White Bus Black Dog

I think Woody Guthrie wrote a song that contained a line about misty mountains. Maybe it was Led Zeppelin. After last night, if ever I try to write a song about misty mountains, it’ll have to be about the stretch of Maryland along Interstate 68 between Cumberland and Hancock.

Last night, we drove through the wildest, steamiest downpour I have ever seen. There was lightning, thunder, and we were high up in the mountains; it was just like the beginning or ending of a bad horror novel. I kept an eye out for monsters along the side of the road.

But first:

We left Allegheny National Forest early in the morning, and from there headed south toward Bradford, PA, where we drove around for a while trying to find some grease for the bus. We were fortunate enough to stumble across a stocked dumpster behind a hotel there, and so, with four fresh pails loaded into the back of the bus, we hopped onto US-219 and beat a path southward.

The weather was warm and clear, the sky Nordic eye blue. We wound along the 219, gliding through Tallyho and Campbelltown, Johnstonville and Boot Jack, drinking in the hilly postcard scenery of central and then southern Pennsylvania. As we reached the end of the 219 and turned southwest on Interstate 99, we listened to disk jockeys spinning old country and Motown while around us the hills rose up and wound themselves into mountains, making valleys in their midst. And as we drove along the I-99, flipping from Sara Carter singing a song for her Blue Eyes, to Smokey Robinson and the Miracles seconding that emotion, the cities of Hannah and Tyrone and Altoona, with their red-roofed white box houses, sprouted up and floated away behind us, lost back beside the road, deep down in the green valleys.

Somewhere up in the mountains there, the sky ahead of us turned inky blue, darker than we’d seen it since crossing the border two days prior. We welcomed the change. We wanted rain. So, with images of the Cobequid Pass in my head, we drove head up the mountains and into the gathering drizzle.

Our destination was Green Ridge State Forest, but by the time dusk came on and we rolled into the park, we found all of the hundred camping spots taken. Even the overflow sites, which consisted of little more than sectioned off spaces out in the middle of a fallow field, were long since spoken for. The rain had picked up by this time, too, but still we laughed it off. It had been a dry, sweaty few days, and the break felt good. We drove on.

It was dark by the time we pulled out of the state park up in the hills, and we were unsure as to which way we should go. We decided against trying to carve out a spot for the bus in the overflow camping area, so as the rain poured down on the bus, exposing with drips the places we’d failed to seal completely, we motored on toward Hancock.

Misty Mountain Hop. That’s the song I was thinking of. As we rolled upward into the lightning and fog, cars began to pull over left and right, switching on their four way flashers to wait out the storm along the side of the highway. We kept going for a while, but when the highway lines were lost and I found myself following two red tail lights through the mist and fog, we called it quits for a while and sweated it out on the shoulder.

Then, onward. The rain seemed to be letting up, so we pulled back onto the road and kept going toward Hancock. Headlights flashed past, the windows fogged up, and still the rain came down as we went up hillsides and down, gliding past stopped cars, glancing sidelong at the flashes of wary faces turned skyward, illuminated by lightning.

Finally, somewhere through the rain we spotted the sign for Hancock. Swerving right toward the onramp, we splashed through a pool and down slippery road to a service station where, under the bright lights we hopped and giggled, glad to be out of the rain, and excited by the wonder that glowed around wherever we might end up next.

Photo credit

Last night will forever be memorable because it was the first time we both regretted having dogs with us on this trip. Tied to a tree, they were constantly getting tangled and making a scene. We wanted to rest and maybe read, but were stuck tending to the Gordon and Muddy freak show.

The worst part was when what was previously Gordon’s little quirk became, as the sun dropped, a very serious problem. He is fascinated by a certain kind of light: the sharp floating kind, like the sun reflected through a pane of glass. Or the light from a flashlight.

Gordon, calm by Jack Russell terrier standards, has a very unreasonable reaction to a flashlight. He trembles and whimpers. His gaze is fixated on the beam. If he is restrained from chasing it, he yelps, whines and eventually, barks distressedly. This makes unloading the bus and taking stuff into a tent impossible after dark. The campsite would have been so peaceful, the night so quiet, if it hadn’t been for Gordon’s stupid handicap. We don’t quite know how to deal with this thing yet, and both Paul and I were in despair over how impossible camping would become if using a flashlight was going to carry such an annoying side effect.

That night, we slept shallowly with only a blanket between us and the ground, and a blanket over us against the cold.

For breakfast, we had leftover chick pea/canned tomatoes/brown rice mixture. Water was pumped by hand and brought over to the campsite in our 5L glass jug.

One of the things I said I wanted to do this summer was swim in as many bodies of water as possible. It was something I missed a lot during the long hideous Canadian winter, and it is something I didn’t really get to do as much as I wanted to last summer, either. In Guayaquil, the Pacific Ocean was always such a perfect getaway, an easy escape from the heat and grit of the city, and an instant, physical but also emotional, refreshment. This summer I want more refreshments.

So, our plan for the day was to go swimming. The Alleghany Reservoir was a 3 mile hike away. We packed a backpack with enough for a morning’s entertainment, and set off. We did not pack water, or food. Idiots.

I am still not sure whether the hike was a mere 3 miles. The trail descended on rough terrain through woods thickly populated by chipmunks and fallen trees. The leaves were that leprechaun green, newly sprouted. It was sunny, and hot, and I was wearing flip-flops and a bathing suit. Two hours later, we spotted the water. We found a place appropriate for dropping down and resting, and then we went for a swim. There were salamanders on the banks, and through the clear ripples we could see carp and bass. The water was cold but so pleasant, and it felt gooooooooood.

We read in the sun. It was so hot and quiet, I fell asleep curled up on a rock. We went in for another dip. We headed back to camp. Somewhere along this trail back, I became very thirsty, and got into one of those complainey moods I am not very proud of but that anyone who goes on an adventure with me that involves a sustained period of uncomfortability would be familiar with. The dogs were tired, too. The beauty of the woods was not enough to ground me in the present, and distract me from the thought of rest and food back at Tracy Ridge. But hey, Paul took pictures of the beauty, not of the complaining, so guess what will be going into the memory book.

Muddy drank from every sludgy puddle of water along the way, earning himself another nickname: Bog Pup.

We didn’t get back to camp until 5 p.m.. Dinner prep was a silent and hurried affair. The dogs dropped exhausted under the picnic table and barely moved. We didn’t use a flashlight at all. We packed the tent up and slept in the bus, on the comfy mattress.

May 22, 2009

We were in Ontario for a week and a day. Today is our second sleep in the U.S.A..

We decided to cross at Buffalo, New York.

I was driving, and pulled into the Duty Free stop to gather my wits before attempting the crossover. We had rehearsed what we would say if grilled about the vegetable oil (“Don’t say the word ‘vegetable.’ The word ‘fuel’ is also bad. Call it ‘waste fryer oil,’ or a condiment.”)

We pulled out the papers proving the dogs had had their rabies shots. We also drew all the bus curtains and tied them securely, to avoid the look of a smugglers van. With the passports tucked into the console next to the drivers seat, we were ready.

You can see the blue interstate signs from the kiosk. The bus idled, anxious to roar down the I-90 South. After the car in front of us was released, we waited for what seemed like longer than necessary before the crew-cut guard looked up from his screen and waved to accept us. We rolled to the booth, he told me to turn the engine off, which I did.

We were both sure we would have to go through a rigorous questioning at the border. We had no story other than we were going to Vancouver for July 5, and would be camping in the States as we made our way across.

He asked me “What do you have back there” and with a glance back and a shrug, I said “ A bed.” Cheek! Sometimes, it comes out unintentionally.

“Do you have any fresh produce” “No, just cans.” Too tidy a story, too innocent a face. But compared to what we were expecting, he gave us no trouble at all.

In less than 5 minutes, he (begrudgingly, it appeared) said “Go,” and we did, almost too grateful. It’s so strange dealing with border guards. They have a lot of authority over lives, and so much of it is arbitrary. It never surprises me to read those stories about unlikely travelers rejected at a border. It’s like reading a story about someone struck by lightning: There is no lesson you can learn, because all your safety measures and preparations amount to very little in such a game of chance.

It was a thrill to be States-side finally, after all the planning. We skipped over New York State and landed at Allegheny National Forest on the Pennsylvania side at about 6 pm on May 21. We drove into the Tracy Ridge recreation area. Barely got the tent up and the fire going before it was dark.