Greetings From Hellhole

There are a series of canyons in the inland regions of San Diego County, blasted to rubble mountains at the Imperial County line.  The mountains are mammoth in some places, mere boulders in others, with vegetation sparse and monochromatic enough that it’s easier to notice varying colors in the dead than it is in the living.

Right about this time of year, however, the vegetable  tends to impress the animal and give the mineral a run for its money.  When my brother and sis-in-love and I headed for the desert this past Saturday, we were too early for the fireworks, but still witnessed a show.

Saturday’s journey gave for good timing.  We arrived at my brother’s favorite of the canyons, Hellhole, just after 11:30 a.m.  The trailhead to the canyon lies just off highways 76, 78, and 79 outside of Berrago Springs.  The parking lot is less marked and more implied (a former dream of Edward Abbey), with a cement two-person outhouse at one end and warning signage under a shelter at the other end.  The trails (there are three) going into the canyon are also implied, but lose influence when the hiker starts to make the destination.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  The whole trail we embarked on, by the way, should be noted to be eight miles round trip, six of that hiking, two climbing over chest-high impediments.

The ground cover leading up to the impediments is gravel, slightly smaller than that found in an aquarium, but not small enough to be sand, and packed firm but not solid.  The gravel is the color of creme brûlée and never kills the feet, given proper shoes are worn.  I ventured on the trail dressed in the following:

• Cargo pants with zip-off legs;
• A long-sleeved breathable shirt of thin, breathable athletic material;
• A wide-brimmed cotton canvas hat;
• Sunglasses, avec girly bling;
• Hiking socks;
• Hiking boots, eight inches high at the cut;
• The assumed foundation garments.

In my cargo pockets and on my person I carried:

• Bottled water, Sigg style, in a holster with a cross-body strap;
• Three granola bars;
• Lip balm;
• My cell phone;

What I should have changed in that collection was chilling the water overnight in the fridge in the bottle, but everything else was only what was needed for the day.  The trail was 73 F and felt like 80 F, but my goal was to keep a steady pace, not a race, and not a lesson in window shopping.  My brother took the lead, with my sis-in-love next and me last.  The trail showed some incline, but didn’t wind us.  We spied hummingbirds, a boatload of bees, a rattlesnake sleeping in sagebrush, and a bird called a phainopepla, commonly known as a black cardinal.  Perched on cacti they look like Cajun cardinal or the shadow of a cardinal.  They do not sound like one.

What is most ironic about Hellhole is its name--the destination point of the trails is a grove of palm trees, a Japanese maple, and a series of waterfalls.  In other words, if people in Hellhole want water, they can find it.  Getting to it takes perseverance and flexibility--at one point the boulders required that I jump and suck in my gut simultaneously.  A cross-training desert.

The jungle within was quiet, hushed, and sported the strongest cell signal of my time in SoCal.  I considered staying.  Visitors would be few and wild, and I could etch my stories on palm fronds.  But the granola bars wouldn’t last forever and my outfit lacked toilet paper, so I eventually saw reason.  No flowers this time, but lots of reason.

Coming back from the trail, halfway back to Carlsbad, the desert suddenly gives over to a cluster of casinos.  My brother has something called Diamond status with the Harrah’s casino there, and we stopped by for a buffet on the way home.  Imagine, dear reader, that three travelers walk into a restaurant.  The punchline mentioned something about bells, whistles, flashing lights, and all-you-can-eat salisbury steak.  We had finally found Hellhole.

Coyote Ugly

We interrupt this regularly-scheduled collection of fishing tales to talk about a land mammal for a moment--Wile E. Coyote.  (William Least Heat-Moon would point out to you and I at this point that in Chase County, Kansas it would be pronounced “KY-oat,” but we aren’t in Kansas anymore, are we, Bill?)

Allow me to set the scene here in North County, the shortened name for the region of San Diego County that rests next to Orange County.  Out here by the sea, towns rim the 5 like ants to a bread trail.  I live in Carlsbad.  The next town north is Oceanside.  And yes, I’m sticking by my description of them as towns--San Francisco fluctuates in 800,000 range of population meter, God only knows how big San Diego is, and Carlsbad is 63,000.  That’s a mall, technically.

Oceanside is where most of the businesses are, and most of the criminal activity.  If Carlsbad were Berkeley, Oceanside would be Oakland.  About a week ago the sis-in-love and I walked down a street in Oceanside, taking care of some errands.  I was along because I have a tough face in rough neighborhoods.  I remarked at one point that I missed living a City, missed be able to run all of my errands in a single square block radius.  She said that a couple of times businesses had petitioned Carlsbad to be more open to it, but Carlsbad was trying to protect its ecological side.  I must have looked stunned--in San Francisco we were stacked like Legos next to the ecological studies of the California Academy of Sciences, the Botanical Gardens, and Golden Gate Park in general.  Carlsbad didn’t want to even pursue those options.  Just keep it as close to the original map as possible.

“And I guess Oceanside doesn’t feel that way?” I asked, an eyebrow raised, marveling at the neighbors.

I got a long explanation about the military families in the area and the crime and what it sounded like, after listening to all the evidence, is that someone sold out.

It’s difficult to tell whether it was Carlsbad or Oceanside.

*****

The Cove stems from a lagoon named Agua Hedionda, or, in Spanish, “smelly water.”  Before the eco-conscious government of Carlsbad showed up with county and state governments to build mechanics at the ocean’s part of the lagoon that allowed for a give and take of sea water whenever a oceanographer rolled the dice, the saltwater only came in at high tide, a natural trap that made the water brackish and stinky.  Sitting on our balcony in the Cove, Agua Hedionda curves around us on the south.  To get around it you have to get in your car (meh) and drive four miles around the lagoon east or a mile west and join the 5 with the rest of the rat race.  Or you can ford it.  Your choice.

A couple of weeks ago I joined my brother and sis-in-love for the car option to an event at a local branch of the conservation department on the other side of the lagoon.  It was an event that would start out with coyote calling for the first activity, followed by stargazing under the influence of high power telescopes.  The event was free, two dollars if you wanted a slice of cold pizza and Kool-Aid.

I am no stranger to coyotes--I’ve seen them in Missouri and Golden Gate Park--but I’ve never attempted calling them.  I used to work for Bass Pro Shops, but I had forgotten the cardinal rule of wildlife calling:  if you want to call a herbivore, imitate a mating call; if you want to call a carnivore, imitate its prey in distress.

Once all of us were assembled on a dark hill away from the visitor’s center, a young man who looked like Christopher McCandless on a good day began blowing something that sounded like a duck call.  Then he blew another instrument that sounded like squeaking.  Oh, now I see.  Rabbits and mice in distress.

Coyotes don’t usually attack people, mind you, save a couple of exceptions:  the person has to come in an infant-sized portion and left unattended, or, if any human tries to take what a coyote snatched.  One woman at the event was toting a toy version of some prized dog breed under her right arm and sharing a personal experience to anyone who would stand still for it.  Apparently, the dog she was carrying used to be one afternoon and took the one now absent.  She apparently chased them down into a canyon in Oceanside (I didn’t say it, but you thought it) and, when she saw the dog was beyond rescue, plugged every coyote taking part in the dog’s demise with the business end of a firearm.  I tried very hard to mask a gasp:  what the f*** was she doing shooting the wildlife, or even talking about it, and why did she bring the other to a coyote CALLING event?

As the calling continued, spotlights were shown over the lagoon, to see if we’d brought them.  My brother shook his head, saying, “Too many spotlights, too many people.”  Little kids were running around near the edge of the hill, dangerously close to the cliff.  Someone’s cell phone went off.

*****

The next night, in the waning and unseasonable sunset, I was walking along the lagoon.  The light was burning into a concentrated sauce of amber, and I could feel the orange source behind me when I heard an unmistakably yipping to the south, ahead of my path.

I paused.  I held my breath.

I didn’t want to miss a word.

Poisson, Part I

For the first time in my nearly forty years of existence, I have a fishing license.  I can fish with up to two poles and either on land into the water or in a boat on the ocean.

When I used to cast illegally with my brother in Santa Cruz, I continuously caught the one fish no one wanted:  starfish.  They come up the line heavy, wrap themselves stubbornly around the line, and come back for more the moment you drop the line back in the water.  Since then, when my brother would ask if I wanted a fishing license, I would shake my head and tell him that I would be happy to when they find a use for starfish other than to amuse children.  (I was definitely popular at the Santa Cruz Pier.)

My brother assures me that there are no starfish in Bristol Cove, so I accepted his offer for a fishing license this year.  My first task?  Go slow and do the kiddie fishing duty, which is bait-fishing.  Back in the States that would have meant going to a slightly sunken log in the forest, lifting it, and grabbing creepy-crawlies before they disappear into the earth, but here in Oz bait means another, smaller being in the sea (or, to tourists, sushi).  The Cove is filled with boat launches and marina hardware that are covered with mussels and crab nests, and small, silver jack smelt swim under the planks of the docks.  To obtain the mussels you simply reach under the surface of the water, yank the mussel off the pylon, and take it back to your chair and shove a knife in it and crack it apart like an oyster.  The orange organ inside is gathered up and piled on a hook or split between two hooks, and cast into the Cove.  If you select a crab from the nest, there are rules that it has to be a boy crab and not a girl crab (yeah, go ahead, go there; I’ll wait, you adolescent), and then the shell is cracked and parts of crab threaded onto hooks and cast in the Cove.

But if you are bait-fishing, you catch one of the jacksmelt (or another smelt that presents itself) by dangling a wimpy-looking smaller rod in the water with about six tiny hooks on it.  You let the line drop in the water until the sinker touched the bottom, and then pull up the line about six inches and “jig” it.  During that Saturday’s adventure I kept making lame puns, one of which was, “The jig is up, jacksmelt!”  Jigging involves gently bouncing the pole and moving it back and forth so that it looks like something shiny...jack smelt, the raccoon of the sea.  If you can’t see the bottom you are more likely to catch bait; if you can see the bottom, you are more than likely casting a shadow and are more than likely seen by the fish.  

Bait-fishing requires no casting, which is lucky for me and anyone standing around me; back in the States I used to hook the back of my own hat trying to cast.  Casting lessons will come at some point (I suggested to my brother that he be drunk when he endeavors to teach me to cast), but for the first session I just sat in a chair or paced the dock and jigged.  I caught a jacksmelt in the first twenty minutes--a fish the length of a golf pencil, flat, and wide-eyed in a dark pupil that filled the socket as though he’d been struck with a fist.

It was the only fish caught that day.  Turns out there’s a skill in the tides--you fish them when they are rising, not going out, but when you have only one weekend day, you just see what you can catch with the time you have.  My brother used the jacksmelt in hopes of getting halibut or sea bass (he usually gets sting ray with them), didn’t catch any crabs to use (yes, yes, I’ll wait while you giggle at that one), and loaded up the mussels on another pole for croaker.  After four hours of fishing his bait was as fresh and intact as when he threaded them on the hook--not even a bite stolen.  By the time we left the dock the tide was so low some boats were listing.

We had burgers for dinner.  :)

Car Mentality

I have transitioned to North San Diego County, and in that process have moved to a place where sidewalks are not a consistent feature of the world around me.  I have found a hill to rival that of the Pablo Stairs that I worked out on in San Francisco, and lucky for me that hill not only features a sidewalk but a paved path that cuts off from the street and loops around to a park that overlooks Carlsbad Lagoon.

You would think that a girl of the woods and nature would despise sidewalks, but the three-foot wide block of concrete running next to the streets is my last defense against what everyone else uses to get around--a vehicle.  In living in three different states I have found Californians to be the least safe of drivers.  In Ohio and Missouri drivers learn from weather and roadkill challenges enough to be a little better at it.  Ask Stephen King what I mean by this sometime.

Still, I am learning to overcome my fear of drop-offs and reckless drivers.  In this coming week I am transitioning to walking to the library, getting my exercise while forcing myself to take roads that have no other choice but to walk in six inches of gravel to get there.

I’m not looking forward to it.  But the less I’m afraid of, the better.

Ah, But He Gets Paid For That

I wake up in the morning these days and think, "But I'm never going to have time to write, find a job, and work out as much as Pablo Sandoval."

As much as it stings, this is true for a very good reason--Pablo gets PAID to be in shape.  Quite a bit of money, as it turns out.

So I have to be happy with taking on a slice of his inspiration and working out where I can.  This morning I walked to the library and grocery store, and then took another walk in the afternoon to warm up and stay active.  I can hope to stay healthy, not be stacked with muscle like the Panda Bear.

The City is creeping into winter, even if we don't have fog or rain (yet).  I freeze inside at 1:30 pm with the sunlight coming into my window, and I know that with this latitude sooner or later not even the California Great Burning Ball of Fire in the Sky was going to keep me warm.  So the walks to and around the Music Concourse during the day serve multi-purposes:

• Get in the real sun = a little warmth
• Get the blood moving = more warmth
• Burn calories = Part of the plan

I'll start with that.  I have to be happy with that.  Unless someone wants to pay me to run and lift weights all day--but I think I was there and left that in April.  

The Sprint

Need to start running.  Period.  Enough of this walking or climbing or such.  I have to get painful and take off my baggage that keeps me parked and sleepy.

Details to come.

The Backyard

Haven't been up the Pablo stairs for a bit due to a sinus infection or allergies (not sure which, and I'm not in a mood to see a doctor) and decreased lung capacity.  

My time turns instead to Golden Gate Park.

It's relatively flat, green, full of wildlife, and somewhat soothing, despite the eight gazillion tourists there last weekend.

Oh, and it has an ice cream truck.  :)  Yes, I know, defeats the purpose, but I am still active, which is more than I feel like being these days with this lack of air.