Bascomb's Regrets

HONK flash HONK flash HONK flash HONK flash

I was SLEEP ing YOU are HONK ing

NEIGH bors WAKE ing EAR ly MORN ing

CHRIST mas FEEL ing NOT with STAND ing

WHAT’S in SIDE you SO worth KEEP ing?

HONK flash HONK flash HON

From my trip with Henning through the Hungarian countryside. I kept marveling at how the trees were so evenly spaced and maintained, without being in rows. Ladies darting in and out of the woods in front of us, following rabbit runs to family mushroom-gathering places.

Henning’s backpack was not orange, but it reminded me of George’s first Alaska backpack (a Camel cigarette prize that fell apart in our first week), and the palette wanted orange for balance, so there it is.

I woke up this morning and realized that my new transpo is the SUV of motorcycles. Built for crossing thousands of miles of desert and navigating high mountain passes (okay, so maybe it’s the Land Rover of motorcycles), my biggest concern is whether I can bump up and down curbs without scratching the skid plate. Here I am ‘off-road’ on Twin Peaks…

The Streetlight Records on 24th closed last month while I was away. There is still a video shop in Noe–Video Wave–tucked away on Castro St, but I haven’t been there in a few years (I think Lost Weekend on Valencia has a better shot at staying relevant, so I occasionally wander in there to rent something and make the place look inhabited–it’s still a great place to meet people who are passionate about movies).

I’m not happy or sad about it, really. In the last 10 years I’ve listened to a lot more new and indie music than I used to before Internet increased distribution and availability; and I’ve taken the recommendations of strangers and people close to me. There will always be music mavens, even if they aren’t employed at places like Streetlight. But it’s true, there isn’t a physical storefront to decorate and hold a place for music exploration anymore, and that’s something I’ll have to get used to.

Sketching at Tom’s

Slideshow from my trip up i-395.

Observed on the way:

Madonna’s ‘Crazy for You’ must have been conceived and written as a country song. Think Merle Haggard, give it some twang in a deep voice, add some steel guitar–and you have it.

‘Stanislaus National Forest: Land of Many Uses’ — a dubious distinction for such a beautiful area

On a roadside-sign

“Fresh” “Honey”

I can sometimes understand why the word ‘fresh’ is in quotes, but if the word ‘honey’ is quoted I ain’t havin’ none o’ that

I listened to Christian rock most of the way up i-395. It’s like listening to an oldies or classic rock station, except the lyrics have been changed. After a half a verse of ‘Hosannah’ (to the tune of Toto’s ‘Rosanna’) I had to switch back to country.

It started with the guy at City Rent-a-Car, who didn’t want to let me drive away, maybe. 10am on Monday, needing to get started in order to have a chance of making Moreno Valley before dinner–and the guy doesn’t want to let the car go because of some clause in the contract I won’t accept. But after a bit of fuss, I’m on the road and the little Suzuki Forenza makes it to Riverside County without incident. On my way north, on i-395, though, I stopped for soda and egg rolls–and what’s the point of getting a fountain drink if you don’t get at least a quart of it? So a couple miles outside of town I’m biting into deep-fried-fried and hear the sound of 32 ounces of soda sloshing around on the floorboard. How did that happen? I don’t know–but the cupholder in the Forenza needs a redesign I think. 10 minutes later, floormats soaked in Mr Pibb,  I’m on the road again thinking of all those signs at Sierra campgrounds telling you not to keep scented items in your vehicle. I am headed for Mt Whitney.

But in the Mt Whitney (Sequoia National Park) ranger station parking lot, a friendly guy from Amsterdam very slowly backs his rental car into my parked rental car. I am shouting at him as he does this. His rental car wins this little slow-motion smash-up derby, and 2 hours later a friendly highway patrolman named Greg is writing up (probably his first) accident report. Everybody is looking at the Suzuki and wondering whether the dent in my aluminum-foil-and-saran-wrap vehicle was caused not by the collision but perhaps by strong rain or a high country wind.

On the way down from Whitney my Suzuki rental car (which did not get torn apart by bears seeking a suitable substitute for Dr Pepper–miraculously) runs over a Western chipmunk. It makes this sound: “Phlpttt”. I am sorry. This small sacrifice does not sooth the spirit that has inhabited my transport. The next morning, as I am hiking down from a magnificent rogue bivouac on Sonora Pass, the last bit of air is leaking out of my right rear tire.

I discover I have a spare, but no car jack and no lug wrench. A quarter-mile down the road, though, is the U.S. Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center. I drive slowly into the checkpoint, expecting to see cadets out for morning runs with climbing gear over their shoulders. (Update: the Marine Corps is no longer teaching troops to ski backward while shooting at the enemy, or training soldiers to scale rock faces under mortar fire. They are teaching them how to repair diesel engines at 14,000 feet and calibrate heat-seeking smart bombs in sub-zero temperatures.) The driver of the lead Hummer departing for ‘morning exercises’ doesn’t even see me, he is so high up–and I almost let him drive over the Suzuki knowing that at least the US government would pay off the rental car company for the dent in the bumper. Instead the checkpoint dude directs the traffic around me, and he summons a kind man in the type of security vehicle appropriate to a Marine base–I’m not sure if it was a Ford Explorer or an Expedition, but next to it I felt like my rental car had vanished into a singularity.

So I change my tire while crew-cut Don George, perhaps observing my sandals and long hair, delivers a polite monologue on the *actual* pace of glacial snow melt in the Western Hemisphere, sunspot cycles as predictors of global weather, etc. Because Don was such a kind and helpful guy, I am posting a link to the research he referred to as I put the spare on. Having questioned the reality of global warming, I was well-primed to visit my first Wal-Mart in maybe five years. Time was, with a flat tire on a Sunday morning in Sonora, I would have had to spend the night or drive all the way back to San Francisco on my spare tire. Not anymore. For $9.50, a well-spoken clean-cut guy (steroid use helped him become manager, but he needs to keep the personality side effects under control) came out to my car, patched the tire, remounted and balanced the tire, replaced the spare in the trunk, and re-installed the crappy rental hubcap better than before. I shopped while this was being done, and added razor blades , emory boards and ibuprofen and still made it out of Sonora for less than $20.

Highlights

Anna, Brad, Carol and Paul’s 2-hour journey across 10 miles of San Francisco by car.

Dean’s magic bottomless air mattress

Dave C’s magic ice-less margaritas

Geoff’s magic long-lasting flashlight batteries

Brad’s face-to-face with the permanent residents of the Cove

Philosopher Bob

Visit from James and Shari

Anna and Carol’s communion with frigid bioluminescence

Mark’s first weight-bearing test of the rope swing

Deirdre’s record fastest-ever Bay swim

Eli, Taj and Kira’s contest to see whose marshmallow could stay on fire longest

Complete photo set here.

This trip I tried to go light on the food prep side, and heavier on the food itself. I found a little alcohol stove (about two ounces), and made a windscreen for it out of aluminum cans I found at the trailhead. For the food, I carried more fresh stuff than I typically would: it was an excellent trade-off.
Starting with the best, here are the fresh foods I would pack again and again:

garlic
pecorino
ginger
bell pepper
carrot
apple
onion
lime

I always bring along naan for cleaning pots with (it’s much more fun to eat than to scrub). And of course, there’s lots of dry stuff that makes sense. My favorite dry items:

dried refried beans (Rainbow Grocery)
couscous (which I didn’t take this time: tried bulgur wheat instead but bulgur is too finicky for an alcohol stove)
roasted, salted pumpkin seeds (roasted sunflower seeds work well too)
raisins (or, even better, currants)
rolled oats (which can be added to anything–not just breakfast)

For general cooking I always bring vegetable oil, salt, pepper. (Olive oil is too ’specific’ a flavor–but oil-cured olives are good to bring to add to the vegetable oil.) This time I added honey, which was nice for breakfast and I even added it to the salty stuff to put a little dimension into the one-pan dishes (as if Mountain House dinners didn’t have tons of corn syrup in them). And of course you have multi-purpose taste-it/drain-it whiskey. Next time I’ll bring vinegar too, and a poblano pepper in place of one of the sweet bell peppers, and maybe peanut butter. Clif bars is cheating.

Three stuffsacks I’ve used on nearly every camping trip I’ve ever done. The big burgundy sack was my mom’s sleeping bag stuffsack: I swiped it for Alaska, and it has been my food bag ever since. Many a squirrel has clung to the bottom of this bag, trying to nibble a seam while suspended upside down 15 feet above the ground. The olive bag was a gift from my sister’s first(?) boyfriend Tracey, who came into a big stash of outdoor gear and shared liberally. It contains ‘important things’, like duct tape, a knife, lighter, sewing kit, etc. Then the bag in the middle: Mom gave this to me as part of the Alaska package (tent, backpack, stove, etc)–it has my last name on it, but I recall she labeled it when we had the same last name. The stuffsack is my shaving/medicine kit–and I guess I use it all the time (not just for camping). It is riddled with holes from sharp objects inside, but for that reason it’s well-ventilated and the contents dry rapidly. I love this bag.

These three things came with me through time and brought a message to me on banks of the Rubicon River recently. They said what they’ve been saying all along: “Come home safe.”