vicarz | (no subject)

"what:: hike to the reservoir, swim, eat, hike back down...hike
>> up the fire road from the bottom. the hike is easy - 3-4 miles up a fire
>> road, arrive at reservoir (with fun jumpy thing!), and the way back is all
>> downhill..."

Don't always believe what you read. The day started simply enough for me - woke up at 6:30 very groggy, figured I could nap later. I committed to the trip after having been sketchy - wanted to see if I woke up hung over or not and scout the raincast before agreeing formally to trek through the woods. I committed, and around 10 or 11 we all headed out for our simple, short, low-key anyone can do this hike. We group'd at Kirstin's, and I happily took the back seat with Dudley-dog.

Now, this hike made sense for a wider group of peeps than many other hikes because rather than 10 mile jaunts uphill both ways, this was a simple fire road visit to a lake with what...a liesurly 1-2 hour stroll each way. Only, as we kept going...we kept going. Pocahontas up there kept saying she was pretty sure the lake was around that next bend, after we crested the next hill...yet somehow it was never quite the expected bend or hill. Tech-hiker Brian forgot to set the gps dildos i-fucker so we weren't sure how long we were going or how far we went, but it was starting to seem more and more substantial. We did arrive at the lake, a lil hungrier and grungier than expected, but not really any worse for wear. Luckily only us strong woodsy types and shown up.

Swimming was an eye-opener - jumping in the amoeba-filled lake was a very pleasant experience, and since we all brought actual bathing suits and didn't get drunk or play rock music, nobody stalked us from the surrounding woods or murky depths below to ravage our teenaged bodies. Don't judge - we've all watched a lot of horror flicks. What caught me by surprise is what a horrible swimmer I am. It seems while you don't lose the ability to stay afloat, if you don't really swim in say, 10-20 years, you don't get better at it. I was embarrassed by how slowly I crossed the water and how I couldn't freestyle and breathe without sucking in lake.

I only want it if you do: Dudley is a trip. He went nuts when we started in on sandy-witches, and most of us chipped in (not me, spinach and taboule is not a big dog-hit) with little foody bits for the dood. However, he turned his nose up at bread. Having tossed bread in and around the dog, we tossed this to the fish lurking in the lake - they had a piranha-like field day with the stuff. However, the piranha caught the doodster's attention - and he kept diving in. At first we thought he was going to chase fish, but it turned out he was now eating the bread. That's right - he didn't want it until he realized someone else did.

We swam a lil more, which is what you do immediately after eating, and as thunder approached headed back. Going back we knew we were in for a bit of a walk, and techno-boy told his weird devices to track our infra-red head signatures with the international space station or something. Trip back was essentially uneventful, some light rain, pretty thunder, but not much else. OH - forgot to mention that some hikers passing us as we headed out mentioned not only seeing a bear, but a mamma bear with cubs who had been aggressive. If you don't know the Dudster, you probably don't realize that he likes to chase beasties and doesn't come when called - he takes it as sort of a suggestion, and if he isn't doing something more interesting, he will mosey over. He was leashed around the suggested bear area - but no bear was seen. On the way back, sans bear, he was unleased. He found more stuff than usual to chase off the path, and every so often he'd nose-to-air, perk ears, and go chasing something we never saw - usually yalping loudly from far away when he found a deer or a rock or something. He once looked at a frog oblivious to a bunny hopping down the path ahead of us.

However, once while he was exploring an interesting smelling bug off the path, we saw an adorable little teenaged SKUNQUE ahead of us on the path. The first reaction was oh look, cute, a lil baby skunky. Then the Dood started to head in that direction, and the oh shits and more important tones of "get over here" were hurled out to dood. Well, true to form he was far more interested in the animal smell and wiggly thing ahead of us. We all knew it was coming, but weren't sure if it came at first. Oddly, we saw dud moving away from the skunk, who briefly chased him as he headed up to the path. Dudley returned to the path ahead of us, and immediately started rolling around on the ground nose-first. Then the first stink-bomb waves hit us - however dood was obviously hurting, so the priority wasn't so much the smell as whether he was ok. His eyes were mostly closed, and he was frothing at the mouth. He was so frantically rubbing himself on the ground he was ignoring little things like the rock that he was banging his head on. Kirstin ran on maternal instincts and started helping to rub whatever off the dog, and we all chipped in the tail-end of our waters to wash his face and give him drinks to get the taste out of his mouth as much as possible. As initial shock wore off, we discovered the smell.

We all know what skunk smells like, but this was odd - our teenaged fellow had a strong burning sulphur tinge to a smell which frankly, while impressively offensive, is quite hard to describe. It wasn't really skunk like a roadside skunk or cabbage, but not really sulphur either. It did have a notable effect - the smell actually kind of burned your senses, and as dood, Kirstin, and Brian discovered - it burned your skin where you touched it. Poor dumb dood had taken the full blow to the face - if a dog can learn anything, this dood should really know not to mess with those black n' white kitties now and forever more. Ever. So dood was rubbed on towels, which were shoved into plastic bags along with some clothing. Nobody was really happy with the results...

The trip back was otherwise uneventful! We just kept walking and talking as before, dood on a leash, only every so often a full-whollop would hit you through some unfortunate churn of wind and the burning would return. Ya kinda wanted to spit when it hit you, and often we all did. Ptewie! Ptah, ptah... Clothes were bagged and sorted and I wound up shirtless like Captain Kirk on an away mission. Arriving at the car, Dexter revealed that the walk back was actually 7 miles - so we had essentially doubled the forecasted hike, uh oops, 14 miles. Blankies were laid out and we regretfully piled into the car. Thankfully the smellmeister was more than willing to just plop down and rest in his seat - he received far less lovin on the way back. A cell-phone call and internet research later, we motivated to stop by a grocery store to pick up not tomatoes, but peroxide and baking soda. In the parking lot we held, washed, and dried dood with things he really didn't appreciate upon application. However, it did turn out that the internet was once again 100% accurate and the burning stinky skunk oil was greatly reduced through the liberal application of these foamy toxins. It seemed after that the smell came more from the clothes and towels than the actual dog or us, but as we grew accustomed to the skunky scent, it wasn't clear how much was better and how much was the result of smelling the same thing for a couple of hours.

A few car changes and home dropoffs later I was at home, leaving my shoes and socks outside due to either skunk smell, or the inability to tell where the hell it was coming from anymore. Once I joined my personal sietch smell I could start telling that indeed most everything did have some degree of skunkitutude. Inside I laid out the wet skunky towel on the kitchen floor, shortly afterwards failing the sniff test all my clothes joined it.

I was scrubbed liberally, OH and scanned for ticks. Forgot to mention, in this age of rampant lyme disease, we found literally dozens of ticks both large and small throughout the hike. We picked at ourselves and scanned each other like well-socialized monkeys most of the trip. I've hiked for years, and never found more than a rare tick or two - this was madness. But the happily scrubbed me just ensured that the computer would record any squidbillies, dethklok, or robot chicken that came on and called it a zzzzzzzzz. This AM I woke to realize that my clothes were more stinkified than I had noticed on returning last night, so I left them in the tub soaking in woolite for the day. Starting to leave I found my shoes somehow got the stuff too, so they remain on the doorstep. I found even the bag everything went in was contaminated, so it joined it's stinky brethren in the tub.

And here we are in the office - hoping that I got the smell off of me, rather than just getting used to it, because it'll be a bad day if I smell skunk'd in the office.