In a little while they come tramping up the porch. “We walked to the co-op,” Noodle explains. I’m surprised; it’s a pretty far walk. As we load our groceries into the trunk, Bradley slaps a bumper sticker from the co-op onto the back of the rental car; not on the bumper but right under the window.
“What are you doing, Babe?” Noodle yells. “That’s not your car!”
Bradley shrugs. “I just wanted to put it there so I did. It’ll come right off.”
“What if it doesn’t? They’ll charge you a fee if you scratch the paint.”
“So what? I don’t care. besides, it’ll peel off. I’m sure of it.”
They argue about it some more but he refuses to even try to peel it off. I tell Noodle to let it drop and she manages to bite her tongue, but every once in a while she brings it up again. “I just don’t understand why…” He stops responding after a while.
“Try one of these,” Noodle says, handing me a kombucha. I look at it with suspicion. “It’s good,” she insists. “Don’t shake it up though, it’s kind of fizzy.” I try it and it is good, not like anything I’ve ever tasted.
As we distance ourselves from the city, tract housing developments give way to industrial parks give way to open fields and eventually we find ourselves following the twisting Clackamas River. The sun is high and glitters off the surface of the surface of the water. Rock formations rise like castle towers and turrets high above us. Bradley takes the curves fast, zipping between the hills at great speed.
“Slow down, Babe,” Nood keeps saying. “I really just want to relax and enjoy all this scenery.” He responds by slowing down slightly, but a few minutes later he’s speeding as fast as ever, and once again Noodle scolds him. I glance over at him, trying to read his expression, but his face remains blank.
The forest rises up around us, trees growing taller and denser, and the road turns from asphalt to gravelThe side roads are narrow and overgrown, with tiny wooden signs naming them. After a few wrong turns, we finally find the parking lot for the hot springs, which is a few miles hike.
Blue crumbs of glass from shattered windshields cover the gravel. I remember hearing that there have been a number of car break-ins there all summer but we decide to chance it.
As Bradley goes to throw some food wrappers out in the dumpster I carefully pick at the bumper sticker on the back of the car. To my amazement, it pulls right off in one clean piece without any sticky residue left behind or paint removed. Noodle claps her hands in delight and thanks me. Bradley comes over and she hands him the sticker, perfectly intact. He smacks it onto the side of the dumpster.
“Good job, Babe! That’s a good place for it! You really like your stickers,” Noodle coos.
Aside from one barely-remembered family excursion when I was very young, I’ve never been camping before. My upstairs neighbor has been kind enough to lend me his tent and pack. I’ve never worn a backpack like this before: the thing is enormous. I feel like a turtle when it’s strapped on. Nood and Bradley help me adjust it so that it rests on my hips rather than my back, and they pull the straps tight for me. Though it’s heavy, I’m surprised by how comfortable it is, though I’m sure that if I topple over, I won’t be able to get back up.
When we’re all loaded up, we set off along the trail, the parking lot disappearing behind us replaced by a solid, silent wall of conifers.
The trees around Bagby Hot Springs are part of the old growth forest; ancient Douglas firs and Sitka spruces rise up as far as you can see, covered with moss that, in the dryness of the late summer, dangles like drab feather boas from the branches. It looks like an enchanted forest, right out of some fairy tale. Knocked over tree trunks expose huge tangles of roots, wide as a car’s undercarriage and still clutching boulders imbedded between them, as if clinging desperately to some reminder of the earth they were once buried in.
The trail is well maintained: though it seems to be a much-traveled path, there is no litter or sign of human interference anywhere, other than little wooded bridges thoughtfully placed span the rougher terrain.
I let them move on ahead; my left foot really slows me down. Ever since I had my toes amputated the year before, I keep getting blisters that don’t heal up completely. I’ve brought my rubber pool shoes along to keep my feet protected while I’m in the water. Every step I take hurts, but I try to ignore the pain and lose myself in the beauty around me. The rock formations are stunning. Trunks seem to stretch endlessly in every direction.
We walk along the edge of a ravine, at the bottom of which a little creek gurgles merrily. Our path ascends gradually, and I am soon out of breath. I call for the others to wait as I sit down heavily on a log to rest. Bradley hands me a jug of water and I take a long swig.
We come to a bridge that spans the creek. The water beneath us cascades and eddies between huge rock formations, tumbling down from pool to pool. A cute short-haired girl is crouched on one of the rocks below, piling river stones in a tall column. She steps away from her sculpture and looks up. I smile down at her. She beams back up at me and carefully tiptoes from rock to rock like a mountain goat, looking for a new location for another cairn.
Bradley looks down into a dark pool completely surrounded by rock flow and says, “I bet that’s really deep.” He pauses. “I bet I could dive right down into that hole.” He has a dreamy look on his face.
“I don’t think so, Babe,” says Noodle apprehensively. Bradley looks at her, looks back down at the little pool, and swings his leg up onto the wooden rail.
“No Babe, No!” Noodle sounds really scared. Bradley has an enormous grin on his face. Waiting a long moment, he pulls his leg back and continues across the bridge. Noodle shakes her head exasperatedly.
We climb a steep ridge and on the other side we get our first view of the bath houses of Bagby Hot Springs. The place is basically just a few clusters of rustic wooden sheds scattered amongst the trees. A trickle of water runs from a hole in the ground and follows a narrow wooden aqueduct down to the bath houses. There are five private stalls and one large common one in which there are three hollowed out logs large enough to fit one or two people, plus a huge barrel that could probably seat four or five.
A family of four is just stepping out of the barrel. The log on the end is occupied by an attractive young couple. Everyone is naked, even the kids. This is my first experience with public nudity, and I’m very self-conscious. I try not to look but I can’t help but notice the father has a penis like the stub of a pencil. The attractive young stands up and I feel completely intimidated, but I strip down and change into my pool shoes to protect my feet. The left shoe is only half filled by the stump of my foot. I feel more self-conscious about people seeing my foot than my prick, though I feel a little ridiculous wearing nothing but these clunky rubber shoes.
The others undress as well. I have not seen Noodle naked in years. After we broke up it was not an uncommon sight to see her running around in the buff; she’s always had a kind of on again, off again relationship with clothing. I am surprised to see two new tattoos she didn’t have before. One, the most recent, is merely a circle inscribed in a single blue line inside the triangle of her back; it’s quite simple and lovely. The other tattoo is a pair of intertwined triangles etched directly over her left breast. The lines of the triangles are thick and clumsily drawn, and there are stray little dots of ink here and there. She got it the day our friend Teddy had his quadruple bypass, the day after I’d left home for the west coast.
Bradley and I step into the larger tub, while Noodle pulls the lever that allows hot water to flow from the spring down into the tub. She then fills a bucket with cold water from a big wooden cistern and pours it into the hollowed out log to cool off the hot water, which is much too hot to bear undiluted. She then slips into the log, ooching and ouching at how hot it is. The water in the barrel is just right. Steam rises sluggishly and dissipates in the sunlight.
After a while the young couple leaves and we each get to have our own log; we now have the place to ourselves. It feels heavenly, floating in the water, resting my head against the wooden back of the hollow tree trunk. There is only half a roof above us and I look up at the treetops that stretch towards the clear sky.
We stay there a long while. Hours, days, months pass by. It’s lovely to lose all track of time.
We finally get out, one by one. I dry my foot carefully, inspecting the open wound where my toes had once been. After the amputation last year, the flesh seemed to heal up perfectly, but lately it had rubbed open again. It worries me but I try not to think about it now, pulling my sock on so I won’t have to look at it anymore. I sit on the bench for a while with a towel draped over my lap before slowly getting dressed.
Relaxed and contented, we trudge on through the forest to find a suitable place to pitch camp. I feel like my bones have all turned to Jello. A thick carpet of pine needles covers the ground. We come to a creek and cross on a row of stepping stones. My weak left foot slips and I plunge into the cold water up to my knee, almost toppling in sideways under the weight of my pack. On the other side is another vertical pile of stones. I wonder if they were left by the same girl or by someone else.
On the other side of the creek we find a secluded spot with a ring of stones surrounding a pile of old ashes. Despite the drought warning, we decide to start a fire. There is hardly any kindling around, however; we all set to work scouting around for wood. The largest tree in the nearby vicinity has a large, hollowed out space beneath it, a tunnel cutting all the way through, large enough for an adult to crawl through. Searching for sticks, I peer into the space and see yet another pile of river stones like a crouching gnome hiding within the trunk of the tree.
Bradley disappears into the woods on a quest for logs, but only comes up with some small branches and a handful of twigs. Despite this we soon have a fire crackling merrily before us. I change into dry socks and put my wet ones beside the fire along with my shoes.
We lay out our food on a huge stump and eat. I’ve brought hummus to go with our sprouted pita, avocado, trail mix, nori, and grapefruit. We wash it all down with juice and spring water. Even though it’s been cooked, Noodle eats some hummus. I watch as a single yellow jacket crawls across the green pulp of the avocado. I can see no reason to brush it away.
After supper I walk over to a hollow log and unzip my fly. The hot piss bubbles and fizzes as it hits the dry earth. I hope desperately that I don’t have to take a shit while we’re out here; we haven’t brought any toilet paper and I don’t relish wiping my ass with leaves.
We each have our own single-person tent. Noodle and Bradley’s are just wide enough for a single body; mine seems huge in contrast. I am surprised at how easy they are to assemble; I was picturing having to hammer tent pegs into the ground and comedic collapsing poles, but they practically set themselves up. The ancient trees form a roof of foliage over our heads.
Stomachs full and camp all set up, my friends decide to go back to the springs. I would like to join them but am really exhausted. Even though we’ve only hiked a few miles, this had been more exercise than I’ve had in a while; as a result, my foot is throbbing. I tell them to go on without me.
They head out and I am left alone to tend the fire. It keeps almost going out and I keep scrambling to find more twigs but fuel becomes more and more scant. Babe has placed two enormous logs on the pyre but they just aren’t catching. I resort to throwing handfuls of moss into the glowing ashes; the clumps flare up suddenly and are instantly incinerated.
I try to do some writing but it all sounds like pastoral crap. It’s hard for me to write about nature without sounding corny. I am such a city boy, spending my time sitting in bars and coffee shops, so used to being clean and having all my conveniences close at hand. I take a stub of charred wood and try to sketch with it, but even that seems like such a trite thing to do that eventually I just stop and stare at the flames and that seems like it’s enough. I realize how difficult it is for me to just relax, to allow myself to do nothing.
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