Eons ago, Blogging Mentor Mark asked if I’d write a post about the odd people I’ve met on the road. Good idea, right? I started in on it all excited, thinking, this will be the best retrospective post ever! I called it, “Strangers Stranger Than than Usual Strangers.”
That post has been sitting in my draft folder just haunting me. My mistake is that I began it with two especially un-fun strangers to write about: a particular drug dealer who stands out among several we’ve encountered and a possible kidnapper. No matter how many quirky things I say about these guys, I keep writing my way back to excuses on why I didn’t call the cops on either one. The post keeps evolving into an indictment against me, the stranger enabler. I’m innocent, I swear!
So, I’m giving up on that post and offering instead a couple of what I’ll call quickie campground tours. Before I blew my knee out, I used to walk about three miles each morning, then a bit after lunch. Here’s a summary of one memorable day of walking on BLM land near Yuma, Arizona, and another in a state park in Arkansas. Two tours that are much more fun to remember than my regrets.
The Dangerous or Not Dangerous Game
When you’re surrounded by strangers, you’re always having to guess: Is this person walking by my home a gun-wielding, angry outcast, or is he going to offer me the best zucchini bread I’ve ever tasted? Seriously, these seem to be the choices here at Imperial Dam LTVA.
This morning I began my social rounds when Banjo and I stopped to talk about the sunrise with our neighbor, Jay. He’s the one who rides a BMW motorcycle on these rutted dirt paths and explained to me in the laundromat what NOAA is. (Sounds like the guy with the ark, really is a government department. Dude, I’m aware.) Good guy, just quick to assume ignorance and extremely free-flowing with the words, as he admitted at length to me this morning.
Per typical nomad style, we were standing outside his trailer in the desert—him in slippers and a robe, me in cowboy boots and my drag-queen dress, and Banjo, who kept trying to sniff him in inappropriate places. The usual. This guy nevertheless surprised me. Just as I was thinking his claim to being super observant was all talk, he complimented me on my new earrings (that I’d been wearing in the laundromat but wasn’t wearing then), which he described to a T plus why they suit me. Never mind that he thought my name is Stella. I vote him Not Dangerous (probably; maybe).
His stories were all about his Dangerous neighbors, though. One had been burning plastics, and when J. confronted him about it, the burner guy was volatile, scary. Days later, that guy’s rig is surrounded by law enforcement; they looked like a swat team you’d see on TV. Jay has decided keep to himself. I note this.
Next, I stopped by our trailer and traded Banjo for our bag of trash, and I embarked on my daily 2-mile walk to the dumpsters. I like walking the trash out: it’s good exercise, plus I like seeing all the campers closer to civilization (aka the dumpster area) and feeling like I have a neighborhood over there. I’m also amused by how many guys stop to ask me if I need help with my trash.
Seriously, every time I walk to the dumpsters, some guy stops his truck, ATV, motorbike, whatever, and offers me a ride or offers to simply take my trash for me. Sweet, right? Maybe.
Today I got stopped twice in the first mile. On my way back I passed a guy walking his trash, so I asked him,
“Hey, do people stop and offer to help you with your trash?”
He replies, “Nope.”
But then he asks, “Are they men?”
“Okay, yes, they’re men.”
“Well, there’s your answer.”
We joke a bit about human nature, and as we start walking in opposite directions, he asks if I’ll take his trash for him. Ha! I like him. Not Dangerous (probably).
Next, this little car stops, the one I keep seeing with an NRA sticker on one window and a huge (even more unsettling) chihuahua face sticker on the other. Of course, he offers me a ride to the dumpsters. The wind was high and his hearing isn’t good, so he stepped out of the car (which I didn’t welcome) to better hear my standard explanation that I actually like walking to the dumpsters.
But then he got a call, and because he was so close, I overheard him explain that it sucks that [something I didn’t catch] had broken, and he’d be there in just a few minutes with parts. He hung up, asked me if I like zucchini bread, and sped off. When I finally got back to the tent, Tracy was sitting there with a half-loaf of the most moist, fruit and nut filed, rich dark bread I’ve ever had. Not Dangerous (probably).
There were others I’d meet out walking on the LTVA (what I called Mars, not affectionately), including neighbors who have turned into lifelong friends. Man, this post is getting long, though. I haven’t even begun the Arkansas walk. I’ll save that for another day. There are only so many stranger strangers than the usual strangers I can handle in a post, even if they’re not the most strange strangers.
It seems like there’s a fine line between sketchy possible criminals and zucchini bread bakers in your life.
Interesting, that.
I don’t think of it as a line – more like a Venn diagram with nebulous boundaries and a lot of overlap.
Interesting addendum (“probably”) after each seemingly innocent encounter. You never know for sure, do you? I’ll bet most of Ted Bundy’s victims would put him in the “Harmless” category too. This was fun; maybe it’s a series you can visit periodically, whenever you’ve stockpiled a few more interesting encounters.
Thanks for inspiring it! I don’t think I’ll ever run out of these things.
In Australia, many camp areas don’t have reserves sites you book so people are free to choose. There’s a phenomenon whereby people will camp next to you rather than off a ways where there’s heaps of room. I have a friend whose strategy is to behave like a sketchy camper whenever potential neighbours cruise by scouting for a site. I imagine this works unless a potential neighbour is even sketchier, then they wouldn’t be scared off – maybe even think you’re like-minded. Meanwhile you’ve scared off the nice neighbours. There’s no easy solution!
This has been our exact thought. If we were to blast heavy metal, maybe a heavy metal fan would move in right next to us. If we were to broadcast a recording of a dog barking or children crying, surely people who are fine with that also would move right in. Tracy jokes the only safe broadcast would be classical music since no one in the US camping would be attracted to that. (We have been known to play the Grateful Dead at night sometimes. No ill effects there, so far.)