Big Bear Sardines
Yellow Post 29 in the San Bernardino Mountains of California was my favorite place to get lost from the City of Angels. Ah! To breathe crisp unpolluted air, gaze at crystal starlight through tall pines, and rough it – but only a tiny bit.
My friend Melody had the stellar idea of discovering the perfect campsite beforehand, so one sunny Sunday morn we drove up the mountain. Reba and Garth did not quite blare on the radio of her truck, we meander from the ranger station where we picked up a map, around the town of Big Bear to the south side of the lake, up the mountain, and onto dirt forest roads.
Yellow Post 29 turned out to be a secluded country mile from any other single campsites. A fire pit, a picnic table, and a big rock to climb up for sunbathing when we were tired of hiking the meadowlands around the nearby Lodgepole Pine. At 10,000 feet elevation, we were lucky it was accessible without a four-wheel-drive although we did rebuild the last portion of the road with shovels full of dirt and rocks.
Mission accomplished. Mel and I headed back to L.A. to give the good news to Steve and John; we found a cool site and Carol only turned one shade of green traveling up the winding road.
Wisdom dictates leaving early when heading out of L.A. for a weekend jaunt in any direction. A late departure would double, or triple the time spent eastbound on the I10. Late Thursday evening or before sun-up Friday morning usually allowed us to sail down the expressway and that is why on one of our many memorable trips to Big Bear Melody and Steve went on ahead of John and me.
It is September 1990. We knew we were pushing our luck weatherwise, and sure enough, John and I encountered drizzle and fog during the late Friday evening commute to our favored campsite. Chilly on a motorcycle. Makes you pay attention. We arrived in the rain to sparse greetings and ate dinner in our, thankfully, already pitched tent. The rain increased as we snuggled into our sleeping bags following bad impersonations of The Waltons.
O’dark-thirty. A rustling in the other tent. Steve grousing under his breath then the slosh and crunch of feet coming nearer. Zwipp! “My sleeping bag is soaked. I am coming to sleep with you.”
John and I zipped our two bags into a single. And I fell back to sleep between my hubby and one of my best friends.
Not too much time passed before we heard Melody cursing Steve for wetting the bed and wishing for her pop-up tent trailer. Keeping the outing simple with tents seemed smart at the time. Our tent had a tarp bottom and hers did not so she’d pitched it on a tarp so nothing on the ground could pierce the bottom but that meant the rain had no ground to soak in. Steve woke in denial, thinking, “I’m a grown man. I could not have wet the bed!” Once devoid of the weight of his body the water was able to run freely down the slight incline to Melody’s side of the tent producing accusations and blue streaks.
Slosh. Crunch. Zwipp!
Picture sardines in those zipped-together bags. As twenty-somethings, we were all thinner and able to fit by lying on our sides.
The zippers held and we slept a bit in the warm bags at least until our sides grew numb. The sun rose yet the temperature seemed inclined in the opposite direction. The anticipation of answering nature’s call in the cold was worse than the event. Finding our motorcycle helmets hung on the handlebars was a surprise.
We decided camping in Melody’s temperate, dry living room was an infinitely better idea than staying. Piped, hot water seemed desirable as well. After 40 minutes of warming the BMW motorcycle’s engine with the Toyota’s exhaust with fingers crossed, we watched John push start it down our rebuilt road and we left the rain and cold behind until the next season of adventure.
©1999 Carol Baxter