I've been having a love affair with Mother Nature recently, with Jenny, so it's not weird, though it's been sort of an orgy with all the other friends involved. Luckily we're all cool with each other. With all this sun in our eyes, it's been hard to tell who is who, anyway.
On Thursday it's a trip to the river with Erin, Nick and Ashley and we meet three nice guys with a dog who wants nothing more than to play fetch, and there's a tree shaped like the palm of a hand, warm water and freezing water, shells in the sand, skipping rocks and beer and music and a pipe full of weed. There's bonding time with customers turned friends, coworkers and roommates and strangers, and a cracked-out fella looking for a boxing match, river rats partying around a makeshift slip-n-slide, a topless girl and a handful of Hook references. We leave the river for Suzie's burgers when hunger rings the doorbell.
On Friday, with Jenny and Arielle, it's a drive out to Concow with a pit-stop off 70 for fresh fruit. The Wild Mountain Fair-with-an-e is going on this weekend and Arielle knows Ryan, who will be playing later tonight. This is me and Jenny's first camping trip together. First festival (faire, whatever) together. We get there and we get in for free, somehow, and the place is gorgeous and the trees are tall and the lavender is aromatic and the people are friendly and there's already a band playing reggae music on the main stage. It's a long afternoon of beer drinking, joint sharing, stranger meeting, food tasting, water testing, nature loving, fire watching, people watching, campground exploring and peace discovering. Kids running around with hoola-hoops. Colorful summer dresses and tye-dye shirts everywhere. Live music non-stop. Everyone smoking weed around the giant bonfire. Ryan's band, with the whimsical, nostalgic Germaine, is a reggae outfit that gets shunned to the secondary stage, but the privacy allows for an impromptu dance party with Jenny, Arielle and me in someone's empty dome tent. We weren't allowed to swim in the reservoir because an older woman said the water was policed by the Water Nazi. Also found out Concow was ravaged by a wildfire about three years ago, so it's pretty neat they've continued holding this faire each year since, usually with the proceeds going toward land recovery. We met some Native Americans who built a sweat lodge near the creek and put up a bunch of teepees, which was cool to see, though being stoned and entering this sacred-feeling land was a little overwhelming. When the sun went down, I realized that I'd forgotten how many stars there were. For being as unplanned as the trip was, it went off without a hitch. Jenny and I left early in the morning to get back to civilization in time to rejoin the working class.
Jessica's back at work, doing alright, still getting occasional waves of nausea, and she's shaved off all her hair and looks like a total badass. Her "boyfriend," Carlos, apparently broke up with her because he couldn't handle the situation.
Otherwise it's the same old, same old.
Missing nature.
- Left to Fry
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