Zero Day in VVR
We wake up late in our little indoors space and begin the process of repacking our bags, gathering our resupply and setting up our tent in the campground. The hotel/cabin/70’s murder palace was nice for one night, but too costly for two. I take once last shower, put on clean-ish clothes and head outside.
There is nothing to be done today, nothing to do. Keith wants to hitch down to Mono hot springs, and so we do the two mile road walk back to the main road, and I get put in charge of securing us a ride. I’m always in charge of hitchhiking, partially because I’m a girl, partially because I have far more experience hitching than Keith, and partially because I’m good at getting a ride. Soon we’re bumping down the road to Mono Hot Springs in the back of a pickup truck surrounded by construction gear and tool boxes. Dudes in pickup trucks truly are the patron saint of hitchhikers.
Mono hot springs is a disappointment. The diner is closed for lunch now that it’s September. The hot springs are too hot to sit in under the bright sun of 5,000 feet. We eat ice cream and sit in the shade near the creek, listening to the hicks from Bakersfield laugh drunkenly and shout at each other. They’re some of my least favorite kind of people. The people who think that a boisterous drunken persona is as endearing to sober people as it is to other drunks. Families with children give them a wide birth.
The hitch back to VVR is easier (having a sign really helps), and in 15 minutes I’ve waved over a man named Mark, early 50’s, a social worker for people with developmental disabilities living in San Fransisco. God bless Mark, the world could use more Marks.
VVR is busier when we get back. The long weekend is kicking off and a new host of backpackers has just come in off the ferry. Oh yeah, there is a ferry, more on that tomorrow.
Keith pulls the recluse card and goes to sit in his hammock in the campground. I try to read and end up spending the afternoon with a VVR employee named Savanah. She’s a poet, gypsy of a woman, living a transient adventurers life. 22, grew up in a cult, has lived in five states in the last four years. There is a darkness in her past that I can hardly understand.
The cowboys reappear and I’m invited back to hang out with them. It’s not as effortless this second night, and I try to do my best to hold up my end of our weird temporary social agreement. That is the problem with second impressions; they can never be as easy or as effortless as first impressions. A first impression is easy, there is nothing but new things to learn and share. A second impression, that’s what’s always been hard for me to master. I spend a few hours with the cowboys.
Keith asks me to come help him grab a beer and like that I’m saved from this social contract. Now I’m free to join the hikers. Maybe I can talk easier with these rich outdoor folks. Not that it wasn’t fun at points, hanging out with the cowboys, it just wasn’t as easy. Shortly after this the cowboys pack up and leave and for some reason I feel a little bad about this and give several of them hugs. They joke that they’ll be looking forward to officiating Keith and my wedding and call me sweetie and I know I’ll never see them again. That’s a funny thing about trail life. Or the interlude from life that is time on the trail.
There are more hikers here tonight and the conversation is already roaring by the time Keith and I join the circle. Bottles of wine and whiskey are passed around. A small bowl from the cook, trail name Ogre, comes around again and again. Soon we’re all a little drunk and stoned talking about all the things in the way that only people who feel amongst their tribe can do. The alcohol helps ply the conversation, of course. I hear stories about shoes, daily mileage, life, careers, infidelity, and longing. How sometimes you find yourself randomly crying on the trail – I’m not the only one! I think I accidentally agree to buy weed from Ogre the cook tomorrow, if he can get up before the first ferry leaves.
Keith and I go to sleep laughing, making up stories about these people we’ve just met. Creating elaborate fantasies to fill in the gaps in their lives that we have no way of knowing.
The tent tonight feels as comfortable as my home.