TOUR

[lumberjim]

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[lumberjim]

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[lumberjim]

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[lumberjim]

There were places where the water that ran along the face of the rock wall had eroded the wall away, and created overhangs with sand bars at the base. You could wade or swim across the river, and park it on the sandbar or mini beach and soak in the sun, tuck back into the shade, whatever.

There was a fairly large one of these near our campsite, and for a little while, Troll and Jen moved their tent to it in order to have a little “privacy”. You had to wade across thigh deep moving water to get to their little beach, which was no big deal, as we were constantly in and out of the river all day long anyway. At night, however, after sitting around the fire for too long getting toasty warm, it was not quite so pleasant. In that part of the country, it gets very hot during the day, but then can drop to 45 or 50 degrees at night around that time of year. The first night, shortly after having said goodnight to Troll and Jen, and slipping into our tent for a little R&R, we were shocked by shrieking coming from down stream.

We both charged out of the tent and ran down to see what was afoot. Both of them were shivering by the side of the river using the last faded drops of light from their flashlight to try to see across to their camp. They had attempted to cross, but something had touched their toes in the water, and they were now too afraid to cross. We basically ridiculed them into crossing, and Jen shrieked the whole time. I have a new appreciation for just how loud humans can be. Things are louder at night to begin with, what with all of that silence around, and having a sheer stone face nearby can redouble the sound, but goddamn. It was loud.

It was a night that I remember fondly, and I miss both of those guys, and have no way of contacting them, and will most likely never meet them again. That sucks. I hope they stayed together. Jen was slightly resistant to Troll, because he was little and dirty, but he was so ebullient, and likeable, that she had a really hard time keeping him at bay, and finally had given in to his advances. It seemed to me that she still had the perspective of a rich kid, but was cognizant of it. Her “training” was telling her that he was beneath her, and she was beautiful enough to do better, but the real girl in her loved Troll because he was so funny and cute. One morning when Troll had left his pants outside, and was naked inside the tent, unwilling to brave the chilly morning air, Troll was shouting to Jen to get his pants. She was refusing. “GET MY PANTS!”.... "no.” You could hear him smiling inside the tent. “GET MY PANTS, BITCH!” “oh, now you’ll never get them!” and on and on. This is a phrase still repeated at my house. “GET MY PANTS, BITCH!” I yell, when I want Shelby to get me something, and she doesn’t want to be bothered.

[Elspode]

Originally posted by lumberjim
At dawn, we were coming out of the mountains at Gorman, Ca, and started to see these huge, bright yellow Umbrellas dotting the landscape along the roadside and down in the valleys, up on hills. Hundreds of them. I woke Shelby up to see them, and we both mused upon what it could all be about.[/url]

Oooh! Ooohh! I know this one without looking!

It was a Christo thing, wasn't it? He loves to do big bright colored things with fabric in unlikely places. He used the same saffron colored fabric to wrap the walkways of our coolest urban park.

[richlevy]

Originally posted by lumberjim
Then there were the “Wing Nuts”. They were crazy. Really. And they all seemed attracted to me for some reason. They’d be magnetized to wherever I was and invariably begin to tell me some of the most bizarre and disturbing things I had heard at that stage in my life.

Maybe they sensed a kindred spirit. And so, having missed that interaction, you found the Cellar... and Radar.:p

Seriously, it's a great story. Sometimes I think that Gods plan for the universe was that people should have a place to make memories like that.

[lumberjim]

We would go to sleep a few hours after dark, and I was always up with the sunrise, for some reason. Id get the fire rekindled, or relit, put water on for tea, or cowboy coffee if we had been lucky enough to score some on the latest food run. We usually had rice or fruit for breakfast. Food procurement was always an interesting event. Some of you will be put off by what is to follow, but it was an integral part of my experience, so I can’t really omit it, but I have saved it until the latter parts of this tale in order to keep it away from the focus of the story. It was important, but not all that important.

We “dumpster dove”. Yeah, I know. Gross, right? Well…..there are some that would disagree. I, personally was mildly appalled at the prospect when first I heard it discussed. Back in Shawnee, I think it was. Heather mentioned having done it before, and when I questioned the wisdom of the practice, she clarified, and rationalized for me. Heather saw it as a noble thing to do, rescuing the food from waste. We waste so much food in America. You see, dumpster diving is not a literal statement. There is no diving involved. You do not dive into the dumpster. Nor do you wade through gops of garbage and refuse as my initial mental images showed me. It is best done strategically. You get to know the practices of a grocery store or dunkin’ donuts or pizza hut, and hit the dumpster immediately after they dispose of their stale food. Pizza Hut in Silver city had a lunch buffet from 11a to 1p. We got there 3 times a week at 1:15pm. The boxes of pizza were piled neatly on top of the dumpster for us after the first or second time they saw us reach in and take them out. Nothing wrong with them at all, completely free, and yummy as yummy could be to 4 starving hippies living in a canyon.

I found a pile of busted up shopping carts behind a grocery store one day, and immediately saw the potential. A McGyver moment. We took a few of the panels of steel grids with us. The dumpsters behind the grocery stores were always picked over by indigenous po’ folk, so there was not much food to be found there. We did, however, get wind of a food bank, and took advantage of some very good and well meaning Christians’ repast. They gave us 5 or 6 frozen blocks of soup, some bread, and maybe a can or two of odd veggies from the most recent food drive. There was lots of God Blessing, and they only subjected us to about 15 or 20 minutes of “Jesus loves you, and will see you back onto the path”….They were nice, so we didn’t mind too much. Troll felt guilty about saying “God Bless You” in reply to their blessings on us.

Back in the canyon, we lugged the steel grates, the soup, and the boxes of pizza down to the camp. We wanted to offer some to Matthew, but he was not around. We gathered up the stones in our fire pit, and arranged them into a box with only 3 sides. After the first course of stones, we added the larger of the grates. Then more stones, mortared with mud from the river bottom. With the walls about knee high, we added another grate, carried the walls up again, and toped it with the third grate. This was covered by river rocks, mortared, and voila, we had ourselves an oven. Sorta. Not like we were going to be doing any baking, but it sure did warm that pizza up nicely. WE realized that the oven was great for cooking, but didn’t serve well to sit around and stay warm in the crisp cool nights, so we ended up encircling the back side of the oven with another, larger fire ring.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Now, if you go to the super market you see veggies that are close to the end, packaged up and marked way, way down. They didn't used to do that.
When I was in HS, my Dad arranged with a Shriner buddy that owned a market, for me to load the pickup three times a week, with stuff they were throwing out, to feed my pigs.
The veggies were still good, maybe a little wilted or a couple of bad spots that could easily be cut off.
The thing that always got me was the pastry, all boxed up and clean but a day or two past the expiration date. There was coffee rings, pound cakes, strudel and the like, from Drakes, Entenmanns and Sara Lee. Once in a while Mom would come out and grab a coffee cake off the truck when I got home.

[Brigliadore]

Originally posted by lumberjim
At dawn, we were coming out of the mountains at Gorman, Ca, and started to see these huge, bright yellow Umbrellas dotting the landscape along the roadside and down in the valleys, up on hills.

That is so fucking cool. I actually got to see the umbrellas as I lived in CA at that time. They were huge, and it was amazing. Every time I drove over the grapevine pass (Gorman) after that, I always remembered the umbrellas and how the lined the otherwise boring mountain side. Very cool that you got to see them.

BTW. This is an awesome story LJ, I am enjoying it immensely.

[lumberjim]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
Now, if you go to the super market you see veggies that are close to the end, packaged up and marked way, way down. They didn't used to do that.
When I was in HS, my Dad arranged with a Shriner buddy that owned a market, for me to load the pickup three times a week, with stuff they were throwing out, to feed my pigs.
The veggies were still good, maybe a little wilted or a couple of bad spots that could easily be cut off.
The thing that always got me was the pastry, all boxed up and clean but a day or two past the expiration date. There was coffee rings, pound cakes, strudel and the like, from Drakes, Entenmanns and Sara Lee. Once in a while Mom would come out and grab a coffee cake off the truck when I got home.

yeah, at that time, bruce, we had our share of stale pumpkin pies, donuts, and pastry. We also would find dozens of loaves of white bread, flats of tomatoes, lettuce still in bags......seems like more and more grocery stores have begun using enclosed dumpsters now, though....not that i've looked.

if jinx would get off her ass and share some of HER observations, as I ve asked, pleaded, demanded, and now applied public pressure for her to do, you'd all get a more complete picture of what went on. Her memory is far superior to mine. c'mon, shelb!

[jinx]

You're doing fine. I don't want to muck up your story with my nitpicky details and such. It's interesting just to see your perception of events and what had the most impact on you etc...

[lumberjim]

chicken

[lumberjim]

I got a lot of thinking done in the time we had in the canyon. One day we took one of our long hikes down the canyon, and I, having dosed upon waking that day, was amped and fidgety and crawly. If you’ve ever done it, you know what I mean, and if you haven’t, it would take a page to describe. If you don’t know what it means to dose, (not doze) then I’m not telling you. As I said, the canyon became more and more beautiful as we hiked downstream. There were several places where we had to cross hip deep water, so we carried little. The picture above with the bright yellow tree in the sunbeam was taken a good ways down the canyon. I think we made it around the next two corners, and decided that we needed to head back if we were to make it back to camp in the daylight. We had noted that it gets dark quickly in a canyon. But walking down that river, exploring unreal landscapes, while psychedelically enhanced, made for some very vivid memories and treasured mental images.

I guess I actually should explain a bit about the feeling you get when you drop acid. At least the feeling I get…..got. ( I can’t handle it anymore….too much reality in my life). Physically, you feel as though you had taken speed, or drank twice as much as too much coffee. You become extremely well balanced, like you do when you FIRST start to feel a drunk coming on. Kind of settled down into your muscles, instead of standing up on a pile of bones. Groovier. Your skin begins to crawl a little bit, and images become more 2 dimensional. ( I never ever saw pink elephants on parade or any cartoon like hallucinations. Occasionally, a shadow would waver a bit, or a closed door would seem to swell, but I was always very conscious that the effect was taking place between my eyeballs and my brain, and not in real life. Dexterity increases, energy abounds, and you tend to lean forward a lot. That’s because you have such a short attention span up until the time that you “peak”, which is usually 3-5 hours into a trip. Then things settle down, and unless you make the mistake of smoking pot, you “get good” at it. Life is great, you love everyone around you, and instantly understand exactly what they’re saying. You connect. You belong. You are all part of the earth, and all part of each other. You are also unimaginably funny. It is not unusual to have cramps behind your ears from all of the Cheshire cat smiling you do. That and the strychnine. You simply have a much better time, carry more confidence, and have unstoppable energy. The physical effects usually lasted me into the next day, as well, while the mental effects fade within 12 hours, but on the third day, everything sucks. You don’t feel physically sick, just disgusted with everything that looked so cool a coupe of days ago. It takes a lot out of you, and your vitamin levels drop, leaving you listless and you just want to sleep all day.

So, anyway, that day as we hiked down stream, a feeling began growing in me. It made me even more restless than I would have normally been. And the feeling was getting stronger. I recall making the mistake of focusing on this anxiousness that was coming upon me, noting how it grew, but not really getting what it meant. When I did realize what it meant, there was little time left. I had to poop. I mean REALLY had to poop. And all at once, it seemed. Now.

Ok, so the worst thing that I can imagine is being spotted on the bowl. Maybe I’m weird, but that’s the truth. If I was ever to forget to lock the bathroom door in a public bathroom, and some stranger were to walk in on me, I am sure that my heart would stop, my brain would stroke out, and I’d bleed from my ears until I died. Don’t ask me how I know this, I just do, OK? So. I had to poop. But I didn’t bring anything with me but a water bottle, and a camera. This was a river canyon. Dry grass was scarce. There was also exactly ZERO privacy. The whole time we were on the road, if I had to poop outside, I would do it either in the early morning before everyone woke up, or at night after dark, and far enough away, that I could keep an ear on everyone. I’m a little better about it now, what with having kids and all, but not much. Ok, wait, it gets worse. Remember I told you I was TRIPPING? Yeah, that adds about 10 million degrees to the poop-shyness effect.

Bodily functions are strangely frightening when you take acid. If you’ve ever tried to have sex while tripping, it was because it sounded really cool while you were straight, and you planned to do it. It’s not something that would occur to you to do. Sex on Acid! How cool! Nope. Not cool. You just want to get up and walk away. Maybe apologize to the other person. Eating can be a little tricky even, but pooping is definitely the worst. This was not the first time I had to go while tripping, but there was always a closeable bathroom about those other times.

I didn’t even want the other 3 to know what I was doing. I held it for a few more turns of the creek, until I spotted a toppled tree. Privacy! I made Shelby, and Troll and Jen go on ahead, so I could be alone. I had to tell them why, too. They giggled at me, and said I was being weird, but complied. The weight that was lifted from me when I came back out from behind that fallen tree must have been immense, because I flew around that canyon with lighting bolts flying out of my ass for the rest of the day. We climbed rocks, swam in the river, and talked about living there forever like Matthew did. It was gonna be great!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Do poop molecules sparkle, like dust in the sunshine?

[lumberjim]

and twinkle in the gentle moonlight