Day 8 - A Concussion, A 12 Step Program for Plastic People, and A Badly Timed Walk in the Woods

This morning, as I sipped my coffee and considered the day that lay ahead, my wife, Kerri called to say that our daughter, Tori was on her way home from school. She had hit her head on a ride at the county fair a few nights ago and she had been spending an inordinate amount of time sleeping since then.
She was off to the emergency room. For some reason, that is her doctor's office's regular protocol - the doctors don't even bother to have you come in; they send to directly to the ER.
Worry shrouded the rest of my day as I waited for the call from Kerri with results.

I spent some time working on a few drawings and then headed off to the Rey Center where I had agreed to talk with a few kids from the school about what I had been doing during my residency (primarily hanging around in gazebos with my sketchbook and trying, heroically, to drink all the wine that people keep giving me).

It seemed judicious to focus on the sketching and downplay the wine a bit. I was looking for a seat downtown about a half hour before my talk was to start and noticed immediately that the mysterious letter in a bottle was still afloat on the raft in the pond.

It was just to chilly to go in there after it. I will get it, though. Perhaps it's a map to a lost treasure!

I considered stealing one of the boats in order to row out, but some genius had locked up all the oars.

I sighed and headed toward a seat so I could draw a bit before my talk and I came across this poor girl, sprawled out across a chair in the middle of town. She had evidently had a rough night and was sleeping it off.

It's sad, really. Poor Barbie just can't party like she used to.

I tip-toed off and settled in to work at my favorite table downtown. The one that isn't infested with hung-over party girls.

Another grueling day at the office.

I had hardly had time to get comfy and eat my pear when it was time to head up and talk to the kids from the school, who were on a field-trip to The Rey Center to learn about art from a cultured, suave, cosmopolitan artist.  Maryellen.

They were also being forced to listen to me, but still, it was probably better than a math test. I had just seen these kids a few days before and had unloaded all my best material on them then. While I had no idea what I was going to talk about today, I did have one trick up my sleeve.

I showed them a top-secret project I've been working on that is alarmingly fart-oriented. It is excessive, even to me.

When in doubt, show a drawing of somebody farting. Better still, show a half dozen drawings of people farting. Use the word "fart" copiously and gratuitously. Trust me.

I used the word "fart" about a dozen times and, sensing hostility arising in the teachers and administrators in attendance, thanked them all and turned their attention to Maryellen who would actually teach them something meaningful and, presumably, fart-free.

I slunk back into the town square to draw a bit more, but the sky looked threatening, so I opted to grab some lunch.

Clouds = Lunch

I considered grabbing a sandwich here, but when I went in and asked if the had a take-out menu, the guy said, "Nope."

You might consider a different sign, Mr. Potbelly.

 I headed home for some leftover pizza and a quart of wine.

When I arrived home, I tossed the pizza in the oven and cranked up my thrash metal on the stereo. I was sitting there, contemplating the infinite when a lady's head poked over the railing of the stairs in my living room and mouthed, "HELLO?"

I assume that she actually shouted, "HELLO?" but the leather-lunged gusto of the screaming vocalist blaring through the speakers effectively drowned her out.

I've been here for 8 days thus far and have yet to have a female head poke itself into my living quarters. I may have jumped and squealed a bit.

I snapped off the music and the head shouted "...TO CLEAN THE HOUSE!"

Of course. Chris and Len had asked someone to come in a clean the place. I knew that. I'm not used to having cleaning people come in, but I could get used to it.

Look what she did to the toilet paper!

It's pointy! Like a fancy hotel! I felt so important. Thanks!

 After lunch, I headed back down to the town common to do a bit more drawing and to search for one gazebo that I had still failed to locate. All I had seen of it were elusive flashes of white through the trees as I biked past.

As I walked over to my favorite chair and table to draw, I passed this tableau, set up under the large tent in the center of the square:

Barbie has, apparently, organized a 12-step meeting in the center of town. It's sad that so few of her friends chose to attend.

I swear I'm not making this up. I found her just like this. The poor dear needs help and I'm glad she's getting it.

I tip-toed past her sad meeting of one, overly-conscious of the wine on my breath, and found a seat on the dock alongside the pond. There, I found even more evidence of Barbie's wild night.

There, in the corner of the table.

Barbie's boot, abandoned like some plastic tribute to Cinderella during her bacchanal the previous night.

I also found this.

It looks like a teeny, tiny box of cereal, but it says Barbie on it. What would be in a box like this? Barbie Flakes? Barbie-Os? Some things are better if the remain a mystery.

I quietly returned Barbie's items to her as she sat at her lonely meeting of one, atoning for her excesses of the night before.

It seemed best to give her some time alone in the square, so I slipped off to search for the mysterious final gazebo that had eluded me like Ahab's whale.

Only less whaley.

And it wasn't actually moving.

And I wasn't at sea.

Or named Ahab.

And probably wouldn't die, strapped to the gazebo.

At least, I hoped not. The death I envision for myself involves more whipped cream and less whale.

I wandered along the serpentine paths that wrap around the town pond, setting off into a desperate wilderness.

The trail was very poorly marked and difficult to follow, but still I ventured onward, heedless of the dangers that surely awaited me.

I soon arrived at a distant outpost of civilization. A soccer field with at least 3 signs warning me not to cross the field. The field, apparently, is just for show.

The fence, while somewhat inadequate, kept me from crossing the field. Perhaps it is riddled with land mines. Unsure of what to do, I turned and headed back into the wilderness to find the white gazebo.

 I bushwhacked along the tortuous trail for upwards of a minute before I finally spotted my quarry - The Great White Gazebo.

The Gazebo is really less a gazebo than an altar of some sort.

It's kind of blocking my view of the mountain.

But, as with so many things in the valley, it does have a place to put your glass of wine.

Set somewhat apart from the main altar is a second, slightly less fancy altar. Perhaps it is for couple who wanted to get married on the first altar, but found it was already booked that day. They can get married here and spent the ceremony stealing jealous glances at the happy couple who got the fancy altar with the wine holder.

 Tired from my dangerous hike through the wilderness, I headed back homeward only to be beckoned once again into the wild.

I had been hearing throughout my stay about The Cascades, a delightful sounding series of waterfalls out in the woods.

Sorely misjudging how long the hike would be, I set off into the woods armed with my camera and nothing else, including, evidently, my common sense.

It was a beautiful hike, for sure. People who told me about it said that it took about an hour. I assumed, wrongly, that that meant round-trip. It was an hour out to the Cascades and the sun was slowly beginning its descent.

I opted to press onward, thrilled with the natural beauty of the area. Once at the top of the cascades, I was treated to some man-made beauty.

Free filthy towels!

And underpants!

And more underpants!

Seeing the underpants strewn about, I had a better idea of where Barbie may have been partying the previous night. She's lucky she didn't freeze to death.

Ancient ruins.

A random caution sign posted along a road. While taking this picture and wondering what I was supposed to be cautious of, I pictured a cartoon where a character is reading a danger sign and a weight marked "500 tons" drops out of the sky. I moved on quickly, keeping one eye toward the darkening sky.

Just as I started to get really nervous about the dwindling daylight, I saw this.

Sadly, it was not running and I was forced to actually walk down the hill.

The view from the top was pretty spectacular.

Goodbye sun, hello bears!

I slipped down the hill and found myself in a strange field dotted with locked steel doors, obviously where Waterville Valley locks the undead who would otherwise ravage the valley in search of tasty brains.

Zombie-proof doors.

Good luck getting out of there, you dumb zombies.

They even provided an access spot to keep the zombies fresh and clean. Good for you, Waterville Valley! I admire your progressive treatment of the evil undead.

I wandered off and soon came to the top of the giant ski-jump that has so intrigued me over the past week.

This is what it looks like from above.

Those kids are CRAZY!

I shook my head in wonder at those crazy kids and was just about back home when Kerri called to report that Tori had been checked out and she does, indeed have a concussion. She'll be home from school for a few days and should be fine. It may even be a blessing, as the zombies locked under the hill in Waterville Valley might not be interested in her bruised brain should they escape.

When Will The Hurting Stop?

The first problem came in the email. "I'll be at your house at 5:30."

The problem being that it references 5:30 A.M.

In the morning.

While I should be sleeping. While everyone should be sleeping.

The second, third, and fourth problems are that Julie, my alleged good friend,  has decided that we will be hiking not one, not two, but three mountains. On the same hike.

There is a limit to the amount of pain and suffering and early rising that the human body can withstand. Julie seems intent on finding out what my limit is and possibly pushing me past it; if only slightly. Slightly past the limit, however, is all it will take when the hike in question includes warnings in the guidebooks like, "The ascent up the north slide is strenuous and, in inclement weather, can prove quite dangerous. The slopes are steep and you will most certainly plummet to an unpleasant death if you take one wrong step."

Or something like that.

It also goes on to warn that the descent is "The most terrifying, bowel-loosening vertical drop you have ever witnessed. The entire trail down the south face is composed exclusively of loose, bowling ball sized rocks that will dislodge and slide down the hill at the slightest provocation. The best you can hope for is that you will not kill any other hikers as your battered, lifeless body bounces down the rocky slope toward the woods far, far below."

I'm paraphrasing, of course.

So it was with a song on my lips and joy in my heart when Julie arrived at my house yesterday morning and I hopped in her car and we headed north to my certain destruction. Of course, the fact that I am writing this does spoil the ending a bit, as you are no doubt aware that I didn't die.

I just feel like I did.

The trail is one that Julie refers to as a lollipop loop. A lollipop trail merely describes a trail that follows a straight line, then does a loop, returning to the straight line which you follow back to the starting point. The name, however, evokes images of sweetness and happiness and brings to mind scenes of carefree children skipping about in a sunny meadow without a care in the world. Butterflies and flowers speckle the tall, swaying grass and everything is as wonderful as it could possibly be. None of that is true. And, I’ll get to those disgusting butterflies later.

The trail description in the book did little to dissuade us of this bucolic image of serenity. It describe a gentle three mile stroll along a well maintained dirt road before you leave the road and venture off into the barren, tortuous rock-scape that is the north side of the Tripyramids.

We pulled into the parking lot, and were both immediately struck by the fact that there was not another vehicle there. It was a parking lot big enough to rival that of a large chain store, but were were alone. To smarter people, that would have served as a clue.

A sign of impending doom, suffering, and despair.

But not for us! Oh, no. We were ready to hike. To explore the wilderness. To see nature as nature was intended to be seen. Experienced. Smelled. Tasted. Lived!

This is how happy we were when we started.

Or something like that. We strolled the three miles up the dirt trail and, by the time we reached the turn where we were to begin the actual Tripyramid Trail, we had been lulled into such a sense of complacency that the sight of the towering slabs of rock, jutting heavenward in front of us was like a punch in the kidneys.

We remained happy until we saw the first little climb.

I may have cried a little bit right then. And Julie was gracious enough to point out that was doing a lot of sighing on this particular hike. I assured her that the sighs were merely gentle expressions of boundless internal joy and delight. In fact, they were muted squeaks of boundless internal horror and terror.

We scaled the endless granite slabs, searching for handholds and trying very hard not to envision the human scab that we would be transformed into with one wrong step. Adding to the excitement was the fact that it had recently rained and the rocks, in addition to being steep, craggy, and pointy, were very slippery.

Please note sheer drop off of doom behind Julie.

View from the top of the first slide. Not in photo: Me weeping like a baby.

And covered with slugs. I realize that most people, when confronted with the dual trials of plummeting to a splattery death or accidentally grabbing a slug with your hand, would consider the splattery death to be the worst by far. I have long held the belief that slugs are the most horrible things in the universe; sent to this earth for the sole purpose of making me want to sprout extra mouths and vomit myself to death.

So the slugs added an extra thrill to the climb.

A few days later, we finally arrived at what we believed to be the top of the most strenuous part of the climb. As it turns out, we were mistaken. It was only the end of the part that we could see.  The rest of the perilous ascent was merely shrouded by pine trees.

A few days after that we finally arrived at the first summit, demarcated only by the fact that everything after that sloped downhill. The guidebook described the saddles between the three summits as gentle, strolling paths through the something, something, blah, blah, blah. And, for the most part it was.

The first summit.

Each summit, oddly, was exactly 40 feet lower than the previous one. Julie tried to explain her theory that, as each summit was lower, even when we were going uphill toward the next summit, we were really going downhill. Julie Hiking Physics is a special branch of science understood by very few people in the universe. I am sad to report that I am not one of the privileged few.

Second Summit. Notice how chipper and happy Julie looks.

I am also chipper and happy.

Third summit. Isn't this fun?

We made our way over the three summits and then reached the final descent that lead back into the wooded wilderness stretching out as far as we could see in every direction. It was then that my finely tuned instinct for self-preservation kicked in and I pleaded with Julie to call for a helicopter to come and rescue me. “No cell reception,” she said. But do you know what? She never even looked at her phone.

I spent a few serene moments hyperventilating and surveying the majestic landscape that surrounded us. “What mountain is that over there?” I asked in order to distract myself from the fact that I would soon be reduced to little more than a greasy smear across a few hundred feet of granite.

“Tecumseh,” Julie answered without hesitation.

That’s the thing about her. She always answers without hesitation, in a tone of absolute conviction. The problem is that 50% of the time, she has no idea what she’s talking about. I am aware of this. She is aware of this. As a result, I am dubious of everything she tells me with relation to the outdoors. The problem is, 50% of the time she is absolutely correct. She makes it difficult to discern between “Truth” and “Truth As Julie Sees It”. Her working theory is that if I know that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but I still ask her; she’s going to answer me.

My doubt all stems from The Gray Jay Incident, which I wrote about some time ago.

The thrilling descent.

Eventually, after I had asked her to identify every mountain in our field of view and I ran out of any other possible excuses to postpone the decent, we began the climb down the south slide. Slide is another poorly chosen word used by outdoorsey types of people. A slide is a little playground toy that whisks you safely to the ground from a reasonable height. A slide, when hiking, is an exposed scar of jagged rock that can, should you step incorrectly, whisk you to the rock covered ground hundreds of feet below. The difference is not subtle.

The car is a mere 4 miles out of the top frame of this picture. Easy!

We did manage to safely maneuver down the slope, only occasionally sending deadly showers of rock down on to one another.

Slippery when wet.

Reaching the bottom, all that remained was a leisurely stroll three miles back to the parking lot.  In theory, this should have been easy and, if the guidebook is to be believed, fun.

In practice, it was a horrible ordeal, made far, far worse by my constant whining and complaining. We slogged along the path, dragging our sore, swollen feet and cursing the fact that we didn’t bring jet-packs.

Out death march was punctuated by occasional swarms of butterflies, clustered in great, fluttering heaps on the road.

“Butterflies eat poop,” Julie explained.

Obviously, I did not believe her. This was clearly nonsense.

“Butterflies are symbols of innocence, freedom, and joy,” I told her, “They are dancing, shimmering creatures of magic, like unicorns and fairies and creepy garden gnomes. Butterflies eat pollen and moonbeams and sip dewdrops and nectar. They flutter gently onto the pink cheeks of young children and kiss them.” 

“Oh yeah?” she said, pointing to the festering pile of dog crap that the butterflies vacated as we came near them. “You want them kissing your face now?”

We finally arrived at the car, almost exactly seven hours after we had left it. My feet and my faith in the magical properties of butterflies ruined.

There were the cars of a few other fools in the parking lot as we pulled away.

But they were still hiking and we were going out for ice cream, which I planned on enjoying to an extent that was probably not normal.

We arrived at the ice cream stand, ordered, and sat down with weary sighs to refresh our souls with ice cream.

And everything was fine until a butterfly fluttered onto my Mocha Madness cone.