Don't be Afraid of the Dark

It's been a long time since I've posted on this blog, mostly because I've had a hard time feeling inspired about something interesting to write about.  I am up in Mariposa, alone, while Bob and friends are making a spring run down the nearby Tuolomne River.  The river is a class IV and always fun but challenging. As I sit here alone with my dogs, next to my campfire, I am second guessing my decision not to join the trip. I've done the river many times, and this was a good water level (2500 cfs - enough to cover many of  the wrap rocks but not so scary that you'd need an extra dose of blood pressure pills and a vallium for good measure).   But then I think about Clavey Falls and that rock on the left side of the chute that always dislodges your oar right when you need it most, or the salad toss at the end of Ram's Head where Lisa nearly broke her arm, or bridging on Sterns or Bette's swim through Hell's Kitchen, and my little lonely campfire doesn't seem so bad anymore.

Actually, my campfire is pretty nice, as you can see from the picture below.  When making it, I considered all those things they teach the boy scouts - get some tinder, make a little teepee of sticks and stoke the tinder until it ignites the sticks. When it's nice and hot, add additional kindling and some small logs, eventually building up to some nice size logs which will really make a bonfire you can be proud of. But then, I decided that the girl scouts are much more pragmatic, and having been a loyal, cookie-pushing scout for several years, I grabbed a small bag of charcoal and a big bottle of lighter fluid, piled a bunch of logs in the pit and doused the whole thing with liquid dynamite. Voila!  Instant bonfire!  It's a relatively warm night, but the fire serves the purpose of driving away the mosquitos and gnats, especially if you don't mind acting like a piece of trout in a smoker and sitting downwind. 

The dogs are enjoying themselves tonight.  Someone's cow is taunting them from the other side of the fence, and they are responding by growling and barking, but are too lazy to go running after it. (I know how they feel).  Besides, they're having too much fun harassing frogs and lizards which seem to be everywhere this evening (one was even on the toilet seat - good thing I saw it in time.  Would hate to think of the alterntive outcome there).  I even saw a snake today on the road.  I really wanted to run it over once or twice or even three times, but I knew Bob would be disappointed in me so I held back. As it is, he is going to ask me all kinds of questions about what kind of snake it was, which I won't be able to answer, since I didn't crush it to death and then get out of the car to check it out.  Now I'll dream about it making its way up my hill and slithering under the door tonight.  I'm sure with its evil snakish sixth sense, it knows I really wanted to kill it.  I might have to sleep with the shovel tonight, just in case.

Speaking of night time, the sun has just set. It was another gorgeous orange-pink-red sunset which I didn't photograph in time because my ipad was out of batteries and was still charging.  I caught the tail end of it, but the picture doesn't do it justice.  There will be a waning moon tonight, about 3/4 full so star gazing won't get good until the middle of the night. Hopefully I will be sound asleep by then, not huddling under my covers, terrified, (did I mention I was alone?) wishing I really did have a shovel, and Jeff's .45 along with a few large clips of soon-to-be-outlawed ammo, and also for good measure, Blake's bear repellent.  Of course, if someone did try to break in, I can just imagine the chaos. I probably would end up stepping on the shovel, with its handle springing up to hit me in the head, then accidentally shooting the dog, and finishing off by tripping on the now disabled dog and landing on the pepper spray nozzle, taking a full blast to the face. Only to find out it was just the wind blowing over a chair on the porch.  Ok, I think I'll retreat to the little love shack for the night. This sitting around by the blazing fire, very alone, in the dark, with lots of little glowing eyes watching me, is so over. 

End of the sunset, start of a night of terror........

OK, I am psyching myself out here.  I need to stop this talk of intruders and go back outside to shut the garden gate, or else there may be nothing left after those predator-deer attack en masse tonight.  Where are my shoes?  and flashlight?  And scarf (there are a lot of bats and all those urban legends about the bats getting entangled in your hair are running through my head)?  And butcher knife (just in case, you never know when it might come in handy)? And cell phone? Where is my phone?  Should I pre-program 911 in, so I only have to hit one button? I wonder how long it would take the police to get here?!  To find my phone, I'd have to turn on the light in the little chalet I'm hunkered down in.  That would certainly give away my position to the stalkers outside.  Oh what to do, what to do?  OK, here goes -- if I never write another word, hopefully someone will read this post and know what my last minutes were like. 

Phew!  Made it. Didn't even need to brandish the knife. Good thing, because the blade is pretty dull.  What can you expect when you buy knives from Rite Aid?  Shoot!  I just remembered that I forgot to take my antibiotics.  They are out in the car. It's parked soooo far away, almost 30 feet from the door.  Where did I set down that knife?  and the phone?  Another lonely sojourn into the bat-infested blackness.  I hope I don't step on a frog outside the door and slip and land on the knife.  Maybe I should make a pre-call to 911 to let them know where I am, saving time in case I have to actually make an emergency call later on?  Do you suppose they can store that type of information?

OK, made it, but it was close!! Those bats were in attack mode - I am sure of it.  But I watched "Attack of the Giant Hare" last week and learned that furiously waving your knife in the air disrupts the bats' sense of echo location (and also scares away 50 foot leporids).  That is some mighty useful information, after all.  You never know what you can learn from late night TV, Dr. Ruth aside.

If any of you read this tonight, and wish to call me to say what might turn out to be your final goodbye, feel free!  I will have my cell phone fully charged and waiting at my bedside, next to the shovel and knife.  Goodnight, and its been great knowing you!