Lost in the Mountains, Sort of... Part II
So, obviously, I've been busy, haven't had much time to get on the computer, etc. Sorry. I hope you know me well enough to not be too disappointed.
Tonight we were going to go see a movie. We were going to try to finish up dinner quickly and all go and see a movie and it would be fun. And then the party of 8 decided that they'd eat in town, and we decided to ask the remaining four people who'd be eating in the dining room if they'd be willing to eat in town too, ranch's treat, and they were down with that, so after lunch we didn't have to set up for dinner, which is usually a fair amount of work and kind of awful because it's right after lunch and everyone's tired, but just had to set breakfast, which meant we didn't even need to change the table clothes, and it was going to be awesome because we didn't have any work to do tonight.
And then a while later, 5, 5:30ish I did some research into the shows and showtimes of movies, the nearest of which are nearly an hour away in Monte Vista, the last town before you reach Alamosa. And they were pretty much across the board terrible. I am increasingly convinced that the reason most of the good movies come out in limited release and therefore don't do well (by Hollywood standards) is not that they wouldn't appeal to a broad audience, or that people wouldn't watch them, but that the studios or someone has such a stranglehold on distribution that worthless excercises in excessive stupidity (e.g. Anaconda: Hunt for the Blood Orchid, which by the phone message left at the movie theater one would have thought they were proud to have!) are simply the only movies much of the country is given the chance to see. I think, since people generally are intrigued and entertained by the movie format, that people will go see whatever there is available to see, especially when they're someplace that doesn't have a whole lot in the way of cultural events. We almost did tonight, and that's how I ended up seeing Star Wars Episode Two (for a second time) and Undercover Brother a couple summers ago. So I'd like to see what would happen if the good movies (not that there are even very many (any?) out this time of year) got 3000 screen distribution and The Princess Diaries 2 was only released in major metropolitan areas. But then people might actually be exposed to ideas that contradict their preconceived notions about filmmaking or people or social roles or whatnot. God forbid an intelligent, discerning, and intellectually flexible populace. Better allow people to stay in their comfortable little prejudicial boxes so that they'll pay for the inanity that reinforces the boxes. Ooh, I'm sorry, I just got a little bit cynical. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.
Suffice it to say, a bunch of people went on a horseback ride, Emily worked on her scrapbook, and I watched movies on TV with Justin, our new angler (our old one had to go to college)/chore boy (our first one quit and his replacement was needed on waitstaff), my roommate, and a friend of Emily and her pseudo-stepbrother Tyler (Emily's mom is not officially married to Tyler's dad, just might as well be except for the legal details), who will be coming out sometime next week to help out. We started out watching part of a movie on BET about a white social worker who adopts a black crack baby whose mother thinks she killed him. Until her rehab counselor finds out the truth and the mother starts stalking her child. That was about all I'd caught on to when we changed the channel, which action was partially in conjunction with discovering that Cuba Gooding, Jr. has a role in the movie. But, as Justin said, at least it wasn't Snow Dogs. And, lest I leave you with the impression that it was some slasher flick, it looked like it was going to have a happy ending and some sort of positive social message. Which it wanted to beat us over the head with.
So we switched to Oxygen and caught the second half of Dazed and Confused (which half I had not seen). After seeing the same ad for a TV show about Drastic Plastic Surgery and various make-up and home cleaning supply ads for about the 14th time, we started switching to South Park during the commercials. Funnily enough, it may have been slightly less offensive than the commercials. Then we went in the kitchen to get dinner, which for me consisted of leftover lunch meats from this afternoon, rolled up with some marmalade and cheese. And some blueberry cobbler from Sunday's picnic. And a lot of pickles. Not in that order. Justin grabbed some traps and went back to our room to hunt mice, and I checked my e-mail and am now finally writing this.
Having, I think, worked off most my frustration with the film industry and not going anywhere tonight, I will leave the preamble behind and tell the story from which the title derives. Of course now it's 10:40, past bed time. Except tomorrow's my day off and I can sleep in! Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauceness!
My first day off was two weeks ago, one week after I arrived here. I'd gone on one eventually successful camping trip with Emily (I had to make a trip back to the ranch before I realized that, while we had the footprint and the fly, we were missing the actual tent we were going to sleep in) and was ready to go on another, spending Monday night somewhere cool and then all Tuesday hiking around exploring. By myself of course though, since there aren't enough people to spare more than one a day. When I'd camped with Emily we'd been at the picnic grounds, which are just off the road that runs west-east across the ranch, so, while the next day was her day off, I woke up at quarter of 6 and biked back up the road to shower and get ready in time for breakfast. But I didn't want such an easy campsite.
At first I was thinking that I'd leave 5:30ish, head up this hill to the SE of the ranch buildings to the big cave that's there, explore a little bit, and then find a nice spot up above the cave on top of the hill to pitch my tent. First problem was that, with eating supper, getting all repuisite gear together, and getting myself some food for the next day, I didn't leave until seven, which here, then, was just after sunset. Then, as I was walking out past Dwayne's (the foreman, gray hair and mustache, real friendly, cool guy, two daughters, sophomore and senior in high school, elder of whom was helping on waitstaff, but can't really now) house, which is on the east side of the little complex of buildings that make up the ranch, in the middle between the boys dorm to the N and the girls dorm S, he and Steve [the wrangler, i.e. takes care of the horses and takes people on rides, whitening blond hair and moustache, blue eyes (a surprising percentage of staff here have blue eyes, even most of the people with brown hair), terrific western accent, funny kind of hiccupping laugh, grew up in Montana, spent some time in California, apparently majored in anthropology whenever it was he was in college, somehow reminds me of Yosemite Sam, it might just be the nose and moustache, because he's much more even tempered than that, anyway...] were talking, and Steve suggested that I camp at this spot down the road a quarter mile or so past the picnic grounds. I didn't want to look like I was ignoring Steve, so I set out straight down the main road, rather than taking the road that takes you down to the fishing ponds on the south side of the ranch and which I would have taking to cross the creek to get to the hill I'd been thinking about hiking up.
Once I'd gone down the road aways and it had dropped down around a little big rock wall I wasn't quite sure how to cross the creek, hadn't really been clear on that anyway, and so kept walking. Before long I came to a little bump that leads up on to the hill that goes up to the top of this big mesa-like thing that had fascinated me as a place to go since I first saw it. One edge is sheer cliffs dropping down to the creek, the other edge visible from the ranch is a steep hillside, and it's hard to tell what happens on the back side, but the whole thing seems separate from the mountains behind it. Not huge mountains, but I think they're enough bigger than the big hills all around to qualify. It's a ridge, you can't see anything past it. The top of the mesa is fairly flat, about half grass, half trees, looks like a great place to hang out, run around, look at stuff from.
So I got to the little rocky hump that began the grassy side of the hill that curved up onto the top, and decide that I've got to camp up there. Oh, and besides leaving as it's starting to get dark, it's also all cloudy, and one of the clouds up ahead was definitely raining. Although they did all look very cool, especially when I got up a little ways. But I wanted to get to the top quickly so I could find a good place to set up my tent and do it before it got dark or I got soaked. Unfortunately, at that point I wasn't really very well acclimated (we're at about 8800 feet above sea level here), and so taking the most direct route up the hump to the top of the mesa had me stopping to catch my breath every ten or so steps. And then I discovered that there was this trail, probably a deer trail, but it seemed to be going up, and more gently, so I followed it off into the woods on the side of the hill. Brilliant idea, Colin. Absolutely brilliant. Seriously, I'm glad I'm not a cat, because if curiosity were lethal I'd need way more than nine lives.
After what felt like a long time, perhaps mostly due to the fact that I had forgotten to take my inhaler with me and the dry air was kicking up my asthma like nobody's business, the trail split and I took the upper path, continuing on around the hillside. I did this several times, slowly but surely gaining altitude, although still out of view of the top, when I heard what sounded like a heavy out-breath. From something about the size of a horse. And I was pretty sure all the horses were back in the vicinity of the barn. And I was kind of paranoid because Annie had mentioned that a couple weeks earlier a bear had been sighted up atop the ridge. I did a quick and quiet about face, and headed back the other way along the little deer path, hoping not to be mauled. 'Cause that would blow.
After a few quiet minutes heading away from the potential bear, I felt safe again, and so decided to keep heading up hill, trying to just go up as fast as I could, since these paths weren't getting me anywhere I could see, it was getting towards the point where I was going to have to pull out my headlamp to keep going, my wheezing had ameliorated somewhat, and I wasn't yet ready to give up on getting to the top. And I thought I saw a little more light up above than I had before. Eventually I came to a clearing and a little rock wall extending along the hillside, which I managed to find a way up, needing my headlamp by this point. beyond this was a little more hill, then another verticalish portion of rock, which, when scrabbled over, revealed that I had, at long last, reached the top of the mesa. I set off towards the trees, used a stick to hang my Walmart bag with two little tupperware dishes of granola and muffins on the branch of an old dead tree, and then pitched the tent (borrowed from Annie, the manager here, will write descripition some other time because I'm getting pretty tired and have a ways to go yet) on the edge of the tree line without too much trouble, although the ground was pretty rocky and I think I was closer than I'd like to have been to an ant hill.
Fortunately I kept most of the wildlife out of the tent, but there was one ant that got in. I tried to crush it with my boot. Unfortunately it was on top of a tuft of springy, resilient prairie grass, which made it impossible to really smush and send quickly to its next life. Instead I just kind of split its exoskeleton so its guts oozed out, and it convulsed as though having an horrific, painful, agonizing death. I wish I'd just found a way to toss it outside.
After that, I settled in to write in my journal and see if I could pick up any cool stations on my shortwave radio/alarm clock (Thank you again Michael, Deb, and the Moody Prize). And they were all over the place. The were the expected, omnipresent evangelical Christian stations, but also a station with Chinese lessons, Japanese pop music, a French news station... I eventually settled on the Dutch radio English-language broadcast, thinking at first that it was the BBC, but mostly just happy to hear fully comprehensible news of the outside world. And I actually made it into the tent by about 9:30, which wasn't too bad.
And then, as I was listening to the news and writing in my journal with my headlamp on, I heard something outside, kind of a Cshick! Cshick! like something walking around outside investigating the tent. I immediately shut off my lamp and just froze, listening intently. It's pretty funny in retrospect, but there's nothing like hearing a noise from something big after settling down somewhere there didn't seem to be anything to get your adrenaline pumping. I was hoping it was a deer, and it probably was, but I wasn't about to get out of the tent and check. I just lay as I had been, except with my head fully upright, hearing every little noise. Eventually I decided that I need to write something in my journal, if only to leave myself some decent last words. After all, who wants to end up like the Hilton guy, who's last words were to tell someone to keep the shower curtain inside the tub. And eventually whatever it was left. It, or something like it, revisited several times in the middle of the night, usually causing a reaction not too different from before, although a few of the times I discovered that it was only my stubble scraping on the sleeping bag.
When I woke up the next morning, the sun wasn't yet up where I was. I put on clothes over my long underwear, and went out to explore the top of the mesa. It was great. The sun actually hit the ranch before it got to me, and I ended up sitting by the edge of the really high cliff for a while, watching the sun light the opposite side of the gorge and turn the grass on the mesa all yellow-gold.
And also thinking that what this place really needs is some hanggliders (sp?) and some BASE jumping, with one or two people to teach it. It just such an amazing-looking space to fly in that there were a couple times where I had to kind of mentally smack myself and remind myself that I wasn't wearing a parachute to keep from jumping off. If we got that stuff out here, that would be totally rad.
After a while, and some more exploring, during which I saw a doe and a couple fawns, recovered intact my food supply, and watched a chipmunk bite off stalks of grass and then pull the seeds down to store in his cheeks, I packed up the tent and set off to do more exploring for the day. For a while I was debating whether or not to head down to into the gorge and travel up the stream, but ended up deciding to try to hike up to the ridgeline and then follow that across to try to find Wheeler geologic monument.
And so began a long hike up a lot of steep hills. It's kind of strange being out here because it seems like there are only two types of trees. Whereas in New England any foresty bit will have many different trees fighting for survival, all that seem to exist out here are aspens and some sort of fir. The aspen forests in particular were impressive, all silver bark and space and light and vertical. On the other hand, the variety of hardy grasses seems nearly enough to rival New England trees. I've got some pictures, and I hope to find some way to post them on the web soon.
(Side note to Mom: when you make those CDs with all my other pictures, could you send along with them the USB connector for my camera and the software? Thanks.)
On my way up I got a little sidetracked and did not follow as direct a path as I'd intended to. After correcting some, I continued to make my way up towards the ridge, but encountered first some unfamiliar, albeit pretty old, animal scat, followed somewhat later by a large, round, pawprint-looking mark. Deciding at this point that I was probably not going to make it anywhere in particular, that I was ready to go home, and that my legs probably did not have adequate strength left in my legs to get me high enough up a tree should I encounter the bear suggested by those tracks, I headed downhill. Again I got side-tracked briefly, climbing around on this rockslide and thinking about going up onto thes rock outcroppings, but then headed back down again, I think after encounering some unfamiliar bug or something that made a disturbing and loud warning noise.
On my way down I eventually came across a path, which previously had tended to lead me nowhere, but rather than deer droppings and the occasional hoof-slip mark, this path was covered with horseshoe marks headed up the hill. And then from the very fresh horse poop I figured they'd all come riding up that way, and it guided my on a very pleasant, leisurely hike through meadows and trees and a little rain back to the road and from there to the ranch. Where I spent a little time relaxing and then cleaned the bathroom of my new room (whole nother story, but there was a lot of room switching to get everyone sleeping somewhere workable, and apparently there'd been a meeting that morning, which had been a little tense, but I missed it, thank goodness) in preparation of a roommate, and ate food, I think. I'm kind of blanking on the rest of that day.
Other cool stuff, with less detail... Saw a couple plays at the Creede Repertory Theater, and then today a long time company member came over to show the daughter of a friend of hers who might work here next summer around. I was the only one in at that point, so I gave them a tour and talked a little about the theater, and I'll probably go over tomorrow morning (my third day off) and visit and may even be able to help out there a little towards the end of the season.
Last day off I drove out to Wheeler with Emily. (We've both decided that we need to do less exploring alone, and Annie's also a big fan of the buddy system, so she covered Emily for lunch.) We took this old 4WD Toyota pickup truck, and there's this 14-mile you'd-better-have-a-good-reliable-safe-4WD-vehicle-if-you-want-a-prayer-of-making-it-out-on-this-road road, which we decided to try out, rather than do the 8-mile hike. And really, I don't know that I've ever really even driven a 4WD vehicle in 4WD before, never mind actually had a reason to. It was fun, and pretty cool, but very bouncy, and I spent too much of our driving time worrying about what would happen if we had a blow-out. If I go there again I think it'll be on horseback, that seems a little safer and more fun. And we'd be able to take a route direct from the ranch. Wheeler was made from volcanic activity, and contains poofs of volcanic tuff, which is basically ash turned into this easily eroded rock and hoodoos, which columns of volcanic tuff topped with breccia, harder stone that was upchucked by the volcano. It looks amazing, and is fun to explore, which of course got us into some trouble as we tried to forge a path along rock structures that we should have had some sort of gear, and more experience, to be doing. But we survived, only a few little scrapes and scratches. Had to roll the backpack down a few places though, so that we could manouever well enough to get down ourselves. Amazingly, nothing except some fruit and our PB&J sandwiches were broken.
Also had a barn dance on Saturday night. It was a lot of fun, we neatened up all the hay bales, I made one section into bleachers, set up a bar and bales all around the barn, decorated with Christmas tree lights, and then got people to come over. Apparently it got pretty wild sometime after I went to bed, but I had to work breakfast the next morning, and ended up doing most of the first hour and a half of work by myself, so I'm glad I did. Also had one of the longest good conversations I've ever had at a party with a girl about my age from another guest ranch nearby. I should call her soon.
Oh, and I've gotten to go horseback riding a couple times so far. It's a lot of fun. No face plants in gravel this time. So much fun to be working with another creature to get around the terrain. And such a great way to get around and see what's out here.
But now I need to get to bed if I'm going to be able to enjoy my day off tomorrow. Good night.
Tonight we were going to go see a movie. We were going to try to finish up dinner quickly and all go and see a movie and it would be fun. And then the party of 8 decided that they'd eat in town, and we decided to ask the remaining four people who'd be eating in the dining room if they'd be willing to eat in town too, ranch's treat, and they were down with that, so after lunch we didn't have to set up for dinner, which is usually a fair amount of work and kind of awful because it's right after lunch and everyone's tired, but just had to set breakfast, which meant we didn't even need to change the table clothes, and it was going to be awesome because we didn't have any work to do tonight.
And then a while later, 5, 5:30ish I did some research into the shows and showtimes of movies, the nearest of which are nearly an hour away in Monte Vista, the last town before you reach Alamosa. And they were pretty much across the board terrible. I am increasingly convinced that the reason most of the good movies come out in limited release and therefore don't do well (by Hollywood standards) is not that they wouldn't appeal to a broad audience, or that people wouldn't watch them, but that the studios or someone has such a stranglehold on distribution that worthless excercises in excessive stupidity (e.g. Anaconda: Hunt for the Blood Orchid, which by the phone message left at the movie theater one would have thought they were proud to have!) are simply the only movies much of the country is given the chance to see. I think, since people generally are intrigued and entertained by the movie format, that people will go see whatever there is available to see, especially when they're someplace that doesn't have a whole lot in the way of cultural events. We almost did tonight, and that's how I ended up seeing Star Wars Episode Two (for a second time) and Undercover Brother a couple summers ago. So I'd like to see what would happen if the good movies (not that there are even very many (any?) out this time of year) got 3000 screen distribution and The Princess Diaries 2 was only released in major metropolitan areas. But then people might actually be exposed to ideas that contradict their preconceived notions about filmmaking or people or social roles or whatnot. God forbid an intelligent, discerning, and intellectually flexible populace. Better allow people to stay in their comfortable little prejudicial boxes so that they'll pay for the inanity that reinforces the boxes. Ooh, I'm sorry, I just got a little bit cynical. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.
Suffice it to say, a bunch of people went on a horseback ride, Emily worked on her scrapbook, and I watched movies on TV with Justin, our new angler (our old one had to go to college)/chore boy (our first one quit and his replacement was needed on waitstaff), my roommate, and a friend of Emily and her pseudo-stepbrother Tyler (Emily's mom is not officially married to Tyler's dad, just might as well be except for the legal details), who will be coming out sometime next week to help out. We started out watching part of a movie on BET about a white social worker who adopts a black crack baby whose mother thinks she killed him. Until her rehab counselor finds out the truth and the mother starts stalking her child. That was about all I'd caught on to when we changed the channel, which action was partially in conjunction with discovering that Cuba Gooding, Jr. has a role in the movie. But, as Justin said, at least it wasn't Snow Dogs. And, lest I leave you with the impression that it was some slasher flick, it looked like it was going to have a happy ending and some sort of positive social message. Which it wanted to beat us over the head with.
So we switched to Oxygen and caught the second half of Dazed and Confused (which half I had not seen). After seeing the same ad for a TV show about Drastic Plastic Surgery and various make-up and home cleaning supply ads for about the 14th time, we started switching to South Park during the commercials. Funnily enough, it may have been slightly less offensive than the commercials. Then we went in the kitchen to get dinner, which for me consisted of leftover lunch meats from this afternoon, rolled up with some marmalade and cheese. And some blueberry cobbler from Sunday's picnic. And a lot of pickles. Not in that order. Justin grabbed some traps and went back to our room to hunt mice, and I checked my e-mail and am now finally writing this.
Having, I think, worked off most my frustration with the film industry and not going anywhere tonight, I will leave the preamble behind and tell the story from which the title derives. Of course now it's 10:40, past bed time. Except tomorrow's my day off and I can sleep in! Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauceness!
My first day off was two weeks ago, one week after I arrived here. I'd gone on one eventually successful camping trip with Emily (I had to make a trip back to the ranch before I realized that, while we had the footprint and the fly, we were missing the actual tent we were going to sleep in) and was ready to go on another, spending Monday night somewhere cool and then all Tuesday hiking around exploring. By myself of course though, since there aren't enough people to spare more than one a day. When I'd camped with Emily we'd been at the picnic grounds, which are just off the road that runs west-east across the ranch, so, while the next day was her day off, I woke up at quarter of 6 and biked back up the road to shower and get ready in time for breakfast. But I didn't want such an easy campsite.
At first I was thinking that I'd leave 5:30ish, head up this hill to the SE of the ranch buildings to the big cave that's there, explore a little bit, and then find a nice spot up above the cave on top of the hill to pitch my tent. First problem was that, with eating supper, getting all repuisite gear together, and getting myself some food for the next day, I didn't leave until seven, which here, then, was just after sunset. Then, as I was walking out past Dwayne's (the foreman, gray hair and mustache, real friendly, cool guy, two daughters, sophomore and senior in high school, elder of whom was helping on waitstaff, but can't really now) house, which is on the east side of the little complex of buildings that make up the ranch, in the middle between the boys dorm to the N and the girls dorm S, he and Steve [the wrangler, i.e. takes care of the horses and takes people on rides, whitening blond hair and moustache, blue eyes (a surprising percentage of staff here have blue eyes, even most of the people with brown hair), terrific western accent, funny kind of hiccupping laugh, grew up in Montana, spent some time in California, apparently majored in anthropology whenever it was he was in college, somehow reminds me of Yosemite Sam, it might just be the nose and moustache, because he's much more even tempered than that, anyway...] were talking, and Steve suggested that I camp at this spot down the road a quarter mile or so past the picnic grounds. I didn't want to look like I was ignoring Steve, so I set out straight down the main road, rather than taking the road that takes you down to the fishing ponds on the south side of the ranch and which I would have taking to cross the creek to get to the hill I'd been thinking about hiking up.
Once I'd gone down the road aways and it had dropped down around a little big rock wall I wasn't quite sure how to cross the creek, hadn't really been clear on that anyway, and so kept walking. Before long I came to a little bump that leads up on to the hill that goes up to the top of this big mesa-like thing that had fascinated me as a place to go since I first saw it. One edge is sheer cliffs dropping down to the creek, the other edge visible from the ranch is a steep hillside, and it's hard to tell what happens on the back side, but the whole thing seems separate from the mountains behind it. Not huge mountains, but I think they're enough bigger than the big hills all around to qualify. It's a ridge, you can't see anything past it. The top of the mesa is fairly flat, about half grass, half trees, looks like a great place to hang out, run around, look at stuff from.
So I got to the little rocky hump that began the grassy side of the hill that curved up onto the top, and decide that I've got to camp up there. Oh, and besides leaving as it's starting to get dark, it's also all cloudy, and one of the clouds up ahead was definitely raining. Although they did all look very cool, especially when I got up a little ways. But I wanted to get to the top quickly so I could find a good place to set up my tent and do it before it got dark or I got soaked. Unfortunately, at that point I wasn't really very well acclimated (we're at about 8800 feet above sea level here), and so taking the most direct route up the hump to the top of the mesa had me stopping to catch my breath every ten or so steps. And then I discovered that there was this trail, probably a deer trail, but it seemed to be going up, and more gently, so I followed it off into the woods on the side of the hill. Brilliant idea, Colin. Absolutely brilliant. Seriously, I'm glad I'm not a cat, because if curiosity were lethal I'd need way more than nine lives.
After what felt like a long time, perhaps mostly due to the fact that I had forgotten to take my inhaler with me and the dry air was kicking up my asthma like nobody's business, the trail split and I took the upper path, continuing on around the hillside. I did this several times, slowly but surely gaining altitude, although still out of view of the top, when I heard what sounded like a heavy out-breath. From something about the size of a horse. And I was pretty sure all the horses were back in the vicinity of the barn. And I was kind of paranoid because Annie had mentioned that a couple weeks earlier a bear had been sighted up atop the ridge. I did a quick and quiet about face, and headed back the other way along the little deer path, hoping not to be mauled. 'Cause that would blow.
After a few quiet minutes heading away from the potential bear, I felt safe again, and so decided to keep heading up hill, trying to just go up as fast as I could, since these paths weren't getting me anywhere I could see, it was getting towards the point where I was going to have to pull out my headlamp to keep going, my wheezing had ameliorated somewhat, and I wasn't yet ready to give up on getting to the top. And I thought I saw a little more light up above than I had before. Eventually I came to a clearing and a little rock wall extending along the hillside, which I managed to find a way up, needing my headlamp by this point. beyond this was a little more hill, then another verticalish portion of rock, which, when scrabbled over, revealed that I had, at long last, reached the top of the mesa. I set off towards the trees, used a stick to hang my Walmart bag with two little tupperware dishes of granola and muffins on the branch of an old dead tree, and then pitched the tent (borrowed from Annie, the manager here, will write descripition some other time because I'm getting pretty tired and have a ways to go yet) on the edge of the tree line without too much trouble, although the ground was pretty rocky and I think I was closer than I'd like to have been to an ant hill.
Fortunately I kept most of the wildlife out of the tent, but there was one ant that got in. I tried to crush it with my boot. Unfortunately it was on top of a tuft of springy, resilient prairie grass, which made it impossible to really smush and send quickly to its next life. Instead I just kind of split its exoskeleton so its guts oozed out, and it convulsed as though having an horrific, painful, agonizing death. I wish I'd just found a way to toss it outside.
After that, I settled in to write in my journal and see if I could pick up any cool stations on my shortwave radio/alarm clock (Thank you again Michael, Deb, and the Moody Prize). And they were all over the place. The were the expected, omnipresent evangelical Christian stations, but also a station with Chinese lessons, Japanese pop music, a French news station... I eventually settled on the Dutch radio English-language broadcast, thinking at first that it was the BBC, but mostly just happy to hear fully comprehensible news of the outside world. And I actually made it into the tent by about 9:30, which wasn't too bad.
And then, as I was listening to the news and writing in my journal with my headlamp on, I heard something outside, kind of a Cshick! Cshick! like something walking around outside investigating the tent. I immediately shut off my lamp and just froze, listening intently. It's pretty funny in retrospect, but there's nothing like hearing a noise from something big after settling down somewhere there didn't seem to be anything to get your adrenaline pumping. I was hoping it was a deer, and it probably was, but I wasn't about to get out of the tent and check. I just lay as I had been, except with my head fully upright, hearing every little noise. Eventually I decided that I need to write something in my journal, if only to leave myself some decent last words. After all, who wants to end up like the Hilton guy, who's last words were to tell someone to keep the shower curtain inside the tub. And eventually whatever it was left. It, or something like it, revisited several times in the middle of the night, usually causing a reaction not too different from before, although a few of the times I discovered that it was only my stubble scraping on the sleeping bag.
When I woke up the next morning, the sun wasn't yet up where I was. I put on clothes over my long underwear, and went out to explore the top of the mesa. It was great. The sun actually hit the ranch before it got to me, and I ended up sitting by the edge of the really high cliff for a while, watching the sun light the opposite side of the gorge and turn the grass on the mesa all yellow-gold.
And also thinking that what this place really needs is some hanggliders (sp?) and some BASE jumping, with one or two people to teach it. It just such an amazing-looking space to fly in that there were a couple times where I had to kind of mentally smack myself and remind myself that I wasn't wearing a parachute to keep from jumping off. If we got that stuff out here, that would be totally rad.
After a while, and some more exploring, during which I saw a doe and a couple fawns, recovered intact my food supply, and watched a chipmunk bite off stalks of grass and then pull the seeds down to store in his cheeks, I packed up the tent and set off to do more exploring for the day. For a while I was debating whether or not to head down to into the gorge and travel up the stream, but ended up deciding to try to hike up to the ridgeline and then follow that across to try to find Wheeler geologic monument.
And so began a long hike up a lot of steep hills. It's kind of strange being out here because it seems like there are only two types of trees. Whereas in New England any foresty bit will have many different trees fighting for survival, all that seem to exist out here are aspens and some sort of fir. The aspen forests in particular were impressive, all silver bark and space and light and vertical. On the other hand, the variety of hardy grasses seems nearly enough to rival New England trees. I've got some pictures, and I hope to find some way to post them on the web soon.
(Side note to Mom: when you make those CDs with all my other pictures, could you send along with them the USB connector for my camera and the software? Thanks.)
On my way up I got a little sidetracked and did not follow as direct a path as I'd intended to. After correcting some, I continued to make my way up towards the ridge, but encountered first some unfamiliar, albeit pretty old, animal scat, followed somewhat later by a large, round, pawprint-looking mark. Deciding at this point that I was probably not going to make it anywhere in particular, that I was ready to go home, and that my legs probably did not have adequate strength left in my legs to get me high enough up a tree should I encounter the bear suggested by those tracks, I headed downhill. Again I got side-tracked briefly, climbing around on this rockslide and thinking about going up onto thes rock outcroppings, but then headed back down again, I think after encounering some unfamiliar bug or something that made a disturbing and loud warning noise.
On my way down I eventually came across a path, which previously had tended to lead me nowhere, but rather than deer droppings and the occasional hoof-slip mark, this path was covered with horseshoe marks headed up the hill. And then from the very fresh horse poop I figured they'd all come riding up that way, and it guided my on a very pleasant, leisurely hike through meadows and trees and a little rain back to the road and from there to the ranch. Where I spent a little time relaxing and then cleaned the bathroom of my new room (whole nother story, but there was a lot of room switching to get everyone sleeping somewhere workable, and apparently there'd been a meeting that morning, which had been a little tense, but I missed it, thank goodness) in preparation of a roommate, and ate food, I think. I'm kind of blanking on the rest of that day.
Other cool stuff, with less detail... Saw a couple plays at the Creede Repertory Theater, and then today a long time company member came over to show the daughter of a friend of hers who might work here next summer around. I was the only one in at that point, so I gave them a tour and talked a little about the theater, and I'll probably go over tomorrow morning (my third day off) and visit and may even be able to help out there a little towards the end of the season.
Last day off I drove out to Wheeler with Emily. (We've both decided that we need to do less exploring alone, and Annie's also a big fan of the buddy system, so she covered Emily for lunch.) We took this old 4WD Toyota pickup truck, and there's this 14-mile you'd-better-have-a-good-reliable-safe-4WD-vehicle-if-you-want-a-prayer-of-making-it-out-on-this-road road, which we decided to try out, rather than do the 8-mile hike. And really, I don't know that I've ever really even driven a 4WD vehicle in 4WD before, never mind actually had a reason to. It was fun, and pretty cool, but very bouncy, and I spent too much of our driving time worrying about what would happen if we had a blow-out. If I go there again I think it'll be on horseback, that seems a little safer and more fun. And we'd be able to take a route direct from the ranch. Wheeler was made from volcanic activity, and contains poofs of volcanic tuff, which is basically ash turned into this easily eroded rock and hoodoos, which columns of volcanic tuff topped with breccia, harder stone that was upchucked by the volcano. It looks amazing, and is fun to explore, which of course got us into some trouble as we tried to forge a path along rock structures that we should have had some sort of gear, and more experience, to be doing. But we survived, only a few little scrapes and scratches. Had to roll the backpack down a few places though, so that we could manouever well enough to get down ourselves. Amazingly, nothing except some fruit and our PB&J sandwiches were broken.
Also had a barn dance on Saturday night. It was a lot of fun, we neatened up all the hay bales, I made one section into bleachers, set up a bar and bales all around the barn, decorated with Christmas tree lights, and then got people to come over. Apparently it got pretty wild sometime after I went to bed, but I had to work breakfast the next morning, and ended up doing most of the first hour and a half of work by myself, so I'm glad I did. Also had one of the longest good conversations I've ever had at a party with a girl about my age from another guest ranch nearby. I should call her soon.
Oh, and I've gotten to go horseback riding a couple times so far. It's a lot of fun. No face plants in gravel this time. So much fun to be working with another creature to get around the terrain. And such a great way to get around and see what's out here.
But now I need to get to bed if I'm going to be able to enjoy my day off tomorrow. Good night.
posted by Colin at 7:29 AM
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