Monthly Archives: September 2015

Sep9

Spanish

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When I was in high school (way back in the last century), kids planning to go to college were encouraged to take two years of a foreign language. I took Spanish my junior and senior years.

In college, I think I took four semesters of Spanish, although I can only recall two of my instructors, a woman with blond curly hair and a mean old lady from Cuba.

I got As and Bs in my Spanish classes, mostly because I was able to learn the grammar and do well on tests. I hated speaking out loud in class. My accent was horrible, and my brain was terribly slow at figuring out what I wanted to say, remembering the correct words, conjugating the verbs, and getting the articles right. It was frustrating to know three-year-old kids in Mexico City and Madrid spoke better Spanish than I did.

Many years later, when I was in my mid-30s, I attended free Spanish classes taught by an American university student who was fluent in the language and had been to Latin America several times. In a room full of Midwesterners in their 20s who’d never learned a single word of Spanish, I was the star pupil, but my accent was still horrible and my slow brain kept my speech halting.

I hadn’t studied Spanish in years when I met Miz T, an American woman who spoke English as her native tongue, but had been studying and speaking Spanish for several decades. The next summer, Miz T and I befriended two Guatemalan sisters. The sisters spoke limited English (which was better than my limited Spanish), but when I wanted to communicate something complicated to either of them, I had to get Miz T to translate for me. I practiced my limited Spanish with Miz T and the Guatemalan sisters, but I made mistakes all the time.

One time I tried to tell one of the sisters that I had Miz T’s birthday card for her to sign. Instead of saying tengo la tarjecta, (I have the card), I told her that she had the card (tiene la tarjeta). Actually, I told her she had la carta, which is a playing card. She must have been really confused.

Yo quiero hablar español con mi amigas de Guatemala.

(I want to speak Spanish with my girlfriends from Guatemala.)

When I migrated to warmer lands last winter, Miz T let me take some of her Spanish lesson CDs. Each lesson only lasts half an hour. At first I diligently did a lesson every day. I had a lot of free time, and it was easy to keep up. Then I went to the city, the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, back to the city. I got busy working and playing, and my Spanish lessons were the first (self-imposed) obligation I let slip away.

When I got out to the woods, I barely thought about studying Spanish. I had nowhere to plug in my laptop, so I didn’t use it to do my lessons. I tried to write a letter in Spanish to Miz T and the sisters, but my vocabulary was lacking. I didn’t know important words like trees (arboles), mountain (montaña), or chipmunk (ardilla). One day I bought a small Spanish-English dictionary for ten cents at a thrift store, and I was back on the Spanish train, doing my lessons everyday (for at least a week).

One morning when I emerged from my van, I found campers who’d arrived in the night. As I spoke with them, I realized English was not their native (or primary) language. They were Spanish speakers.

When I explained the fees to one guy ($20 per night for camping, $7 per night for the extra vehicle), he looked confused. I slowed down and explained again, then decided to use a little of my Spanish language knowledge. I meant to ask Entiende? (Do you understand?). I realized ten minutes later that I’d asked Entiendo? (Do I understand?) I bet the camper was thinking Espero que entiende, gringa! (I hope you understand, white lady!)

Perdon. Necesito estudiar español ahora.

(Excuse me. I need to study Spanish now.)

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Sep8

Farewell to My Campground

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(This post is coming to you live from the restaurant/bar/general store/post office with internet access.)

At the company appreciation luncheon, I found out the camp hosts at the campground where I started the season were getting laid off the day after Labor Day. I wondered what that would mean to me.

The week before Labor Day Weekend, my supervisor gave me a choice. She said I could stay at the campground where I’ve spent the majority of the summer, or I could move back to the campground where I got my start as a camp host. In either case, I’d still be working five days a week at the parking lot. If I moved, I’d have access to electricity in the garage/office, but I’d have to drive my van on a 25 mile round-trip commute to the parking lot. If I stayed put, the other camp host in my area and I would work out a patrol schedule, and I’d get to drive the company truck on the 25 miles round-trip to check on the farther campground. I opted to stay where I was so I’d only have to drive the van my routine 6 mile-a-day commute.

On the Friday of Labor Day Weekend, my supervisor said she had bad news. Because the campground farther from the parking lot has yurts that need to be guarded (against theft? against squatters? against vandalism?), I was going to have to move. The other camp host near the parking lot will do a patrol to my campground to collect payments and check-in folks with reservations.

I’m not upset about having to move, but I’m not happy about all the driving and the gas I’ll use. (That six-mile-a-day round-trip commute really spoiled me.) And I will miss my tiny, cute campground.

The bigger campground is lovely too, and it has a place in my heart as my first. It’s where I got my feet wet (literally, on more than one occasion) as a camp host. But I will miss the place I spent the majority of the days and night of the (cultural, if not literal) summer season.

Sep8

Pulled Over

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The events in today’s post happened several weeks after the events of yesterday’s post, in August 2015.

I got pulled over by a cop on the way back to my campground after my day off in Babylon. The funny thing is that I know the cop! It was Officer S., my co-worker’s neighbor. Officer S. is a sheriff’s deputy, and I’ve talked to him in my campground and in the parking lot. He’s always been very nice and polite to me, but the bottom line is, he’s still a cop.

We passed each other going in opposite directions on the road up the mountain, and when I looked over, I thought There goes Officer S. in his sheriff’s department truck. The next thing I knew, the sheriff’s department truck was coming up behind me like a bat out of hell with the lights flashing. I thought he must have just gotten an emergency call to head in the direction I was going.

I pulled off the road, into a turn-out, expecting him to pass me, but he pulled in behind me. WTF?!?!? I wasn’t speeding. I wasn’t driving weird.

I wasn’t scared because I hadn’t been doing anything wrong. I hadn’t been drinking (I haven’t had an alcoholic drink in over two years), and there were no guns or drugs in the van. But I sure as hell was wondering why he was pulling me over.

I turned off my music and sat with my hands on the steering wheel. I didn’t want him to think I was digging around for a gun while I was digging around for my license and registration and insurance card. I figured I could dig around after I told him what I was digging for.

When he walked up to the driver’s side of the van, I told him through the small side window that the main window doesn’t roll down and asked if I should open the door. He assented by reaching to open the door himself. When the door opened and he saw me, he looked sheepish and said he thought I was someone else.

I thought, Yeah, Alfonso Gonzalez, but I didn’t say that aloud.

Turns out he thought I was someone else other than Alfonso Gonzalez. He thought I was some other little gal in a van. He thought I was some crazy lady (he made the swirling finger next to his ear sign), some lady who’d told him her van (with Illinois plates) was in storage in Babylon. He thought she’d taken her Illinois plates off the van and put on New Mexico plates. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed when he realized he’d pulled over the wrong little gal.

He asked me where I was heading, and I must have given him a strange look because he said, Oh, the campground, just as I said the name of my campground.

I asked if he wanted to see anything (meaning license, registration, insurance card, but I should probably rephrase the question in the future because I realized after I said it that it might sound like a come-on line). He said no, which was good, as I don’t think he had any probable cause to pull me over, since I wasn’t the little gal he thought I was.

I guess now I’m one of the locals who knows the cops.

Sep7

Cop Knock

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The events in today’s post happened several weeks ago, in July 2015.

On Sunday afternoon, I’d headed for Babylon as soon as my shift at the parking lot ended. I typically want to get to civilization as soon as possible when my time off starts, but by the time I complete my descent into the parched heat, I usually wonder why I thought leaving the mountain was a good idea.

This Sunday was hot too, so I stayed in the coffee shop as long as I could. After it closed, I found the temperature hadn’t dropped much, so I walked aimlessly through Target for a while. But soon that store was closing too, and unless I wanted to waste some time (and money!) in Denny’s, there was no place else for me to go. Besides, I was tired and needed as much sleep as I could steal from this desert night. So I drove my van to the 24/7 supermarket and found a decent spot to park.

I don’t sleep well in the heat. I sleep best when the air’s a little cold, and I can snuggle under a pile of blankets and never get warm enough to kick them off in the night. I knew this was not going to be a night of good sleep, but I figured if I could catch a few hours of shut-eye, I’d be ok the next day.

The last time I looked at my watch it was 11:30. I must have dozed off because I was suddenly jerked awake by knocking on the van.

Who is it? I asked loudly (and probably gruffly too).

The dreadful reply: Sheriff’s department.

Oh fuck! I didn’t have any guns or drugs in the van, so I knew I was ok on those fronts, but I couldn’t imagine any good reason a representative of the sheriff’s department would be knocking on my door in the middle of the night.

I peeked out the curtain, and sure enough, a very young man dressed in cop clothes was standing next to my van.

I said One moment or Just a minute and started fumbling in the weak parking lot light filtering through my curtains to find my glasses and some clothes to put on. Once I was dressed and could see, I moved the curtain so the cop could talk to me through the window.

Here’s the story he laid on me: He was looking for Alfonso Gonzalez, who lived in a van just like the one I was in. He asked if Alfonso Gonzalez were in the van with me.

I don’t know anyone named Alfonso Gonzalez, and there sure as hell was no one in there with me. So I told the deputy that Alfonso Gonzalez was definitely NOT in the van.

Of course, then the cop wanted to see for himself. He said if I’d just open the door and allow him to look inside and see that no one was with me, he’d be on his way because all he was interested in was finding Alfonso Gonzalez. I wanted the whole interaction over as soon as possible, so I agreed to let him look inside my van home.

I opened the door and stepped out onto the warm asphalt, barefoot and wearing a skirt with the elastic pulled up over my breasts, strapless sundress style. The cop shined his flashlight into the van and must have immediately seen that I had been in there alone.

But then the liar started questioning me! Of course, he wrote all my answers in his little notebook.

What was my name? When was my birthday? Did I have any outstanding warrants? Had I missed any court dates?

I answered his questions despite the fogginess of my sleepy brain. I didn’t feel like I had much choice in the matter. I was in a parking lot in the middle of the night, and I didn’t have a lawyer to call. Would he find an excuse to take me to jail if I didn’t answer his questions? If he took me to jail, would my van be impounded? If my van were impounded, would I lose all of my belongings and owe a bunch of money to the court system? I answered his questions.

I don’t remember now if I volunteered the information in hopes of making myself look respectable or if I answered a direct question, but I told him I was down from the mountain where I worked as a camp host. I said I had to get supplies in the morning, then I would be on my way out of town.

You can guess where his questions went from there. What company did I work for? What town did I work in? (That was a particularly difficult one for my sleep addled mind, since I don’t work anywhere near a town. I’m near a couple of small communities, but I’m miles from any real town.) I think he even asked me my boss’ name. I answered his questions.

Then he started asking me about the license plate on the van. He asked if my registration was current. I told him my registration didn’t expire until the end of August (which he would have already known if he’d looked at the sticker on my plate), but added that in fact I had just paid to update the registration and was waiting for the new sticker to get to me. He said he had run my plate number, and it wasn’t in the system. I don’t understand how a legally registered vehicle (which my van is) wouldn’t be in the system, but that’s what he said. So then he asked to see my registration if I had it handy. (I’m sure he was hoping I didn’t have it handy so he’d have a reason to ticket me for the infraction.)

As I was digging around for the registration, he asked me how long I’d been in California. I said I’d arrived at the end of April. He told me I needed to register my van in California since I was residing in the state now.

I tried to tell him I wasn’t residing in California, that I don’t have a residence in California, but he said it looked to him like I was residing in my van. True enough. I didn’t think to say my job is temporary or seasonal. I didn’t think to say that as soon as I’m laid off, I’ll be high-tailing it out of California. I don’t think any of that mattered to him. I think he figured since he hadn’t gotten Alfonso Gonzalez, he’d try to find some reason to harass me.

I’m aware of the concept of California Uber Alles, but I wasn’t aware that like the Borg, the state wants to assimilate anyone who enters its domain.

 

Thankfully, my good sense kicked in (or maybe I just woke up), and I decided arguing with the cop was not going to make my situation better. I just shut up and handed him the van’s registration paperwork.

He went back to his car (which he had parked behind my van, blocking me in) to run my information. I guess everything checked out because when he came back, he returned my paperwork and didn’t ask to search the van, and he didn’t haul me off to jail. He did tell me that I should transfer my registration because the CHP (California Highway Patrol—you know, CHiPs…Ponch and Jon…bad 80s television…)

 

is very strict about people living in California while their vehicles are registered in another state.

After he left, I locked my doors, closed my curtains, and crawled back into my bed. In addition to the heat, I had adrenaline coursing through my body. I was awake for at least another two hours, wondering if the deputy had called CHP, if more cops were on the way, if my van would be impounded and I’d lose all of my possessions (again). I finally dozed a little and was less worried about the CHP and the prospect of losing my van in the light of day.

Since that night, I haven’t been bothered by any cops looking for Alfonso Gonzalez.

And it may be superstitious, but I don’t sleep in that parking lot anymore.

Sep6

Carry Me

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It was a weekend afternoon, and my co-worker had left for the day. A car pulled into the entrance to the parking lot, and I approached. The driver, the sole occupant of the car, was a very plain looking man, probably in his early 50s. I gave him my standard little talk: This is the parking lot. The trail begins across the street. The parking fee is $5.

With extreme seriousness, the man asked me if I were going to carry him on the trail.

Sometimes people (particularly male people) ask me questions, and I have no idea if they are serious or just trying to get a reaction (shock, laughter, outrage, a slap across the face—who knows?) out of me. I try to keep my reaction to such questions what I think of as no-nonsense pleasant. I pretend they are asking a serious question (even when the question is obviously ridiculous), and I answer their question in an equally serious manner.

So I said something along the lines of Oh, no sir. I won’t be carrying you. I did not smile, smirk, or giggle. Why should I pretend a question is funny when it’s really stupid? It’s much more fun (for me, at least) to pretend the question is for real.

He pursued his line of questioning. I wasn’t going to carry him? Really? He had to pay $5 and still walk? His expression never changed. For all I know, he was serious and he really did want me to carry him. There are a lot of weirdos in the world.

But I stayed pleasant, yet no-nonsense, detached. No sir. I won’t be carrying you.

He finally coughed up the $5 and drove away to park his car. He must have gone out on the trail, but I didn’t see him, and I didn’t think about him again until he returned to the parking lot after walking the trail. He stopped to ask me some questions. (I don’t remember now what his questions were.) He was very calm and seemed entirely serious. He hung around me for quite a while, for so long that I was getting uncomfortable. At one point I even walked away from him in mid-sentence so I could collect the fee from an incoming car. I thought he’d be gone when I turned away from the car, but, alas, he was still standing next to my chair.

We talked about the trail and the trees some more and finally—finally!—I could tell he was wrapping it up and would soon leave. He said he’d enjoyed himself, but really, it would have been better if I’d carried him.

Nope. Never going to happen, I told him.

If the joke (if it were a joke) had ever been funny (which it hadn’t), it had now moved into creepy, and I was glad to see him go.

After he left, I wondered if he had some kind of R. Crumb fetish where he fantasizes about tall, big-breasted, big-thighed women giving him piggyback rides.

(According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb,

R. Crumb, is an American cartoonist and musician. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture. His work has attracted controversy, especially for his depiction of women and non-white races.

 

I guess my thighs might qualify me as an R. Crumb type fantasy woman, but I’m not tall, and my breasts are not nearly big enough.)

I really have no idea what that tourist guy was all about. Maybe he gets off on being carried around by women in brown polyester-blend pants. Maybe he’s a man baby and wanted to pretend I was his mommy.

I don’t know what his story was, but I was glad to see him go.

Sep5

Mountain Roads

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IMG_3449I’ve driven on mountain roads in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and New Mexico, but I’d never before seen roads like the ones I’m encountering in the Sierra Nevada mountains. These roads have so many twists, turns, curves, and switchbacks. For the first few weeks, driving these roads made me carsick. I’d never gotten carsick while driving before.

My body must have adjusted because I’m not getting carsick while driving these roads anymore. However, I know the curves are on my mind because I dreamed of one on a recent night.

In the dream, I was driving my van. In the dream, I was driving my van too fast. I was also fiddling with something (my MP3 player, I suspect), not paying proper attention to the road. I was on a curve sooner than I expected, and I took it too fast. Next thing I knew, I was off the road, barreling through the grass. I don’t remember trying to stop the van. I do remember crashing through the wall of a barn. I felt the forward motion clearly. I felt the resistance of the wall clearly too.

At that point, in that weird way of dreams, I was in the back of my van, lying in the bed. The van was still moving fast, and I knew the outcome was not going to be good.

Then I woke up, relieved to realize I had not actually crashed my van through the wall of a barn. I was lying in my bed in the first feeble light of dawn, waiting for my heart rate to slow so I could try to get back to sleep. That’s when I heard the hooting of an owl.

Owls, in Western tradition, are harbingers of doom and death. According to http://www.owlpages.com/articles.php?section=Owl+Mythology&title=Myth+and+Culture, “in early Rome…to hear the hoot of an Owl [sic] presaged imminent death…In English literature the Barn Owl [sic] had a sinister reputation probably because it was a bird of darkness, and darkness was always associated with death. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the poets Robert Blair and William Wordsworth used the Barn Owl [sic] as their favourite [sic] “bird of doom.”

I hadn’t heard an owl hoot since I arrived in the Sierras in May. But here was one hooting long and loud moments after I’d dreamed of taking a curve too fast and wrecking my van.

You can bet the next time I drove those twisty mountain roads, I took the curves nice and slow.

IMG_3451

I took these photos of curvy mountain roads.

Sep3

Scam Artist: Western Dental

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Folks who’ve been reading my blog know that I had a lot of problems with my teeth this past spring, culminating in having a molar extracted. It’s been six months since my last cleaning, so I called to make an appointment at the local Western Dental office. I figured the dental chain would probably have lower prices than a dentist in a private practice. When I spoke to the woman on the phone (who was not in the same town where the dental clinic I’d be visiting was, but at some corporate office), I told her I needed to have my teeth cleaned. She told me there was a special running, and I could get the cleaning for $39.99 with free x-rays and exam.

On the day of my 10:30 appointment, I arrived early, at 10am. I tried to confirm with the receptionist that the cleaning would cost $39.99. I told her that was the price I was quoted when I made my appointment. She told me the exam and x-rays would be free, but she couldn’t quote me a price until after the dentist examined me and recommended treatment. She said if I needed an extraction or a root canal, it would cost more than $39.99. I told her I understood that, but I wanted to confirm the cost of the cleaning. I told her I didn’t want to spend any time there unless I was going to get a $39.99 cleaning. She said they would get to my cleaning that day, and that the $39.99 special was still in effect.

Although I arrived at 10am for the 10:30 appointment, I  was not called to the back until 11:15. At 11am I asked the receptionist how much longer I would have to wait. She confirmed my name and then left the front desk to ask someone when I would be seen. When she came back, she told me I would be next. I sat there another 15 minutes before the x-ray technician called me to the back.

When the x-ray tech asked me how I was doing, I told her I had not expected to sit in the waiting room for 45 minutes.  She apologized and said they were down one x-ray tech,but  she didn’t know why. She also acted like I was an idiot to have made an appointment on a Monday, which she said is pediatric dental clinic day. I didn’t know that because when I called to make the appointment, I talked to someone at the corporate office. In any case, I am not a pediatric patient, so I don’t know why the pediatric clinic determined when I was seen.

In addition to every messed up thing that happened in the office, I am also concerned about the x-ray tech flipping a switch in the hallway, then sticking her hands in my mouth. How often is that switch cleaned throughout the day? Also, although the computer keyboard was covered with plastic, she touched it after having her hands in my mouth. How often is that plastic changed? Is it changed after each patient? I shudder to think she’d had her hands in someone else’s mouth, then on the keyboard, then in my mouth, then on the keyboard. Gross!
 
After the x-rays were taken, the tech tried to get me into a cubical where I would be examined by the dentist, but none were available, so she sent me back to the waiting room. I sat there over 30 minutes. When I asked when I would be seen, a different receptionist tried to tell me the wait was so long because I was a new patient. The x-rays are computerized. They didn’t have to be developed. I don’t know what was taking so long.  I think I was repeatedly forgotten.
 
In any case, five minutes later, I was called to the back and put in a chair. The dentist was soon there to examine my mouth. I told him I was there for a cleaning, told him I had a regular dentist in another state, but needed a cleaning now while I am in the area working. He looked in my mouth for less than a minute, but managed to ask me a question I had just answered, showing me that he was not paying attention to what I was saying. (I had just told him I was working in the area. The next question out of his mouth was, “So you’re here for a visit?) He told me he had to write up his observations, then one of the “ladies” would be along to do my cleaning.
 
Ten minutes later a woman came over. I asked her if she were going to do my cleaning. She laughed and said, “We’ll get to that.” She was there to explain the cost of my treatment options. 
 
She immediately started talking about dental implants, even though I had given no indication I had any interest in dental implants. (If I wanted dental implants, I would have that work done by my regular dentist.) She was kind enough to tell me which of my teeth had been extracted. I laughed at her and told her I knew which of my teeth were missing. She tried to explain the payment plan for the implants I didn’t want and hadn’t asked about, but I told her I had no interest in implants, that I just wanted a cleaning.
 
Then she told me I need a filling to the tune of $303! That seems exceptionally expensive to me. I told her I was not prepared to have a tooth filled, that right now I just wanted to have my teeth cleaned. (At this point, I was beginning to feel like a broken record.)
 

She told me the cleaning would cost $197! WHAT? I had been quoted $39.99 for the cleaning.  I think this was the old bait and switch. You know what that is, right? That’s when a business quotes a low price to a potential customer, only to require a higher price when the customer is actually in the store.

The woman claimed to know nothing about the $39.99 special I was quoted over the phone. Strange, the first receptionist I talked to didn’t tell me there was no such the special, she said that special was still in effect, but the second woman told me the first woman must have been “confused.” I think they tried to trick me into paying more than they quoted me, thinking after they wasted so much of my time, I would just go along with whatever they said I needed to do. I got out of the chair and didn’t let them do any work on me. When the woman asked me if I wanted to take the paperwork explaining the cost of the procedures, I told her no, because I am never coming  back here.

When I walked out of the office, I was so angry! I called the Lady of the House to let her know what had happened, and I started crying while thinking about all the poor people this corporation is taking advantage of. The company gets poor people in there with the promise of free x-rays and payment plans, then jacks up the prices after keeping people there for hours and wearing them down. Luckily I escaped.

I have an appointment for a dental cleaning with a dentist in a nearby town scheduled for September 14. The price is $59.99 for x-rays, exam, and a basic cleaning. When I talked to the  office manager, she told me the dentist might recommend a deep cleaning, depending on the condition of my mouth, and said a deep cleaning costs more. But, she added, it would be up to me to decide if I wanted a basic cleaning or a deep cleaning.

Imagine that. I get to decide what’s best for me.

Sep2

Trippin’ Tree

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IMG_3054

I took this photo of (what I am pretty sure is) a sugar pine that grows on site #2 of my campground. Whenever I look at this tree, i could pretty much trip out if I let myself. This tree is very psychedelic. Something about those circles just gets my brain going, and I imagine them spinning, turning into faces, all kinds of wonderful crazy visuals.

Sep1

Smoking Pot

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It was almost time for me to leave the parking lot at the end of a busy Sunday in August. A car with a license plate indicating a person with a disability was in the vehicle had pulled in, and I walked over to move the bucket my co-worker and I had been using to reserve a parking space for just that reason.

As I stood there, bucket in hand, waiting for the car to make the loop, a pickup truck stopped next to me. The woman in the passenger seat leaned her head out to the open window.

We just wanted to let you know…she began.

I looked at her expectantly.

When we were on the trail…There were some kids, young adults…she quickly corrected herself. They were smoking pot.

They shouldn’t be smoking out there, I said, not even mentioning the pot. The woman in the truck seemed a little startled that I wasn’t upset about what the kids young adults were smoking.

I care exactly zero that people were indulging in marijuana. I do care that they were smoking on the trail. They should not have been smoking anything on the trail. The whole area was under a strict fire ban, and folks were only supposed to smoke (cigarettes or whatever) in a closed vehicle.

But what did this woman think I was able to do? As I told her, the Forest Service is in charge of the trail side of the highway, and the company I work for is in charge of the parking lot side of the road. I have no authority to enforce anything on the trail side of the road. (Any power of enforcement I have in the parking lot is tenuous at best.)

Even if I did cross the highway and assume authority, how would I know when I found the pot smoking kids young adults? Would I just say Were y’all smoking weed? Were y’all smoking weed? to every group of kids young adults I encountered on the path? I doubt anyone would have admitted to it even if they had been smoking pot out there.

Besides, there’s a mile and a quarter of trail and two possible official trail entrances/exits (as well as multiple off-trail ways to enter and exit). I could have walked the trail loop for hours and never encountered the people the woman had (allegedly) seen smoking pot. The smokers could have been halfway home while I was still searching for them.

Before the truck left the parking lot, the woman told me the pot smokers were the ones with the loud music. I spent the rest of my time at work waiting for people with loud music to exit the trail, but it didn’t happen before I left.

I just hope those potheads were being super careful.