Finding Hospitality

(We shall return for our last Point Reyes post next time)

While I was spending the day at the Bluegrass Music Festival yesterday, I ran into an acquaintance who asked me to stop by her camp and have a look at her instrument, giving my opinion. When we arrived, she offered me a bottle of water. I declined, but really appreciated that act of hospitality, probably even more than that simple act would seem to warrant. It made me think about how loaded and significant the act of offering food and drink is in human societies. Accepting refreshment from someone creates a subtle obligation. Making lunch plans in front of, but around a casual drop-in visitor is a strong hint that she should go ahead and leave now. When people invite you to join their potluck that happens to be going on, you can assume that they like you. 

Later that afternoon of the same day, I joined a small circle of musicians who were jamming. I was very pleased to see a friend of mine there also who was listening in, and I pulled up a chair to sit beside him to enjoy the music. This is the cast of characters:

• The Musicians, a group of about a half-dozen professionals with one “Lay Musician.”
• The Camp Hosts,  2 or 3 people who had set up the camp area, within which some of the Musicians had set up tents in. The Lay Musician was also one of the Camp Hosts.
• The Friend, with whom I have played music in the past, and with whom I have spent many hours sitting at the edge of a jam enjoying the music. The Friend is also a close relative of the Lay Musician and acquainted with the Camp Hosts and the Musicians.

I knew none of the musicians personally. I knew the Camp Hosts casually.

When I stepped up to the edge of the circle and sat down, I expected nothing. Camp Hosts cannot be expected to open their larders to every jam listener who steps in uninvited to enjoy the music that is taking place in their space. There can be dozens of listeners! I know how to be a polite guest at something like this. Don’t talk during the music, don’t make tune requests, and don’t presume privileges that are not offered.

The music was exceptional, and it seemed as if they all had enough tunes in their heads to play 4 days straight and never repeat one. The circle was very tight, The Friend and I were very close in, and there was no other audience except an occasional passer-by, or a band member who wandered around like a zombie after his power nap. Occasionally, The Friend and I would ask the name of a tune, ask where it came from, compliment the rendition, or have other brief interactions with the Musicians between songs.

I was there for about 3 hours. During the latter part of this, The Friend got his instrument and joined in with the Musicians. I knew I was out of my league, totally, so I was not even tempted to get mine! At various times, bags of dried fruit, crackers and candy were offered and set on the ground at the Musician’s feet. Beers were offered, and a Camp Host offered a couple of locally made fruit ciders to the Musicians.

I am really quite good at picking up social cues, reading body language, and understanding the feel of what’s happening in a group around me. I know how to interpret the moment that I have been included, however casually, in a group. The bag of dried fruit is waved slightly in my direction as it is being passed around, brief eye contact is made with eyebrows lifted a bit as the sack of crackers passes by. “Water, anyone?”  is said, and my eye is would be caught in the glance going around the group. This never happened, not once. I was, basically, ignored. 

One of the sayings I have adopted over the years is that it is unmet expectations that causes disappointment. When you go into a situation expecting nothing, you will not be let down; anything you get then, will be a pleasant surprise. So I will not say I was hurt or disappointed, since I did not expect anything. But what it made me understand was how much, how much more than any of them could have realized, a simple act of hospitality, the token offering of food or drink, could have made one person, me, feel welcomed and acknowledged.

I think about times when I may have been guilty of this very same thing. I may offer my guests or friends at a campout, festival, or reenactment an appetizer, a drink, or a water bottle. Or I may assume, rightly, that they know they are welcome to my provisions. But that other person who has come with the friends, or has stumbled on to my camp and stays to listen to my music, may really appreciate the offer of my hospitality, even if it’s just a drink of water or a pretzel.

I like to try to find something good out of every experience, and I can say now that I am glad the afternoon passed as it did. It would have given me a very warm feeling to have been included in the small food and drink hospitalities there, and I wouldn’t have forgotten it. But I think I prefer to remember the event as a good reminder of how my hospitality could make someone else feel.

Pt. Reyes Backpacking 2012, pt 3

We take a look back at Glen Camp in the morning as we leave. What a gorgeous meadow!

Again, our tents were nice and dry so we didn't have to do anything but fold them up and stick them into our packs. I had boring old oatmeal with dried apples and nuts. It was lots more boring than it had been before, now that I knew I really wanted eggs with bacon. Ah well.

Since our next camp, Wildcat, was only about 1 3/4 inches away from Glen, we wanted to not take the most direct route, but meander just a little. Not a lot, but just a little. All the trails curled around like writhing snakes, so thankfully our Trailmaster, Melinda,  interpreted the best route for us to follow using our handy-dandy map in its handy-dandy holder fastened to the back of Nola's pack. Truthfully, even now I can't look at the map and quite figure out what we had intended to do. I just know that it included finishing up Glen Loop, peeling off around a corner, very shortly taking Old Out Road, and then we would end up at Wildcat after taking another bit of trail.

We had to ponder the trail more than once, but it all looked right, so off we hiked. And much further than we had expected, and we still hadn't found the turn-off we were expecting. When we stepped aside from a couple of horseback riders, we were told that we had, indeed missed the turn-off we had been looking for and were now, by default, going to be taking the Alamea Trail to where it connected with Old Out Road. We couldn't imagine how we had missed it! But we had, so we took the next off ramp-Alamea.

We were actually glad it had worked out like it did. This trail was really beautiful. Dappled sun, riotous vegetation, fields of huge stinging nettles, and lots of ferns. We ran into the same horseback rider, coming back the other way. She said that she looked at the sign we'd been keeping an eye out for and saw that it was oriented the opposite direction from where we were walking. But we didn't even notice a trail going off! And it wasn't even on my left side, where I don't tend to notice things.

We had a nice little lunch at the crossroads of Old Out Road and Alamea. Nola and I had tuna packs and Mel had a hot lunch Mountain House Chicken Fajita, the clear winner of all the freeze-dried foods we tried. In fact, I liked it so much that I plan on just taking eggs with bacon and packs of this one, for the whole trip!

Nola gets more adept at throwing on a loaded pack without the help of a picnic table. I will only say that it involved lots of rotation.

Going in and out of the sun into the shade of the trees was sort of like caving.

We dropped down to a short section of Coast Trail to finish the hike into Wildcat. A charming little lake made me want to have a paddle boat or rubber raft. This might have been where Nola and I compared notes on the trip we took when we were kids; we went to a little non-motor lake and put out our yellow rubber boat. I remember it being peaceful and enjoyable. She remembers us fighting a lot over it. But we both remember it being fun.

The trail down to the camp was surprisingly icky, with pale powdery dirt and rolly rocks and steepness. Melinda fell. Of course she blamed us for distracting her, which caused her to fall. She would never have dreamed of falling otherwise. And I reminded her that it was Nola's turn to fall, not hers. We'd both already taken our turns the day before.

They became bored with me stopping to take pictures of wildflowers, but who can resist California Poppies?

Tess plays mountain goat on the edge of the horse trough. I eyed it uneasily, knowing that, if potable water had not been provided for us, this is what my Katedyn filter would have to work with.

I wish I had taken a picture of Nola at our space, trying to get our attention by waving a bandana on the tip of her walking stick, while we are hollering, "Check the space number on the paper!" We were convinced that she was looking for the wrong spot, but we didn't want to climb up there where she was if we just had to climb back down again. Finally we gave in and went up there. She had already discovered her mistake, but had found the correct one. Which was confusing because she had assured us it was close to the water and restrooms. It was almost as far away as you could get. The only one further away was the spot we had gotten last year.

"It looked closer on the map when I chose it."

But, just like before, it turned out to be the best spot. Lots of privacy,

level,

 soft...

There were an inordinate number of gophers or some sort of similar rodent. One insisted on playing around making mounds right outside Mel's tent. I know it wasn't the one I had stepped on, apparently just as it was popping up out of its hole because it made a loud noise just exactly like a squeaky toy. In fact, I thought that Melinda had brought one out to amuse Tess. Until she said, "What was that?" So I'm guessing it was underground nursing a headache (or something).

 We took our dinner on the beach. 

 It was nice to just sit in the sand and enjoy the view,

 play footstool, 

and wiggle toes in the sand.

This year, instead of watching the sun go down over the water, we watched it set over the edge of the cliff from our campspot.

Pt Reyes Backpacking 2012, pt 2

At Sky Camp, we had debated the wisdom of setting up our tents underneath the tree canopy. What I had thought of is that if it drizzled, all the dirt and bugs from the twigs and leaves would rain down and dirty up our tents. But as it turned out, , the best and level spot was directly under a huge open tree-shaded area. We went to bed so early that it was actually nice to have the early gloom of the shadows, and it looked like the morning sun might peek through the edge of the eastern side. 

I was a little chilly that night and didn’t sleep all that well. Just warm enough to not want to give up my meager heat to crawl out and pull on my polartec jacket, but not warm enough to be comfy. Nola, who has plenty of body heat was happily commenting on how she didn’t get too warm!

As we strolled down to take the morning air, we realized what a tent pitched out in the open would have meant. The little dome tent down by the hitching rail was drenched in the morning dew! We were able to pack our dry tents and take off right after a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs or oats/granola.

About the freeze-dried scrambled eggs with bacon… all I can say is… YUM! They were delicious and moist and had a nice firm texture. Next time I’m leaving the oatmeal packets at home and just taking the eggs!

We hung the map in a little pouch from Nola’s pack so the Trailmaster would have access to it whenever she needed to check directions. 

   

(You may think Melinda is preparing to look at the map, but she is really checking on The Chair.)

 We took the Woodward Valley trail to cut down to Coast Trail so we would have as much seaside walking as possible, even though it meant a few more miles and probably more total uphill walking by the end of the day.

 Along the trail we saw the weirdest thing, a great green mass up about 40 feet or more high up on a dead tree. The binoculars proved it was living vegetation instead of a giant green beanbag chair, but we could not see just what it was or how the leafy thing was living, perched up there on the dead spike of a conifer.

 We came out on Coast Trail near the beach access to Sculpture Beach, the site of a dramatic rescue we had taken part in last year when a guy had fallen off the cliff and had lain there all night.

Talk about a jinxed area! There I am, strolling along ahead of my two companions, happily snapping photos when I see them pause, and then step to one side of the trail. They looked deep in thought, staring pensively down as they murmured. I’m missing this little moment! I thought, and went back to get in on the conversation. 

That’s when I saw they weren’t chatting, but staring at a big red blob halfway covered with a big pile of weeds and thistles. The bare bloody rib cage was my first clue that it had been a deer. In fact, it was a really fresh, large deer that hadn’t even started to smell or draw flies yet.

Melinda, the Trailmaster, also proved herself as the Beastmaster.

“Mountain Lion, probably last night. You can see it ate the heart and liver.”

That was when I remembered the last time I’d gone hiking and had some time to ponder my status as mountain lion prey. I had been going to make a small cape with big scary eyes painted on it to wear across the back of my pack.

“One good thing,” the Beastmaster said, “is that our packs protect the back of our necks.” My neck started to crawl, and we realized that the mountain lion might actually still be in the vicinity and feel protective about his dinner, so we scurried on down the trail. 

One big landmark along the trail is the huge eucalyptus tree marking the access for Kelham Beach. That was where we were going to eat our lunch. Down the stairs we went to the sand. A lovely waterfall fell to the mossy rocks directly to one side. We took our shoes off to walk along the beach looking for a bit of a shady overhang. 

Only a half dozen steps and I was running. Hot Hot Hot! I couldn’t stop to take off my pack or get my camp shoes. The only thing I could do to keep the soles of my feet from frying was to keep them off the sand, one at a time, by running. Soon I heard close at my heels, “Hot Hot Hot!” Melinda and I were running a race to nowhere. In my pain, I spied a log of driftwood that curved a few inches above the surface. A thin shadow lay under it. I aimed for it and then shoved my feet under it into the shaded sand. Melinda followed, doing the same. And then here came Nola, “Hot Hot Hot!” as she ran circles around us. “Here! Under this log!” we cried.

 Finally the three of us had breathing room to get our packs off and our camp shoes on.

 Lucky Tess is small enough to tuck herself into a bit of shade.

 Tess gets booties to keep her from burning her paws.

 Rattlesnake Grass

 After lunch, Bear Valley Trail took us inland again and headed towards Glen Camp. We had some nice cool easy sections.

 The quail were so cute!

 The nicest area of today's trail.

 Soon enough, the trail turned steeply uphill. At this point, we settled into our jobs. My job was to say that I was sure the trail leveled out right after this bend. The Trailmaster’s job was to say that we should be there any minute because there was only a half mile to go an hour ago. Nola’s job was to watch the rear for mountain lions and take care of the chair.

Tired Tess

Arriving at Glen Camp was a nice reward. It is a beautiful campground, and we had it virtually to ourselves. We enjoyed time at each campsite as it spent its moment in the warm sun. 

 Melinda even took a shower. Thank goodness I had brought the shower curtain with the big finger design. 

We pitched tents under the large tree canopy. We went to bed on the early side, me enjoying my ipod, Nola enjoying her book, and both of us enjoying the entertainment of listening to Tess rollicking around inside the other tent.

Just as I was about to drop off to sleep, I heard a deadly, ominous sound. Crrrraaaackkk! A tree limb had dropped off somewhere close-by. Nola thought it might be overhead. I didn't think so, but in my mind, I was already diving underneath her cushion. (I like to think I would have thought again and thrown my body over hers to protect her.)

But we didn’t die, and I hope I remember the adventure and look for big limbs the next time I sleep under a tree.

Backpacking at Pt. Reyes 2012, Pt. 1

When my daughter Melinda and I went backpacking at Pt. Reyeslast year, we had such a good time and it was such a beautiful place that we knew we would have to share it with someone who was like-minded. When my sister, Nola, said she would be interested in planning a backpacking trip in California in May, we said we knew just the place!

We had spent 3 days and 2 nights last year, but the plan for 2012 was to make as full a trip as we could squeeze out the time for. And that meant 4 days and 3 nights. I knew that the basic gear would be the same for a 3 night trip; we would only need an extra day’s worth of food.

For some reason, every time I’ve gone backpacking, I’ll think that my pack will only weigh about 25 to 27 pounds. I don’t quite understand why that number is tattooed in my mind. It is slightly possible that my pack weighed that on my very first training trip when we walked over to the Live Oak Recreation Park and spent a night. And maybe that number has never been supplanted by the following realistic numbers from subsequent trips.

So there I am, shoving pieces of my pile of gear and food and stuff into my Gregory Diva 60 pack thinking, I sure hope I can hold this down to 25 or so pounds! Finally the last ritual of the pack-out arrived—the weighing. I lugged it over to the scale and slid the weights over to reveal…. THIRTY-EIGHT POUNDS! WHAT?

(Here you can view a 37 pound pack getting ready to face the truth of the scale)

As I went over the contents in my mind, I realized that the basic essentials, such as sleeping bag, tent, Thermarest, pack, fuel came to almost 25 pounds by themselves. Thankfully, my pack is designed to carry a lot of weight quite comfortably, so I knew I could manage. And I was also counting 2 liters of water and my food, which I was told is not part of the official weight of the pack. So I felt a little better and more resigned to the load.

We were very happy to have a driver to drop us off and pick us up this year so we would not have to stage vehicles at the start and end points. Cork drove us to Limantour Beach, where we ate our lunch and enjoyed a few minutes at the beach and the estuary.

Now I am fond of a few food-like items that are for sale at grocery stores and Walmarts. I am usually able, nay, always able to restrain myself from buying and eating them. Items such as fresh cinnamon sugar Hostess Donettes. But I have a harder time resisting when my sister is the little devil figure on my shoulder saying, “Go ahead! Get them! Splurge! It’s for vacation!” And the little angel figure on my other shoulder already has her mouth full of a couple of Donettes. These were APPLE cinnamon sugar flavor, which sounded nice, so I bought them. And yes, I shared a few and then ate the rest of the bag the first day.

Our reservation for the first night was at Sky Camp. It was to be a fairly short hike, though the word “sky” was suggestive of rising in altitude via a steep hike. Instead of the cheater trailhead to the camp which would have made our hike over almost before it started, we had our driver drop us off at the more reasonable trailhead at the hostel. Nola and I appointed Melinda as the “Trailmaster,” since she was the only one with the proper qualifications, i.e. she did not have to turn the map around like a steering wheel to see which direction to go.

We unloaded our gear, snapped on clips and hung cups, poles, shoes, laundry (oops, that was later) and water bottles to our backpacks and staggered off. 

Our Trailmaster pointed her stick. “That way!” she said. We circled around in a bit of confusion, since it looked like we needed to go the other way. But as we were reminded: “Who is the Trailmaster here?” Our driver bid us Godspeed and began inching out of his spot as we disappeared around the corner. Soon he had the rearview in position to see us for one more “goodbye” as we passed back by on our way to the trail we were supposed to take.

Too shortly, another trail decision had to be made. We had planned on taking a shorter trail to Sky trail and avoid “Fire Road,” which sounded ominous or utilitarian, either of which didn’t sound scenic. Yes, there were trail signs at the intersection, but we hadn’t been on the trail long enough to know how to interpret what they meant when they said “Fire Road, x miles, [arrow]” and besides, the other one looked hidden and unused, and besides, the Trailmaster didn’t press hard enough for her choice. And besides, anyone who knows me on the trail shouldn’t trust my choice, so it’s NOT MY FAULT!

After a couple hours of hiking, we realized why it was called Fire Road. Sometime in the past, this area had burned. Some of the views were quite striking; it turned out to be very scenic and enjoyable. And the other advantage to taking this route was to reinforce the authority of the Trailmaster. (“Hey! I said to take the other trail!”)

We did finally arrive at the lovely Sky Camp and after meandering aimlessly about we finally found our site. Nola had picked all our sites ahead of time, using intuition, Google Earth type visuals and descriptions. And each site, we decided, was the best of the whole camp! Here, we had a nice, private area with either sun or shade, as we desired.

Back when we were packing our backpacks, trying not to throw random stuff in as the time drew close to be gone, Melinda and I viewed Nola’s chair with a skeptical eye. Is she really going to drag a CHAIR along? She did. And I am not ashamed to say that I used it more than she did. In the future I am going to see what unimportant things I can leave out, like say, deodorant, extra underwear, first aid kit… so I can bring my own Crazy Creek chair.

(yes, that is poison oak behind the food locker)

We had a nice dinner (guess I need to expand, since this IS “Food Adventures”) which consisted of various freeze-dried packets. Mel had a chili mac thing, which ended up a little soupy, I fixed up half of a beef stew packet that I had bought off the expired rack a couple years ago, and I think Nola had fruit, granola and tea or something. But the highlight was the Platypus pouch of lovely grape juice, from Napa Valley.

Next to come, Day 2!