On The Road 2012
friday aug 31 2012
trinity river hells gate USFS campground, route 36 CA
- camping over labor day weekend
i decided to plant myself somewhere for the entire labor day weekend and stay there - why?, because everywhere i went there were reserved signs on the campsites for aug 31 - sept 2 - however many of the more remote USFS campgrounds like this one don't accept reservations
its interesting how i ended up here on route 36 near mad river on the south fork of the trinity river - route 36 is apparently one of the 8 best motorcycle roads in the US - winding and scenic - i'll get back to hells gate campground, where i'll be for the next 3 or 4 days, after a brief reprise of the events of the last few days
- weaverville
on wednesday after 8 straight days of tent camping i took a break and checked into the 49er gold country inn in weaverville CA - i needed to resupply everything, ice, gas, food, booze, shower and bed rest - weaverville was perfect, small, one of the original gold rush towns, 8 or so blocks of historic buildings some from the 1850s - but it was big enough to have a supermarket, block ice, and, more importantly ... the elusive mickeys big mouth beer
the lady in the chamber of commerce was a good example of the type of characters i seem to run into in the US - a strong accent, i would have guessed the deep south, say mississippi, but no, manhatten beach in LA - like so many americans she was a transplant from somewhere else - a slim, fine looking woman of indeterminate age, 60+ my guess - outgoing, she managed to tell me in the first few sentences to skip del rio county (on the coast just south of oregon) because she'd been tossed in jail there for 90 days for no reason - personable, eccentric, extroverted, i love americans for these qualities -
its always a good idea to avoid discussing politics in small-town america - california usually votes democrat but mostly because of the large urban centers - she gave me the low-down on weaverville intermixed with pretty much her entire personal history - she was dressed in sort of antique hippie clothes
- mickeys
there are 3, yes 3 different locations for buying mickeys in weaverville, Tops supermarket, CVS pharmacy and a small grocery store coming into town on hwy 3 from the north - CVS had the cheapest $6/6 mickeys - i needed a 5 day supply for the isolated long weekend encampment - my home-made ice brought from vancouver had finally run its course so i loaded 3 big blocks of ice into the cooler - there really is no block ice anymore on the road (except in mexico), its all just cubes frozen together as a unit and melts way too fast
- TV
not having had a TV for several years it was a treat to catch the republican convention on CNN at the 49er motel - watching wolf blitzer gently put the screws to right-wing idiots is fine entertainment - i ended up glued to the TV that evening, postponing my intended walk thru historic weaverville til early next morning - i can't shake the early riser in me even in a comfortable motel bed so after a 6am $3 breakfast special at the nugget cafe i walked the streets of weaverville getting out of town at a respectable 8:30am thursday morning
- the search for the ideal long weekend encampment
i learned at the ranger station in weaverville (from a suspicious, taciturn forest ranger who seemed to resent my
questions) that hells gate campground, on my intended route, hwy 36, had a beach - a WHAT? - yes indeed the fast flowing south fork of the trinity river had a beach of sorts, small pebbles it turned out - so far i've swam in the klamath river (refreshing), the salmon (invigorating), and now the south fork of the trinity (bracing) - its a delight in the intense mid-day heat here
i had my heart set on camping in the redwoods for the long weekend - and grizzly creek redwoods state park was near the western end of route 36 - but i was curious about hells gate and stopped in to check it out on the way- what did i find? just the perfect campsite, #10 - huge, flat, very private, 3000' elevation, a reasonable $12/night, well treed, with a river to swim in a few feet from the campsite - so why didn't i stay? because there was nobody else there yet and the redwoods beckoned - also i had seen an ad in the trinity county travel literature about a festival with live music sept 1-2 at the ruth lake private campground, farther along route 36 - so i had to check them both out
it turned out the ruth lake festival was to be a family affair with little or no campsite jamming (i called the
organizer from the campground to check) - also the camping was on ruth lake itself - there are no true lakes in california north of clear lake, the largest in the state - they're all man-made from dammed rivers, shasta, trinity, ruth - all ugly, with poor swimming - rivers are where its at in northern california
grizzly creek SP is on the van duzen river where grizzly creek runs into it - but when i got there it was a huge disappointment - campsites jammed together beside the highway, the better ones already reserved for the long weekend, $25/night, little shade (seriously, in the redwoods?), ankle-deep water in the van duzen with the nearest swimming hole a 1/4 mile walk - it was an easy decision to backtrack to hells gate but a torturous drive - so here i will stay for 4 or 5 days while the summer campers have their last fling
- poison oak redux
how can i put this delicately? how about this - my penis swole up like a balloon from the poison oak exposure a week ago - is swole a word? fucking right it is - my foreskin looks like a burka(sp) - my penis looks like one of those sharpei(sp) dogs - i hope it was the poison oak, if not it must be some sort of immaculate contagion
do i detect a few chuckles out there? knock it off - damnit its starting to itch again -
i'm now an expert on poison oak - ask me anything - oh and there's western rattlesnakes here (posted on the hells gate registration board) - great, i fully expect to get bitten on the privates shortly after the poison oak heals
by the way thanks for the dozen or so responses to the previous salmon river chronicle - i really don't expect anybody to read these - its not a blog (ed & andrew) more a chronicle of events, for the record, before dementia or worse sets in and erases it all forever - i've been recording these chronicles for 14 years - the archive's at mazappa
the other reason for writing the trip up is of course it gives me something to do at the campsite and a way to keep in touch with the people dear to me - i haven't done a solo trip like this since the 90's when i had 4 months off from douglas college every summer, with 'pay' (UIC) - for about 8 years i took a month-long summer camping road trip, mostly through the US, solo because everybody was working - only the last of those solo trips is documented, the
1999 road trip
to have the last good visit with my parents before they succumbed to their ailments
- the long weekend is here
so i'm settling in nicely here for an extended stay - finally i have an excuse to set up the tarp apparatus - swimming from about 1 to 3 in the heat of the afternoon - the trinity river is much smaller, and colder, than the salmon or klamath but a pool near the campsite is 5' deep - i'm watchful for rattlesnakes on the path down
the rest of the time is spent lounging in the shade of the tarp, drinking beer, cooking hot dogs, river hikes, playing music, chatting with neighbor campers (the campground is now about 1/4 full), drinking beer - i finally have the melody to stardust under my belt, a surprisingly tricky tune - i have befriended the campground host, kenny from carlotta, who stops by for a mickeys once or twice a day - he has kindly lent me his wife's techno soap and prescription cream for the poison oak itch - i can't wait to have a smaller penis
a couple of kids pulled in last night and camped in the adjacent campsite - they've been on the road camping for a month, he a musician from austin, she from chicago, on their way to portland to live - my first offer of MJ on the trip since mandojam - he plays guitar so there will likely be some campfire music later tonight
something else i picked up in weaverville is some reading material - i inexplicably forgot to bring any down - why i didn't bring my audubon book of western trees, bought at yellowstone some years back, is beyond me
i purchased 4 books at budman's book mine at the west end of main street in weaverville - a bio of peggy lee, an elmore leonard novel and 2 books on oregon travel that i may well use on the trip back to vancouver - the large bookstore was crammed with used books most donated free by the community and every one catalogued on a computer by ... would you believe it? an attractive 60-year old woman
