Monday, May 17, 2010


The Clown is Down!


On Mothers Day, after watching the break dance whapping of my Clown tent, I finally conceded it had gone beyond agile expression and passed into a state of grand mal convulsion, and began to take it down. A succession of gales howled it off its stakes and two feet ripped out of their tent floor corners. I wrassled it into a dusty bundle, squashed it and all its former contents into my Crate and rolled out of Horton Creek Campground on Pothole Island road in a smashed-tent retreat. Along the way I saw several abandoned tents, polyester cottages shredded to rags with poles sticking out, or intact but bouncing down the sagebrush. No escape from the big wind, all around big trees down and big rigs sidelined. I ended up recovering in a Big Pine motel with WIFI for the night, and awoke determined to tough it out.


I visited the UPS Store in Bishop that hosts my mailbox to stuff my thrashed Harlequin into a cardboard box and ship it back to Texsport to repair or replace. May the Saints protect Kathy at the UPS Store and lead her to happiness of every kind, for she is kindly to the distressed and helpful to the befuddled.


Back at Horton Creek I set up at a different campsite and stashed my stuff under a slab-solid six-inch thick wooden picnic table. I lined the cavity of my camper shell with comforter, pillows, sleeping bags and fleece. By evening, the storm lowered from the mountains and slammed my truck all night with rain and sleet, but I slept snug and dry in the Rocking Tacoma Crate.

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