Adaptive Curmudgeon

My trip was already a success. I had no right to expect it to continue to be amazing. Yet it was!

As next day’s exploration began I was still glowing. The spiritual bliss of the preceding afternoon had me positively chipper. However, I avoided the ghost town / church locale of the day before. You cannot live a day twice. Nor did I swing by my new homeland of Mud Ditch or search out twice deferred Antler.

Instead I looked at a big fat blob on the map that basically said “don’t even try it”. Brave homesteaders had settled much of the area, but they’d taken a look at this section and said “nope”. It is, was, and will always be a flat, wet, swampy, impassible nothing. It has attracted virtually no attention from anyone with a lick of sense. So, of course, I was fascinated.

As is common with land that’s precious in it’s uselessness, it’s managed for wildlife. My problem was that it’s trackless. That’s a word that we don’t use in common language but it applies here. Generally someone’s been everywhere and they’ve often left a path for me to follow. But I stared at the satellite image and there was just nothing that even hinted at access. Same for the map. I looked for the usual network of logging roads, ATV shortcuts, water works, power lines, old mines, hunting trails, old railroad grades… nope. Nothing at all.

The lack of snowmobile trails surprised me. Swamps are a snowmobile’s bitch! Snowmobiles (in season of course) can pass over shit that’s a quagmire in summer; some snowmobile trails are basically GPS points. I’m sure a snowmobiler could traverse much of what I looked at… assuming he had a long wide track and was fearless… but maybe not. Snowmobiles were probably banned but also it looked like no sane snowmobiler cares. All the designated snowmobile trails (which often echo older historic trails) just sorta’ went around… as if to say… “we’re crazy but not that crazy”.

None of the topology added up to anything either. There were ridges you couldn’t quite follow. Draws that didn’t quite lead anywhere. Just enough water to be impassible to a canoe. Just enough mud to sink a dozer. It was like God himself said “fuck it, just add some filler so the planetary sphere doesn’t have gaps”.

Being me, I sniffed around anyway. I skirted along roads and trails around the periphery of this area. Probably some trappers and hunters venture into it. They’d probably have little access points. They’d slip in here and there. Snowshoeing I guess. (Trapping and hunting is legal, the land is available for use… provided you can teleport to get there.)

I explored a few nooks and crannies. I thought maybe I’d find some trapper’s staging area, park my bike, and hike in a short mile or two. Just to say I’d done it. (It’s legal to walk directly across the whole thing but the terrain was pure hell. Hiking across would be a death slog.) I expected any trail would self limit; going about as far as a reasonably motivated man will chase a mink pelt. I didn’t even find that.

I found a few good grouse hunting spots so that kept me entertained. As I poked along one edge of this piece of vastness, I bumped into a main forest system road that formed a boundary. Ridge Highway* (*which isn’t called Ridge Highway) was neither a highway nor on a ridge but it did feel luxurious. Compared to the scruffy trails and fading traces I’d been following, it was well maintained, graded, easy, and uniform gravel… practically a runway!

I’d gained some confidence on Honey Badger and happily tested myself in a completely unwise manner. I wound up the little Yamaha to not quite but approaching its max speed. I was flying along soft dirt at about the speed I’d do on pavement. Foolish, since the gravel was soft and drifty, but the bike didn’t care. It floated on the surface like it was all that and a bag of chips. Delightful!

No matter what the cowering herds of Covid beaten half-men whimper from their suburban prisons, sometimes the right thing to do is open the throttle ands see what you can do. I played a bit closer to the edge than my habit. Was I immediately fucked by fate? Nah!

Hours later and after several pleasant detours, I passed East Elk*. (*Also not the actual name.) I checked my electronic gadgetry and sussed out that East Elk Road went straight into that big impassible place. I’d somehow remembered it as inserting from the south boundary, but here it was on the north boundary. I knew it didn’t traverse the whole thing and I’d ignored it before because it’s a dead end that started (I thought) on the wrong side.

But here it was and here I was. I had food, water, fuel, and time. Why the hell not?

East Elk Road began unremarkably; merely logging access into the area. Some parts of the area are forest; others hadn’t seen a tree since before the last glaciation. The road looked and felt very old. Meanwhile, some aspen stands looked like grouse central. Sweet! This would be a good place to hunt during grouse season! (However, I didn’t see any grouse.)

After a few miles, the road shifted and changed its nature. Now it blasted straight through something that was no longer forest. Trees thinned out and became uncommon. Sedges and reeds became an ocean. It reminded me of the Florida Everglades. If I didn’t know that this place will become an icebox soon, I’d be looking for gators.

A unique concern popped up. The drought this year means everything is crackling dry; but what about this particular swamp? I hopped off the bike and walked out into the mess to see for myself. Where I expected moist, wet, slimy normalcy it just screamed “flammable edge of the bell curve”. This year the vegetation might carry flame very well… possibly faster than a man can run. Also, it was hard to see. It would be easy to lose sight of the bike and walk in circles for the rest of a short miserably truncated lifetime. I stayed close to the road and within sight of trees from which to mark my position. Swamp vegetation was chest high and often more. Walking sucked. Some spots were dry footing. Some weren’t. I’m not sure what defines quicksand, but if there’s a place that would have quicksand, this was it. Meanwhile, everything not actively tangling my ankles, from thigh high and above… was a tinderbox. It spread from horizon to horizon like this. Unbroken. Vast. Endless.

If a forest fire ignition hit that mess, it wouldn’t stop for nothing, no way, no how. The road, my umbilical to the outside world, might be nothing but a rounding error to a wall of flame. Little old me and his tiny bike had best not be there if it happened!

I wasn’t worried about me starting anything. My bike’s muffler has a spark arrestor, it runs reasonably cool, and I was keeping it on the dirt track; nowhere near weeds. Also, I wouldn’t so much as look at a match in this powder keg. But a lightning strike 20 miles away could unleash hell that would break over my little road like a tidal wave. Of course, this didn’t deter me. Risk is just risk. I planned around the possibility and kept enjoying life.

Occasionally there was a break in the vegetation, either higher ground with trees or lower ground with water. These could be decent safe zones. Places where fuel would be less uniformly fine. If shit got real, I’d be OK. Also, the road itself was narrow enough that a fire might burn straight across but conversely, I might use it to zip into the black if I needed to. None of this was likely, but it wasn’t impossible. Head on a swivel and all that.

You might think I’m being dour. Quite the opposite, the scenery was epic, the weather was fine, and the road surface was glorious! More or less unused, the road hadn’t been rutted in wet conditions or graded when dry. Unlike trees, which litter a road with branches, the reeds left it relatively clear. There was some light vegetation in the middle and two tracks packed hard. Very fun to ride! I found myself flying down the road with the bike nearly pinned to max RPM. I’d skip back and forth from track to track like a waterskier playing in the wake.

The little TW isn’t a speed demon but 45 mph is like Mach 2 in a place like that. If a deer or a bear or something similar jumped out, all that speed would have nowhere to go. I’d have no warning. The deer would have no warning. The road had no room to swerve. Things would go sideways fast when we met in the middle. I’d give the deer a Yamaha enema and a deer would surely send me over the bars. But… I did it anyway.

Speaking of critters, there was precious little animal life with the notable exception of raptors. Hawks were everywhere. I don’t know my raptor identification. (Ironically, I saw no eagles.) All I knew is that I spooked one or two hawks per mile and probably many more. I learned that if I rocketed as fast as I could go; I could jump them. My shrieking little lawnmower engine would be upon the hawk almost before they could take flight. At the risk of riding like a lunatic I got a good look at many desperately retreating hawks. I pretty much scared the shit out of a few of them.

I slowed down before anything stupid happened… I’m not as dumb as I sound. Regardless, I have no regrets over a few moment’s shenanigans.

In a patch of forest, I encountered a smallish downed tree. I pushed my front tire right up to it. I used the TW’s low gearing to walk the front tire right up and over the log. When the tire dropped to the other side, I clunked onto my very solid aftermarket skidplate. Then I revved and see-sawed like a bucking bronco to get the rear to hop over. I never even got off the bike. I was rather proud of myself.

I stopped at one spot to take a leak and a beaver wandered by; utterly unconcerned by a pants down bearded sweating fool. It waddled along the left wheel track while my bike and I were in the right. It got about 3 feet away, eyed me like it had zero fucks to give, and then kept walking. I assume it’s seen humans before but who knows? It didn’t seem perturbed. Maybe this year’s dry conditions had him pissed off?

Eventually I came to the end. The dead end. The road stopped. Nobody, not Paul Bunyan himself, could go further.

The next day I didn’t feel like investigating Antler. Why? Ironically, because it was an original intention of this trip. It had started to feel like a job assignment. I headed in the exact opposite direction, specifically to not go to Antler. This turned out well!

I went into an area that looked pretty dull on the map. To my surprise, it rocked! Roads that looked tame on the map were wily and challenging. Trails that looked impassible were clear enough and within my abilities. I rode and rode and rode and rode.

All this time I saw nobody. What I did see was the passage of time.

We are all children of the 21^st century. I don’t mean that in terms of a calendar but in terms of a societal experience that held sway until… lets say sometime after Christmas in 2019. All of us, especially those who’ve had more years on this earth, have seen so many new and marvelous things that it makes the future sound impossibly bright. If you’re old enough, you’ve seen miracles.

So many things have “improved”. Color TV with 50 channels of pointless shit. Instantaneous communication. Performance in a generic Honda Civic that would make a 1960’s Porsche blush. Air conditioning in every car! Cheap stuff by the truckload for every house in America. Average lifespans well into the 70’s. Fresh strawberries in January. I have broadband on a dirt road.

For most of our lives… everything has grown and most of it is for the better. So far…

“So far” is the key phrase. If you have a generic American public school (lack!) of education, perhaps enhanced by a half dozen years marinating in University, you might think it’s is always so. Always more and always better.

Wrong!

Sometimes progress fails. Sometimes humanity loses. That which is gained can be lost. There’s no magic force that invariably pushes humanity upward. Societies ebb and flow and not infrequently commit suicide. Old stories and legends of Europe often speak of magic pasts and lost cities of wonder. These tales were formed on the moldering ruins of Rome. The Republic was forever, until it wasn’t. The Empire was powerful, until the Barbarians dismembered it. Europe spent the next millennia holding on but scarcely growing. Fighting over turnips and desperately trying to preserve literacy; a sad epilogue to the greatest Empire of its time.

Why do I mention this? Because I rode through an area that had been settled and is now uninhabited. Uninhabited. Let that word roll through your head. Say it aloud. Taste it in your mind.

Most people have never truly been where it’s uninhabited. They think it’s limited to SciFi stories and professors whining about global warming. It’s not. Uninhabited exists right here on earth. I’ve seen it. I go there all the time. If you have not been where it is uninhabited, you should go. So much theory that makes sense if you’ve forever lived in Manhattan or Miami will slide from your mind; shown to be the falsehood it always was.

Such was the place I explored on my ride. My thanks go out to someone (or many of them) who’d done a good job as historian(s). They’d marked abandoned homesteads with names. Not just entries in a book; they’d gone out into the forest and marked the actual places. ATV routes and decrepit roads and logging skid trails brought me through, past, and around places that had been peopled.

Here, the sign says, was the Smith homestead. There, another sign mentioned, was the Johnson farm. Most were just basements and rotten logs. The traces are small. I rode carefully, lest I fall in a well!

Sometimes several homesteads were marked in close proximity. The skeleton of a small village; buried underneath the brambles.

I passed several tiny cemeteries. Most were in good repair; maintained by living relatives (or perhaps some sort of grant). Lives had been lived there. People had carved out a place to be. It didn’t hold. Regression is a possibility we all need to understand.

I passed a stone pile that had been a granary. A hole in the ground that had been a school.

I passed a sign that said there had been a post office… about a mile away. I turned toward it but the path was too overgrown and I was pushed back. Mail had once been delivered where a dirtbike couldn’t pass!

It’s a good lesson. We all should trod where there had once been so much hope and know it is gone. The forest has returned to rule all. They’d tried; those names on the signposts. Clearing forests, planting crops, and digging wells. They built civilization, but their works didn’t hold. They’re gone.

It is a mirror. Reflect and look upon our times. It is the 21st month of 2020 in what is still called the United States of America.

Lunar landings and supersonic flight were already fading when I was a child. Our Universities teach nothing; choosing to indoctrinate courtiers for the modern aristocracy rather than foster intelligence. The electronic cloud that replaced our libraries was hopelessly censored almost from its inception. Each election is sketchier than the last. Our president talks of F-15s and nukes. Not against cold war enemies but against his own people. A few weeks ago we fled a losing war against sheepherders… preferring, I guess, to wage war against ourselves.

I stopped to breathe in the smell of pine. It had no falsehood, merely the scent of a tree. How unlike our convulsing society where nothing is as it presented. Judges detect penumbras. Politicians say we will die if we do not obey. Then they say we will die if we do not obey the opposite. Truth is shocking and called misinformation. Misinformation is prosecuted or promoted according to whom benefits.

Like the Soviets of a generation ago, nobody really knows who’s running things. Words written on paper are now just words. Some laws don’t apply to the elite. Other laws don’t apply to the underclass. The remnant that obeys all laws is hunted. Great swaths of the citizenry are “those for whom we’re losing patience”. Cities are vote farms. Rural citizens have become subjects; expenses to be managed instead of people to be left alone.

Sycophants slice and dice those who are worthy from those who are contemptible. “Basket of deplorables”, “clinging to guns and religion”, “vaccine hesitant”… the phrases that lead to cattle cars. Those who’ve read history know where this leads. Those who haven’t live in childish wonder, until they too are swept away.

I am here in the forest because I retreat from cities. They burn frequently enough that I don’t even care why. If there’s a riot in Portland or Detroit does it mean something new? Don’t they burn every summer? Are the residents truly oppressed or merely bored? The students of Mao began with books and statues. Eventually they killed people who wore prescription glasses… and then starved. A green haired revolutionary can stop the wheels, but not maintain them. When will the grid go down? During a cold snap in Texas? During a heat wave in California?

I’ve read history. I see empty shelves and angry chants. I know where it leads.

There is no guarantee to anything. There never was.

Lest you think my ride was sad, it was not. It was beautiful. Death has it’s own beauty. We are torn apart from the inside by people that cannot build… and here I can see a lost world in repose. That incorrigible hippie Neil Young captured the feeling: “Every junkie is a setting sun”. Societies only last if they can. If they cannot… they won’t. But the trees do come back. Always.

At one fine spot I parked and hiked about; looking for squirrel hunting grounds. I found three small graves. I paid my respects. They’d built. It was gone but they’d built anyway. Good for them! I read the dates. One had died at 15, one I couldn’t read, one died at 40. Did the 40 year old know it was fading?

I rolled out. A path. A trail. A logging operation. An old ditch.

I pulled over and munched on a snack. I drank water. I rested.

Then, unexpectedly, a UTV zoomed by. The first one I’d seen all day. Humans travel in packs so I waited. Sure enough two more followed. They didn’t see me, parked as I was 80 feet away from the trail.

I decided to follow. UTV tracks are easy to follow. They turned left and right and so forth; the path became less overgrown. I started seeing more UTV tracks. I heard them in the distance. A few miles later I pulled up… to a church.

Nestled beneath tall pines, was a crude little church. It was in an area that had clearly been flattened in an old forest fire. These pines must have grown after the fire, and most of that happened after the homesteads and villages were gone? The little church was older than the trees around it. It was shady there and sweet smelling. I counted seven UTVs and one ATV. There was a smattering of picnic tables. Some were unused, some had UTVs and people picnicking there. A bit further off, a group had started a fire in a steel ring. They were cooking over the fire and lounging in chairs. (I was a bit jealous, I can’t carry a chair on my tiny bike.)

Everyone was happy, though more reserved than at Mud Ditch. This was holy ground. No stereos here. It was a place of the spirit. You could feel it.

The church’s steeple was off kilter. I walked inside. There was a historic display. The steeple belonged to the church which predated this one. It had burned. I assume it burned with the forest around it. But the steeple remained. When a new church was built on the ashes of the old, the surviving steeple was perched on top. The “new church” is now old too. It had pews and a wood stove. Everything was wood and strong and smelled nice but nothing gleamed with freshness. This is a harsh place and the building cannot thrive without its people. Time is an enemy here.

The forest circles hungrily.

So remote. Bittersweet and lovely. Just barely clinging to existence. Far from the power grid. It has never known the whirlwind of social media. It is rooted in soil, not electrons.

Yet the UTV people had known it was here. They came here to eat turkey sandwiches in the shadow of God’s house… amid the cool pines. Good for them.

There was an outhouse. There was a water supply that flowed continually, under pressure of the earth itself; an artesian well. There were a few graves. I suppose you could camp here… though I might not feel worthy to do so.

This was unexpected. A still living remnant of the society that is gone. I ate lunch there. When I left, I did so quietly. This was not a place to roar about in a motorcycle, it was a place of peace. I am glad I found it.

Unexceptional State Park was not fully booked up. Maybe 2/3 of the sites were filled. Meanwhile, Raspberry Hollow was totally deserted. Normally I prefer the fewest people possible. Had I made an unwise choice?

I sat by a tiny fire at Unexceptional State Park, sipping bourbon and reading a backlit e-book. At first, right after sunset, I heard the sounds of humans being humans. Children bitched about bedtime. Parents chuckled happily once the tykes were in bed. Occasionally a dog would bark. I came to appreciate that. Maybe being utterly alone at Raspberry Hollow on such a dark night would’ve been a bit much?

Everyone got quiet by 10pm; almost like clockwork. Why are humans so…. uniform? I don’t get it. I don’t do that.

I’m a night owl and a solo camper. I usually love the dark. However, this particular evening was foreboding. The moonless and cloudy sky was pitch dark. No light pollution but also not the tiniest hint by which to see. The humid cold air was brooding. Even the furtive creatures of the forest had hunkered down. I heard an owl fly by on whisper quiet wings… but nothing else of the animals about me.

I kept reading. Entranced by a book I’d first read in high school.

There, in the pitch dark, utterly alone, I read for hours. I’d inadvertently picked the dour ending of a dark book. Dune Messiah; book 2 of the Dune series. Paul Muad’Dib, tortured visionary and Kwisatz Haderach; unleasher of galactic jihad and ruinous Messiah figure, fights a losing battle with pre-destination. He desperately picks through the threads of possible futures in search of salvation but there is none for him. He inevitably comes to grief. For all his powers, his fate was unavoidable. He could not avoid the pain.

I read that while alone in the dark? What the hell was I thinking?!?

Talk about feeling alone! Far from my wife and family. Far from anything. In the pitch black heartless night, I both loved and hated the ending. Couldn’t I have had at least the common sense to have a dog with me… or pick a book that ‘aint so damn bitter?

After the last page, I stumbled to my tent and hunkered sadly in my sleeping bag. I should pick better literature for lonely dark nights!

Flashback to many years ago. The Curmudgeon is sitting at the back of a canoe fishing. At the front, his friend, lets call him Fred, is also fishing. They are 30 miles from the trailhead, two miles from a likely but unexplored campsite, and packed heavy with a week’s worth of gear. The sun is low in the horizon.

Fred: “Hey, it’s getting late. Lets setup camp.”

Curmudgeon: “Relax. Plenty of time.”

Ten minutes later.

Fred: “It’s going to be dark soon. Lets setup camp.”

Curmudgeon: “Not yet. I just got a bite. I’m gonna’ nail a pike the size of an alligator. I just know it.”

Half an hour later.

Fred: “It’s hard to paddle in the twilight. I wish we’d setup camp.”

Curmudgeon: “We got this!”

An hour later.

Curmudgeon: “This is bullshit! I steered the canoe into a rock I couldn’t see in the dark. I twisted my ankle setting up the tent in the dark. I almost fell in the lake filtering water in the dark. And now I’m thrashing around looking for firewood in the dark like a friggin’ Neanderthal!”

Fred: “If only someone had warned you to setup camp WHILE IT WAS STILL DAYLIGHT things might be better. Among the two of us, who did exactly that?”

Curmudgeon: “I deserve that.”

Fred: “Yes, you do!”

Back in the modern world I rolled (reluctantly) out of Mud Ditch and pointed my bike toward the last dot on my map that I wanted to explore; “Antler”. Mud Ditch had exceeded my expectations so completely that I could only imagine Antler had free beer, tent campsites with wifi, and strippers at a bonfire… why the hell not? Mud Ditch had taught me that a dot on a map in this forest could mean nothing or anything.

All day long I’d been pinging my SpotX. This sent, via satellite or magic, small text messages to a select few people who are supposed to alert someone (or do whatever needs doing) if I disappear. The group is more than one person (in case someone is ignoring the messages… as Mrs. Curmudgeon often does) and each message comes with a link to my location. The text is usually irrelevant; “Saw a bear at Raspberry Hollow. All is well. Time = ABC. Location = XYZ.”

One of my cadre of “please read the texts in case one says I just tore my femur through the bike’s rear sprocket” people is… Fred. I sent another ping; “Just left Mud Ditch, en route to Antler. All is well. Time = ABC. Location = XYZ.”

I looked at the sun, it was low in the sky. I was 50+ miles from my tent. I was going the wrong direction; away from it. I’d have to hustle to explore Antler and return (via also unexplored roads) to my tent. I might do the last few miles in the dark. I’ve been meaning to upgrade the lights on Honey Badger.

I pictured Fred clicking the Location = XYZ link and screaming at his screen “Setup camp you nitwit!” Ha ha ha… that’s so funny!

I laughed into my helmet and…

Wait a minute!

WTF am I doing?

I turned around and started heading back to camp. Antler would remain unexplored this day.

I got to camp with 20 minutes of light left. Total miles ridden? 87. My ass was sore! 87 is almost nothing if on a highway and almost inconceivably far compared to my old canoe trip days.

Back at camp I whipped up a Mountain House and congratulated myself on being slightly less stupid than I once was.

I headed toward Mud Ditch but the siren song of the forest had me wandering about like a puppy off the leash. I hopped on this trail and that; going nowhere in general. Why wouldn’t I? These particular trails were well maintained, the scenery was gorgeous, I’d had a great lunch, and the cloudy weather had cleared.

I started thinking of grouse hunting. I can’t hit shit with a shotgun but I can enjoy the hike and call it hunting. Also, I might get lucky. Grouse taste delicious!

As if on cue, I saw a grouse! I stopped the bike and got a grainy video of a chicken looking thing 50 yards down the trail. I got off the bike and hiked up there to see where he went (I’m still not 100% sure what habitat grouse prefer). The grouse was like “fuck off” and scampered into the leaves. “I’ll be seeing you for dinner in a few weeks.” I chuckled.

I’d covered a shitload of miles and only occasionally seen a grouse. Each sighting is information about good hunting ground. I was amid aspen. Was that a clue? I’ve no idea. Hunting is not shopping. One must learn.

On to Mud Ditch….

I enjoyed dozens of twists and turns on trails built entirely for recreation (as opposed to other trails I’d followed that were remnants of logging, power companies, or other parts of a “working” forest). Then I arrived at Mud Ditch.

What a wonderland of freedom! Mud Ditch appeared to be an old gravel pit in the middle of nowhere. A fish and game club had somehow acquired it (either recently or long ago in the sands of time). They’d turned it into playland. There had to be 50 people there!

UTVs zoomed to and fro as happy folks chatted about their afternoon ride. Stereos were blasting shitty country music. Beer was being consumed. Children ran around gleefully. Some grandpa aged dude was playing horseshoes with a little kid barely able to lift the horseshoe. Someone’s dog snoozed in the shade.

I hadn’t expected this! I sat on a picnic table just soaking up all the joy.

The “gravel pit” wasn’t small. It was several acres at least. Nor was it a pit. It may have been one once but it had been carefully smoothed and then, once it was smooth, it had been trashed all over again. It was deliberately riddled with piles of dirt and gravel… over which UTVs were driving merrily. There was a scruffy little pond. I’m sure brave and stupid guys blast their UTVs into that muddy mess all the time.

One side was shaded by tall trees. It had become a de-facto (or official) campsite. There were several 5^th wheels and large trailers. (No tents, though I was assured they were welcome.) The campers had slide outs deployed and awnings rolled out and some had generators running. There seemed to be random picnic tables here and there. The tables looked less like they were supplied and more like people with the campers just tossed a picnic table in the truck when they came… possibly leaving them behind (donating them) for general use when they depart.

For all I know the campers had been there all summer. Why not?

That was just the beginning. There was a smallish but modern looking building. It was recently built or at least the siding and shingles were new. It was like a modern one room schoolhouse. It had a meeting area and a crude kitchen (if a room with no sink, burners, or refrigerator can be called a kitchen). I imagined meetings of the club at the many benches. I imagined potluck dinners from the kitchen. There was no electricity (the power grid was a good 15 miles removed from this spot!) but I think the building was wired like an RV. Should someone pull their truck up close and fire up a generator, they could plug the building in like an RV would plug into “shore power”. At least that’s my guess. I was too distracted to think on it for long.

There was a poster on the wall. “Please support XYZ Game Club. Click here to join.” There was a QR code for cell phones (which clearly didn’t have service here). Next to that was a clipboard and a coffee can. “Donate or join here.” Two totally different ways of the world; neither in charge, both welcomed.

The yearly membership fee was something like $25 for a family. Good grief that’s cheap! Then again, I’d never been here and might never be back.

I was just so happy to see all this great stuff and all the happy people that I resolved to drop $25 in the donation can. Before I could do that, a sweet lady approached. “Would you like to buy a raffle ticket for $10.”

“Hell yes!”

Soon I was $20 lighter and clutching two raffle tickets that might turn into any one of a dozen rifles or shotguns at the drawing next month. I was overjoyed. There are parts of my nation that still persist! A good old fashioned gun raffle is a tradition that goes back possibly as long as America has been America. It was completely normal and still is. God bless America!

I asked for a tour and she was glad to show off the place. Apparently she was half of a married couple that ran the club that was making things happen here. She was so nice and earnest, I wanted to hug her.

Out front there was a kid’s playground. Swings and a climbing wall. More stuff was off to the side; scavenged monkey bar type stuff, ready for reassembly. She explained that they were going to assemble it after they got another few truckloads of additional playground equipment. It would be freshly painted and erected within a few months. I was impressed. They’ll probably have a better playground than some elementary schools when all is said and done. Now that I think of it, the equipment was probably donated by elementary schools cycling out old equipment for whatever is new and lawyer approved. For that matter, I’m not sure to what degree schools still physically operate.

There was some heavy equipment parked off to the side. The excellently maintained trails owed their quality to a hefty tracked machine parked right there. There were other machines too. Some in working order, some not.

There really was a rifle range. Sweet! Stout wood and metal shooting benches under a new metal roof… with a concrete pad under your feet. She wasn’t sure of the range distance. The backstops looked solid.

Did I need to be a member to enjoy all this stuff?

“Oh heck no honey. If you’re broke that’s fine.” Holy Norman Rockwell! I beamed. I was in a redneck time warp to the before times.

A huge concrete floored outhouse with solar lighting was getting plenty of use. “Bucks” on one side, “Does” on the other (complete with a stenciled deer with antlers… in case you were confused). I’m sure the other 53 flavors we hear about in the news are welcome too but they’ll have to pick a side. Nobody’s going to build a third outhouse when two will do.

A woman, possibly loaded up with margaritas, brushed past me. She shouted to a group of men and UTVs. “Crank the radio… I wanna’ hear my favorite song while I’m in there.” This got everyone laughing but one fellow really did drive the UTV with the radio over to the outhouse. The rest of the fellas suggested they should sing instead.

My tour passed beyond before I got to see if they actually sang.

The raffle ticket lady’s husband had showed up. True to my “survivalist nature” I was asking if there was water here. Every dot on a map is a potential oasis, shelter, and cache. I like to know them from personal experience and I always mentally catalog what will be found at each one.

I got to hear the story about how the manual pump to the well had broke when “young people” didn’t know how to prime a hand pump. We all chuckled at the cluelessness of the younger generation. I offered they probably couldn’t drive manual transmission either. We all laughed at that. A new hand operated but rotary pump (a bit more idiot-proof) was in the works.

Was the building ever locked? (This forest is a place a guy on a motorcycle might freeze! It’s good to know these things.) “Nope… never locked.” But, reading my mind, the fellow admitted there was no heat in the building. No woodstove? Nope. “You can start a fire outside but we didn’t install a chimney in the building.” Good to know.

I lingered a long time at Mud Ditch. Everything and everyone was nothing like the outside world. No masks, no Karens, no large kiosk with regulations and warnings. No complaining about which recycling bin to use or whether your dog needs to be on a leash. You’re a grown up and can figure shit out yourself. I couldn’t get over all the smiles. Everyone was happy, drunk, or both.

This group might be a rotating crowd or a core with hangers on. Who knows? I suspect the place is a madhouse during hunting season but I didn’t see any meat poles. I also assume the first snow changes the crowd from UTV riders to snowmobilers but the smiles remain the same.

I daydreamed that if shit gets bad enough I’d join the club. I’d buy a big fat camper trailer, haul it up there, and hunker down. For all I know, some of the people there are doing just that.

Pondering the muddied future of a society in decline, I carefully examined the equipment with a more focused eye. I saw what I expected to find. A massive and very old but seemingly functional dump truck. It had a huge plow and appeared ready for winter. I think Mud Ditch is on a road that’s “maintained” in winter; meaning the road will freeze like the strongest cement and snow is routinely plowed. Perhaps daydream is the wrong word… one of many future worlds has me quietly hunkered down at Mud Ditch while everything from Baton Rouge to Baltimore flames out. If the world goes to shit I’d rather nope out… like the bear. How long would a total reset take? Weeks? Months?

Make no mistake, this isn’t a place for the faint of heart. It’s one of the coldest places in the Continental US… winter up here is brutal. There’s no power grid and no cell service and no stores of any kind. The nearest food is “The Crown”. But options are options. Camper trailers exist. Generators are a thing. I was on satellite broadband two decades ago when it was HughesNet. It sucked to get the dish installed but it did work. It’s decades in the future now. Did the Starlink internet service ever get to consumers?

I sipped lukewarm water from my motorcycle’s RotoPax and looked at the UTVs with ice filled coolers. There are always ways to be.

I’ll surely never need it but I’d found a place I could hide… where a mask has probably never been worn. Here was a spot where adults smile at each other like civilized people. Where men might sing at the outhouse for fun. Where children play as children should. The only drawbacks I could see were logistics (which can be managed) and I don’t like country music.

The sun began to approach the horizon. I had to go. It wasn’t easy to ride away from my new adopted homeland: Mud Ditch.

After my delicious meal, I had to ride on a major paved road for a few miles to Raspberry Hollow. What a buzzkill. The little 200 cc Yamaha air cooled thumper has all the grunt I need to stride through the toughest trails, but it’s not geared for highway speeds. I can do 55 Mph but when it’s doing so it’s screaming. I keep it under that speed whenever I can. No need to fry the little engine. It’s not fun at high speeds anyway. There was no traffic so I sauntered; 45 Mph in a 60 Mph zone. Safe enough if you’re the only one there.

Raspberry Hollow was gorgeous and completely empty. I was shocked at how nice it was. How did I not know about this place? It’s right there! Handily adjacent to pavement. Flat wide campsited. Super easy access. You could park a fifth wheel the size of France in there! The trees were nice, there was an outhouse, there was a hand operated water pump. Why was it empty? My staging area of Nondescript State Park was about 2/3 filled up. The only attraction I could see was that you could reserve a spot at the Park. That’s why I was there.

The plywood kiosk here had a “no fires whatsoever” warning still stapled up. I suspect State Park campsites allow fires but the big metal fire rings at Raspberry Hollow are still verboten for a few days while the rain percolates through the bureaucracies mind. Either that or it was rescinded but nobody bothered to drove out here to rip the sign down.

I’m pretty careful with fire on a dry year like this one. So I follow the rules reasonably well. I also prefer wood fire to propane burners. I appreciate brats cooked over wood enough to pay $20 to do it legally. So, no regrets about the State Park… this time. But I’ve at least learned that Raspberry Hollow is completely adequate. I will go back and camp there as soon as the fire restrictions are definitely lifted (which may be next year).

It was positioned in an interesting geographic spot. It’s on a big paved road and a snowmobile trail. In winter, you could roll your Ski-Doo off the trailer and lickety split zoom right into the wilderness. (I don’t own a snowmobile.) Alas, there was no “land trail” to the forest; only a winter trail. I had to roll back on the paved road. I’d need to go back past “The Crown” and from there return to the forest.

Back on pavement, I wound up to a buzzy 50 MPH just in time to see a bear come tearing out of the forest just a few hundred yards from the campsite. It jogged up the mowed brush adjacent onto the paved road and took a good look at my tiny bike in one lane and a semi coming in the opposite direction. We all braked; bear, semi, and me. The bear blinked at the truck and the buzzy little bike. For a minute I thought I might be the lesser of two challenges to a freaked out bear. Then it noped out. It did a u-turn and crashed back into the brush. I pawed at my camera but failed to get a video.

I dunno why, but I like bear pictures. Bears aren’t really rare… just uncommon enough that I enjoy seeing them. This was a black bear. I wasn’t in grizzly country.

Seeing the black bear go back into the forest I flipped a quick U, zipped back to Raspberry Hollow and jumped on a little trail that went adjacent to the road. Maybe I’d get another view? The trail was only a short one.

Wrong! The trail went several miles… all within earshot of the main road. It popped out at a cell phone tower within sight of “The Crown”. I’ll remember that if I camp there. Who doesn’t like a campsite with readily available bar food and a trail to access it? I never saw the bear again.

Five minutes later I’d passed The Crown and was heading back into nowhere. I stopped to look at my map. The next “target for exploration” had an ugly name. Call it “Mud Ditch”. It didn’t sound appealing, but it was a dot on the map in a place where dots were rare. The dot had free campsites, parking, and… a rifle range? Worth examination.

Honestly, Mud Ditch seemed well situated for snowmobiles but a bit odd for land vehicles. Then again, it was on a major forest system road (dirt of course, but well maintained) so who knows?

As I was standing there reading the map, two UTVs in caravan came roaring out of the forest. Possibly en route to The Crown? Then three other UTVs in caravan blew by me the opposite way. Those were the three that had been at The Crown. Apparently everyone knows about The Crown. Now, I know too.

I was on a motorcycle ride in the forest and I was happily lost. Eventually, I started thinking about lunch. I had a self heating MRE and planned to “cook” it on a picnic table at Raspberry Hollow. I dug out my gadgetry and, through the miracle of GPS, discovered I was in the general vicinity (which I expected) but miles from any trails on the map (which I didn’t). I was on a trail, looking at a map which showed nothing at all. This is OK. The map is not the terrain.

I backtracked a bit to the power line, found a service trail along side, and followed it. Judging from compass bearings, sooner or later it would cut across forest system road XYZ. It did. I headed left, then right, then hit something odd… pavement. I’d arrived at “civilization”.

I wasn’t familiar with this area. I was on County Route ABC which was paved and led from Town A to Town B. Both towns are less villages and more like a handful of buildings that was once maybe the hope for a town… but not much more. An artifact of survey lines and a few aging residents. I headed toward Town B, which was en route to Raspberry Hollow. It had a teeny tiny little single pump gas station which somehow the EPA hadn’t yet driven to extinction. Behind that there was a coffee shop! I wandered in, the shop wasn’t open. It was under construction. Two guys with circular saws were hard at work. Capitalism? In America in 2021? I bid them the best of luck and meant it.

They told me the only nearby food was at “The Crown” and waved vaguely in a direction; as if anyone with a pulse would know where “The Crown” was. I thanked them and rolled back out, past the pump (which was not in service), and on the paved road that would lead to Raspberry Hollow. I love having a license plate on my “off road” machine!

A mile later I spied “The Crown”. I pulled into the empty lot and was shocked to find it open. I forgot all thoughts of an MRE and ordered the best pulled pork sandwich a man could want.

While I was waiting three UTV’s pulled up.

Some pedantics: An ATV is an off road device where one person sits over the engine which is in the center of the machine. The operator steers with handlebars, as God intended. I expected these to rule the hinterland but their time passed some years ago; while I was otherwise distracted. A UTV is an ATV that’s become much more expensive and sophisticated. It’s been bloated up and “car-ified”. A bench seat accommodates two people (sometimes two benches accommodate four people). The driver sits on one side (not the center) and uses a steering wheel. Conversely, OHM is an off highway motorcycle (which may or may not be street legal). The driver of an OHM is a crotchety bearded blogger who’s too old for such things and should have a UTV like everyone else. The only explanation is that he’s too obstreperous to take on payments like a proper American.

I have seen only a scant few OHMs in the forest. More ATVs but they’re surprisingly uncommon for something that was practically the only game in town only a few years ago. UTVs are the vast majority. They’re approachable to the masses. They’re more car-like, have roofs and doors and windshields (and often stereos and heaters). They’re easier to operate and have handy “truck beds” in the back to carry Budweiser and a raincoat. They’ve almost completely displaced ATVs. The median age of UTV drivers is a surprise. It seems closer to “Boomer with a golf cart in Phoenix” than “young Millennial hunter looking for elk”. Live and learn.

Anyway, tiny little Honey Badger with various survival gear strapped to it wound up squatting next to the impressive UTVs. It looked like a dusty saddled horse parked next to three showroom fresh trucks. I felt bittersweet distance from my fellow man.

The bar filled up with however many people rode in the three UTVs. Half a dozen at least.

I was glad to see them so happy. I wondered what it is about me that makes me ride alone? I enjoyed my meal and rolled out.

Later it occurred to me, the parking lot had 3 UTVs and a dirtbike. Not a single car, truck, or minivan in the vicinity. The hinterland really is a different place.

The forest I wanted to explore is not small. You could spend a lifetime there. I had a weekend… or perhaps a lifetime’s worth of exploration that has just begun.

I had two goals; I wanted to check out “free dispersed” camping at three locations and I wanted to look for small game hunting spots. This would imply X miles of riding which would take time. I plotted out my course on a map over coffee. How would I reach my goals while sticking to the “prettiest” routes?

Whoa, back up there Curmudgeon! Those aren’t your goals at all. Your single goal is to relax and get right with nature. If you do nothing but sit on a stump until your head’s screwed on straight, that’s just fine! You’re here to let the madness out and some fresh air in. You didn’t want to watch “2021, the Sequel… for when 2020 wasn’t dumb enough and you want to do it all over again” and you need to allocate the time to let the madness of crowds seep out of your bones.

Do what needs doing. Don’t obsess over maps. I’d been getting tense… but then I relaxed.

Meanwhile, it started raining. A light mist. Suddenly, I was in no hurry to go motorcycling and get soaking wet. I threw on a rain jacket and refilled my coffee percolator. I just sat there in the mist… brewing and drinking coffee. It was as good a morning as any. Finally the skies cleared and I’d drank an inhuman amount of coffee. It was time to go.

I rolled out on my Yamaha TW200; which is now lightly modified and loaded for bear. I had a gallon of spare fuel, a gallon of “spare” water, tools, food, survival crap, a SpotX, navigational gadgetry, paper maps, shit tickets… the works. I was ready for (almost) anything. Being a solo geezer in the middle of nowhere it just makes sense to be ready. It’s not like I’m riding in a group. There will be nobody to winch me out of a ditch or set a broken femur should I need it. Take care. The man I’m counting on to get me home is… me.

For the purpose of OPSEC I’m not going to use real place names. Get over it, I’m still more truthful than virtually every press report you’ve heard for years. I rolled out toward “Raspberry Hollow”. That’s the (not) name of a “free” dispersed campsite.

Let me digress. There is dispersed camping everywhere in this forest. Like a man who wants to pee on a tree, the forest is unlimited for my needs. However, some places are better that others. Some spots are swampy and some are dry. Some roads more amenable to my behemoth truck and more likely to have good parking spots than others. Also some spots are informally established; through long use they have evolved fire rings and outhouses. No need to make life any harder than it has to be.

I wanted to see what I’d get at Raspberry Hollow for $0 versus what I’d been experiencing for $20+ a night at Unremarkable State Park.

I set out on the direct route, a dirt road but still the main access. That didn’t last long! Five minutes later I turned, for no reason, onto a logging path. A couple miles later I followed a legal but unlabeled ATV trail into a swamp. Thus, I followed whimsy rather than preconception; which opened my heart to nature.

It looked like a bog so I parked and wandered around looking for pitcher plants. Actually I was looking for generalized “plants that eat bugs”. I don’t know why… just ‘cause. I know they live in bogs where the soil sucks. I was in the right area. But carnivorous plants are pretty rare so you gotta’ look a little. Google says they’re not in this location… but I’ve seen ‘em. Fuck Google. If I can find a pitcher plant I can often find a sundew nearby. I don’t think Venus flytraps occur around here.

I heard something sniffing around in the brush and forgot about plants. Speaking of carnivores… Now I was looking for critters. I stepped in deep mud trying to track it. It, wisely, vamoosed.

I popped out on the trail a quarter mile from my bike. I had one wet foot and a big smile. I’d forgotten all about the world of men and their terrible madness. I’d been looking for plants and critters. I felt better already.

That’s the point.

Back on the trail I made three or six or eleven or twenty more turns based on nothing in particular. I watched, roughly, the compass as guessed by the sun and I meandered somewhat in the direction desired but I didn’t overthink it. I was lost in no time… which also was the point.

Then I broke out of dense forest into a wide open linear meadow just brimming with wildlife. Or, if you want to sound dour, it was the clearing for a high power transmission line. Tear your eyes away from the Sierra Club wallpaper on your Windows laptop and you’ll find that nature isn’t picky. Actual nature, as opposed to the theoretical idealized unreal vision of nature that lives in suburban minds, is perfectly happy frolicking under power transmission lines, above buried pipelines, along irrigation ditches, in old clearcuts, near wheat fields, and so forth. Anywhere else that sports the right soil and vegetation might be a paradise of it’s own. The clearing was a perfect spot for critters.

I traveled along the powerline for some time. “God bless Canadian hydropower!” I shouted. I was pretty close to Canada. I have no idea if it really was Canadian hydropower but that’s a good guess. I imagined, big globs of metric electrons headed south; a lingering vestige of honest trade among capitalists. A flow of power from the good hearted but currently imprisoned people of hockey in exchange for greenbacks which were once holders of true value. This to be misuesed as it charges the Teslas of uptight vegan suburbanite Karens and keeps the lights on at universities that don’t teach. The pylons were huge and arrow straight. The kind of relevant engineering built by men who knew how to build. I stopped and nibbled on some snacks. It was threatening rain but otherwise beautiful.

It was a bit of a lowland so I looked for moose tracks. Didn’t find any. It has been a brutally hot summer. What would normally be a mosquito infested mudbath was a dusty easy ride. Everything is moving differently, adapting to the situation. Moose, who like water and don’t like heat… must be suffering this year? Are moose the North American, ice age remnant, temperate climate version of quasi-aquatic African hippos? I pondered that while I rode further. I took several more turns, left the power line behind, and went from lost to very lost.

I’d doubled down on “exploring” so much that I’d become completely, utterly, lost. I breathed deeply of the air in a place where a man has no idea of his location and doesn’t much care. Yeah… that’s the stuff.

Having abandoned my plan to promptly depart after work Friday, I embraced the delay. I treated myself and my family to dinner at a restaurant. I’d made it through Friday. Sometimes that’s all you can do. Plus, family is the rock upon which we build our life. It was a good time.

More hassles delayed me the next day. Most of it was me. I just couldn’t focus. I was tired. I was dispirited. Luckily the weather was clear; so my camping junk sat in the truck bed without issue.

I left hours late. I immediately drove into a thunderstorm. My tent was in the back, probably soaked in the first ten minutes. Oh well.

It was a long drive but I don’t remember it.

I arrived at camp just as the rain stopped. Having attained escape velocity, things were now different. I was different. Events started to go my way.

There was nobody at the front gate. I expected this. I haven’t seen an attendant at a State Park all year. I’m not sure they exist anymore. Like bank tellers physically within banks, one starts to wonder what they ever did. (In the world of ATMs and direct deposit, I go years at a time without entering a bank. So do you.)

I scanned a big plywood kiosk with a thousand posted warnings; everything from poison oak to bear precautions. Such an unsettled people we are… or our systems make us unsettled. I was looking for verification of the fire restrictions. I found nothing about fire. In the trash can, next to the kiosk, was a laminated “FIRE DANGER: NO CAMPFIRES ALLOWED” sign. It was crumpled and tossed. Was that because the edict was officially rescinded or did a pissed off camper do a little civil disobedience?

After 3 days of rain and this afternoon’s thunderstorm, I couldn’t start a forest fire with a blowtorch. The foliage was wet. Ground too. I did a quick survey, about 1/3 of the camps had fire. Real wood fire. Which made sense. I decided to make sense too.

I lugged my designated traveling firewood garbage can out of the truck. (Relax, it’s brand new and squeaky clean; allocated for this purpose.) In it, I keep dry processed pallet wood, my folding firebox, matches, and my percolating coffee pot. I was glad I’d brought it.

After that I deployed “speed camp”. I have the world’s most awesome combination of tent, cot, mattress, and sleeping bag. None of these things are overly expensive, but I selected them as a combination and they work together very well. They fit my needs and this environment perfectly. The setup is fast fast fast! I had tent, cot, mattress, and sleeping bag all setup and cozy in 15 minutes. The tent, in it’s protective carrying case, had stayed pretty dry. Good to know.

Another 15 minutes and I had deployed the folding firebox (inside the camp’s metal fire ring) and a merry fire of kiln dried waste wood was cheering me mightily. (I didn’t build it very high, I just wanted cooking coals.) I had my lawnchair unfolded and a beer in my hand in another 5 minutes. A bratwurst was sizzling soon after. If you’ve ever gone backpacking, you’ve likely calibrated your camping experience to those sorts of logistics. By comparison, a cold beer in a lawn chair is unbelievably luxurious.

On the other side of the campsite, still strapped to her trailer, Honey Badger gleamed in the firelight.

“You and me will ride the world tomorrow!” I toasted my cheap little steed.

I drank several beers and slept like a baby. I was camping. I’d made it.