Theme #3 of this blog: When the end is near, everyone begins to go a little nuts.
A general comment regarding humanity. Think about it. Why is clutch performing so highly valued in professional sports? The end is near. Choking.
Listen. Out of the four of us, one other and myself want to hitch to a nearby town. Twin Lakes, CO.
I love camping, hiking, dirt, mosquitoes, and brutality as much as anyone, but I also love beds, showers, and dinner plates.
The four of us fall into a silly, quasi-argument about going to town. This is where I went a little nuts. I needed town, I knew it was off the trail a bit and over a few hills, and I knew I should have stayed on the trail, but I choked. The end was near.
Eventually, the one fellow (nickname: Robocop) and myself go to the road. We get a hitch from the second person who sees us. The other two stay behind.
Perhaps it is an effort of purity in the hiking experience which I do not understand. Perhaps it is stubborness. Or perhaps there is some deeply admirable quality that I do not understand. But why not hitch? Plenty of trail will still be there in the morning.
We've already done 22 miles today and I'm done. The bed is waiting.
The grand old lodge pitches distinctly to the north. The floorboards, the bathroom tile, the ceilings, all tilting down and to my left. I slept most of that night perched on my right side so as not to roll off the lumpy beds that were advertised as being full of feathers. Unless very old feathers sometimes imitate the properties of metal springs, I think there's some false advertising here. Maybe there is an extremely magnetic rod in the building as a support structure causing the building to lurch north. The building is simply doing what its being told. Doing what its always done, leaning towards home.
Twin lakes is a beautiful, airy, frozen place. White, snowy mountains ring the south side . The glassy lakes and the reflections of the mountains are puckered every few seconds from the mouth of hungry trout gaping at the surface for an insect meal. The genereal store acts as the post office, the general store, the gas station and the ice cream hop. The people talk very slowly and chew long dry strands of switchgrass, in the evenings the staff takes turns on the piano playing ragtime or adaptations of ella fitzgerald The ambience is so perfect and the roles played so perfectly, I can't tell if these people and this town are real or just some staged summer-long event written, directed, and controlled by some evil director lurking off-camera. Its like not knowing if the animatronic foreign dolls from the 'Its a Small World' ride at Disneyland are fake or real. In my limited interactions, they all seem to be playing to stereotypes. Either hollywood is completely correct about the small towns, isolated of the mountain west, or everyone is perfectly acting what they've seen actors do on TV.
On this trip, at a fascinating intensity and with increased frequency, my dreams return to me each morning a few minutes after I open my eyes. I'll lay face down on my pillow, slightly drooling and slightly suffocating myself in the sparse fluff of the threadbare sheets. The dreams sneak up and pull me underwater like a colorful rip-current. I relax and let the my vision cloud.
Maybe it's because I haven't been watching TV or spending much time in front of a computer?
The last few nights the dreams have been about a soccer match, a match in which I am on the losing side. The bright green grass, the fierce red of the opposing players jerseys, the cloudless beaming sky, primary colors flicker across my face. At halftime the oranges are too sour and the water too cold.
In this match, I argue with the opposing players (they are fouling a lot, grabbing my jersey, tripping me). I even argue with my own coach about why he won't complain to the unseen ref. But he leaves me in to play.
I am playing terribly, never making the correct pass, never the right decision. I am one step too slow, too slow to notice the forward streaking past me. I am playing in the defense, sweeper, the last man before the goalie.
Always, in my dream, a blond, freckled woman in searing white, flowing robes runs across the field, unnoticed by anyone else except me. The robes are incandescent, sparkling and I can see her vanilla face. She is soft and lovely. She runs across the field, straight across the action, and still no one appears to notice, nor does she appear to notice them. She looks at me and floats across the field. White on green.
I attempt to run after her, but the game continues. I am unable to completely drag myself away from this match. It is terribly important to me. This ridiculous match in which the opposing team is cheating, my coach doesn't listen to me, and I am playing terribly.
The girl leaves the field and continues to walk into the vanishing point of grass and blue to my left. I toe the sideline, the alabaster and dirt chalk mixture stains my right cleat, the dust of the adjacent parking lot blows in my face but I cannot go any further. The ball is suddenly kicked my way and I have to dribble it upfield. I momentarily forgot the girl and rush the ball towards the opposing goal. Eventually, the play ends, I do not score, but the ball is advanced quite a bit before it goes out of bounds. I am proud, but no one seems to care.
When I remember the dancing figure that had possessed me, I look around again and she is gone. The dust tornadoes swirl in the baseball diamond beyond my soccer field. They are ghosts across the dirt infield.
picture
The next day, the other two arrive in town abou 1pm. After insisting the night before they will roll right through town without spending any money, my 3 companions stay the night. I do not begrudge them. The end was not only near for them, it had arrived. They were justified in contradictions and in going a little nuts.
That afternoon, I continued onwards. 40 trail miles to Tennessee Pass and hitch to Leadville, CO
Song Honorable Mention:
-Silversun Pickups "All The Inbetweens" (I'll never find safety in numbers, here on the mile)
