Chasing Bigfoot

Down by the River

Oh my gosh, look at Henry- so muddy and handsome.

Can you all believe it; I’m writing this down by the river in the Green Mountain National Forest of Vermont? I can scarcely believe it myself. I thought we might just be painting a fence for the rest of forever. I had little anxieties before we left civilization that I might have forgotten how to live off the grid and out in the wilds. Sometimes my mind just makes up shit to worry over- as if I am a complete imbecile and would have forgotten everything I learned and know from three years on the road after a few months of standing still. I had to give myself little pep talks about how even if I sometimes do things that are caterpillar dumb, in general, I can see a clear path to outcomes I desire. I had not forgotten. With our new gear, I definitely have to work out a better organizational system for Henry. I am not at all pleased with how we packed him. But I have ideas and so I think I’ll get it as efficient as possible soon.

It’s a glorious day; high 70s, blue sky, a gentle breeze every once in awhile. Butterflies and dragonflies are in abundance, fluttering and zipping about in their delightful ways. The river is babbling over rocks, and in the dark, at night, I try to decipher what is saying to the rocks. I don’t speak water and can only be soothed by its passing. Thinking about rivers and streams, I always think of it as white noise- the same currents and flows hitting the same rocks and bends, tumbling against the same roots and fallen trees- it seems like the noise would be mostly the same, but it’s not. For reasons only the river and rocks know, sometimes it’s louder or softer, sometimes more hollow and echoing than other times- sometimes it sounds like chimes and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m sure there is some river geologist who could explain it all, but it’s a pleasant mystery to me. Many past sojourners here have made a rock dam three-fourths of the way across the river behind a natural hollow in the river bed, making a decently deep swimming hole. I know, I know ‘leave no trace’ and all of that, but I only appreciate the intrepid men and women who placed those river rocks in such a way to make a place to float in the cold mountain waters.

This is probably one of the best spots in Vermont, but for certain the best spot in this area. The driveway in requires high clearance or very careful driving; large boulders stick out of the ground and you could high center your vehicle, also the trees are close to the two-track so even if you can squeeze your vehicle to one side of the bigger rocks, you have to be aware of the trees on the side who might want a bite out of your mirrors. You can see the scars on the rocks where people have dragged their undercarriage to hell. Fish are jumping in the river and water bugs are gracefully skating on top, doing their best to not end up a fish’s dinner.  Megan has her hammock set up in the shady forest and our solar panels are out collecting the power of the sun. 

This spot was taken when we first arrived here. We stayed at spot at the end of spur road. It wasn’t ideal. The sun never reached down through the forest canopy to the forest floor. It was dark and damp. Plus being at the end of the road everyone had to turn around there which made it lack the privacy we like to enjoy. The first night in that spot, a demon shrieked around our tent. It was just often enough that I’d fall asleep in between its horrible screams. I couldn’t quite tell if it was coming from the trees or the ground. I woke up exhausted. I thought maybe it was Bigfoot. The second night it started up again. Screeching down from hill to our tent. I yelled “be silent, demon!” but it just came closer and shrieked some more. I thought to myself that it sounded just above our tent. So I got my headlamp and out the door I went, slipping into my work boots. It called to me again when I got outside. There perched on a branch above our tent was owl.

Bigfoot demon owl.

He cocked his head and studied me while I studied him back. I spoke to him gently “why do you shriek at my door? You could come and say ‘who? Who? Whoooo?” instead. We spoke to each other, out there in the darkness, for a good ten minutes before I bid him goodnight. I slept soundly that night. And I can’t tell for sure if the owl was satisfied with who we were in his forest so bothered us no more or if because I knew it was just a friendly owl I was not awakened by his voice any longer. Anyway, I have never heard an owl like that before. I have heard one scream but then evolve into the normal whoing you’d expect. This one didn’t care about who, I guess.

It's nice, right?

Our new tent is amazing. It went up quite nicely even though we didn’t practice setting it up at my parents’ when we got it. I definitely need a more powerful impact driver for my lag bolts, but it put some in and some I had to pound in with a mini sledge. It does make taking the lag bolts out a breeze, though. Megan and I are not lazy when inspired.  After two nights at the first spot, we were feeling grimy from the lack of dry. So we took down the tent and found a slightly better spot. We had just finished setting up there and some guy set up camp right next door. He got completely hammered as the night progressed. He talked loudly to himself and had that horrible pot-smoker’s cough. He sang out of tune, loudly- his belches were epic- echoing through the mountains under the cloudy night sky.  I told Megan I’d rather camp with a demon than next to a drunk. In the morning, at the first lightening of the dawn, he was throwing up violently. It is not what I want to wake up to, ever. It wasn’t like he was right on top of us, could hardly see his site through the trees; he just did everything very loudly. He was wandering around in the woods, foraging for mushrooms so even the privacy I had built for us to pee behind was of no use. Megan and I drank our morning coffee. Then we threw our chair into the back of truck and went on a scouting mission for a better site. We drove up the narrow forest road the spot we are now is is on, praying this site would be unoccupied. There, with sunlight shining like beams from heaven was our spot- we hardly dared hope it was actually empty. You can set up in it so that nothing is seen from the road. Henry made his low gear sounds as I crept through the deep puddle at the beginning of the driveway, bump, over the big rock, eking to the side of largest one- Megan folded in her mirror as we bumped down from the third big rock, controlled the descent off of it with a slight turn to the left to avoid the pine tree. And there it was, gloriously, deliciously empty. Thunder rumbled as I turned Henry around. We took the chair out of the back. Megan hung her hammock. I asked her if she’d be comfortable staying in this spot while I drove back to our tent and packed up what I could. She said she’d defend our new home from other wily campers. It was about a twenty minute drive back to our old spot. I took down our useless pee privacy walls. I folded up our table and our awning, didn’t bother putting them in their storage bags. I threw the propane and our diesel can in the truck and put Henry in gear. Big splatters of rain hit Henry’s windshield as I turned onto our new forest road. I prayed it wouldn’t rain on Meggie who had no shelter. It rained just a few large drops and Megan stayed dry. We set up our awning and table. Then we both hopped in Henry and went back for our tent and bedding. We whipped everything out of the tent, took it down and into the truck everything went very haphazardly.  Thunder cracked and rumbled overhead as we set about setting the tent back up in our new spot. The skies opened up as I was throwing the last of our sleeping gear into the tent. It torrentially rained, like a second Noah’s flood was coming. We drove into town where we know a good pizza place, but they were closed. We hung out in Shaw’s parking lot for a while. Our phones were exploding with weather warnings: severe thunderstorms with 40 mph winds and hail, flash flood warnings and shelter in place. I guess, at this point, we wouldn’t feel like we were in Vermont without enduring some flooding. We hoped our tent was everything it was supposed to be. We made it back to camp after the rain had subsided. Our tent was still standing and bone dry. Canvas tents are supposed to be seasoned with water before use; it swells up the cotton fibers and makes it water tight. I hadn’t wanted to do that while we were at my mom’s because it was so humid all the time I was afraid I wouldn’t have time for it to dry properly before packing it up in Henry. We did opt for a storm-fly for our tent to protect it from sap, pitch, caterpillar poop and UV. I’m really pleased with it. It’s nice to be able to stand and get dressed in the morning, instead of worming into my clothes the way we have to in the roof top tent. We are keeping the Roofnest because there will be places where it’s a better option and times when we need a quick set up and take down. The canvas tent isn’t really a tent you’d want to set up for one night, even though we’ve set it up and taken it down three times in five days. One thing we haven’t figured out yet is how to roll it back up so it fits in its sack. We watched some YouTube videos when we were waiting out the bad weather in town. We have no service at camp. I’m sure we’ll figure it out one of these times. 

We’ve done lots of exploring in between moving around. We found a lovely mountain spring with crystal clear, fresh, delightful tasting water so we won’t bother filtering out of the river. The Appalachian Trail and the Long Trail are easy to access along with a multitude of other trails. P, Nema, Charlotte, and our good friend, Myers, are going to join us for Labor Day weekend. Life is pretty sweet. Pretty fucking sweet.