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September 08, 2004
Strange People I Met This Labor Day Weekend
It all started on the Thursday before Labor Day when I was walking down Sansome Street in San Francisco and saw a black woman wearing a Confederate Flag Bandana on her head. I was shocked.
Friday it was unusually warm for San Francisco (and continued to be so for several days) so I took the afternoon off and went to McLaren Park to search for birds. No sooner had I entered the park than I saw a bloody body on the side of the road. It was slightly twisted as if it had been thrown out of a car or hit by a car. It seemed like the blood emanated from either stab wounds or gunshot wounds. I pulled over to call 911 but the police were already pulling in behind me so I continued on to the wooden bridge where I hoped to see some warblers. But I was too shaken up. Instead of every sweet chip note and rustle bringing the binoculars to my eyes, it had my neck whipping around to see if a criminal was lurking behind me. So I left. As I was driving out of the park I saw the police placing a body bag over the dead body. I went home and tried to forget about it. I checked the weather for the weekend. At 6000 feet it was going to be a low of 42 and a high of about 75. It sounded perfect.
That evening I took BART to Oakland where Susan picked me up in the Durango and we drove to Sequoia National Park for the weekend. We stayed at the Dorst Creek Campground, which is about half way between the Sherman Tree and the Grant Tree on the Generals Highway in Sequoia National Park. It is a lovely campground, with well-spaced, private sites, and clean restrooms. Unfortunately no sooner had we set up the tent (by this time it was 9:30 PM) than we began to hear some boys camping nearby howling. Every time someone would ask them to tone it down their voices became even louder until they were literally screaming. This went on well into the night. That night the temperature dipped well below the predicted 42 degrees to a low of 32 degrees. I hadn't even bothered to set up the tent fly. Between the howling hoodlums and the unexpectedly low temperatures we did not sleep well. And at $20 a night we had expected our fellow campers to be a little more respectful. In the morning as I was brushing my teeth a ranger drove by so I stopped him and told him about the noisy campers. He laughed in my face and said there was nothing he could do about it because I couldn't give him the exact camp site number! I found it hard to believe that I was the only one who had complained about these morons. When we were ready to leave we stopped at the Kiosk where campers register. Two campers were requesting a new site because they could not bear to spend another night next to these rowdy campers who screamed all night. I told the ranger that we had also been bothered by the screaming and she told me next time to call 911.
Saturday we hiked up the Lakes Trail to Pear Lake at 9200 feet. Along the trail we saw seven different species of warblers. While stopped to admire a Hermit Warbler a man asked what we were looking at and I said warblers. He said in an almost disappointed voice, "yeah lots of warblers." He said it as if he were some bird expert. Then he added "and lots of Blue Jays." Normally I would not correct a stranger on an incorrect bird identification, as it is just not polite, but this guy annoyed me with his warbler despondency so I told him, "well, actually there are no Blue Jays here as that is an East Coast bird. There are Stellar's Jays here." (Who doesn't know that?) And he said in amazement, "the bright blue bird?" And I said yes those are Stellar's Jays. He left nonplussed and incredulous. We continued to see many warblers and all three accipiters, Cooper's Hawk, Sharp-shinned Hawk, and best of all, Northern Goshawk! At Heather Lake, a beautiful sub-alpine lake nestled in the granite we overheard the girlfriend of the Bird Man from Mars saying: "honey let it go. We'll look it up when we get home" and Bird Man responding, "they're Stellar's BLUE JAYS then!" I wanted to smack him. We were about to overtake them on the next switchback (Lesson: while hiking on switchbacks never talk about other hikers because most likely they are either above or below you on the next switchback!) So I was thinking if he brought it up again I would just tell him he was an idiot. But instead when we passed them he said that the altitude was bothering him. He said "that's what happens when you live at sea level." We do live at sea level. We made it to Pear Lake while Bird Man and his girlfriend turned back at Heather Lake. We so wanted to run into them in the parking lot so he could look up Stellar's Jays in my National Geographic Guide to Birds.
Next we stopped at the Sherman Tree, which Susan had never seen. The whole area is under construction with all the trees marked off with offensive colored orange fences. There were hordes of people and it was definitely not ideal conditions for seeing the largest living thing for the first time. While trying to admire the tree I spotted a bear. It was only the second time Susan had seen a bear. After Sherman Tree we drove back to the campground and I was determined to call 911 if there were any disturbances but the whole camp went silent right at 10:00 PM. It was much warmer Saturday night and we stayed up long enough to see one meteor each.
Sunday we decided to spend the day in Kings Canyon. It was an incredible day, sunny and clear. We stopped at the Kings Canyon Lodge to get gas. The station has old-fashioned pumps where you can see the gas dropping through clear containers. A sign said "no self service, $20 minimum, Gas $3.20 a gallon." A woman was on the island who we presumed was the attendant. We waited and waited and she didn't get up. So finally Susan got out of the car and finally she got up and barked, "how much you want?" Susan said $20 please and handed her the $20. Since there is no gauge on the pump the only way to determine how much to charge is to see how much the gas goes down and then multiply by $3.20 and then give the change back. Susan went into the store to see if they sold crackers since she was feeling queasy from the winding road into the canyon. The lazy, rude, bleached blonde lady came back out with some money in her hand. A customer was examining the old fashioned pump and she said to him, "I don't know why I have to wait on these people with this IMPEACH BUSH bumper sticker. I hate radicals. She ought to have to go live in I-raq." Susan came back and the rude, lazy blonde pocketed our change. In Kings Canyon we hiked the Copper Creek trail, which has a 2800 foot elevation gain. It was very difficult as the temperature by now had soared to 82 degrees. At Lower Tent Meadow I spotted a rare bird, a Gray Flycatcher. According to the Checklist of Birds for Sequoia/Kings Canyon this bird has been observed only five times or less! After our hike we took a solar shower behind a rock and Susan was almost bitten by a scorpion. Then we walked around Zumwalt Meadow and the lighting was amazing. By the time we finished dinner the sun was fading fast. As we passed by Kings Canyon Lodge on the way out of the canyon I blew the horn on the Durango for as long as we were within earshot of those cheating Republican bastards. That is the last time I buy gas from those intolerant, undemocratic, uncivilized cretins.
Sunday night we returned to the campground around 9:00 PM. Oh God, some moron had his boom box blasting into the night air. The thumping bass could be heard throughout the campground. At exactly 10:00 PM, which is the exact time I had planned to go call 911, the boom box was turned off. The rest of the night we slept soundly except I heard a bear rummaging around and Susan heard an owl, probably a Northern Pygmy Owl based on her description of the hooting.
Monday, we put the tent away, loaded up the Durango, and drove to Moro Rock. There were few cars in the parking lot but an Asian man and woman and their daughter got on the trail just before us. They were speaking Chinese the entire way up the rock until they got to the summit and the man said in very plain English, the only English he used (no doubt so we would understand him) "the living god, Jesus Christ, our savior, made these mountains!" I said "why don't you stick to your language? I don't want to hear your religious fanaticism." While we took some pictures they proceeded back down the rock. A few minutes later we heard them singing church hymns with some other Christian fanatics. When finished singing I heard the Chinese man say "we are from Orange County." (Orange County is where some of the most right wing nut cases in the US live). Then the Chinese man said to the other couple who were from Virginia (it figures!), "this is our daughter Esther," to which the Virginia couple responded with joy, "oh a figure from the Bible. That's so wonderful!" I wanted to knock them off of Moro Rock and into the Kaweah River. After Moro Rock we walked around Crescent Meadow where we saw even more warblers! We were in warbler heaven and there were very few people: ideal hiking conditions. After Crescent Meadow we walked around the Hazelwood Nature Trail and then the Big Trees Trail, which is very nice. After that it was getting late so we checked out the Grant Grove. While admiring the General Grant Tree, which now has an ugly new sign with a grammatical error on it proclaiming it to be only 1700 years old, we saw a Pileated Woodpecker on a fallen giant only five feet away. Then it was time to leave. We didn't see any more great birds or strange people after that.
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