Swamp Stompin’ With Honey Badger: Part 7

I don’t meet many people when I’m out in nature. I go there to avoid people. However, the few people I meet are outlandish and memorable. Last year, I met the beer faeries.:

The UTV rolled up with three laughing women jammed side by side in the bench seat. They were joyously joking and smiling like a combination women’s book club and bar crawl had first gone mobile and then went ridiculously remote. They sure were having fun! If anyone might roll up in the middle of the forest to give Paul Bunyan himself a wedgie it was these three. They stopped next to me and said the most beautiful words in the English language.

“Want a beer?”

(Link: Motorcycle Exploration 2021: Part 5: The Beer Faeries Rescue Me. Whole story in parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5.1, 6, 7)

I thought I’d never encounter anyone more interesting than them. Then I met Odin and his side chick.

I was in the darkest shadiest parts of the forest. Under the tall pines it was beautiful and cool. I desperately wanted to stop for water and rest. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were ridiculous. Great clouds of them.

Up ahead on the trail he came my way. A man on an ATV. The regular old fashioned kind of ATV. The idealized old fashioned kind of man.

The dude was old. Much older than me. But he was built like a brick shithouse. Some men are buff, some men are tough, some men are handsome… I happened to meet a Norse god.

He had no helmet. He had no shirt. His skin was tanned like bronze. His head was shaved.

He was just exactly as muscly and strong as a shirtless old guy can possibly get. Young men fresh out of boot camp don’t look that buff. He was of an age to draw social security and yet he looked more manly than a football team and more handsome than Sean Connery on his best day. I’ve no doubt he could bench press an ox, take on a biker bar in a fight, and make women blush with a raised eyebrow. Probably all three at once.

No shit?!? Here?

I was dressed head to toe in protective gear and getting eaten alive by the bugs. Captain shirtless up there was simply daring the mosquitoes to mess with him. Presumably his rock hard muscles couldn’t be pierced by mere mosquitos… or probably by spearpoints.

You know those dudes from the movie 300? One of them retired from his career of holding back Xerxes and the Persian invasion, retired to America, and was riding around on an ATV.

I’m no wimp but it’s a bit humbling to see testosterone in human form. All I could think was “I need to hit the gym”.

As he got closer I realized he had a passenger. Carrying a passenger on an ATV is a pain in the ass; most of our consumer based society has adopted side by side UTVs with two bucket seats. Not Odin though.

Dude was rolling along with a woman behind holding him tight.

And what a woman! She was the appropriate age for Odin but still quite striking. Wearing a flowing peasant dress with long hippie hair and hands wrapped tightly around Odin’s chest. Her body language was clear: “this man is mine!”

She looked happy. Not just happy but almost in ecstasy.

I pulled off the trail into a cloud of mosquitoes and he swished by. I was taken by the woman’s eyes. They were beaming! Beaming!

She was holding on to the hottest most macho man in that age class… and honestly more macho and hot than most men half his age. She was holding on like Odin was going to to get laid tonight. Honestly, a guy that buff probably gets laid every night. Why? Because he’s the living embodiment of manhood dammit!

He nodded just the smallest acknowledgement as they passed. Then they were gone.

I spent the next hour wondering if I’d really seen what I’d seen. I didn’t know geezers could be that buff… or hot. Both of them. I’m a mere mortal.

I know nothing more than what I saw. I didn’t register the kind of ATV he was driving or for that matter I don’t even know if he was wearing pants. I just didn’t think to look.

So there you have it. A chunky bearded dude on a squat little motorcycle met Odin in the forest. Odin had taken a shortcut between Asgard and Olympus to pick up his side chick. They were going for a romp in the forest.

And my GoPro wasn’t running!