I *WAS* supposed to hang out with Awesome-person, Marc Dryden in Eugene, Oregon.  Marc had an emergency, and I decided very last minute that I would rather go to Ashland instead.  Why?  Eugene is north of Bandon, Ashland is south.. and is near Medford where I will be picking Holly up on Wednesday. So… after a very scenic drive (Seems they all are, in Oregon), I pulled over by a hotel, mooched their internet signal from the parking lot, and went to CouchSurfing.com to try and find some people to stay with.  I wrote a few of them, despite being only an hour away from from arrival– talk about short notice!  Upon arriving in Ashland, I still had no one to couchsurf with… so, rather than try to sleep in my car, I thought I’d try camping out.  The sky was super-clear, the temperature was a breezy 62 (Warm, compared to the coast), and the stars were very visible. I drove around looking for a place that I would not look suspicious in.  It’s never fun having the cops called on you.  Then I found it!It was a dark road (the 1st few of those I took ended up taking me to neighborhoods), that ended up in a construction zone of some kind.  It was dark… there were no lights out, but I had my flashlight LED keychain.  There was a sign… appreantly, I found a hiking trail (funny enough, today, when I want to the Oregon Welcome Center, I was given a flyer for that trail… “Oh yeah.. I kind of found that one already.”)… but the sign also said no camping, no bonfires, no dogs, no motorized vehicles… so.. I left my car, dug up a sleeping bag I had somewhere, and I walked in.

It was dark… there was a trail, but I wanted to camp off the main path… just in case some ranger walked by or something.  The left side of the trail seemed promising, with trees, and the sounds of frogs… must be a creek or something.  There were thorny plants there, and I wanted to see what else was around.  I could hear the passing cars from the freeway.  I kept looking, and finally decided to try the right side of the trail…. there were tall grasses there, like a wheat field.  I stepped through these, and found a flat area– no thorns!  There was a tree…. what better place than behind a tree.  Oh wait… the tree didn’t have many leaves… I’d probably be obvious… best keep moving further back.  There it is– the perfect spot! About 3 trees back, behind trees, and gnarled branches, there was a flat area.  I kept looking around with my flashlight, and to my surprise saw a bicycle.  WTF?  It was hidden.  I turned off my flashlight and waited.  I waited, and I listened.  “Hellllo?” A twig broke, and I turned the light back on, and shone it that way– there was a person standing there, staring at me.  They were not moving.  They did not say anything.  They just stared… I was a bit startled.

The light from my flashlight is very cool — as in blue-white.  This made the person’s face glow a pale white, creating a high contrast with their red baseball cap.  It was kind of creepy, and I quickly turned my light off. “Hi.  I’m sorry… didn’t realize anyone was here.” and I stumbled away through the broken branches. Despite that I’m a nice boy, and was trying to camp out in the park where I’m not supposed to be camping, the thought that came to mind was “What kind of a person hides out in the night in a park that’s supposed to be closed? Is it some axe-killer? a thief? a homeless guy?”  The one that never came to mind was “Maybe it’s  acouchsurfer that just got into town, and hasn’t scored a couch yet.”

I kept following the path, but then turned off my light.  While I may have startled the other person with my light… there is no reason to let them see where I’m going, and have them find me- should they want to.  I tried walking off the trail, into one of the thorny areas.  I lay my sleeping bag down, tweeted a tiny bit about what just happened… and waited.  I did not see any movement anywhere.  After a while, your eyes adjust to the darkness (all those stars help), and everything becomes more clear.  I was sort of in a ditch.  2 feet below the path, and the thicket on my other side… dry thorny brush beneath me.  I relaxed, and enjoyed the stars for a bit, though still felt paranoid. Finally, I walked on with no flash light. Apparently, this part of the trail was a loop, as it brought me back near where the construction equipment is near where my car was.  I thought it might be wise to just camp out in my car… but I did have a sleeping bag with me, and the stars were bright above me.

No, I would do this… I mean, after all, I had already tweeted that I was going to camp under the stars.  I found a spot… it was inside some tall vegetation that was to the side of a path behind the heavy construction equipment.  I threw my sleeping bag down… it got caught in some thorns. The Sillhuette of the various plants all around me brought the thought to my mind “hmmmm… I bet it would’ve been wise to study what poison ivy , poison oak, etc… look like!”  Too late… I was laying down.  It was too quiet.  I did like the stars and the breeze… but… I was now listening to every twig that was moving.  Is it an axe murderer?  Is the dude searching for me, to say that it is in fact ok, I can come back to the thorn-free area, and he promises not to kill me… even has a fire going?  That never happened, and after a while, I did manage to fall asleep.  I woke up because the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees (turns out it was 20, but I had no way of measuring at the time).  I was laying on top of the sleeping bag, not inside of it.  So much for warm breeze!

I stood up, found the opening,  hopped inside the bag, and lay back down.  Now I could feel that the ground was hard beneath me.  I felt, rocks and twigs… but even the flat ground was really solid.  Then sleep.  Then waking up because my butt fell asleep, and my face was cold. I tucked in some more, rolled sideways, and slept again.  Other body parts fell asleep, and coyotes were singing.  I did not even know what time it was… I just lay there… The coyote singing was pretty.  I’ve never heard it before.  It was rapid, and musical, and came from 3 directions.  One sounded kind of close… really close… was he in the brush near me?  Roll over / sleep.

Upon waking up again, cold, with my thighs asleep, I decided that was it. I had initially thought I’d get a lot of sleep, and it would be relaxing… but that was not the case.  I had weird dreams – in one, I was sneaking into a high-tech company, and they busted me… but rather than arresting me, or letting me go, they had me test out some crazy new motor-vehicles… it was kind of a motorcycle/jet combo… but there were bad people after the technology, and thus me… Great… imaginary bad people in my sleep… imaginary bad people when I wake…  Dark & solitude can mess with your mind-  time to go to the car!

The car did not help… it was cold, and I didn’t want to run out of gas, by leaving my engine & heater on, then being stranded upon waking.  I was already wearing a long-sleeve shirt (from Tito’s Handmade Vodka), jeans, and a leather jacket.  I grabbed my zebra stripe bath robe, and wore-it like a snuggie.  My face and knees were cold.  I took a fleece, and wore it on my head.  I’m sure from the outside I looked pretty retarded.  I didn’t care.  I was still cold… and my car was so jam-packed, that I couldn’t even recline the seat all the way. *sigh* At least the stars were out, right?

I turned the heater on…. when the car was warm, I turned the car off.. This helped.  I slept.  Then I woke… it was dark still, but I heard an engine running – which wasn’t mine – and couldn’t quite see where it was.  It stayed on for a long time.  Then it silenced, then another one, and it was light.  I turned on my car, and the heater… and it was only 5:30am.  Is it any wonder why I’m tired now, as I type this?

I’m debating going back to the hiking trail, and seeing if I can find my favorite bicycle-riding axe-murderer… I mean… I only have to survive until Wednesday, then Holly gets here for a few days.

Maybe it’s ’cause I’m tired.. but I can’t think of how to end this blog post…maybe with a “Lessons learned”- yeah:

1) Always have a flashlight.
2)Get a real sleeping bag… a cheap one that has been crushed many times does not pad against rough terrain.
3)Have a recorder when camping… you can get some cool animal sounds.
4)Start a conversation with scary strangers… maybe they’re not out to kill you, and you can share the best area instead of sleeping on thorns and being paranoid.
5)Have a tazer, in case that conversation doesn’t go as well as iteam #4) stipulates.
6)Consider taking some downers to sleep through all these distractions
7)Clean your car out at least to the point where you can recline your seat.
*consider* staying out of areas where you’re not supposed to be at… maybe there’s a reason they have park hours, and it’s for your own safety. Don’t blog when you’re really tired.