Something for the pain

"I've perfected my snot rocket!" I called up to Michael, hiking ahead of me on the trail. He, laughing, groans, "don't make me laugh, it hurts." He's smiling and doubled over, his huge pack towering over him. I turn away from the trail and cover one nostril and snort out as hard as possible. The snot catapults out, like nunchucks, and hits a purple wildflower - a Shooting Star. I smile, proud of myself. We're nine miles down the trail and we've packed up all of our stuff for Costa Rica and this is our shakedown trip to make sure we can carry our gear long distances and that everything works properly. Michael's pack is a whopping 67 pounds - he's got a lot of camera gear. My pack weighs 43 pounds, which is feeling pretty massive at this moment. Both our hips hurt from the packs weight on us, our shoulders are sore and our legs are burning, but we're happy - we're laughing at snot rockets.

It's a strange weather day in Southern California, the sun is out and it's hot, but the wind picks up violently and clouds appear from nowhere. Just one big one comes at a time and when it does it pisses a problematic burst of rain down on us. When we're finally ready to get out our waterproof gear, the burst stops and we dry out and warm up. The wind, though, steals away our voices and pelts us as we walk. The terrain is far more hilly than we'd expected, we never go flat, it's either up or down and pretty steep either way. We jokingly banter about the fact that Costa Rica will be a walk in the park after this.

"What's this fern," Michael asks me.

"It's a maidenhair," I reply, "hey, look behind us, those boys are still there." Two figures about a mile behind us show up on the hillside, "What the hell are those boys doing out there?"

Michael is walking, but his view is on the ferns, he's checking out each different kind and wondering about them. I can tell. But I can't stop thinking about the two boys. They arrived at the same time we did and parked at the end of Paradise road. Both dressed the same, black pants and tees with camouflage zip-up hoodies. One boy wore a black backpack, but it was deflated against his back, like there wasn't anything at all in it. In our first mile I found what I thought was an empty sheath in the road, but when I picked it up, there was a big, brand new hunting knife inside. The double sided kind, with jagged edges. Just as I inspected the thing and marveled at it, one of the kids came running up. I handed him the knife and he said sheepishly, "Sorry, I must have dropped it, it's just a little pocket knife." He smiled. My eyebrows shot up and I was speechless. Little? Pocketknife? Neither applied to this knife.

So it was ominous that after nine miles those boys were still with us, even if they'd fallen so far behind. "What would a sixteen year old boy be doing nine miles from anything at all with only a giant hunting knife," I asked Michael.

"Hmmm, I think they're checking on their weed plants. And," He said, "The other boy has a big knife too, but he had it on his belt. He must know what he's doing more than our friend there who dropped his."

"They couldn't be growing weed out here, this trail is too traveled, you'd want to be on the side of the road, blazing your own trail for that."

"Well, maybe they're staking it out."

"Maybe they need to get out of the house so Mom doesn't bug them about the joint they want to smoke."

"Nine miles. Kristen, are you trying to suggest that they've traveled nine miles to smoke a joint?"

"Okay. So maybe they're Eagle Scouts and they're walking from this side of mountains, out Cold Springs Trail and down to Santa Barbara, maybe their Scout leader will pick them up at the other end." Our guesses continued and I vacillated between fear and outrage at myself for being so silly. I tried to make them out to be good kids. But still, I saw that blade in my mind and I fished the bear spray I carried out of my pack and put it in an easy to reach pocket. Just after I did, Michael turned to me and said, "Hey, where's your bear spray? Just to be safe, right?"

A little later along the trail I spotted a bushy plant growing in a grassy field. The flowers caught my eye and even from a distance I excitedly identified the flower as a Wild California Peonies. I'd never seen one in the wild before and I had always wanted to. Michael, seeing my excitement heaved himself and his heavy pack up an embankment and picked a flower for me to see up close. I was thrilled and as we walked I kept exclaiming, "see the petals!" and "look at their little pods!" Finally I tucked it into my pack straps and considered them fully achieved.

At about 11 miles we turned a corner and there was a big steel structure. Its corrugated tin siding and roofs were dripping with rust, the whole place oozed with age. "A mine! That's it!" I shouted, "They're staking out the mine. Hey! Maybe they're going to make some bitchin graffiti art on it. If I were a teenager, that would be epic!"

"Yeah! The mine would be a cool place to explore. Maybe carve your name into."

And after we passed I watched those boys pull a pair of binoculars out of their backpack and spy down into the ruins. They ran down a trail and scouted the perimeter fence. They were all over that mine.

My fear drained away and the pain in my hips seeped into my consciousness. There was a lot more trail to go. We weaved around the mountains and finally began dropping down into a valley. We knew that for the next two miles we'd have to follow a stream up to the campsite. But the trail was washed out from some torrential downpours we'd had months earlier. The whole valley bed had become a wet, sloggy mess. Rivulets of water switched back every which way and the flood debris - whole trees everywhere down - blocked any access we might have to a decent walking area. We forced our way on, tired, breaking trail and generally being punished. The last quarter mile tears came down my cheeks. I just wanted to find a camp.

The campsite was silted in. Picnic tables sat covered in mud, the benches just peeking out over the silt layer. Streams ran where trails used to be and puddles made up most of the flat areas. But, up ahead, a guy was making a fire and we saw a tent. We walked up and said hello and the jolly man excitedly remarked about the massive quantity of firewood so close to camp. We exchanged pleasantries and made camp on a little hillside.

We, too, made a fire and relaxed after sunset, hurting some and feeling proud. I wondered about how I was going to be able to walk out the next day. I looked over to Michael who was sipping scotch and bundled up near the fire. I said, "If I were to wake up feeling this way and not known how I came to hurt so much, I'd be sure consider the idea that I got the crap beat out of me, a few definite kidney blows, a karate chop to the shoulder, and I'd be considering whether or not a bone may be broken, somewhere inside all this mess."

We woke just after daybreak and had a breakfast of hot oatmeal before breaking camp and heading out. We'd decided that we'd put on our water shoes and walk the creek instead of trying to skirt it. We were fresh and fast and felt powerful. Michael, out ahead as always, crossed a stream and called back advising me to watch out for some deep mud. I followed the shallowest route I could see and hugged one bank as I came to an intersection where I had to cross a bigger distance. Just then my feet seemed to disappear under me and I cried out. Quicksand.

Michael hurried over to help me, but he got too close and both of us were buried to our knees. "Stay calm," he advised. "Move slowly." And after a time we pulled our legs out and made it to the bank. Michael rejoiced. "Yeah! That's my first time stuck in quicksand! Whew! Yeah!" And, laughing, we kept sloggin through the mud of a flooded, debris strewn landscape. Sometimes we weren't sure where we were, exactly, but we knew which direction we should be headed. We had to guess and at one time we both decided that we should hug the left bank. The ground ahead of us looked flat and undisturbed. It was different than other ground because it had no texture to it. No wave patterns, no footprints. We took this as positive. A few steps in, though, and Michael was suddenly waist deep in slippery, nasty quicksand. I immediately went to the nearest upward slope and then tried getting close to Michael. He unsnapped his pack and pushed it out, over to me and I, now with an extra 70 pounds, sunk in as I raced to the edge. I threw his pack down and went back, where Michael was pulling himself out with a tree limb. "let's stay out of the bog now," I said. "Yeah," he replied, and we began a long, painful climb through scrubby underbrush up the nearest hillside out of the bog. We crossed along, just up from the bog, through a thick flurry of needly brush and finally got to the trail intersection that took us over a ridge and back on the long trail back to our car. We had about 12 miles to go.

As we marched along, we were thrilled that we'd escaped to bog, survived the quicksand and were nearly home. That's the way it felt. We were sore, but not fatigued, our spirits soaring. Soon Michael called out to me, "bikers coming, get off the trail," And sure enough a flock of mountain bikers came flying down the trail. They all stopped for us, despite our being out of the way, and we exchange the regular set of questions one asks, like, "where have you been" and "where are you going". When this ritual was finished, we started to walk away and one guy called out, "hey, what kind of car do you drive?"

Michael replied, "A black Trooper."

"I have some bad news for you," Mountain bike man said, "It's been trashed. Some vandals broke out all the windows." We, of course, were shocked and pressed them for details. They told us that some teenagers had come up to party and had cut the lock on the park gate and gotten back where our car was. Apparently there was "Drinking, nudity and vandalism." They threw an outhouse in the river. They found our car and for the sheer joy of it, they trashed it. I assume that since there was nothing in it, they decided that they should really fuck it up. The mountain bike men sympathized with us and we trudged on, incredulous. Michael even said, "maybe they're fucking with us, you think?" to which I practically replied. "Hell no. Who would make up such a thing."

We had eleven more miles to go before we made it back to the car. The whole way we discussed different outcomes. Different flavors. I thought that for sure there would be a buzz going on. People looking for us, people looking for the vandals, people interested in the story. The bikers past us again, going back to the parking lot. We called out to them to tell the ranger that we were on our way out. That it was our car.

But feeling queasy past mile 14, we rounded the bend and found our car completely gone. A pile of glass sat in the spot we'd parked her. Tears slid down my cheeks. I loved that car.

In the pile of glass a note and a towing business card was tucked in, shielded from the wind. The mountain bike men had left it, "They towed your car" it said and they left a number.

We just walked over 14 miles to find our vandalized car missing and no one in sight. We had to keep walking. I was indignant. The rangers knew we were out there and they left us. What were we supposed to do? We had no cell phone reception. No car. No one waited to see if we came out of the forest alright. No one decided that maybe after walking thirty miles in one weekend we might need a ride after our car got completely fucked up by some bastard teenage hoodlums. As we walked I yelled. I cursed and bitched. I was mad.

And, smelly, dirty, tired, carrying huge backpacks, no one passing us on the road would pick us up. We had to walk more than two more miles before a pickup truck stopped and let us ride on the tailgate. The man said, "That was your car? I saw them load it up and tow it out."

The pickup took us to a canyon grocery store. A pit stop place for day trippers buying beer and chips to sit by the river with. It buzzed with people smoking cigarettes and drinking bottles of beer. There was finally cell phone coverage and we made several calls. The mountain bike men expressed concern and sympathy. They had tried to tell the tow truck driver that there were hikers ten miles back, people who'd be stuck without that car, but the tow truck driver had to tow it, patrol orders. We called the tower and they said, yup, we've got the car, but you have to get a police release to free it. We called the police and found that they take Sundays off. And finally we called Dad and he said he'd be happy to come pick us up.

Once home, smelly and dirty as we were, we jumped in the hot shower. We carefully assessed our wounds. "It hurts here," Michael said. "Yeah, but it's bruised here," I said pressing on the spot. And we drained our blisters and washed our cuts. "what's this?" Michael asked. He held up his foot and pointed to a black spot. "A rock, maybe, a stick? If you're lucky it's dirt."

I grabbed some tweezers and fished around until I grabbed the end of something hard and pulled. A long thick splinter came out of his ankle. "A trophy," I said and handed it to him.

"I think we need a painkiller and an anti-inflammatory. What do you say?"

"Great." I replied, "But I have to write this to Dan, first, he's never going believe this shit. I can't be taking pain killers and trying to write."

"Okay," He said, "Hurry up and write, then do drugs."

So please excuse me while I take something for this pain.