EVOLVING ROADS: Car Camping with Kip & Rico (Part Four)

It’s benign most of the time.

You’re warm. Through your eyelids, you can sense sunlight gently streaming in the window.

You’ve been talking to your dad, and though your dad died decades ago, part of you knows that this is all a dream, and so talking to dead people isn’t all that strange and neither is the sensation of floating in a white, cozy cloud. It isn’t until you open one eye that you begin to freak-out. “That’s not my chest of drawers,” you realize, “and that’s not my carpet!”. Your other eye pops open.  “This isn’t my bed!” and, “This most certainly isn’t even my room!  I’ve been drugged somehow and kidnapped and I can’t move my arms!” Just as the panic rises and you flop out of the bed tearing at the tangled industrial-strength king-size bed-cover, you remember, just before you hit the floor, that this is a hotel room and you’re on a business trip.

Except, I’m not in a cozy warm cloud. I’m lost in the Antarctic huddled in a blanket made from an unzipped sleeping bag. Shrieking wind is tearing at bits of ruined shelter — shreds of blue tarp slap my face. It stings. I try to curl into a heat-conserving ball and wrap the flailing ends of the inadequate blanket under me, but the wind is clever and works at untucking the short ends. I wait to wake up in that warm hotel room… but I never do, because I’m not on a business trip and I’m not asleep.

I’m lying on a blue tarp, shivering under my sleeping-bag-blanket in some kind of diabolical wind-tunnel on the bank of Lake Mann at the base of Steens Mountain. The fire ring, which mere hours ago contained a hell-worthy conflagration, now emanates only cold gray ashes.

I risk another peek out from under the blanket. The sky is starting to show light. Part of me argues, “Just sleep until the sun comes up. It will be warm then.” But another part argues, “By the time the sun shines into this valley, you’ll be a popsicle.” and though that last bit seems hysterical, I steel myself for a sprint to the Montero where my gear is.

Being inside the Montero makes a big difference. I’m grateful that Kip has already forgotten his city habit of locking his doors at night. I’d sleep in the front seat except the colors outside are beautiful so I find my jacket and camera and go to meet the sunrise.

Uncle Rico seems immune to the wind...and weather in general.

And Kip will probably never know that there even was any wind.

As alluded to before, despite brief periods of surprisingly strong winds, our resident cloud remains a constant companion.

When the wind dies down, I break out a grill and the groceries I need to make cheese-stuffed, bacon-wrapped jalapeno peppers (for breakfast). I was counting on 12 pieces of bacon per package but learned that isn’t always the case with thick slices. Even worse, I forgot to bring toothpicks, so I had to wrap the peppers with more finesse than usual and hope that the bacon molded itself on as it shrank. That wasn’t always the case either, which is why this picture is a file picture from our Willapa Bay trip. Kip and Rico are polite about the cheese-stuffed peppers with a side of bacon, but I feel like I’ve disappointed them.

In no danger of starving, we set our minds to solving the puzzle of catching fish in a six-inch deep lake. Kip has a comprehensive book about Oregon lakes, and the Mann Lake entry reveals that some people wade out into the lake and then cast toward shore. It sounds like it’s worth a try, so I take off my shoes and socks and hike up my shorts and strike out for deeper water. 10 minutes later I’m about 40 yards into the lake and water is tickling my...shorts, but frustratingly, while the mud now appears to be 2 feet deep, the water remains confined to a 6-inch layer floating atop the ever deepening mud. 

Photo Credit: Kip   2018

As I return to shore, I catch a pair of cows smirking at each other, as if to ruin the illusion I cling to that this is actually mud I’m wading in.

Meanwhile, Rico and Kip have been casting a variety of lures with no success. At times, they claim to see the dorsal fins of Loch Ness Monster-size-creatures trapped towards the center of the lake. But I can’t see them without the binoculars they’re using.

This bird’s colorful wing markings and unusual beak caught my attention. Rico said it was an American avocet. After sinking into the mud myself, it is easy for me to appreciate these bird’s adaptations for fishing along the lake’s extended muddy shoreline - long legs for wading, webbed feet for distributing weight on insubstantial surfaces (or swimming I suppose), and a built-in fishing pole.

As it becomes evident that we won’t be catching any fish, we calculate that it’s time to move on. Although I had recently visited the Malheur Wildlife Refuge area, in the face of questioning I become less and less confident in my assertion that there is a gas station in Frenchglen. Given my uncertainty, we decide to head back to Fields Station to top-off the tanks and get ice for the ice-chests. Once we are resupplied we head towards Frenchglen (60 miles away) to check out Page Springs Campground and the much-hyped Donner und Blitzen River.

At first, I wonder why they would name a river after two of Santa’s reindeer. But cursory research reveals that donner and blitzen are German words for thunder and lightning, which supposedly, were the conditions encountered when troops crossed the river in 1864 during the Snake War (and which, retrospectively, also make Santa’s reindeer sound much more like bad-asses).  What you don’t hear so much about is that the Snake War was a significant set of skirmishes between Native Americans and American soldiers which eventually resulted in over twice as many deaths as the more famous battle of the Little Bighorn. I suppose that’s why the river hasn’t retained its Native American name.

The Donner und Blitzen river may be a mythic trout stream, but it seems to pander to fly fisherman...not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that the accepted convention here is to catch and release and that’s just not going to provide many fish tacos. Not only that, but the ratio of mosquitoes to campers is pegged at the high end of the scale.

Now that we are on the gently sloping side of Steens Mountain, we want to follow the available road up to the top even though the Page Springs kiosk indicates that the gates to the Mountain Loop Road are still closed. We reason that we may not get as far as we want, but expect there may be interesting things to see along the way.

Our reasoning pays off. The gates are not closed.

Kip standing before the glacier-carved Kiger Gorge.

Rico surveys the scene. That notch at upper middle was visible from Mann Lake.

It’s like that time my parents handed me a camera at Yellowstone’s Old Faithful geyser. I took a whole roll of the same picture.

At the East Rim Overlook, I spot Mann Lake.

To the southeast lies the Alvord Desert.

Photo Credit: Uncle Rico   Copyright 2018  (click on image for slightly larger version)

Rico takes an awesome panorama picture with his phone.

Rico is wearing a special bra for binoculars, but I think he is just keeping two beers in it.

Photo Credit: Uncle Rico     Copyright 2018

Rico gets a shot of me doing a patented old-man impression as I dodder around trying to compose a shot.

A photographer’s goal would be to stay atop the observation point and watch the Mountain’s shadow stretch out to the East to meet the coming darkness. But I am not alone and we still need to find a campsite.

We find what we are looking for in the sub-alpine/quaking aspen zone at about 7000 feet.

I string my hammock up in a small aspen grove (Now we’re talking!).

...and stoop to some shameless pandering.

(triple reinforced stitching)

Kip sets up his tent in a small clearing nearby.

As the sun travels beyond the horizon, we fall into our familiar dinner routine. By now nobody will be surprised to discover that this evening’s meal is going to be trout tacos. Kip, however, surprises us with a new snack variation (besides the salt and pepper pistachios). He sets about trying to make popcorn over a propane burner, heating the oil in one of my thin aluminum pots. I think the odds are about even that he will significantly burn the popcorn. But he doesn’t. Generally, I like to season my popcorn with Lawry’s Seasoning Salt, but Kip uses real butter and a seasoning I’m not all that familiar with. Whatever. This simple treat, well executed, seems a particularly extravagant snack in this setting.

Somewhere in the middle of deep frying the trout, we realize the stove is out of propane. To make things more complicated, the proprietary fuel canisters for Rico’s range are now all exhausted. Kip’s propane burner has the potential to heat the oil, but it is shaped something like an upside-down rocket ship and will be an unsteady, dangerous support for the cast-iron frying pan filled with still-sizzling oil. I scramble to find a new propane tank in my gear.

For the most part, Rico manages to save the bulk of the trout. For those few pieces that soaked up too much oil, I’m pretty sure I see him placing them randomly in the trout plate hoping we won’t notice. A running joke for this camping trip is that I’ve been overcooking the tortillas. Working with the precariously balanced burner, I’m — I guess paranoid is the best word — paranoid that I will once again overcook the tortillas and so I try to get them in and out of the oil as fast as I can. Later when Rico observes that the tortillas appear to have been “merely dipped” in oil, I realize I may have been a tad too spastic. Thankfully, none of us are sporting skin grafts.

Sitting before the evening’s firewood holocaust, I’ve come to expect unusual conversations. If it isn’t Kip and his knack for saying things that are hilariously out of character, it will be Rico defending outrageous positions so matter-of-factly that I find myself in agreement. But tonight Rico has once again taken up the topic of petroglyphs and insists that the power of the shamans is real and that we, even now, are influenced by, or even protected by their energy.

Like a popcorn kernel unable to contain itself, Rico springs from his chair wielding one of the ultraviolet flashlights. “It’s around us!” he screams. “It’s all around us!” and he darts one way, and then another, subjecting everything in range to the scrutiny of his ultraviolet beam. Kip and I are bewildered, but we follow Rico on his mad search until he comes to the jeep. There suddenly, radiating intensely in the black light are mysterious native American icons, just like the ones we’ve been finding all week (well, maybe not the rabbit).

Before we can stop him or comment, Rico is racing off to the Montero. When he gets there, he sweeps the vehicle with his beam and there on the hood are concentric ray-arcs, spirals, lizards and forkman.

The depictions of petroglyphs are hilarious. Kip and I try to figure out when Rico had time to execute his drawings without being seen. It turns out that various markers are highly fluorescent under ultraviolet light, but nearly invisible on, say the surface of a dark-colored car during the day-time (not so much on a white colored car as Kip found out surveying his hood the next morning). The implication is that Rico may have been decorating things ever since he handed out the ultraviolet flashlights. Quickly, I check my forehead in a rearview mirror (because I’m a heavy sleeper), but no fluorescent patterns appear there.

In the morning, in the aspen grove, amongst the aspens, the leaves whisper in the gentlest of winds. But beneath the sweet-nothings filling the air, more conventional messages are conveyed by the tree’s bark. Matt and Debra were an item back in ‘89. C.H.S., J.F., M.S.A., A.S.H., and perhaps fraternity and sorority members have been here. Somebody killed their first deer back in ‘05.  Rico says it’s a mistake to carve big block letters into the bark because the scars grow and become illegible. He thinks the way to make an enduring message is to carve thin lines. I tried but concentrated so hard on the wrong letter that I misspelled my name (As an enduring message from me, that somehow seems appropriate).

It has become increasingly hard to keep track of the days. Even so, a growing unease is evident as we sense our time on the road is coming to an end. Unless we want to make a 6 hour trip on our last day, we need to head West before establishing our next camp. Rico reminds us that his goal to find an ancient mortar is still unfulfilled. We travel back down the mountain to Frenchglen and beyond in search of something the Lorings called the Krumbo Boulders, one of which is Mortar Rock. It is said to contain two mortars, one 7 inches deep and one 8 inches deep.

Photo Credit: Uncle Rico    Copyright 2018

Petroglyph Rock turns out to be the easier of the two rocks to find.

The depth of this carving makes it very distinctive from most of the petroglyphs I’ve seen on this trip.

Our search is hampered by a terrifying blanket of mosquitoes. I find it necessary to spray repellant not only on my exposed skin but also on all of my clothing front and back to keep the sharp proboscises from penetrating my shirt and pants. Still, scores of mosquitoes alight on my hands and wrists before they taste the repellant. I look something like a Pavlovian trained dog as I repeatedly swipe at any high pitched noise or tickling sensation. We scour the landscape east of the Petroglyph rock according to the Loring notes but somehow manage to overlook it.

We find respite from the mosquitoes at the boat ramp at Krumbo Reservoir, probably because of a breeze off the water. We take the opportunity to re-hydrate and as we sip our beverages, Kip and Rico start to imagine what they’ll be able to do with their booty of sunstones. Both of them collected easily 3 times the number of sunstones that I did and Kip is quick to point out that it is a well-known fact that sunstones are equivalent to what he terms ‘male enhancement.’ Kip goes on to ask what it’s called when a person decorates articles of clothing with glued-on sunstones. I’m not sure who came up with it first, but the answer is “Bedazzled.” Kip then begins describing how he would go about bedazzling a pair of glasses, and we begin to imagine the garish eyewear of Elton John and Deepak Chopra. Rico volunteers that he thinks bedazzled sunglasses are obviously impressive, but then he earnestly turns to me and warns me not to wear sunstone-bedazzled glasses until after I meet someone. After all, Kip adds, “How would you know whether she loved you, or just wanted your sunstone-bedazzled glasses?” Rico and Kip spell it out in a simple formula: Sunstones = panty droppers.

I just wish they would have shared this information earlier while we were still actually searching for sunstones.

We made it to the Southwest edge of Crane Prairie Reservoir for our final campsite where Rico prepared guacamole with an authentic stone pestle. It wasn’t what he had hoped for, but the guacamole was exceptional, even without an authentic ancient mortar. I wrapped the last of the peppers with bacon using a packet of 12 cinnamon toothpicks I found in the Qwick-shop when we stopped to gas-up in Burns. Rico also prepared margaritas with damiana. Kip distributed raw cookie dough for dessert.

Later I walked down a short trail and emerged from the pine forest to stand at the edge of the reservoir. I set up my tripod to capture the moon and Venus, but by now my tripod head was broken and the whole process took much longer than it should have. A frigid wind was blowing over the surface of the lake and this was the best I was able to do before I retreated back into the shelter of the forest.

  

Photo Credit: Uncle Rico  Copyright 2018

Quite a while after the trip, Rico posted his pictures in a Dropbox.  I found this one in there. I’ve chosen it as a fitting end to this narrative. I’m not sure that it has an enduring message for everyone, but what it says to me is, my friends are artists, and I am grateful to have traveled these roads with them.

SEE ALSO PART ONE
SEE ALSO PART TWO
SEE ALSO PART THREE

Epilogue:

via GIPHY

Kip models a pair of sunstone bedazzled glasses

Deb: Okay, turn your head on more of a slant...

Now, make a fist. Slowly ease it up underneath your chin.

This is really looking good.

Kip: You can say that again.

Deb: Kay, hold still right there. Now, just imagine you're weightless, in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by tiny little seahorses [Deb takes the picture] That was the one. I think that's gonna come out really nice.

- dialouge from the movie Napoleon Dynamite (or is it?)

EVOLVING ROADS: Car Camping with Kip and Rico (Part Two)

In our last episode, after appreciating the subtle nuances of Kip’s latest margarita recipe, we were treated to the intermittent unveiling of the Milky Way as patchwork clouds streamed over us to the West.

Cows, emboldened by the cover of darkness, venture out to the dry lake’s terminal puddle where the last delicate grasses rise from drying mud. 

Minds, free from the constraints of day to day routines, become free to ponder the day’s events and images — to decipher messages preserved in stone for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years.

We are by no means the first to sit comforted by our campfire in this shallow basin. Doubtless, others sat before us, watching the universe display its bright jewels. Here, perhaps before a more convincing lake, those others noted the arrivals and departures of skittish deer and elusive big-horn sheep — not today’s tame cows that pulverize sensitive shorelines with great bovine hooves and trample into the mud a generous portion of their specialty pies.

Our campfire crackles and sparks and spits embers into the sky — earthborn messengers sent to consort with the stars. The constellations shuffle — the eternal multi-limbed project-deadline is banished before the promise of more ideal game.

During the early morning hours, aerosol rain periodically wets my face, waking me and forcing me to consider whether to string up the rain-fly. Stars visible between patchy clouds wink as if to reassure me that the clouds aren’t all that serious about releasing their load. Besides, the mist is cool and refreshing on my sunburnt cheeks. When the sun eventually peeks over the summit rim, it warms the gentle morning breeze, drying everything instantly.

After breaking camp, we resume fishing close to where we left off yesterday, but further downstream. 

Here the water is deeper. What appears to be a gently sloping mud bank drops sharply at the water’s edge — a steep rock face.

I lower a GoPro over the side and obtain these images of a world that until this moment, existed in my imagination as a kind of naive cartoon. In this domain, finely tuned, underwater, meat-seeking missiles effortlessly negotiate the currents in three dimensions.

Yet they can still be fooled.

Another river yields a catfish and a bass. Though small, these fish will technically allow the preparation of our traditional 3 species tacos.

We set up camp high on a long ridge of buttes that provide an expansive view of the basin below. In wetter months, the basin is likely a marsh, but even in its arid state, it appears beautiful in the growing shadows of the setting sun. Wikipedia informs me that this entire basin was once a vast Pleistocene lake. It was, however, a lake with no place to go — no exits to the sea — so as the ice age came to an end, it began a long process of evaporation, concentrating salts and alkalis until only Abert Lake (full of brine shrimp) and Summer Lake remain.

It doesn’t escape my notice that this campsite is bereft of trees which makes sleeping in a hammock somewhat problematical. Rico’s sleeping solution of preference is a cot. Kip relies on a tent. For tonight I’ll be sleeping with the scorpions on a lightweight, self-inflating sleeping pad. The threat of mosquitos is a constant on this trip, but I’ve brought lots of repellants. Also, since we have occupied a zone that sits well over 4000 feet in altitude, the night temperature will be cool enough to permit sleeping with a blanket over my head.

Rico expertly deep-fries the three species of fish. We savor the flavors that could not be any fresher.

It is a precious experience, to feel at home in the universe…however briefly.

Like a kid filled with wonder, Uncle Rico brought along 3 ultraviolet flashlights. The lights emit radiation in the ultraviolet range, and Rico encourages us to search for otherwise hidden biologicals in the darkness of night (like those scorpions). Unexpected things, like lichens, glow like neon under the ultraviolet beams. Conversely, if one is still hungry, it is best not to scrutinize one’s food preparation area too closely since leftovers scattered across used greasy plates appear grayish and moldy.

The next morning, Rico outfits us with shotguns to carry along in case we flush rabbits out of the sage while we search for arrowheads. We learn to walk into the sun to facilitate the reflections that betray the presence of flaked obsidian. Thankfully, I do not encounter any rabbits. But Rico does.

I am all at once horrified, awestricken and fascinated by Rico’s workmanlike reduction of the rabbit into meat for our evening meal. This is the cost all animals pay to fill our plates with steaks and stews. I recognize the homologous organs of my fellow mammal as Rico slips the pajama-like hide off the cottontail’s skeletal armature. There is a miracle here, in that these parts — bone, muscle, sinew, nerves, lungs, and heart —were, just seconds ago, a graceful, leaping, zig-zagging master of elusion. If I choose to eat meat, I must acknowledge this process of stealing life to sustain my own. 

We follow the road along Lake Abert. A squadron of geese set sail out into the salty waters, trailing wakes that replicate the ‘V’s that are so often a part of their aerial signature. 

Occasionally, we stop to seek out petroglyph locations, but our primary goal today is to find the public sunstone gem collection area. 

Sunstones are crystals that formed from minerals coming to rest in the scaffolding of a vast lava bed which lay underwater for thousands of years. Now, as the lava weathers in the arid high desert, these crystals can be found, loose in the topsoil. A superficial reading of the Bureau of Land Management’s kiosk might lead one to believe that sunstones are “Found only in the high desert of Eastern Oregon…” which sounds impressive. A more careful reading shows the claim is only being made for ‘Oregon sunstones’ which… seems totally reasonable. You wouldn’t expect to find Oregon sunstones amongst Norwegian or Swedish sunstones. Technically, the point they’re really trying to make is that these particular sunstones are uniquely infused with copper which gives them distinct colors.

20 acres or so of land is designated for public gem collection (with hand tools only), but the public land is surrounded by private claims where more methodical, mechanical methods of collection are employed.

Kip’s haul (with something we convinced ourselves was a significant fossil shark tooth).

Uncle Rico’s haul (with what he claims, straight-facedly, is a remarkably rare and valuable green sunstone)

Coming down from the high plateau, we stopped for ice and beer in Plush, then drove along the Warner Lakes until we came to Deep Creek. Traveling up the canyon, we found a suitable site a short distance above the Deep Creek Falls. 

At first, the mosquitos worked to drive us away from our chosen camp, but Kip had brought the giant portable house with mosquito netting, so setting up that emergency shelter provided psychological re-enforcement (perhaps in the same way that designated fallout shelters helped cushion the horror of nuclear war). Kip also deployed a surprising number of mosquito coils and Rico ignited another needlessly conspicuous fire to smoke them out. Eventually, these measures and the addition of a reliable breeze allowed our panic to subside. 

I was curious to see how Rico would prepare the rabbit. I imagined, perhaps, a nice hasenpfeffer or seared rabbit with rosemary potatoes. We ended up nibbling on deep-fried legs and incorporating the rest into rabbit tacos.

Our camp nestled in the trees and tucked into a canyon didn’t provide the expansive views of the previous evenings. But the falls we had passed on the road seemed a target rich photo opportunity, so I set out on foot to capture them in the long red rays of sunset. I was a little bit late.

Still, it was instructive to see how the crystal-like structure of basalt makes it so susceptible to time, water and temperature.

Back at camp, the ambient noises of the gently gurgling creek and the cooing of doves were shattered by Bluetooth speakers blaring Rico’s mariachi music. Both Kip and Rico began commenting on the sentiments expressed in the lyrics and how they so closely compared to Country-western music and the human condition in general. When they realized my shameful monolingualism precluded me from this conversation, they proceeded to speak solely in Spanish. It was in this way that I quickly became certain of the meaning of ‘cerveza’.

Several margaritas and an undetermined amount of sangria put me in a somewhat nostalgic state of mind and I timidly asked if perhaps we could, in addition to the mariachi music, maybe slip in a Jim Croce tune now and again. This proposal met with an unabashed denial. I countered with John Denver, but little progress was made until we finally reached an uneasy truce over the Avett brothers. 

Early in the morning, I found myself in the mosquito-proof house. Rico was outside under his cot. I believe Kip was still in his chair.

Continue to PART THREE?

see also Evolving Roads: Car camping with Kip and Rico (Part One)