“Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”
–Lady Bird Johnson
By noon on Sunday the last of the invading hordes packed up their shit and went back to whatever god-forsaken hell hole they came from. I know it is a hell hole, because they live there. These are people who have no respect for other humans or the land they occupy. They left behind smashed beer cans and Cup o Noodle containers, used washcloths, and empty water bottles. I’m never happy when holiday weekends bring out noisy, disrespectful visitors, but the crowd camped next to me for four days were the quintessential dregs of society. They were, without a doubt, the worst humans I’ve ever stayed next to. They scared off the cows with all their gas-powered engines and generators, loudspeakers, and shouting. The crows and ravens were gone as well. As Cosmo and I walked the once-again silent paths on Sunday afternoon, a single red hawk circled overhead. Perhaps he was the scout, sent out ahead to let the rest of the animals know that the coast is clear, the intruders have left and it’s once again safe to return home.
Cosmo and I sat out in the shade for a while. We sat in silence, appreciating the lack of muffler-less, off-road vehicles, the lack of people yelling, kids crying and off-leash dogs barking. There was no sound except the occasional rustling of wind through the trees. Paradise once again.
By nightfall, the cows returned and were grazing peacefully by the van. Cosmo watched without barking. I think on some level he missed them.
A woodpecker pecked at the dead tree nearby and a few ground squirrels dashed back and forth between trees in our campsite, a reminder of how quickly the earth will heal itself once humans are no longer.
On Monday, I drove down to dump my trash. There is a paid campground on the other side of Lake Mary Road. After dumping my trash, I decided to splurge and pay for a shower. It was $6 for 8 minutes (Coin operated). There was a change machine on the front of the shower house, but I only had a twenty-dollar bill, and the machine wouldn’t take it. I found Dennis, the camp host and he graciously took my twenty-dollar bill and gave me three 5’s and five 1’s. We chatted and I told him where I was staying and how crowded it had been over the holiday weekend. He warned me that in the coming week there would be a family reunion there. He said they come every year, pay for dumpsters and porta potties and this year they expected 500 people. He was a bit unsure exactly where, but thought it was Ashurst Lake. He also was unclear on the dates. When I returned to my spot, I immediately started searching for a good spot to stay to avoid the reunion.
Tuesday morning, I saw the truck down the road leave. He was at a distant spot that I had had my eye on for weeks. Cosmo and I walked down and found that he had left piles of junk and bags of garbage. There was a used mattress cover, a broken-down patio chair, bent up tent rods, and a box of empty bottles and jars along with multiple bags of trash. I guess he gets points for not just scattering stuff on the ground, but who comes camping for 5 days and leaves everything they don’t want anymore in a pile? Who does he think is going to pick up after him? It just makes me so mad. Many camping spots on BLM land and National Forests have inconsiderate campers leaving some broken bottles and smashed cans behind in the firepits, but Flagstaff seems to have an inordinate number of people leaving weeks’ worth of trash and broken objects behind. I noticed that last year; It seems to be worse this year. Is it Flagstaff locals? I don’t know. I have encountered several people who drove up from Phoenix to get out of the heat. The trashy people all seem to have AZ license plates. I just can’t fathom how people think it’s OK to trash a National Forest, especially when they are allowed to camp in such beauty for free. Where is Lady Bird when we need her?
I decided to leave Ashurst on Thursday morning and move back to Marshall Lake. I could have stayed another day or two, but I’ve found it best not to move on a Friday or Saturday. Lots of weekend folks start arriving on Friday, so if I move Mondays through Thursdays, it’s easier to find a good spot. As I was packing up, I noticed my rear tire was quite low. I looked up a tire center and found one just a few minutes from Basha’s grocery store. I pumped up my tire and hit the road. It seemed to be holding OK, so I picked up some groceries first and then headed to the tire store. They found a nail in my tire right away, and it took about an hour and a half, but they removed the tire, pulled out the nail and patched it and I was on my way. Everyone there was friendly and chatty, so I didn’t mind that it took a while. I stopped on the way back and topped off my water tank and then drove to Marshall Lake. I saw that my favorite spot was unoccupied, so I drove up the steep road to a higher level from the main road and got settled in. It’s been hot all week and when I arrived, it was quite muggy. Rain was forecast for the next 5 days, so I expected cooler and probably muddier weather.
Marshall Lake often has some sketchy people, but down the hill from me was a very nice younger couple with a dog. We chatted as they got ready to pack up. They were heading back to San Francisco that evening. I made a salad for lunch and soon afterward, fell asleep. With the longer days and late sunsets, I’ve been staying up longer than usual, and with a heard of cattle sniffing at my van windows each morning at 4:45, Cosmo is pretty adamant that I not remain asleep while such exciting activity surrounds us. After my nap, we took a walk. Marshall Lake is dry and overgrown, but still beautiful.
I expected to wake up on Friday morning to see rigs that weren’t there when I went to bed. Nope. There was only one skoolie within my line of sight and it left by noon on Friday. Normally, they start flooding in on Thursday evening, and continue to arrive through Saturday. It is eerily quiet here. Perhaps the extreme heat and predicted thunderstorms are keeping the weekenders from flocking here. It doesn’t matter to me why they aren’t coming. I just hope it holds. I love it being so sparsely populated.
Lessons From The Road: When I left Ashurst Lake, I was definitely not feeling very pleased with the human race. So many loud, obnoxious, inconsiderate people had infiltrated my silent sanctuary. But when I went to get my tire fixed—a chore that I didn’t expect to be a fun part of my week—I actually had a pretty good time chatting and joking with the tire repair people. The young boy who took my tire off and pulled the nail was curious about my living in the van. He asked what year it was, and when I told him it was a 1998 his eyes opened wide. I laughed and said “Probably older than YOU are.” He said, “Yeah. I’m 18.” He told me he moved up from Phoenix to help his father out (I think financially.) He pointed across the street and said he lived there with his father and got a job with the tire place this summer. The houses across the street were small, run down, and had bars on the windows. He, and most of the workers were Mexican. In our conversations, I discovered that most came up from Phoenix, though it was unclear if they had moved here, or they commute. The forklift driver wanted to know if I was retired, and when I told him I was, he wanted to know what I did all day. I told him “as little as possible” and he laughed. He said he was worried about being bored when he retired. I told him I had been worried too, but that I adjusted much more quickly than I thought possible. We had a good time as he unloaded tires from a truck with a forklift and the young boy worked on my tire. Inside, the front office guy was a 30-something white guy, with a man bun. He seemed very “Portlandia” and was friendly and had a good sense of humor. We chatted and laughed a lot. When I got settled at Marshall Lake, I realized how easy it was to strike up friendly conversation with people. I have done that often during my years on the road. I also realized that there are people that are not likely to respond to that friendly conversation (like the crowd next to me over the 4th of July weekend). I have options in life. I can stay with ugly people who will do their best to make ME ugly, or I can put the key in the ignition and move to where friendlier folks are. I almost always talk to cashiers at stores I go to, and even people in the parking lots. I won’t spend another long weekend with unpleasant people next to me.
I’ve also found a sense of belonging, of familiarity this summer. I’ve stayed at Marshall Lake for three years now during the summer, and at Ashurst Lake for two. I know the “roads” and the good spots. I know where to get groceries, water, propane and anything else I need. I’ve even managed to stay in the exact same spots at each of these places, so there is a real sense of “being home.”