When I arrived, I was as relieved to see the lack of signal on my phone as a sunburn victim might be to see the red on their skin finally vanish. I turned the blasted thing off with a sigh, glad to be rid of the itch of constant communication for a week. We rented a house close to the park. Large, spacious, and fairly well equipped, it was a pleasant place for our stay, excepting the magenta carpet, fake Tiffany furniture, and the disturbing ceramic dolls that dotted the house. I mean, really, who in their right mind thinks that it’s a good idea to have something with ridiculously wide eyes and pink, frilly outfits staring at them all of the time? Seriously, those dolls are creepy! Other than that, there was a pool (a.k.a. “snooker”) table, a place for food and booze, and plenty of beds and showers, so what more could we need?
After a rocky start (I fell and injured myself before even starting to hike. Pathetic!), we started on a four mile trail, we kids playing word association games and singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” at the top of our lungs. We were consistently ahead of our *ahem* “elders” due to their worn out limbs and a few of us were disappointed by the resulting brevity of our trails, but moving quickly worked out for us either way. Our parents probably would have flipped out at us if we had said that we were going to the edge of a cliff to look over the two-thousand foot drop. As it was, we crept to the precipice, got a good look, took a few pictures, and then got chewed out for our recklessness when they arrived and saw us posing mere feet from a very long fall. Totally worth it. Besides, one of my resolutions for the trip was to work on conquering my fear of heights. Aside from a bit of tingling in my feet, I think I handled the situation rather well! Either that or my brain was just so overloaded with sheer terror that it forgot to make me freeze up.
Perhaps that just fried my brain for the whole trip because the next day began with me hiking alongside Maggie and Alex while heading down four miles of switchbacks (with occasionally treacherous footing) overlooking the valley and lots of sharp rocks.
The only comments we made regarding that were to marvel at the smoke-obscured view and joke about falling while theorizing where you could survive if you fell. It was generally agreed that landing in the shrubs was preferable to bouncing off the cliff into a ravine. Even the rattlesnake that we almost stepped on didn’t seem to phase me. Okay, that’s exaggerating. While hiking I happened to hear some dirt shifting on the slope beside us and assumed it was a chipmunk or another lizard. Maggie suddenly started saying “keep walking keep walking keep walking” like a squirrel on caffeine while picking up the pace. Alex and I quickly followed and then turned to see a rattlesnake covered in dark green and sandy-brown scales sliding up the slope next to where we had been walking. “Whoa!” Alex said, stepping a little closer.
“I totally missed that somehow…” I stepped closer too, but made sure that we stayed a good five feet back. Either it didn’t notice us (unlikely) or it just didn’t care that we were there (probably knowing that it could kill us) and went on its way.
“It’s so pretty,” Maggie whispered, calmer now that we knew it wasn’t going to attack us. I’m of two minds whether I was glad that my mother wasn’t there or not. On one hand, she would have screamed her head off at seeing the critter, probably alarming it and maybe turning it hostile, while sprinting down the mountain. Then again, if that happened, she would have forgotten about the pain in her joints.
Once the novelty wore off, Maggie and I chatted about our adventures in Europe and how my writing compared to her drawing and painting and Alex and I talked about what he might want to study in university after this year until we met up with the others a few hours later. Once reunited, we travelled to a place called “Mirror Lake” which turned out to be more of a “Sandy Ditch” after the three year long drought. It was worth the effort, though, as I found a deer that, like the rattlesnake, was unperturbed by our presence and allowed me to get within ten feet of it while it munched on grass and lay down for a nap. I couldn’t help but think how cuddly it looked and how much it reminded me of my dog Thurber. Then again, even though this one lacked horns, I figured that trying to hug the deer would have been a bad idea.
Once again home and while waiting for dinner, Lee, my mother, Alex and I became obsessed with a thousand-piece puzzle that someone had borrowed. It was called “Cats cats cats cats cats!,” so you can guess what it was supposed to look like, even if we never finished the blasted thing. Between pool games, I got suckered into watching Love Actually, which was surprisingly good despite my prediction that it would be a chick flick. It turned out to be an actual romantic comedy that entertained, even if it did teach a bunch of unrealistic expectations about love.
During various hikes, except for when I climbed up to Bridal Veil Falls where no one else in our party really wanted (or dared?) to go, I spent most of my time with the kids, catching up after not seeing them for almost two years. Mostly, Alex and I went on about school still, Maggie and I continued talking about Europe and careers, while Mary-Katherine and I discussed Germany. Lee and I pondered the mysteries of women and he gave me his insights as a 25 year old while I told him a bit about a girl I’d met named Kellie. It was then that I felt a slight desire to hear from my friends and the world again. I quickly squashed that feeling, though, as another deer almost ran Alex over while crossing the path. “Alex,” Lee almost shouted. Stay still, there’s a deer right behind you!”
“I know,” Alex said, looking somewhere between amazed and terrified.
Well, what more is there to say? We climbed more rocks, enjoyed the view and the forests more, took dozens of pictures, and reveled in each other’s company. After getting Lee stuck under the sleeper sofa and gently crushing him while trying to fold Alex into the bed, we adolescents watched a dark, trippy child’s film called “The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars.” Weird beyond talking purple dinosaurs, this included stuff like manic depression, references to nuclear war and nazism, attempted suicide, and a veiled message to be generally subservient. I have to say that I was glad to have a few beers while watching that one. When it came time to part ways, leaving these people was… difficult. Those four kids are some of the nicest, funniest people that I know while their mother Miss Anne is one of the kindest. Knowing that I would not see them again for at least another year made the trip precious and the parting all the more grieving. However, the memories and the chance to escape the world were well worth the temporary pain, depression, and silence that followed. Leaving the park, it only took two minutes for the bombardment of missed calls, texts, and Facebook notifications to pour in, which I spent the next few hours addressing before getting stuck on a flight right next to a noisy engine and a pair of deafening two year-olds. Welcome back to the world Matt. Hope you enjoyed your trip.
