the park to take us home. It took many quiet hours, full of surprises and new vistas to get to the park. It took less than a half-hour to zoom home back in the convieniences of modernality.

I will always remember that walk. It was a bold reminder of the peace and the lives that our ancestors would have had on this special day. It broke the modern mold of rushing, driving, and buying. It restored the soul. And I have thought of it every Christmas since, whenever the pace gets too quick and the demands a bit heavy. It always brings back to me the real reason for the season.