Next week, I will be employed after many years as an unemployed student. I decided I should take advantage of my last week of sorta-freedom, so I ventured off into Ojai for a night of camping. Alone.
I’ve never camped alone–
Rod Steele said, “Yeah, have fun out there. You know who camps? Dudes. Dudes who like to drink and screw. They’re going to see you and say, ‘yeah, this chick likes to party,’ then they’re going to come to your site, invite you over for a drink, and you’re going to have some crazy threesome-story for your next blog.”
Rod’s a screenwriter with a vivid imagination.
In my trunk was a tent, a sleeping bag, and water. Also, a sandwich and some brownies that were on Special at Vons.
I drove up the winding 33 North into the Los Padres to Wheeler Gorge Campgrounds. When I got there, I coasted around, and I must admit I saw some pretty ghetto set ups–the kind of stuff Hollywood loves to put in horror movies so we shit our pants and choose never to go into the wilderness again–an old chevy, a beat-up camper trailer, an old man with a dirty ball cap and red solo cup who stared as my car passed him; however, I didn’t let anything scare me. Really. How often do we hear of campers getting mutilated at their camp sites? Most people who get in trouble either provoke it, or they’re asking for it (i.e. just generally being a dumbass).
I came to the last few camp spaces and, as the fates would have it, settled on spot number 69. If you’re ever there, you will agree it’s probably one of the nicer spots.
When I was a kid, we went camping at Salton Sea and my sister had to use the restrooms which were, at the time, port-o-potties. I didn’t go inside with her, but I watched her go in, heard her scream, and watched her run out with her pants down and a small group of bees following her. Unfortunately, that has scarred me and now I must do what everyone hates to do: look inside the pit of disgust before I can relieve myself.
The restrooms here looked like average public restrooms, but the toilet was nothing more than a Kia made to look like a Mercedes Benz–it looked like a real toilet, but but was just a glorified port-o-pot. When I looked into the rim I saw a bottomless black pit.
Great. Probably weren’t any bees down there, but the hand of the devil might reach up from the bowels of darkness and try to snatch at my butt when I bent over.
I took care of my business quickly and returned to my campsite.
My mom bought my tent for me a few years ago when I was apartment hunting, because I said I wanted to camp at the beach while I hunted, but I found a place immediately so I had now opened it till now.
When it was all set up, I realized it was a junior sized tent.
I lay my sleeping bag diagonally and crawled inside to see how I would fit. My head was crunched into one corner and my feet were smooshed into the opposite corner.
As I was messing with the sleeping bag, the same old man with the dirty-red ball cap and solo cup came up from the creek. What the hell was he doing down there? I shook my mind free of ditched bodies and stacked skulls. He said hello and tipped his ball cap at me, then he asked how long I was staying, and I told him one night. I wanted to be friendly enough to not seem like a stuck-up bitch, but I didn’t want to be stripper-trying-to-sell-a-lap dance friendly. He told me he was staying for two nights, and that the grounds were beautiful at night, and there is no other place he would rather be.
He tipped his hat again and departed. I went back to my car and sat there for a short time, wondering whether I should just tear the tent down, pack it all up, and drive home. Thanks for letting me watch Unsolved Mysteries and FBI’s most wanted when I was a kid, Mom. Appreciate that.
Truth was, the old man made me feel safer. It was my vivid imagination that needed to be bitch slapped.
I decided to try and enjoy the daylight while it lasted, so I got out of the car and went to the picnic table with my books. I sat and listened to the peaceful brook, the wind blowing through, the birds chirping, and the many, many, many flies buzzing around my ears, trying to land on my eyeballs. Biting and/or shitting on my arms and legs.
Within a few minutes, I had an Civil Law test rolled up like a bat and was ready to kill the next little-winged son of a bitch that landed on my body. I put my legs up on the bench as bait.
“Come on you little bastards,” I mumbled.
Eventually, the flies won.
I gathered my books and hurried into my tent. Thankfully, only five of the 57 flies managed to follow me inside before I pulled the zipper down. I stared through the single-net portal at the trees, there was about 1/2 foot of space between the top of my head and the tent’s ceiling. I looked with my eyes and my ears–the leaves, the buzz of the gnats, and the rough slap of my Civil Law test coming down to kill each fly.
When it was dark, the camp site manager came to collect my money for the night’s stay, then a van pulled in beside my campsite and a couple of young, cute guys crawled out. They looked at me, I looked at them, we all looked away.
Date night. Solo. Away from the city lights and the boom-boom-boom of Main Street. The glorified port-o-potty wasn’t too bad, the campers around me were respectful and went quiet at a reasonable hour, and I fell asleep listening to the bugs and owls shoot the shit.
I woke up at sunrise and the flies were already out, so I packed up and drove home.
It’s always nice to be reminded that being alone can be lovely. I mean, if you can’t be by yourself without getting bored, who the hell else will want to be with you?
Published by permission. Visit Mari's blog at http://www.mari-go-round.com/
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