Leaving hotel calafornix

If you walk along this trail in late summer you’ll come upon a lot of rattlesnakes. The snakes appear in the middle of the trail and you’ll be glad they have a rattle to warn you just before you step on them. The timber rattlers are usually about 4 or 5 feet long and lay curled up in a sunny spot. After a while I got to thinking that it would be nice to catch one for supper and preserve the skin for a hat band or belt. One afternoon while taking shelter under an overhanging rock as a shower passed over I came up with my plan. I knew how to tie a hangman’s noose and tied it to the end of my walking stick. I practiced slipping the noose over a few dead tree branches and it looked like it would work. It was a pretty simple idea and when I ran into the next snake, there was plenty of them, I took my pack off and tied the line to the end of my walking stick. The first thing I figured out was the snake wouldn’t let me get uphill of it. This kept the serpent in an advantages position and I was reluctant to attempt to snare the thing while it was uphill of me. I chased a couple off into the briers trying to get in a favorable position.

I ended up hiking along with an army ranger and his girlfriend one day. They had hiked up ahead of me and were waiting for me at the top of a rise and warned me about a rattler that they had just come around. It was a good sized one and I told them what I was going to attempt to do while I got my rig ready. The army ranger thought this was kinda foolish and warned me if I got bit way up here in the middle of nowhere I’d be shit out of luck. He had a point and in hindsight I should have just waited to catch one near town next to the railroad tracks where they also congregated. I decided to take this one from a downhill position too, which was risky. It was easy to get the noose around the snake’s head. When I pulled the line tight the snake spun around like windmill in a hurricane and came downhill real fast. I was fortunate that the hangman’s noose just kept getting tighter and broke its neck. I reached down and with my knife, cut its head off. I wouldn’t recommend that anyone try this whole method, especially when downhill of the beast. They end up putting on a titanic struggle, they’re practically all muscle and extremely strong. Even without a head it was tough to stuff the snake in a sack. I propped the mouth open with a stick and left it at eye level on a fallen log on the side of the trail.

I met a young woman swimming in a river. She was a first year raft guide and I took the opportunity to go for a swim with her. She didn’t like the way things were in the world and was attempting to “stay out of it”, the problems. She’d set up camp a ways from the rafting place and I stayed with her that night, making supper. She was breaking up firewood by swinging branches against a tree. I cautioned her that her method was dangerous as the broken piece sometimes comes flying back at the person and she could get injured. A safer way is to find two trunks close together, put the branch between the two trunks and push or pull on the long end like a lever.

She also did something else that was just about downright stupid. She was sleeping in a tent and every night she’d leave a huge survival knife at the outside of her tent opening. I questioned her about this and she said she’d accepted what she thought was the inevitable, her death at the hands of a man up here in the “middle of nowhere”. She was just waiting for it to happen, making it easy. She was obviously disturbed about the lot she’d been given on the surface. It was almost as if she’d decided to adhere to the laws of thE manuel, you know, rejecting the home, putting forth an idea from a boat and all that. For me it was heartening to see her reject the material world and all its supposed security. She knew what was involved, the environmental cost of a “lock box” to hide in, and didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

I told her how strong woman really are particularly on the “lower end”, their glutious maximus and thighs. I recommended she put the knife under her pillow, surround her tent with small branches so she’d hear a person’s approach, sleep light and if a creep attacked, feign surrender, assume “the position” face down in her pillow, kick em like a mule and them dismember him, so he couldn’t ever pull it off again. Of course the only real solution is to undam the rivers and fix the home so as to reduce its environmental damage and make it a productive structure.

I was having a snack break at a shelter which was also the watering hole when 3 men rode up through the brushy mountain side on horses. They had a bottle of tequila (to kill ya). It was pretty obvious these guys were up to no good, they said they were lost. Horses don’t “get lost”. I rarely stayed at these shelters, because the people who did were obviously being targeted. I usually slept uphill of the trail, as when one hikes along most, including those hunting people look down hill, it’s easier. Most people camp downhill from the trail as that’s where they see a spot to do so. These threatening horsemen didn’t seem to care whether their victim was a man or woman though. It was difficult to extricate myself from the 3 horsemen, they really tried to chuck some fear in me.

I pretty much lived off of blueberry cobblers as I hiked along and most people I encountered were non threatening. I came upon the site of a grizzly double murder that just occurred a couple of weeks previous. Two young women were butchered up here, they got caught in their tent. Their families had put up a flyer imploring anyone who knew anything to come forward. It was sad.

I found a copy Huckleberry Finn that had obviously been torn from a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn dual novel. Often times I kind of use this in an explanation of the “What happened to the bible?” inquirery I often get. It looks like somebody tore the water (life) half off and proceeded or gave ya (us) the trickster, voodoo, conartist, desert, death half, the Bible. It’s perfect, it’s just half of the story. How’d this happen? Over the thousands of years of record keeping often the library burnt down, or rats chewed it up, bookworms, water damage, you name it occurred. And then they lost part of it so they’d send to the next town or region a copy of what they had left in exchange for a copy of the info, the Bible, Torah, Koran, what have you, the others had. In addition to damage of info in storage, when it travels it gets damaged too, plus they were, usually, transporting it around a dam and ditch reservoir system, which is difficult, it’s bleak. They likely use some pages of the paper material for kindling, cigarette paper, toilet paper and such.

This all compounded with the obvious “something lost in translation” and the usual extremely obvious fact those transporting, translating and keeping the notes or the book were dependent upon dam and ditch agriculture for food. The dam and ditch farmers, and their wives in particular, controlled the purse strings, and the word. So… they deliberately tried to hide the main idea or disguise it, or even better make it so obvious, like having “A dam” (the doom structure on the river) and “Eve” (that thing that sheds everything that the heavens deliver and results in the undermining of the structure) presented right off the bat, as antagonists to life and God. The first word “Bereshit” getting changed to “In the beginning”. In essence I’m delivering the “water” half or completion of the idea. The “lost notes” or more likely deliberately denied.

I met an interesting guy in the Mount Rodgers National Recreation Area, Va while I was trying to stone a rabbit for supper. We sat around a poor fire of rotten wood, many of the spruce trees had died and were still standing but in this fashion the wood was still in contact with the soil and didn’t dry. It was the first snow fall of the season and I was up here in a pair of shorts, time to go.

I got off the trail at the next town, Troutdale, with the intention of hitchhiking back to the Fog Hollow “farm”. There was a “Y” in the road and I tossed out my thumb on the S.E. heading arm of the “Y”. A SUV approached from the direction I wanted to go and turned up the other arm of the “Y”. There wasn’t much traffic going by. A few minutes later the SUV returned, pulled over and 3 guys offered me a ride. I cautiously got in the back. They stopped at a hotel and the driver went in a room to get something then we continued in the direction I wanted to go.

They said they wanted to take me to place they “knew about” and we headed up into the hills on a dirt road a ways. They pulled over and stopped “in the middle of nowhere”. The leader of the gang was the driver who sat in front of me. The biggest Virginia hillbilly sat next to me. The hillbilly in the front passenger seat wasn’t anything to be concerned about. The driver asked if I was scared as the hillbilly next to me cracked open a beer and a sneer. Naw, I’m not scared. Scared of what? “You know, up here in the woods with the 3 of us and just the one of you”. I’ve been hiking with 80 lbs. for 3 months and carrying an extra 40 lbs. of trash to the gap for fun. Hiking around in this area with 120 lbs. is tough business. What have you guys been doing? I think this idea made them a little uncomfortable, I was in a predicament for sure. They continued on with their intimidation and asked again if or why I wasn’t worried or scared as I should be. I pointed out to the driver that he was obviously the leader and was in the worst position for any kind of physical confrontation seeing how he was sitting down with his back to me. He got out of the SUV and told me to get out. I got out thinking cool, after all who’d want to get stuck in a confined space with 3 men out for ya? I continued on thanking them for letting me out, and pointing out I was much better off defending myself now for sure. They couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t afraid and this bugged them.

After a while they quit trying to scare me and we got back in the vehicle and they dropped me off back near the main road and directed me to camp in the spot they left me suggesting I could easily catch a ride in the morning. I waited for them to clear out and then laid up in a position up the hill where they’d never find me and watched the spot they told me to stay at. Sure enough in the middle of the night they returned and were looking for me, creepy. I was above them as they drove around searching for me with the headlights. The next day I got picked up quick by an eager, amorous homosexual priest, hitchhiking in this country is tough. He dropped me off unsatisfied near I-40 and a “normal” person driving a tow truck gave me a lift to pretty near my destination.

Back at the “farm” I worked a month mostly stretching barbwire. I didn’t like this and argued for installing deer and other wildlife cattle extruding gaps in the fences instead. Bob Ruggerio was the Director of Southbees (antiques) Southeast region and had amassed probably the finest, most thourough private collection of old time knowledge books. I devoured his stuff, he made a good Italian sausage pasta sauce too. Its valuable to know how things were done in the past, from trapping to canning and what not, as the skills are being lost. I was fortunate to be able to look at these manuels, I wouldn’t be able to find them in one place anywhere else.

Mr. Ruggerio explained to me how he came to have cows and thus the need for barbwire. When he came to the place it was mostly covered in big old trees and the associated undergrowth. It was just what he was looking for and he told them he wanted to buy it and set out to sign the papers. Between the time he declared he would buy it, signed the papers and returned to his new place, the trees were felled and sold. He was incensed, he’d gotten snookered, bad. The trees were why he bought the place. Humans have been doing this to each other and life since…

So with the mud coming down the mountain and the creek fouled he decided to dam it. He had a frontend loader on the property and he moved a bunch of earth (mud) on top of the creek and made a catfish/duck pond. “What else could I do?” he insisted. You could have let the trees grow back. He had a problem, that me being so smart, he figured I’d be able to solve. The dam overflow pipe would become clogged with debris every spring, the runoff would then flow around the pipe and wash out the dam. So every spring he had to rebuild the dam and the maintenance required to keep the overflow clear was impossible. How could he keep this from happening? This is one of the weak points of a dam, keeping the debris from clogging the reservoirs outflow. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and on larger dam structures the rakes and conveyances that are designed to solve the problem are incredible. I told Mr. Ruggerio there was no way I would attempt to solve this problem for him, it was unsolvable and recommended he grow trout and trees.

He was heading out of town for a few weeks and directed me to stretch a new fence out between the house and the creek to keep the cows out of his “yard” (bedroom window) and around the reservoir to keep the cows out of the pond. The day after he left on the front page of the local paper was an article about how the area’s cattle were causing severe damage to the water quality of the creeks. Once again it’s interesting how the humans will present any problem but he larger dam problem. I took it upon myself to relieve Mr. Ruggerio of he and I’s responsibility for this and installed the fence on the other side of the creek to keep the livestock out of it and grow trees around it to protect it from the mud and sun.

Our relationship began to deteriorate about the same time his stepdaughter found another John. I continued to pursue her affections which didn’t make sense to Mr. Ruggerio although he seemed happy to “get rid of her”, have someone else support her, she wasn’t my type, and he pointed this out. He asked me what it was I was looking for in a girl or what kind of girl I was looking for. A “Laura Ingles” type. “Huh?” You know, from “Little House on the Prairie”, her dad grows bread, and she’s happy or her desires are simply met with a little horehound candy or some simple such thing. He looked at me like I was nuts.

He did give me a Stetson hat as a tip and Jenn’s mom, Ms. Faulkner taught me never to add dam and ditch sugar to a blackberry pie as it was basically against the law or sack religious. She was correct, just let them ripen longer. Another thing I took note of on the farm was that the barn was falling down as a result of the water shedding from the roof that was undermining the foundation and it was built to close to the creek, now a tailrace under the dam, probably to make it easier to get water for the livestock. I made note that one could solve both problems by collecting the rain. I’d decided to go down a river from the mountains to the sea and was figuring to descend the Mississippi or Missouri. Mr. Ruggerio insisted the Ohio River was the one to travel down.

St. Pauli Girl’s and Stromboli’s are what Mr. Shelton Singletary and I enjoyed together in Leola, Pa. We shot pool with the young local Amish men. They were of the age when they debated leaving the “Clan” or reaching for the AmeriCon dream. I liked the debate about whether or not to use rubber tires on a tractor wheel. We headed to the Adirondacks for the weekend to do a warm up trip. I got caught in a speed trap out in the middle of nowhere at the bottom of a hill in Raquette Lake, NY. For the next 7 years I’d get a reminder in the form of a letter in the mail from Racket Lake. We put the canoe in Little Clear Pond and portaged to St. Regis Pond. Saint Regis is the patron saint of lacemakers, he set up hostels for prostitutes and put them to work as lacemakers. Just after the sun had set and we were making camp a huge meteorite skipped across the entire sky like a stone on the water, either that or it was made of different layers that burned in pulses, it kind of changed colors too. Mr. Singletary saw the whole thing while I saw the pulsing shadow created by the first half of the meteor and turned to catch the second half skip off. That was a one wild looking meteor!

Later, while we were sitting around the fire, a mouse invaded our site, it was very aggressive and was running over us. I shined him with my flashlight and tried to shoot him with my pistol. I missed with 9 shots. It’s difficult to hit targets at night but this was odd. The mouse went on the offensive again, we suspected it was a rabid mouse, and Mr. Singletary tried to stomp on it. Finally he landed his boot on him and the mouse was dead. Then something strange happened. A short fat worm like creature exited the side of the mouse. This was kind of creepy and biologically unheard off. There is no such thing known. I wanted to save it and find out what it was. Mr. Singletary was against the idea and kicked the whole mess into the fire.

The next morning was as crispy and beautiful as I could imagine. The frost on the waterside plants was gorgeous in the morning light. My friend taught me the J stroke this morning. If I came up to Pennsylvania and New York to visit Mr. Singletary and learn something this was it. The J stroke is a marriage of steering and paddling in one fluid stroke. It starts off like a regular stroke but towards the end of the stroke, when the paddle is trailing behind, the blade is rotated 90 degrees to steer. It’s a slick maneuver that takes a little thumb and finger work at the handle end of the paddle, it’s like snapping your fingers, and results in a nice straight glide. It’s good for cruising and is not power stroke. At night with a lit cigarette in your shaft hand the trail from the ember might look like a J. Another thing Shelton taught me was earlier back at U.F., I slurred his name and pronounced it Shell Done. He made sure I understood his name was pronounced Shell Ton. That’s a lot of oysters.

We loaded up my jeep and Singletary and his girlfriend got in. We got groceries before we got to the river and had a picnic before my departure from McKeesport, PA at the confluence of the Youghany and the Mon. I can’t remember who asked it but the question was, “What did I want from this trip?” I stuck to the wanting to be a writer and looking for a story to tell idea and added it would be nice to sample the local herbs. They wished me luck, drove off in my truck and I was on the Monongalia River headed to New Orleans, from the Mon. to the “house of the rising sun”. I was facing misdemeanor charges in Florida and I was on the run. I had forty dollars in my pocket.

“Pull up to the bar!” a fellow with a bottle of Sambuca hailed out. Sambuca is liquor distilled from Illicium vernum, the Star Anise herb. From a 20’ recreational craft the call for a drink and stories issued forth. The fellow, his buddy, and their two girlfriends were Iranians. The captain handed the bottle over and its contents were sampled. Thank goodness for cheap American beer. This was also supplied and a toast to the Monongahela was announced. Turns out this party was also attended by a red Master Craft ski boat. A tow was offered and accepted and after two drinks the first day of paddling included water skiing on the Mon. in the mountains. Soaring, soaring like a bird, flying through the air without a care, spread your wings and…crash! Cartwheel across the water catch a shoulder and the first jump on a brand new graphite carving stick has been landed unsuccessfully. After assuring the owner/pilot who looked like Santa Clause that I was fine (he thought I must have been injured) and caution would be observed, the next flight was underway. Stick the landing. Oh Yeah! Nothing quite like jumping behind a telescoping ski rope attached to a Master Craft with water tanks to make the wake monstrous. Let your tongue hang out and realize “Air” Jordan will never get this much air. After a few dozen air rally’s, I’d never skied behind a boat like this, and that’s saying a lot, the pilot was nervous about my health and a suggestion was made to return to the floating bar. Sure, and why not slingshot out towards the other boat/bar, release the ski rope into a 270 around the bow towards a “perfect don’t get my hair wet landing” on the stern swim platform. Hey, a fellow can’t disappoint a crowd. Cold beer on cue. Things got a little weird as the Iranian fellows girlfriend hiked her skirt and relieved herself while perched on the gunnel and holding my hand. Amid pleas to stay and a 150-foot primo dock line offered and accepted I departed. Onward, down the river.

It was getting dark and I was approaching my first lock and dam. The first thing I learned was there wasn’t any good sandy camping spots just upstream of a dam. I slept in the canoe on a pile of rocks. Train about fifty feet away woke me up to early. I had a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee. It was a very foggy morning as I approached the dam with some apprehension. Out of a blanket of mist danger signs and arrival point signs literally start to appear. Testing out the VHF radio, channel 13 this is a canoe calling arrival point. Oops! I forgot to switch to low transmit power. I heard an echo. Surely the transmission was loud and clear, anyway the batteries are now dead. I got new batteries on the trip but it didn’t work so I stopped trying. The dam operator told me it was a long ways to New Orleans. No shit, that’s the idea. I needed the 150′ dock line the Iranian gave me the day before to tie to the fixed pins on the side of the lock. Ten miles to three rivers.

Nice day for a tailgate party, good thing that train got me up early. Whoo ha! It’s Sunday and the Colts are in town. At the confluence of the Allegheny and Mon. the Ohio River starts. On the north bank is Three Rivers Stadium. On this particular day the river is busy with coal traffic and power boats, horsepower. VVVVVRRRRRRRRmm! Turns out water law enforcement takes Sunday off. Nice, turns Three Rivers into a drag strip of sorts with fat red men with red, white, and blue beers in like cooley cups with their hairy arms around All American sugar daddy lovin’ babes. More patriotic refreshments pull up to the point and answer boaters’ questions. Newfound drinking partner motions towards another fellow like he’s a king. “Talk to that fellow he’s the king of the river.” The king rises from his magical court, water fountain, a couple of floozies, and a few cronies. Walking like a man whose been drinking in a boat his whole life, the king saunters forwards. Coming into view of the vessel he pauses, tips his beer to near overflow resting on his corduroy enshrouded hips and proclaims with authority, “You’ll never make it, you’ve got to much stuff”. Twelve ounce curl, swallow. “Too much stuff, yep.” The first apocalyptic warning. Most off the things in the canoe are empty five-gallon buckets. They like my paint job, camouflaged yellow, black, and a dash of red on the stern seat, the Stealers colors.

Cross the Allegheny to the stadium. Grab a kielbasa and join the festivities. Stealer fans, their beautiful women, cooking meat, and alcohol. Barbecued fat kielbasas riverside. This is the mountain special, and they give me some for my cooler. West Virginia here I come! Several people told me not to go near the old rusty steel mills but I went and looked at them anyway. It didn’t feel like a good spirit there, not a camping spot. The river water doesn’t taste good plain, but goes well in oatmeal, coffee especially, pasta and soups. I carried several gallons of water with me and it was the only thing I ever asked anyone for. This is a great conversation starter. Can I have some water? I somehow gathered boatloads of food, drinks, tools, and ideas with this question.

When travelling down a river the simplest way to have a hot meal is to pull up to a beaver house. The sticks that make up the structure are perfect sized and easy to gather for a fire. This naturally creates some friction with the beavers. They are always in the best camping spots too, so it’s just the way it is. It’s not that big a deal anyway they got plenty of sticks. The Ohio is a series of reservoirs and doesn’t really flow so much. It almost drifts downstream. The number one rule of river travel is that the wind is usually blowing against you. If you travel at night it’s generally much calmer. The beavers swim sneakily up to the boat and slap their tails on the water and this can get to you at first. They’ll soak you, too. This whole sneaky beaver thing helps one deal with sudden abrupt surprises. You lose the fear of them or you just get used to it, the end result is your heart stops skipping a beat and racing away from you.