The Legend of the Drop Bear

A wise man once told me of the drop bear. A fearsome, yet rarely seen, beast, the drop bear lives among the trees, waiting to strike any prey who dare pass below. When the moment is right, the drop bear, true to its name, strategically drops from the branches onto the unsuspecting passerby. Owing to its unusual largeness, this allows the drop bear to incapacitate and eat its victim. The only known defense to drop bear attacks is to place forks in one’s hair (tines up). 

 

While Glacier seems to be free of the dreaded drop bear, its grizzly cousins stand ready to “drop in” on park guests almost anywhere, without notice. Over the last two days, they seem to have been circling closer and closer, although I’ve managed to hold them off so far.

After the Morning After

 North Carolina comes through again. Having trudged through 200 miles of fog yesterday all through Virginia – your remember Virginia: my least-favorite state due to its questionable politics, overeager state troopers, those ugly-named suburbs of DC, and Shenandoah National Fog Park – I awoke today to a Virginia invasion across its southern border. In other words, Wildcat Rock was still enveloped quite thickly in fog. In fact, after turning out all the car lights last night the fog still seemed to glow even though there weren't any signs of civilization for miles. Spooky.

With no Plan B, I just kept on going down the Blue Ridge Parkway, knowing that the forecast called for “AM clouds / PM sun” and that the road would be rising higher than in Virginia, which might put me above the fog. Apparently I also had the sun on my side, as it burned off all of the fog by the time I stopped in Boone (yes, a real place name – as is “Gooch Gap”) at 9:00. Of course, by that point I had reached the one stretch of the Parkway that I was able to drive last year so there was nothing new to see. I was even there at the same time of day.

Fire & Rain

We awoke this morning in a fog. It was a fog so thick that the outside world seemed almost to fade away, leaving only Latke and me as survivors within our front-seat universe. Nevertheless we set out, treading slowly and carefully through a world indifferent to our plans and itinerary.

A Dog & Her Boy

Unfortunately, nothing particularly interesting happened today (Note to self: Do not start posts with "nothing interesting happened today" if you want people to read it). Which is not to say it was a wasted day. It got me in position to begin my assault on the Blue Ridge parkway in the morning, but more importantly it gave me some valuable information about my travel companion and gave me a general idea of what it will be like to drive another 1,800 miles with her.

The World’s Your Oyster Shell, But What’s that Funny Smell

Whenever I’m on these adventures, as I think of something I want to remember to mention in that night’s entry, I use the iPhone Notes app to write myself… well, a note, as the thought hits me. The stuff left from last summer’s note includes “open space, self-determination, no deadlines, only chance.” Today, I only wrote down one word: “Punished.”

You’ve Already Won Me Over, In Spite of Me

Nova Scotia, you’ve been holding out on me. After today, it’s clear that you’ve just been teasing me – showing me your less attractive features so that your best qualities stand out that much more starkly.

Waterworld

Water, water everywhere. Except I’m really not that thirsty.

If Captain Planet were real (don’t tell Don Cheadle it’s not), the girl with the 4^th ring would have loved today, because it was all about water. It made its presence known before today technically began, by way of a massive rogue thunderless storm whose path was trained directly on Mt. Desert Island from 10pm until about 3am. I know because it woke me up and kept me nervously checking the corners of the tent for the water that never did manage to get inside.

Lights in the Darkness

In New England, if you don’t like the weather, just wait an hour. Even though I hear it all the time, whenever I visit one of the region’s natural landmarks (Cape Cod, Mt. Washington, the Berkshires…) it seems to go out of its way to affirm it.

I Saw Below Me That Golden Valley

Finally.

After a week of delays, my Great Dixie Adventure culminated with a visit to Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, which was once again open for business. Well, at least the road was open for business. From what I could tell, I seemed to be the only person who knew about that, because I only saw 7 other people during my day in the park. This helped to provide an added measure of privacy and seclusion, because those are two things that Shenandoah, through an unfortunate accident of geography – doesn’t really have going for itself, most of the time.

Blue Smoke

Have I mentioned that mountain weather changes rapidly? If not, you should know that mountain weather changes rapidly. In addition to doing things like closing Skyline Drive in 13 minutes, today I saw firsthand some more results of the strange confluences of moisture and strong winds that occur in places like this. And once again, nature did its best to foil my plans. But today I was not about to be defeated.

There Is No Idaho

There is no Idaho. Have you ever been to Idaho? Do you know anyone from Idaho? Do you know anyone who’s been to Idaho? Do you know anyone who knows anyone who’s been to Idaho? Can they prove it? Idaho is a region, like the Black Hills or the Ozarks, not a state. Idaho potatoes are a breed of potato, just like Macintosh apples. The so-called “governor” of Idaho is the CEO of this potato conglomerate, elected by board members of various corporations, not by the people. He’s as much a governor as Mayor McCheese is a mayor. This whole myth about Idaho being a state was thought up by potato farmers who would get extra subsidies if they were considered a “state.” Make sense? Good. If I’ve managed to convince you even a little, you can see how some people can deny the Holocaust.

The Hunt for Mt. Rainier

Last night, since I didn’t stay out to watch the sun set, I was able to make and eat dinner relatively early, which allowed me to finish my writing early, which allowed me to go to bed early. By 11, I was in-tent with the flashlight off. What followed was some of the best sleep I’ve gotten on this entire trip. With a fleece jacket on, the temperature inside was perfect (I’d assume it was probably around 45 last night). I remembered to orient the sleeping bag the right way this time, so that my head wasn’t constantly rubbing against the pockets where I kept my wallet and other toys. I had a good 10 hours before I needed to be up. To top it all off, after my adventure gathering firewood, there was no way my blood sugar was going to go high on me in the middle of the night.

Speaking of that adventure, it occurs to me that I neglected to mention it yesterday. Since I’m camping in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and not Mt. Rainier National Park, I’m allowed – nay, required – to gather my own firewood. This has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, I get more of an authentic camping experience like the ones I had as a Boy Scout, where the entire afternoon was spent wandering the wilderness looking for, cutting, and chopping wood for the night’s fire. (I’m not sure why we needed so much wood, though.) On the other hand, now I have to go out and find, cut, chop, and haul back my own firewood. With my hatchet and saw in hand, I was bounding over 5-foot diameter logs and scaling steep hillsides. When I finally had an armload of wood, enough for a 3-4 hour fire, I was ready to get back to campsite B-1. That’s when I realized I would now need to do all that bounding and scaling once again, in reverse, carrying a hatchet, a handsaw, and a cord of wood. Suffice to say the return journey involved lots of throwing of the wood over said giant logs, followed by then throwing myself, and then retrieving it all to do again. By the time I got back to my beloved B-1, I was hot enough that if I wasn’t going to use this fire to cook dinner, I would have been warm enough without it.

So that probably had something to do with the great sleep I got last night, too.

Anyway, on to today.

The Mountain Is In

As I’ve said before, there are certain things about the natural world that some take as fact, but of which I deny the very existence. No, I’m not talking about global climate change (the condition of Yosemite Falls, the amount of snow at Crater Lake, and my surroundings this afternoon basically prove that one). I’m talking instead about moose and bison. People assure me they exist, but I haven’t seen either with my own eyes, so I can’t be sure. And as of today, you can add one more item to that list of objects of questionable existential status: Mt. Rainier.