Letter Home (3 of  7)
9-13-93
South Dakota

I marvel at the beauty
Untouched by mankind
In awe of nature
As mother doe and fawn
Graze pasture at night
Not knowing any fear
but man

Everybody has some things that they really like.  For some it may be ice cream sundaes with hot fudge involving a fat content approaching the triple digits.  Others may love back rubs which last for hours but never have to be given in reciprocation, or a springtime walk in the woods, the intoxicating scent of a wild rose, an unaudited tax return, whatever.

Then for all the things we really like we get life's little ambiguities which balance the scales of happiness with the things that drive us completely mad.  The "I hope nobody sees how I act when this happens because I look such a fool" kinda things that we absolutely hate!

The things that we really hate may be as insignificant as global warming, ozone depletion or humorous things like Clinton's tax plan.  Or they may be more meaningful, important things which really drive us nuts.  Things which we hate even more than all the others.  Things like Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold, dead cooked animals, the Chevy Chase talk show or an audited tax return.

For me, that little thing that just burns my bottom and makes my belly bubble.  The one thing that turns me into a wild, raving maniac whom Jeffrey Dahmer might feel a kinship to is someone telling me how or where to drive!  Now visualize this for a minute, 300 to 500 miles of white lines and cold black pavement.  Five hours locked in a car with muah!  What could be worse you ask.

I think this is God's way of saying, "so you thought twenty years in the shmatta business was stressful?"  Hah!  Welcome to horror highway where the compass on the dash says East yet the freeway is called I70 North!  Go figure.  As if that's not confusing enough, every so often you approach freeway signs which don't say North, South, East or West.  When the freeway forks, one is I70 Littleton and the other is I70 Silverthorne.  Who in the hell knows where Littleton or Silverthorne are?  I'm trying to go to Wyoming!

Now I don't often get lost often but my home in Breckenridge is five minutes from Lake Dillon.  More than once I have driven for 52 miles around the 27 mile perimeter of the lake only to then finally surrender to the nearest gas station with white flag flailing from the antenna begging for directions.  In high school, Algebra and Geometry are ludicrous.  Map 101 should have been mandatory.  Whew!  Now let's have a breather for a moment!  Okay, now I'm relaxed.  Getting a little tense just thinking about it.

Well, actually other than my navigational skills being tested daily as well as the daily stress of having anywhere I want to go and all the time in the world to do it in, I guess life has been pretty good to me so far.

It seems the hub of activity at the campgrounds are centered in the bathroom.  You meet the most interesting people between a shower and a shave.  Sometimes conversations hold more meaning than just 'goob morning' (that's good morning with a toothbrush stuck in your mouth.)  Yesterday morning I was putting contact lens solution on my little magnifying spheres which change my normally 60 - 40 eyesight to a crisp clear 50 - 37.  I was then applying them to the corneas of my eyes once again allowing suction to perform it's function in yet another meaningful way.  Then after mutual 'goob mornings' I had a conversation with a German gentleman who spoke slightly broken English but was understandable never-the-less.  It seems he'd been trying to wear contact lens for some forty years (dog year maybe?.)  Our conversation centered on the care and maintenance of contact lens.  He complained that his always turned gray and became unusable after only a few months.  A few minutes into our conversation he realized that he was never allowing them to soak in contact lens solution overnight!  He would take them out and put them into their case dry.  "This is not a good thing to do" I mentioned, since they should never dry out.  He just said "Oh, I see" and continued to brush his teeth.  I guess when you think about it, forty years isn't that long to learn something as complex as this.  You gotta love the guy!

I then had just jumped into the shower when I heard the strangest noises coming from the other side of the bathroom.  Something hummm, ougghh, augghh and other various high pitched grunts, groans and grumbles.  Wanting to make sure these sounds weren't coming from a 'gay' grizzly bear or other raptor in heat (If you've seen the movie Deliverance you know what I mean, it could be an awful sorry sight) preparing to pounce on bare ass naked Al, I figured I had better sneak-a-peek through the shower curtain.  To my surprise, peering over the sink on his tip toes is a little boy of about seven years old.  What all the strange noises ere about I didn't venture a guess.

After hopping out of the shower, dressing and slapping on a pair of Nikes I approached the sinks to comb my hair again exuding the standard greeting to the boy.  With this being all the prompting needed, he proceeded to explain for the next twenty minutes how he put a tackle box full of bathroom supplies (half the size of himself) on his skateboard and wheeled it down here.  On mentioning how large the box was he obligingly continued to pull everything out of the box, placing each item on top of the counter.  He then pulled a smaller box out and upon opening it, displayed a collection of ten or twelve different tweezers, scissors, manicure files and various other tools for plucking, preening or pruning every part of the body imaginable.  Knowing fully well that merely showing each item was not exciting enough he proceeded to include his own narration on exactly what each item was and exactly what it was to be used for.  He was such a cute kid he reminded me of my son Chris at that age but Chris was even cuter.  His personality was how I fell in love with him and his mommy.  The innocence of a child was adorable.  After comparing hair styles and realizing that his was cooler I said, 'catch ya later' and left.  I certainly didn't want to be outdone by a seven year old with such a totally rad 'do.'

Well as you probably realize by now, I did it!  I actually left Colorado and am now in South Dakota.  I am in what is called the Black Hills of South Dakota which is mountainous and heavily wooded.  My campsite is backed into the forest and the cats just love it.  After driving to town last night I approached three deer grazing in the filed by the trailer.  I was amazed at how calm and un startled they were.  On seeing me they just continued to graze and be beautiful in their posture.

In the morning I go to see those four famous faces on Mount Rushmore but I guess after you've seen one 60 foot high face carved out of solid white granite, you've seen them all!  I truly love camping so far and am relishing in the lack of responsibility as far as no monthly bills to speak of and (God bless them) no employees to deal with.

Orivua for now and I'll keep you informed as the good ship Williams charts it's course through parts unknown.  By the way, the ranger just came by to inform me it's going down to 19 degrees tonight!  There is one more thing I have learned that is very important in my life, a good electric heater!

Byeeeeeeeeee, Allen