Adaptive Curmudgeon

Epilogue: I returned from my trip with a thoroughly filthy motorcycle and a huge smile. It had been a great trip. I slept like a baby.

The next morning Mrs. Curmudgeon shook me awake. “Look out the window.”

A fuckin’ grouse. In our back yard. No shit. Sitting on a little tree branch as if to say “Hi! I’m here!”

Such vast irony in the universe.

“Get your shotgun and nail it!” Mrs. Curmudgeon coaxed. Had I not returned empty handed from an extended grouse hunting trip? Was this not a grouse?

“Nope. I’m not hunting today.” I mumbled as I started making coffee for the work day. It all makes perfect sense to me.

On every trip it inevitably happens, I was out of time. The good news is that one can go into nature, sit under a pine, smile at the pretty birds, and heal from the onslaught of a decaying society. The bad news is that one can only escape the world in fits and starts.

One must return…

So there I was, at the wheel of my roving safe space, planet Dodge; having packed my gear in the back and strapped my bike to its trailer. I didn’t want to return. The pig fence is on the fritz, the lawn is a mess, and my society is killing itself… I can fix the fence and mow the lawn but the rest is too much. And then what?

Fuck it. I took a turn on a road I’d never tried before. This dumped into a gravel pit I’d never seen. Consulting my many maps, I spied a sweet little trail system.

Just one more hit. Then I’ll go cold turkey…

In no time, Honey Badger was off her trailer and I was on a smallish, somewhat disorganized, maze of trails. I planned a short little hop through what looked like pine plantations and thence out to pavement. I’d emerge a mere 10 miles from the Dodge. Using my magic license plate I’d turn into a regular vehicle on a regular road and scamper back to the mother ship. I had just enough time to do it before sunset and a spiffy new headlight in case I outlasted the day.

The trail was shorter than planned but very pretty. I didn’t see so much as a feather of gamebird but I was in motorcycle/scenery mode anyway. Soon I only had a mile or two left. Hungry and unwilling to quit exploring so soon, I stopped in some dense pines. I rooted around in my gear for a self heating MRE. It wasn’t there! I was pissed about this oversight until I remembered that I’d personally eaten it a few days back. Whoops. No worries, I always carry lots of food. I kicked back for a “meal” of beef jerky washed down with lukewarm water from my RotoPax.

Each meal is a combination of the food itself and the alternatives in your mind. Sitting under a pine some 10 miles from my truck the alternative was to gnaw on a pinecone. So beef jerky and water was absolutely excellent!

I drifted off and took a brief nap. Pine needles are soft.

My SpotX pinged. Mrs. Curmudgeon was making steak. Would I be home in time?

Hell yeah! Steak rocks! Beef jerky and warm water is shit!

I sent a message back: “Yes! Only 1 mile from pavement. Long drive but good roads so home shortly after dark.”

Now I was motivated. Also, the rest of the trail was going to be easy. The map showed I would join a giant green line that was totally legal. It was arrow straight and the markings indicated you could drive a Prius on it. After a mile of that, pavement.

I zipped along past a couple clearcuts and made a sharp turn where the forest I was on bordered a wilderness area. I rolled down a gradual slope and… Daaaaamn.

The terrain went from pleasant forest to deadly impassible muskeg. A post was hammered in the ground with a sign “closed to motorized vehicles” with tiny little writing below “except snowmobiles”. I didn’t need the sign to know something was afoot. It was the kind of land that might pull a UTV down to Hades.

There was a clear break from the passible forest. Imagine an endless, chest high, sea of grass on top of wet squishy sod. Ugh!

The map showed a wide, easy, passible, legal forest road. The map is not the terrain. Someone in the GIS department done fucked up!

I squinted and I swear I could see trees just at the edge of my vision. A solid edge within sight. A sea of grass between there and here. If I could get there, I’d be on what the map was indicating. Probably pavement within a few hundred feet of that hazy distant tree. The sign said “no” but the map said “totally legal”… I had at least a CYA level excuse for trying.

I knew I shouldn’t but I knew I’d give it a shot simply because it was there. I sent out a note on the SpotX: “Will be later for dinner”.

I proceeded cautiously. I wanted to see if moving forward was even possible. I’d sip the heady brew before me and carefully re-assess before I might upend the flagon and charge into the breach.

Honey Badger has a big fat tire in front and a bigger fatter tire in back. It weighs much less than most vehicles. It floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee, and sounds like a lawnmower. Being light and ridden gingerly, it rolled across the grass just fine; neither digging ruts nor spinning a wheel.

In a couple spots the wet soil gave way to a hole. Not so much a mud puddle as a water filled hole in the firmament that went to… somewhere. The water was black and the silt beneath was black too. Cola poured over coffee grounds which lay at the bottom of a black pipe. I peered as much as I could but couldn’t gauge the depth. A foot? A yard? Clear to the bottom of existence? If I’d brought a stick with me I’d have done a test. There were no sticks. This is where an Argo would shine.

A bike only needs a foot wide path. I went around these water pits easily. If I weren’t so far north, I’d be expecting gators.

Other people, also ignoring the sign, had been there in UTVs. They, like me, had squished over smooth and gentle… very unlike the usual UTV method of tearing everything up. Good for them.

I was moving at a walking pace. First or second gear. Focusing on the area a foot or two in front of my tire. Just taking it easy and seeing what the bike and I could do.

After a suitable time I stopped. I had to search a bit to find a bit of bunchgrass solid enough to support the kickstand. Then I shut down and stepped off.

Time to survey my new domain.

Holy shit.

Such an alien world!

Aside from a few bugs and small birds it was dead calm. This was a place locked in time. No trees growing and dying and growing again. Not wet enough to be a lively lake, not dry enough to be forest. A perfect endless monotony of grass and water. Too far north for gators and snakes. No indication that deer or moose ever bothered crossing. No rabbits or bears or… really anything. Aside from photosynthesis and whatever decomposing action was slowly eating all this grass and turning it into the deep layer of organic goo underneath my feet, there was no life. A verdant green place of death through stasis. A world completely dedicated to… nothing.

The grass wasn’t as tall as I’d first thought. Once you got away from… here words fail me and I reuse words meant for lakes but appropriate to this watery limbo. The firm footed forest I’d left was “shore”. It was “shore” as much as the word could possibly apply to anything. Once you got a bit away from “shore” the grass was a bit shorter. I could see quite a distance. With the water being tabletop flat, there was hardly any variation in elevation. Hm… “hardly any variation” doesn’t cover it. It was laser beam mathematically flat like God’s pool table.

The tiny hint of pines I’d been heading toward seemed no closer. What’s the formula for the curvature of the earth? I recall something under a foot a mile. Assuming the things I could see were trees, I’d guess a 50′ tree height in this suboptimal place. But that makes no sense. The air was hot and humid and I couldn’t see 50 miles in the hazy weather conditions. But what if it’s not the trees I need to see over but the grass? Standing in my damp slowly sinking footsteps I was perhaps 5′ from eye to sod. But the grass is an easy 3′ tall. So am I looking at a horizon marked by 50′ trees, or one limited by the distance between my 5′ eyes and 3′ surface of the grass? This might be affected by…

OK stop right there.

Once you start wondering statute miles to a horizon you can’t quite identify… you need to rethink your assumptions. What I was doing was pointless, stupid, and dangerous. The best case scenario was to emerge wet and tired at some distant shore… possibly hours from now. I had every indication that Honey Badger and I could creep across a thousand miles of this stuff. Clearly we could do it. But it would be slow difficult motion, and that’s the best scenario. The worst scenarios involve… well, shit. Lets just say it; even in 2021 sometimes a moron gets himself killed in places like this.

I’d been watching my six as I went. I had every visual marker for the way back burned in my skull. I knew my path back was easily retraced. It was the wise thing to do.

I know y’all are going to be shocked… but I did the smart thing. I turned around.

I don’t know how far out I went. (I didn’t check my odometer.) It surely wasn’t far. But it felt like I’d been in there for ages. Nor was there much from which to judge scale. I’d gone anywhere from 300 yards to a million miles.

I settled lightly on the bike, started back up, did a slow careful squishy U-turn, and rolled out. I left behind literally no sign of my passing. A few bent blades of grass. Maybe a footprint where I stood marveling at the weirdness into which I’d ventured. Nothing else.

Soon I was back on dirt and feeling a lot happier. The flat, watery, expanse had an otherworldly feel about it. It was uniform… less the living earth than a theoretical construct. A place unchanging since the glaciers receded and destined to be so until they return. It was a good place to explore and a better place to leave.

Backtracking, on the other hand, was dirt simple. The scenery was just as pretty as it had been hours prior.

I never figured out what paved road I was supposed tie into. Some places are a highway for snowmobiles but shockingly unreachable the rest of the year. I’m too cheap to buy a snowmobile but sometimes I regret that. I sure would appreciate traversing that strange galaxy of reeds while it was frozen; just to say I’d done it. It might be the closest to outer space I’ll ever get.

Back in the Dodge, rolling along on pavement. I had an extra appreciation for the solidity of it all. But no regrets! No trip is complete without at least one “adventure” and I’d checked that box quite nicely.

Steak that evening was served a bit late. It was delicious.

A.C.

P.S. I hope you liked my story. Not everyone has the option of running around nowhere doing nothing for no good reason. I like to share so everyone can have at least a sample. (Warning: I’m starting to save up for a hot tent… but no promises. Damn things cost a fortune! If I do make the outlandish purchase there will be stories of frostbite and daring activities and communing with Chickadees come January.) If you feel like hitting my tip jar please do. If you don’t or have already tipped recently, thanks and don’t sweat it.

That night, after listening to the most beautiful music on earth, I slept like the dead. Such a relief! I needed it. So do you. None of us are living calm measured lives. It’s a goal I once pursued. I’ve done ok in that pursuit. But lately it’s nigh on unattainable. Sanity is hard during a time of universal madness.

I needed sleep because the 20th month of 2020 is on the edge. More edge than I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve seen edge, I grew up in the cold war fer crissakes. I was told the Russkies could drop the bomb any minute and they certainly would. This would unleash global thermonuclear war; I believed it. Total obliteration from the sky; no place to run, nowhere to hide. Destruction so vast that no man would emerge unscathed and perhaps humanity itself would perish.

That was placed on my shoulders when I was still pedaling a Huffy! Such things should never be done to kids! Yet it happens. Adults force their insanity on the innocent. Children today wear masks to school… if there is school at all… lest they die of statistically unlikely yet socially overwrought pestilence. Poor bastards.

I remember the tension of my youth. Would I ever get to own a car. Would I die in a radioactive crater before I was old enough to get a license? Would Carter simply outlaw cars? (I am ever so grateful I’ve owned vehicles!)

Even so, that time of weirdness wasn’t us doing it to us. When our house was cold from expensive oil and there was a ribbon on a tree in my yard that was inexplicably for the benefit of hostages in Iran and I might get fried by what became the plot of a Terminator movie… it was still NOTHING compared to now. Mutually Assured Destruction was inflicted by far off geopolitical forces and complicated physics. Some boring dude on our black and white TV might blather on about terrible things during the 1970’s but it was distant. Our current collective social suicide is happening right in our own towns and lives. The next step in the cascading shitshow will unfold and I’m going to have to experience it personally. I will be forced to watch society stick it’s dick in yet another light socket. I’ll experience the predictable effects. As always, I will be told it’s either my fault or for my own good. We’ve spent years sitting in the dentist’s lobby, listening to the drill.

This is the first time in my life things have been this unfettered. The local HOA might Karen up with the harpies in the HR department, join forces with the Coke marketing department, and fuck my life for shits and giggles. For them it’s an amusing hobby; a side gig. My fate is affected by something that’s vaguely the same (to them) as their vegan diet.

Unfettered is the right descriptor. There’s no end game. When they run out of the unvaccinated they will not be happy. If, sooner or later, we’ve gone full Australia then what? Suppose the cops are running around with dart guns and a leer… administering medicine and bashing heads filled with improper political opinions… then what? When every unvaccinated bastard is put on a cattle car and that horrific evil action still doesn’t fill the hole in their soul… then what?

Who will be the next target? Humor? Fun? Knowledge? Males? Blue collar workers? The unwoke? The rich? Those who have knowledge that’s non-political?

Zimbabwe fucked with farmers until there was no food. Then they nuked their economy until I bought a 100 Trillion Dollar note as a novelty. We walk the same path. Our stores are already sparse compared to 2019. Introspection and caution aren’t slowing anyone down.

I wish I could ask of every politician in creation that simple question; “And then what?”

But this night… I got a break. I’d had a grand day of adventures. Sure, I’d failed to land a grouse but that’s ok. I’d been out with nature in God… and then had gorgeous music by a little fire. A pinprick of light in a dark empty universe. Everyone needs a good day sometimes.

The fire died down and I clambered into my beloved tent with its oversized cot. I practically collapsed into the soft sleeping bag.

Ah sleep; perchance to dream.

Not this time bubba! I was out like a light, slept like I’d been hit with an elephant tranquillizer, and woke wondering what planet I was on. No dreams that night.

Perfect!

The day dawned cold. I spent the morning crouched with a fire on one side of me and a Mr. Heater on the other. Took a bit to get the blood pumping.

I started thinking of a hot tent. I used to camp in the snow when I was young and stupid. Now I’m old and stupid. The romance of a woodstove in a tent appeals to me. Winter is coming. Is it time for a new form of adventure?

By the second cup of coffee I was fully warmed up and daydreaming about ice fishing. Optimism, submerged by events, was resurfacing. That’s why I went grouse hunting in the first place.

I rolled out on Honey Badger earlier than usual. Why not? I was more rested than usual.

I parked at a likely spot and started hiking. I spent most of the first part shedding warm gear. Dawn had been cold but the sun is mighty and soon it was hot out. I forgot all about ice shacks as the hunt progressed.

I’m not much of a bird hunter. I’ll admit that right up front. I spooked a few that thundered off long before I was in range. I had no opportunities even close to taking a shot.

I slowed to a crawl. If sauntering wasn’t going to do it, I would go full predator.

I inched down a trail like it was laden with landmines and rabid tigers. I watched every leaf, twig, and branch for long minutes before moving.

If you’ve ever done it you know it’s harder than it looks. It’s also exhausting!

It was also totally ineffective.

After a long time of this brutally difficult approach, I heard the tiniest hint of the possibility of a noise. I froze until it repeated.

I departed the trail at 90 degrees; inching into brush that would piss off a rabbit. I had no idea if it was a legit grouse or just a damn mouse. But I was trying hard to get the drop on it.

Whatever I was pursuing moved in front of me. Eventually, ten yards out, tangled in brush that would have deterred anyone sane… I saw it!

A bright little bird. Barely bigger than a humming bird. Just a few feet away. When perched, it looked like a hummingbird but when flying it didn’t have the special “humming bird” flight pattern.

Gosh it was cute!

Near silent and small as a wisp, it was flitting around checking twigs for food. It looked happy. I smiled broadly. I’d gone after this little nugget like he was a tiger. I’d well and truly snuck up on him. Not that he cared. My shotgun was hemmed in on both sides by brush, the barrel was inches from him. He could just about have fit down the barrel. The way he was dutifully exploring every twig I half expected him to try.

There was a time when I was a mediocre bird watcher, that time is gone. I’ve forgotten it all. I have no idea what species I was looking at; but I didn’t care. “Cute little happy bird” is just as accurate a description.

I dug out my camera and waited while the thing booted up. The bird, in no particular hurry, flitted away. All I got was a photo of some blurry twigs; and a happy memory. I stuffed the camera back in my pocket. I don’t need a photo to know what I saw.

Satisfied, I thrashed through the brush back to the trail. I emerged covered in scratches, leaves in my hair, twigs stuck to my jacket, and thoroughly baked from the sun. I was about to reach for my water bottle when my camera made some sore of electronic beep.

“That’s weird.” I thought. I reached for the camera and…

BOOM!

A grouse exploded from the brush. It had been practically at my feet! It gained altitude like a cruise missile, zipped behind a pine, and then blasted, head high, through the forest like a lightning strike. I had one hand in my pocket and absolutely no chance of even hoping to take a shot. I was caught totally unawares! The damn thing about gave me a heart attack!

In a flash, it was over. Birds infinity, Curmudgeon zero.

I know when I’m beat. I sat down on the trail right were I was. I sipped water and gave my heart a chance to come back from DEFCON 4.

I like to think the little microbird and the grouse were in cahoots. But I know it’s not true. The little simply lives in a dimension where I’m irrelevant and the gamebird simply outplayed me.

Damn birds.