Road Trippin'

 

            "Where are we staying tonight, again?" Johanna asked as we drove out of Berkeley.

            We were going on a road trip!

            This was the ultimate sign of friendship, as far as I was concerned.   Thousands of miles of cities and rivers and forests and mountains were about to come between us as three of my closest friends, all a year older than me, went off to their respective colleges.   I would be left behind, left to finish high school as they made new friends, met new people, and learned new things.  A month later, when school started for all of us, I would envy the opportunities opened for them at their new schools.   They would not envy me, stuck in the same place with the same gargantuan pile of homework.

            I shoved these concerns to the back of my mind as Jeff, who had done most of the organizing, replied. "We're staying at Baxter Environmental Campground…"

            He left the sentence hanging, inviting Amy's question. "What exactly does that mean?"

            "Well, all I know is what I learned from the Forest Service's website, which is that we have no purified water and we're staying deeper in the woods than most campsites are. As I recall we'll be at least 150 feet from the road and anyone else. Oh, we're also near a river."

            Amy, not as enthusiastic about wilderness as the rest of us, made an odd noise. We ignored it.

            I always fall asleep fairly easily in cars, and, much to the amusement of the others, I dozed off shortly after we got out of the city.  Jeff's grandmother had bought him a pretty expensive digital camera as a graduation present, and the trip was going to be its first real use.  The first picture he took was of me....sleeping, my jaw slightly ajar, my face stretched sideways by the fabric of the carseat.  It was a terrible picture.

            As we drove up the California coast towards our destination, Portland, we made a brief stop for lunch in an especially quaint, tourist-y district of Mendocino. 

 

*          *          *

            Several hours of driving (or sleeping, as the case may have been) later, we were getting near the campground.   We checked in at the local ranger station, bought a large bag of firewood ("You'll want a big-un, it gets cold up here at night…"), and drove a few miles down a side road to a tiny, deserted parking lot.

            "I'm guessing it's down that path…" Jeff started as we all got out of the car.

            "Looks promising," I replied; we headed off, away from the car, into thick woods. For a few minutes, there was no sign of civilization. Then we passed our bathroom, a small brown building that turned out, on closer investigation, to be nothing more than a hole in the ground with a bench over it and walls around it.   Shortly after that, we crossed a small bridge, and we were there.  The trees formed a canopy above, shutting out all sunlight and giving the feeling that we were in a jungle.   There was a picnic table, a metal bear-proof container (complete with instructions on how to use it and what could happen if you didn't), a fire pit, and a clearing just large enough for our two tents.

            "Wow," Johanna said. We all saw the beauty of the place.   I felt like Thoreau must have felt when he had first set eyes on Walden Pond.  This was what nature should be, this was the sort of place I could see spending weeks, even months in.   Not alone, of course – I don't have Thoreau's philosophical mind that would let me dwell only on my own thoughts for days on end – but with my friends beside me, it definitely had potential.   We set up our tents and made sure we had everything we'd need for the night, so we wouldn't have to make the long trek back to the car in the dark. When everything checked out, we went exploring.

            Two smaller paths (other than the one we'd come in on) led away from the campsite. It turned out that they both lead to the river, which was perhaps a hundred feet from where we were sleeping. Jeff and I set out upstream in search of buried treasure; Amy tagged along for a while, and Johanna went to get a book so she could read by the river.   She loved that.

            Jeff and I found no buried treasure – just a couple small waterfalls, some deep swimming holes, great skipping rocks, and slippery boulders.   We were most impressed by the calm serenity of the river.  It just sort of existed – it had no purpose, no reason to mosey left or loop right; the lack of treasure did not matter to us, because we had gained more from the experience than we would have from any material reward.

*          *          *

            In accordance with traditional gender roles, the ladies made the dinner while Jeff and I built a fire.   I had learned the delicate art from various other wilderness trips – how the teepee structure allows for maximum exposure to oxygen, how to start with grasses or paper and build out with smaller and then larger pieces of wood, how to recognize where to put a log once you had the fire going.   Jeff pretty much stood back and let me handle it, in part because he wasn't quite sure what to do, but mostly because it quickly became clear that I liked the fire – a lot.   My friends' initial surprise that someone normally as timid as myself would be so drawn to such a dangerous thing changed to amusement, and my actions earned me the reputation, "pyro."  

            As Amy and Johanna made pasta, Jeff and I breached the gender barrier, wrapping two potatoes in several layers of foil to be cooked in the fire.

            "How long do potatoes normally take to cook?" I asked.

            Jeff had no idea, so Johanna answered, smiling at our ignorance. "Usually around an hour."

            We debated whether the fire would be hotter or colder than an oven, where the hottest point of the fire was, how to put in the potatoes, and how we would get them out without tearing the foil. Eventually we agreed, and sat down to eat the pasta, keeping an eye on our masterpieces.

            After the pasta, the potatoes were far from done, so it was hot chocolate time.

            "Should we just throw away the water left from the pasta?" Amy asked.

            "No, you should use it for the hot chocolate. The starch from the pasta makes the hot chocolate thicker and stronger. It's kind of like using milk, but better," I told everyone. At first, they assumed I was joking, but when it became clear that I was serious they gave me looks, in perfect unison, that said, Are you crazy!?!

            Jeff tried to respect the suggestion, though his doubts were obvious. "Wouldn't that give you pasta-tasting hot chocolate?"

            Johanna smiled a soft, almost apologetic smile that said Peter, we just can't do that. We're not rustic enough. "Let's throw it out."

            That was the second of my tips, drawn from past nature experiences, that they had rejected.   The first had been that if you boil river water for five minutes, all the bacteria die and you can use it in cooking, even drink it.  Instead, they insisted on buying gallon bottles of purified water for cooking, cleaning, and drinking.

            Several hot chocolates later, we took the potatoes out of the fire.   I held the first potato in the tongs and turned it over slowly.  First I was disappointed; then I started to laugh.  The foil had burned through in several places, and by some strange chemical reaction the potato skin had turned a dark but brilliant shade of blue. Under the blue was a thick, crusty layer of charred black.

            Jeff, ever optimistic, said, "Maybe the outside got burned but the inside was protected, and it's still good."

            He had been right, to a point – the center of the potato was not black, but white and still hard as a rock. The only part we managed to salvage was the thin layer farthest from both the skin and the uncooked center, and even that left a lot to be desired.   We gave up on the potatoes.

*          *          *

            Our dinner had been a late one to begin with, and in the shelter of the trees it had gotten dark.   We set up the rustic electric lamp we had brought in the center of the table and broke out the cards.  As is often the case when you bring together multiple teenagers, we had serious trouble deciding on the game.

            "Deuces?" Jeff suggested.

            Johanna had no idea what deuces was.  "How about Gin Rummy?"

            Eventually we came to the conclusion that someone would have some problem with every game, and we decided on Slave, a version of Deuces with a competitive twist in which the losing players must give their best cards to the winning players in the following round, and the winning players give their worst cards to the losers. Basically, it kept the winners winning and the losers losing – hence the name.

            We had to cut her some slack for being a beginner, but Johanna had a surprising knack for always being the slave.

            We played cards for hours, far longer that I would guess any of us had played cards before.   Our conversation droned on softly, laughter at mistakes and jokes and stories of embarrassments long past mixing with brief surges of competition.  Jeff was always determined to win, and usually the rest of us were laid-back enough that he didn't have anything to worry about.  Occasionally Amy or I would give him a scare, but he would pull ahead again, and we would relax and bask in the joy that only true friendship could bring, happiness coursing through our veins, laughter warming the night for miles around.

*          *          *

            I awoke the next morning to the sound of Amy, our resident early riser, clanking about making oatmeal.   Johanna was already rustling in the tent next door, but Jeff was still out cold – I took some comfort in the fact that I at least wasn't the last one up.   Breakfast was a quiet affair; teenagers are not known as morning people, and we were far from exceptions, especially given how late we'd been up. Once we'd finished eating, our senses had returned, and we collectively grumbled at the imposing chores of cleaning and packing up.   Oatmeal, it turns out, is rather sticky, and difficult to remove from a pan without hot water and soap.  Jeff and I handled that while Amy and Johanna packed up the rest of our makeshift kitchen.   Amy gave us a somewhat disapproving look when we brought back the still-scummy pot, but, apparently realizing she couldn't have done a better job herself, she stacked the pot neatly with the others, ready to be carried to the car.

*          *          *

            We had more excitement to look forward to that day – we took a scenic route through the giant redwoods of Northern California, which are among the tallest trees in the world.  We parked on a random shoulder and trekked into the forest in search of a tree big enough to be proud of having a photograph in front of.   Once we'd found a likely subject, we realized we had a terrible problem.  There were four of us, we all wanted to be in the picture, and there wasn't another soul around.   Our solution: Jeff would take a picture of Amy, Johanna, and I, then hold the camera in exactly the same place while Amy ran and took it from him; he would then come pose with Johanna and I, and later he would Photoshop himself into the original image.   It worked surprisingly well.

            After we left the redwoods, there was little to entertain us outside the vehicle – I can say that because I managed to stay awake for the entire drive, to everyone's surprise.   Thus, we turned inwards for our entertainment. 

            "What game can we play?" Amy piped up, as we rolled along towards the Oregon border.

            "What about that one…with movies and actors," Johanna responded. Somehow they all knew what she was talking about – one would presume they'd played the game before – but I had no idea. Johanna gladly enlightened me.

            "Basically, someone starts by saying an actor. The next person says a movie that actor was in, and the next person says another actor in that movie, and you go on and on (without repeating actors or movies) until no one can think of anything. I'll start. John Cusack." Johanna's favorite actor was John Cusack.   We played that for a while, but I'm so terrible with actors and movies that I always brought the pace of the game to a crawl when my turn came as I racked my brain for a movie with Kate Blanchett or the name of the guy who played "Frodo." They tried a variation where you didn't go in a circle, just blurted out whatever you could think of, and I sat back and wondered how they'd seen so many movies I hadn't heard of, much less seen. By the time I'd come to the conclusion that I'd had a deprived childhood, they were ready for a new game.

*          *          *

            Our second campground, Sunset Bay, was very different from Baxter. We had running water and showers, which was a definite plus, and Jeff backed our car right into the site. However, there were people swarming all around; we were separated from the adjacent campsites by nothing more than low shrubs. Neighbor A's dogs yipped and yapped incessantly and neighbor B was barbequing an enormous slab of meat.  A little sorry to be back in such close contact with so many people, we set up our tents quickly, pulled out the Frisbee and baseball gloves we had so wisely brought along, and set off in search of both the sunset and the bay.

            Sunset Bay was not so much a bay as a cove, a small area of water somewhat sheltered from the waves by two rocky peninsulas that jutted out into the depths.   The sun was heading towards the horizon all too rapidly, and we fanned out into a square to squeeze in some Frisbee before it set.  Johanna was determined to hone her Frisbee skills before going off to Brown (where it's apparently something of a collegiate pastime) and the rest of us were more than willing to play along.   After tossing that around for a while, Jeff and I switched to baseball gloves, leaving the Frisbee to the ladies.

            We hadn't been playing for long when the sun dipped into the ocean and the sky exploded with color. Fingers of brilliant pink shot outwards from the now shimmering orange orb, the background changing dramatically from dull coral blue to deep purple.   The sea glistened with liquid gold and the clouds burned red. The whole scene was perfectly framed by the two peninsulas; the trees at their ends glowed with soft pink mist as though enchanted and the shimmering shadows made the rock seem alive.

            We rushed to have a passerby take our picture before the once-in-a-lifetime moment passed.

*          *          *

            That night, we dug a little deeper than the cards in our game bag and found scrabble. I don't think of scrabble as a game teenagers normally play – the target market, rather, is older people, far enough past their prime not to chuck a football, but still in search of a bonding experience. Sometimes these older people will offer the game to their families, and parents will help out the kids at stringing words together. To us, though, it felt right – we had exhausted our youthful instincts with the Frisbee, and dusk had swept in.   We were ready for a game of vocabulary-building, team-building, and family-style bonding.

            As the dark grew deeper, we scooted closer to one another, keeping each other warm as our fire, now the only one glowing in the black campground, grew dim. Our words stirred up memories, and our stories warmed our hearts as the night grew cold and the wind picked up, chilling the Oregon night.

            The game wore on for several hours, eventually becoming a tangled web of gibberish as we questioned words and cursed each other for stealing ideas and spaces. Somehow I got not only the Z, but also the Q and the X, and managed to land them all on double and triple score boxes.   I won, but it didn't seem to matter.  It was quite late, again, when the board was filled and we called it a game and trotted wearily off to bed, hoping to catch as much sleep as possible before we rolled out of bed into our car and set off for Portland early the next morning.

*          *          *

            Our final day's drive was the shortest and easiest. The music kept us entertained enough that we never had to play games, and before we knew it the trees were thinning and buildings were sprouting up in their places as we returned to the thick of civilization.

            We entered Portland through an enormous maze of overpasses.   We came in well over a hundred feet off the ground, unable to see most of the city below for the mass of freeway.  We were all silent as we drove down through the maze, skyscrapers and parks appearing as the maze unwound, the beautiful city sparkling in the afternoon sun.

            The trip was far from over, but the story felt finished. The point of the trip had not been the destination, but the journey. The meaning of life lies not in where you are going, but in how you get there, and who you associate yourself with along the way. I had associated myself with the best sort of people imaginable, and sharing the journey had made us infinitely closer.

            I knew they would be going off to college, all of them, in a matter of weeks, leaving me to cope alone with the challenges of my senior year. But I also knew they would always be there for me, and that despite the physical distance that would come between us we would never really grow apart.  I smiled the warm, soft smile that can be brought only by the knowledge that you are surrounded by true friends and laughed the soothing, melodic laugh that can be brought only by true happiness.