[lumberjim]

The other thing I remember was less enjoyable. There was a dog there named Reilly. He stayed at the main kitchen. I don’t remember who’s dog he was, but they had tied him to a tree to keep him out of the food, and a copperhead had gotten tangled in his rope and bit him on the neck. Venomous snake, naturally. The people freaked out and rushed him to town, where they were lucky to find a veterinarian capable of helping the dog, and advising the owners on how to care for him. Reilly was a bit subdued for the rest of the gathering, but by the time we left, he was doing fine again.

On the day we left the gathering, saying our goodbyes and loading up the van, Gina shows up with these 3 girls in tow, and says she offered them a ride with us in the van. After we planned and plotted for months the previous summer about how we would do things, she just went and invited them without checking with any of us. It was her van. And Terry had wrangled a ride on a big school bus and was off on his very own adventure now. They promised that they would sleep outside at night and wouldn’t interfere with anything we did, and they would help with gas money, and food etc… At this point, we were one of the last cars there, and if we left them, these girls would be totally screwed. Apparently their ride had left them. So they loaded up into the van with us. The “leader” of these girls was named Carter, and I think the other two had made theirs up. Carter was a very pretty girl but the more we got to know her, the more obvious it became that she was totally nuts. She also had a disturbing infection on the skin surrounding her ear. We got rid of them as soon as we were able. I think in Oklahoma somewhere.

Our next stop was Prescott Arizona. Gina nearly killed us all 3 or 4 times on the ride along route 40 west. We all got so mad at one point that we forbade her from driving anymore. She protested, of course. It was her van, after all. But the deal had been that I would save cash, and she would buy the van. She also would get to keep the van when we went home. I had saved up $1200 and was treating it very communally. Gina, however, was becoming bossier by the minute, and kept falling back on the argument that it was her van, and her vote counted more than other votes. It was an uncomfortable ride to Prescott. We were going there to kill the last week before the Oakland shows on Halloween and to visit Gina’s more recent boyfriend, Paul, who attended a Flight School in Prescott. Paul was a cool guy. He looked a lot like Getty Lee from Rush, but shorter. He was very gracious about opening his apartment to all 8 of us, and we had a nice time there, apart from a few Heather and Shelby vs. Gina spats. The Chevette had a squealing belt, and while we were there we decided that it need an adjustment. So Jeremiah and I tightened the tension on the Alternator belt, and patted each other on the back for handling the problem so quickly and efficiently.