Tag Archives: tourists

Sep14

Mouse in the House

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It was Sunday. When I arrived at the parking lot at 11AM, I discovered my co-worker wasn’t there and hadn’t been there all morning. Since he hadn’t been there to clean the parking lot restrooms, I had to do it. Having to clean those restrooms does not make me happy. Being surprised by having to clean those restroom makes me really unhappy, grumpy even.

I was bustling around, just trying to be efficient and get everything done as quickly as possible. While I was cleaning the restroom on the left, a man entered the restroom on the right. He stayed in the restroom a normal amount of time, then exited. A boy, probably his son, went in after him, also stayed a normal amount of time, then came out.

I was out of the restroom I had been cleaning and was sweeping the sidewalk when the man spoke to me. He had an accent, maybe French. He asked me if I knew there was a mouse in the restroom he and the boy had used.

I expressed my displeasure mildly. I did not scream or curse. I was thinking Why? Why? Why? I should not have been required to deal with a mouse. That mouse should have been my co-worker’s Sunday morning problem, not mine.

I heard the boy say, She’s scared.

How does he know I’m afraid of mice? I wondered at the moment. Am I acting afraid?

(Now I wonder why he was speaking English.)

Then I realized he meant the mouse was afraid.

Before I went into the restroom, I heard the boy say something something feeding. I didn’t know what in the world he was talking about until I walked into the restroom and saw in the front corner not just a mouse, but a mamma mouse nursing three babies.

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I took this photo of the mouse family. Notice the mouse shit all over the place.

I don’t like mice (or rats or gerbils or hamsters), but what was once nearly a phobia is now an aversion. I don’t think those rodents are cute or sweet or precious. I think they are vile and disease-ridden. They shit everywhere and make people sick. I worry that one is going to run up the leg of my pants in a moment of panic. (The critter’s panic would quickly become my panic if it ran up the leg of my pants.)

So when I saw the nursing mouse, my thoughts were more Ewwwww than Awwwww. The babies were not tiny and transparent as I once read baby mice described. They were big, probably one-third the size of their mother. Their eyes were still closed. and they seemed to just hang limply from their mother’s side.

The boy was right; the mamma mouse did look scared. Her eyes were huge. She looked resigned to bad things happening, as if these big children suckling from her were not only getting milk from her body, but also stripping away all of her hope. I could almost feel sorry for her, almost admit she was kind of cute, in a sad sort of way, but then I saw the mouse shit all over the floor and the shredded toilet paper they’d probably slept in the night before. I knew I was the one who was going to have to clean it up. I wondered if I’d get workers comp if I caught plague  or hantavirus from the little mousy family.

As I swooped in to pick up the shredded toilet paper, a tourist lady came over with her cameraphone to photograph the mouse family. She couldn’t stop exclaiming over how cute they were.

Oh sure, they’re cute, I said, until they give you the plague.

That thought seemed to sober up the tourist lady pretty fast.

I decided I should get my camera out of the van and take a photo of the mice too. I knew I’d write about them, so why not post a photo as well?

My van was nearby, so I wasn’t gone long. As I was returning to the building housing the restrooms, an new guy was walking up.

Don’t go in the one on the right, I screeched at the young man. There’s a mouse in there!

(I don’t know why I didn’t let him go in there and run them off.)

He said he’d heard about the mice. He wanted to take a photo too.

(Is any animal exotic if it lives in the National Forest?)

He said, Oh, they’re so cute.

Oh, sure, I said, until they defecate all over the place.

I sounded as bitter as I felt. I should get hazard pay for dealing with rodents.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to remove the mice from the corner. I had a broom and a large, blue dustpan. Should I use the broom to sweep them into the dustpan? Should I try to push the edge of the dustpan under them and scoop them up? While I didn’t like them, I didn’t want to hurt them. I’m not keen on hurting living creatures, although I will defend myself. Removing mice from a building hardly seemed like self-defense.

Because the door to the restroom was propped open, there was a large gap near the floor between the door and the wall  When I moved toward the mice with the dustpan extended, the mamma mouse fled through the gap, babies still attached to her nipples. It looked unnatural and grotesque. I guess I’ve never seen a mother run with suckling infants hanging on to her with their mouths.

I was relieved to see them go.

(I know the title of this post is misleading because the post is actually about four mice in a restroom. I opted for poetic license, since “Mouse in the House” sounds better than “Mice in a Restroom.”)

Sep13

More Restroom Confusion

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I don’t really like to use the restrooms in the parking lot.

Although my co-worker does a good job cleaning them every morning, by the time I go in there, a lot of strangers’ butts have been on the seats, and there’s usually liquid (don’t think about it) and toilet paper on the floor. Besides, there’s hardly a moment when other people aren’t waiting to get in.

I try to remember to use the restroom immediately before I leave my campground for my shift in the parking lot. The restrooms in my campground see a lot less use than the ones in the parking lot, so the ones in the campground stay a lot cleaner. If I remember to go before I go, I can use a parking lot restroom just once during my shift.

I try to make my restroom visit before my co-worker leaves for the day. I like to know he’s up front handling things while I’m away.

The other afternoon, I made the short journey to the parking lot restrooms half an hour before my co-worker’s scheduled departure. When I walked up, three women were standing outside the two restrooms, just sort of milling about.

When did people quit standing in line? Is it something about being in nature that does away with people’s sense of order? (The trees aren’t standing in line, so why should I? Chipmunks don’t wait their turn, so why should I?) Is the refusal to line up some sort of rebellion against all thing elementary school? I don’t know, but this milling about instead of lining up sure annoys me. How am I supposed to know who goes in next if everyone is just standing around unorganized?

So I said to the three women standing there Are you in line? Are you in line? Are you in line?

The answers were Yes. No. Yes.

(I guess the No was waiting for the first Yes.)

A woman came out of the restroom on the right, and the first Yes went in. Less than a minute later, a man came out of the restroom on the left. The second Yes just stood there. I thought maybe she didn’t want to crowd the guy, but the door to the restroom closed completely and the guy disappeared from our view. Still the woman just stood there.

Finally I piped up with something along the lines of Aren’t you waiting? or Go ahead!

The woman started stammering…Oh, I thought…Isn’t that…? Then she looked up and saw that the signs on the wall show both restrooms are unisex

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The signs on the wall show both restrooms are unisex. (This photo was taken by me.)

and said, Oh, I see…as she finally started moving towards the door on the left.

She thought, because she’d seen a woman go into the door on the right and a man come out of the door on the left, there was a men’s restroom and a women’s restroom.

As she was heading toward the restroom, I understood what she had been thinking. I said, I’d have just gone into the men’s room.

She turned and looked at me with disbelief in her eyes. Really? It’s the 21st century and a woman using the men’s restroom is scandalous?

 

Sep12

If You’re Refusing to Pay

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Sometimes people who want to park in the parking lot also want to have philosophical discussions about whether or not they should have to pay to park on National Forest land.

One Wednesday morning, there were cars already parked in the lot when I arrived. I kept an eye on folks coming off the trail and asked them if they’d put their parking fee in the iron ranger. I asked one guy if he’d paid the fee, and he said he only had a $20 bill. I told him I could make change.

As I was writing the day pass he didn’t need since he was about to leave, he started talking about some lawsuit and court decision related to charging fees to park on public land. From what I understood, someone sued some governmental agency for charging folks a fee to park on public land. A judge decided it’s unlawful to charge people simply to park. In order to charge a day use fee, there has to be something more substantial than a portable toilet and a picnic table available for use; a day use area has to include some sort of improvement if a fee is to be charged.

I tried to justify the improvements this parking lot/day use area offers. Instead of one picnic table, we offer five picnic tables, and we don’t just have a port-a-potty, we have two gen-u-ine pit toilets in a (fancy?) little building. Also, we don’t offer only parking in the dirt; we have asphalt parking too.

Of course, the guy didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. He’d already made up his mind that he didn’t want to pay, and nothing coming out of my mouth short of no charge was going to make him happy. It didn’t even matter to him that the ruling he was talking about obviously didn’t apply to the (much improved) day use area/parking lot he was standing in.

Another time a guy wanted to have a debate while stopped in the parking lot’s entrance lane. I tried to answer his questions, although I honestly don’t know why none of a variety of federal and state passes apply to our parking lot. I don’t know why we don’t give military/disabled/disabled veteran discounts. I don’t know why folks have to pay to park even though it’s federal land which we as taxpayers own.

All I know is that my job is to stand there and collect $5 for each car parked within our gates.

So the guy driving the truck was asking me a bunch of questions I didn’t know the answers to, which was well and good for him, as he was sitting in his vehicle, out of the sun. I was standing in the sun, getting hotter and less patient.

Finally I said, If you’re refusing to pay…planning to follow up with…there’s not really anything I can do about it.

That’s the truth too. I can speak firmly and authoritatively, but I have no way to make people do anything. I don’t write tickets. (Thank goodness!) I don’t carry a gun. (Double thank goodness!) I have no access to a phone, so I can’t call anyone with authority to kick people out. If a visitor refuses to pay to park, I can’t grab him/her by the ankles, flip him/her upside down, and shake the money out of his/her pockets. All I can do if someone refuses to pay is shrug and walk away.

But all I had to say was, If you’re refusing to pay…and the guy changed his tune.

Oh! Oh no! He sounded surprised. I’m not refusing to pay, he said as if he were wondering how I’d possibly ever gotten that idea. He pulled out his money real fast. He wasn’t refusing to pay. Not him. He was paying!

I figure my hourly wage is too low to compel me to get into philosophical discussions with visitors. I’ll have to get paid $15 an hour before I feel obligated to engage in philosophical discussions.

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.

Aug30

Questions

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At my jobs as a camp host and parking lot attendant, I am asked a lot of questions. After over three months, I’ve heard some questions so many times, they no longer surprise me.

Here’s a list of questions I am asked repeatedly (and my most common answers).

Where is the General Sherman tree? (In the Giant Forest in the Sequoia National Park)

What’s in that big tank on your campsite? (Water) Can I have some of it? (No)

Where are the rock slides? (I have no idea)

Is there a river or stream up here where we can get wet and cool off? (No)

How long is the trail? (About a mile and a quarter)

How long does it take to walk the trail? (That depends on how many trees you hug)

What’s the elevation here? (About 6400 feet)

How do I get to [L.A., San Francisco, the Sequoia National Park, Bakersfield, Las Vegas, Palm Springs]? (Answers vary)

Where is a water fountain/faucet/spigot where I can fill my water bottle/wash my hands/get water for my dog? (Not here)

Is there a place around here to go on a hike? (I have a map you can look at)

Do you take credit/debit cards? (No because there are no phone lines or internet access here)

Where’s the nearest ATM? (8 miles that way)

Where is Crystal Cave? (In the Sequoia National Park)

Can my dog go on the trail? (Yes, on a leash)

Where’s the closest place to get food? (11 miles that way, but it’s not very good and the people who work there aren’t very friendly)

Is there a coffee shop around here? (The restaurant 11 miles away sells coffee…if you mean a Starbucks, no)

Are there picnic tables here? (Yes, there are five picnic tables in the day use area)

Can we have a barbecue here? (Only on a gas grill, if you have a permit)

Which tree here is the oldest/biggest/tallest? (I don’t know)

Where is the nearest campground? (200 yards that way)

Is there a gift shop here? (No)

Where can I buy gas? (25 miles that way, 40 miles that way, or 40 miles the other way)

Are there bears here? (Yes, but they are timid because they are hunted here…you’re more likely to see a rattlesnake here)

Where’s the restroom? (In the little building in the middle of the parking lot)

Some questions take me by surprise.

One day a young Asian woman with a fairly strong accent asked me if we had a resting room. I thought she meant restroom (toilet, WC, el baño), so I told her it was in the little building in the middle of the parking lot. She was clearly exasperated and said not a restroom, a resting room. I was perplexed and just looked at her. She explained she wanted to leave her mother, an elderly woman using a cane, in a resting room with chairs and shade. I guess she wanted a waiting room. I told her there was no resting room in the parking lot, and she clearly expressed additional exasperation. I didn’t even try to explain to her that the only rooms in the area are the two with the toilets and a tiny one for storage.

Another time, a family asked me how to get to the Big Chief. I knitted my brow and shook my head. (I do something with my mouth too, when I don’t know the answer, but I don’t know how to explain the expression.) I told them I’d never heard of it. They said it is the 7th largest giant sequoia, and it’s supposed to be in the area. I still had no information about its location to offer.

(According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_giant_sequoias, there is a Chief Sequoyah tree located in the Giant Forest Grove of the Sequoia National Park. It is listed as the 26th largest tree with a height of 228.2 feet (69.6 m), a circumference of 90.4 feet (27.6 m), and a diameter of 28.8 feet (8.8 m). There’s also Red Chief in Long Meadow Grove. Wikipedia lists it as the 41st largest tree with a height of 245.0 feet (74.7 m), a circumference of 80.6 feet (24.6 m), and a diameter of 25.7 feet (7.8 m). Maybe the family was looking for one of these trees.)

One Thursday was the day of weird questions.

It started when two young women and their two fluffy little dogs exited the trail. They walked right up to me, and one of the women asked, Can you suggest a good hike for dogs? I was momentarily at a loss, then said, I don’t really hike, and I don’t have a dog, so I don’t know a good hike for dogs. The woman thanked me, and they all walked away. (Perhaps I should have offered use of my map, and the women and dogs could have consulted it and discussed their options.)

Later that day, I did pull out my map for a family to look at. The man asked me about the Pinnacle Trail. I said I’d never heard of it. He allowed that he possibly had the name wrong. I offered the map to him. He found the trail for which he was looking (the name of which has two syllables and does not begin with the letter “P”). They had a bunch of questions about the trail. I told them I’d never hiked it and could only say what I’d heard about it from other people. They kept asking me questions, and I kept saying I don’t know. Finally the oldest kid said, Are there big trees on the hike? I said, I don’t know; I’ve never been there, and I was done with them. Sometimes people insist I answer their questions, even after I’ve told them I can’t.

That afternoon I was patrolling at the nearby campground, and two men flagged me down to ask about the yurts. After I answered their questions ($75 a night, sleeps five, no cooking inside, bring your own bedding), they wanted to know about the closest rivers. I told them about the two rivers in the vicinity, and one guy asked me if the fishing were good. I said, I don’t know. I don’t fish. It seems to me he should have first asked me if I’d fished either river recently.

The strangest (or at least most strangely phrased) question of the day happened back at my campground. I was checking in two young Asian men (brothers). I pointed out my van and told them to let me know if they had any questions or problems. The one doing the talking asked if I stayed in the campground, and I said yes. The he asked, If someone arrives late at night, will you be here to assist them? I told him I would be here if someone arrived late, but when people arrive after dark, I stay in my van and check them in the next morning. I wondered what kind of assistance he had in mind. There are definitely certain kinds of assistance I will not provide!

Aug29

Apparently I Look Like a Psychic

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Crystal ball in handsTourists say a lot of thing that aren’t very sensible. Sometimes it seems like when their bodies go on vacation, their brains decide to take a vacation of their own. Perhaps the people who seem like idiots to me are actually very competent in their daily lives and only seem clueless when our paths cross.

One variation of tourist cluelessness is associated with the way we came. People ask me Should we go back to way we came? or Is the way we came the best way to go back? Apparently I look like a psychic, because I’m supposed to know where they came from and the route they took.

Perhaps people don’t realize there are three ways to get to where I work, but they obviously think there is more than one route, since they are asking me about their travel options.

The first time a woman asked me if they should go back the way we came, I was trying to figure out how to answer the question when her (I presume) husband barked at her in my silence She doesn’t know how we got here! So true!

I really do try to be polite to people. When they ask questions involving the way we came without giving me any additional information, I try to keep it light and say with a small smile I don’t know. How did you get here? But inside I’m grimacing and shaking my head.

Image courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/crystal-ball-in-hands-6101/.

Aug28

The Firefighter and the Dog

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I don’t what official company policy is, but I don’t ask firefighters to pay to park their firetrucks in the parking lot. It seems wrong for me to hassle them for five bucks when they could be called away at any moment to risk their lives to protect people and trees.

On a Sunday afternoon when my shift was almost over, three Forest Service firetrucks pulled in, and I waved them through. Moments later, a county firetruck pulled in, and I thought What the hell, and waved it through too. I’m not going to play firefighter favoritism. Either all firetrucks get in for free or none do. That day it looked like I was going with all.

I’d seen this county firefighter before, but it had been weeks, maybe month, and I don’t think we’d done more than exchange hellos in the past.

I hadn’t even been thinking about the firefighter until a car exiting the parking lot stopped and the driver leaned his head out of the open window. He said, firefighter…something something…let dog out…something…dog ran away…firefighter chasing dog…something something…

I looked at the driver and wondered what in the hell he was talking about, but I just said ok. (I’m trying to learn not to jump up and volunteer to be part of other people’s dramas.)

Some minutes passed, when who should stroll up but the county firefighter with a medium-size dog on a long, green leash. He looped the leash over the iron ranger and told me Fido (not his real name, as far as I know) was going to stay right there. I protested that I’d be off work in thirty minutes and said Fido was not leaving with me. I told the firefighter I live in my van and cannot have a dog. I was a little bit panicked. I can barely take care of myself. No way can I be responsible for a dog.

The firefighter told me the dog’s people were on the trail, and he wouldn’t try to leave the dog with me. He said he wanted to move his firetruck into one of the spots my co-worker and I try to reserve for people with disabilities. I told him fine. Who am I to go against a firefighter in the midst of an official dog rescue?

As he was moving the firetruck, three little Latina girls came up to visit the dog. I told them I didn’t know the dog and didn’t know if it would bite. Really, this dog was super mellow. He seemed to have no plans or desire to bite anybody.

The word had already spread through the parking lot that the dog had been left in the truck by its people. The little girls thought it was really mean of the people to leave such a nice dog in the hot truck. When their dad walked up, the girls told him about Fido’s plight, and they all solemnly agreed they would never leave their dog alone in a hot car.

After the firefighter parked his truck, he filled me in on what had happened. He’d come along and some “concerned citizens” had alerted him to the dog left in the hot camper shell on the back of a pickup. He opened something (I didn’t exactly understand his gestures of explanation), and Fido jumped out and took off running. So the firefighter had to chase Fido down and get him on the leash. (I’m sorry I missed seeing that part of the show.)

The dumb thing about leaving the dog in the hot camper with no water—where he could have died—is that dogs on leashes are allowed on the trail. I don’t know if the long green leash was Fido’s or if it belonged to the firefighter. Maybe Fido’s people had left him behind because they didn’t have a leash for him. (I’ve seen a surprising number of people this summer who have a dog in their vehicle, but no leash for it.) Fido couldn’t have been left behind because he was a nuisance; during the half hour he sat with me, he did not bark once, and he never strained against the leash. Mostly he just lay quietly and looked around.

After he got Fido’s people’s license plate number, the firefighter stood around to see if Fido’s people would show. He said no way was animal control going to come all the way out there, and he said he couldn’t give the people a ticket for leaving Fido in the heat. (I guess writing animal cruelty tickets is out of his jurisdiction.) He did say he was going to ask the sheriff to send the people a ticket through the mail. He also said he wasn’t one to yell, but he was getting more upset at Fido’s people the longer they were gone.

Then the firefighter said he and Fido were going to walk the trail and try to find the dog’s people. Soon after they left, my shift ended. As I was packing my chair and my backpack, a big, blue pickup truck with a camper on the back stopped near where I was standing and the driver (who was firmly middle-age and old enough to know better than to leave an animal in an enclosed space on a hot day) said he’d heard a fireman had his dog. I told the man that the firefighter was looking for him and had walked off with the dog in hopes of finding him.

The man in the blue truck drove off, but was back when I returned from putting my co-worker’s bucket in the storage room. He said he’d gone to the campground next door, but the firefighter and the dog weren’t there. I pointed to the firetruck and told Fido’s man that the firefighter would be back eventually.

Eventually? he asked, as if he just couldn’t believe how he was being inconvenienced.

The man was pacing at the front of the parking lot. I got in my van and made the loop to exit. As I pulled out onto the highway, I saw Fido and the firefighter walking toward Fido’s man.

Now I have a little crush on the firefighter. I don’t much about him other than his name, his profession, and that he likes dogs, but I keep making up little stores about him in my mind. (Hmmmmm, I think little stories like that are called “fantasies.”)

I’d never realized rescuing a dog could make a man so seem sexy.

Aug25

The Quietude of Nature

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qui·e·tude
ˈkwīəˌt(y)o͞od/
noun
noun: quietude
  1. a state of stillness, calmness, and quiet in a person or place.

It had been another busy Saturday in the parking lot. Not only had there been many people parking their cars with us, half of the people were cranky, and it seemed like the rest were needy. Either someone was trying to pick a fight or s/he had a million questions and practically wanted us to hold his/her hand through the entire parking process. It was exhausting. The weather wasn’t helping either. The sky was overcast, and we could feel the expectation of rain in the air, as if nature were holding her breath, letting the tension mount before releasing the wet. Maybe it was barometric pressure or negative ions, but the tourists had been acting weird (and annoying!) all afternoon.

My workday was drawing to a close, and I was seeing the light (in the form of dinner and peace) at the end of the tunnel, when I heard the constant mechanical buzz of a small engine coming from the road behind me and to my left. I turned around and saw a grown man and two teenage boys with a remote-controlled toy vehicle rolling at their feet. I didn’t notice which one of them had the controller and was “driving” the thing, but I noticed it was pretty big for a toy and had fat wheels.

I looked at the adult and said incredulously Are you bringing that on the trail?

He answered in a voice I’d expect to hear from a cartoon buffoon: not very bright. Uhhhhh, yeah.

Isn’t that kind of obnoxious? I asked.

He looked at me blankly. He had no idea why people walking in nature and looking at trees might find his noisy toy  obnoxious.

What about the quietude of nature? I pleaded.

The blank look never left his face. It’s battery powered, he said. There’s no gas.

Apparently he thought “quietude” was somehow related to pollution. Apparently he’d never considered pollution of the noise variety.

I can’t stop you from bringing it on the trail, I told him, but I think it’s obnoxious.

Well I think it’s pretty cool, he said in the same tone as schoolchildren say I’m rubber and you’re glue…

As the toy vehicle rolled and hummed across the street to the trail, I imagined it bumping someone’s abuela (grandmother) in the ankle; scaring dogs and making them bark; getting tangled in a Boy Scout leader’s feet; and startling birds and squirrels and causing them to leave the area, all the while destroying the quietude of nature with its irritating buzzing noise.

Aug3

Mamma Can’t Go No Higher

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I was climbing Moro Rock in the Sequoia National Park. I hadn’t gone very far when I came upon a family hanging out on a wide spot on the stairs.

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I took this photo of the stairs up Moro Rock.

I’d noticed this family before.

The older teenage daughter looked like she’d just stepped out of a Culture Club video circa 1984. Her eyes were heavily rimmed in black. Her short hair was a vibrant blue. She was wearing an over-sized flannel shirt with large black and white plaid, billowy black pants with small white flowers on them, and black Converse sneakers. On her head perched a large-brimmed black felt hat.

The younger child was of ambiguous gender (but I ultimately decided she was a girl) with natural red hair on the brink of dreadlocks–it looked as if it hadn’t been combed in a week. That child had a stuffed toy snake wrapped around her shoulders.

Mom seemed to be a redhead too and wore square reading glasses, but what I remember about her was what she said as the little shuttle bus pulled in. Run to the front kids, she instructed her children to push past the folks who had been waiting before them, there’s only sixteen seats on this one!

Of course, I and a family of four had been waiting for that shuttle 15, 20, 30 minutes, but mom didn’t care. She was bound and determined (perhaps hellbound is a better term) that her family was going to be on that bus.

So there they were again, apparently lounging on the steps to the top of the dome-shaped granite monolith.

I huffed and puffed and weezed and panted and made it a little way past them. Then I found my own little wide spot, hugged the rock next to me and stood there to rest for a moment.

As I stood there, I heard Mom say, You can do whatever you want.

Then I heard her screech, I said you can do whatever you want!

I looked over. The children had stood up and were about to follow Mom (and I realized at that moment there was a Dad too)  down the steps.

Mom then screeched Just because I have vertigo…

Apparently Mom’s vertigo had debilitated her, and she’d given the kids a choice: go on up without her or follow her back down. If this mom was anything like my mom, she’d offered a choice, but anyone who picked the wrong option was in for some mental and emotional punishment.

The Dad said, We’re all going to stick together…

Mom sounded as if she might cry when she said There’s no reception out here (referring to their cell phones, I presume). If we get separated…she trailed off, making it sound as if the family separated had no hopes of ever finding one another again.

She must not have remembered the days before cell phones, when folks who worried about getting separated designated a meeting spot.

Postscript: I ended up on the shuttle bus out of the park with this same family. Thankfully, I’d brought my MP3 player and headphones so I didn’t have to listen to their conversations on the two hour ride back to Visalia.

Jul8

He Was Just…Odd

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The other morning a family came off the trail. I believe they were a father, a mother, and a young adult daughter. I have no recollection of what the man looked like. Both women were average size; both were pale and freckled; and both had bangs and long, straight hair down nearly to their waists. On second thought, they could have been sisters, but I feel confident they were related.

They approached me and had some questions I couldn’t answer, things like which tree on the trail was the tallest and which one was the biggest around. That information is not included in the brochure we give visitors, so I sure as hell don’t know.

As their questioning ended, my co-worker returned from whatever he’d been doing, and the older woman said, I just wanted to let you know…We saw a man on the trail, and he was just…odd.

My co-worker and I looked at her with great interest. An odd man on the trail? Such a situation could add some excitement to our day.

I told him good morning…,she trailed off, not telling us if he had responded by ignoring her or telling her to go fuck her mother or in some way between the two extremes.

My co-worker and I waited for her to describe some odd behavior.

He had grey hair in a ponytail and a beard, and he was wearing a white shirt, she went on (un)helpfully.

Maybe he had come from the campground and was just out for a morning walk, she speculated, still not explaining what she found so odd about the guy.

Then the man (husband? father? brother-in-law?) with the women said that as the guy walked over the bridge, he had hit on the railings.

This behavior did not strike me as odd. Unusual perhaps, but not really odd. There was no report that the man was talking to himself or invisible others. They didn’t say he was fighting invisible monsters/mobsters/dragons/aliens. They didn’t complain that the man was exposing his genitals. What was so odd about him?

We just wanted to let you know…He was just…odd.

Had these people never been to a city, never seen any real oddness?

They certainly didn’t realize that my co-worker and I are probably two of the oddest characters they’ve ever met. We’ve just learned to hide it pretty well during short, public encounters.

I spent the rest of the day hoping the odd man would emerge from the trees so I could meet him, but I never noticed anyone fitting his description.