Actually, this was not day 1, but day 366, since I've
been preparing for this gathering since the Vision for Pennsylvania was
announced in '98. Love and hugs to the brothers and sisters of that
Vision Council, for making it possible for me to go with a large portion
of my "tribe" to the 1999 Rainbow Family of Living Light Gathering of the
Tribes. More love and hugs to the brothers and sisters who were Scouts
and also to those at Spring Council, for consensing on the Lower Bear Creek
site. In my most humble opinion, the site was excellent, but I *am* a newbie!
Much appreciation and big hugs to Glenn, for giving us info on the upcoming
gathering as it unfolded, and for giving excellent hugs! Kudos to
Wandering John, who filled our hungry monitors with visions of the gathering
taking shape, giving us reports from the site by heading in to town and
posting from the library. Ridgway Library, thanks for being there!
Ok, onto the trail. We got up early (for me, anyways) Thursday morning. I went to bed Wednesday night at around 1, still not sure I'd packed everything I wanted to take. Woke up around 4, and tossed and turned till around 6. Finally got up, way too excited to sleep. We're going to the Gathering! John "Many Voices", my one true love, got up and around, and headed to work to pick up his check. Taking vacation right before payday has its drawbacks. From there he went to the bank, and finally, around 9:30, we hit the road, headed to Mom's. We pulled in at Mom's, a 45 minute drive from our house. She was sitting on the back porch, waiting. Before I even got the car door open, she was headed towards her car. We had to zip down the road to pick up Cindy, last potty stop before we got going. She had a little pack with her, which seemed humorous considering that our trunk and backseat were full to the brim with our gear. Little did I know then......
We got underway at around 10:30, and after a 4 1/2 hour drive, pretty easy cruisin'. The directions were excellent, I never got lost once, which is saying a lot for a girl who ends up at a rest area in Pennsylvania after a wrong turn on the way home from the mall! We got off Rt. 80 and stopped for gas and some lunch. No Rainbows were apparent, and the locals didn't blink twice when we piled in to the Arby's to eat. Just another bunch of tourists. This was when we were clean and fresh, please see later when we stopped at the same place on the way home.
Driving into Ridgway, carefully following the speed limits that had been sent in on agr (thank you!), we got to downtown and starting seeing Family walking around in town. We knew we were close, the tang of patchouli was in the air, and girls and boys were sitting in the shade on the sidewalks. We followed a large RV all the way into the gathering, noting that he had no trouble maneuvering what was supposed to be a difficult road for large vehicles. Of course, he probably had power steering. John made many remarks about wishing we had an RV and could camp in luxury. I much prefer the outdoors of a tent, but air conditioning has its virtues.
After what seemed like forever, we saw Welcome Home. We were smiling and waving and throwing peace signs at everyone we passed. We finally made it Home!
A little ways down the dirt road, and we came upon a State Trooper with his jeep pulled across the road. There was a brother riding a bicycle pulled up in front of the jeep, and at first we thought the Statie was hassling the brother on the bike. Then we looked past the jeep, and saw that another State Trooper had his lights flashing, and they were searching a van. By this time, quite a line of cars had lined up behind us. I rolled my window down to try to hear what was being said. The trooper kept looking anxiously at the growing line of cars behind me, and gesturing to the other trooper to hurry. Finally, after only a couple of minutes, which seemed a lot longer in the midday sun, a group of about 4 brothers and 3 sisters starting walking up towards the jeep from behind my car. The anxious trooper stepped out of his jeep, and loudly proclaimed that it would just be another minute, everyone please return to your cars. There was no confrontation, everyone did as they were told, and by the time they got back in their cars, the jeep had backed up to allow traffic to pass. We were breathing a sigh of relief that this had not been a roadblock, searching all cars, but that the van being searched had given them "probable cause". I had read enough on agr to know that they were using any excuse, so we were clean as a whistle (to the naked eye). Big sighs at having avoided being searched.
We finally got to Owl's Nest, found ample parking. We did have some concern that if there were a lot of rain, that we might have trouble getting out when we were ready to leave. Fortunately, we were in the first row of cars in the second lot, so all we had to do was pull forward onto a gravel drive to get out. Now the fun begins! Immediately, we realized that we (read "I") had brought to much gear. There were 4 of us, and we were all loaded like mules. My pack weighed a guesstimated 80 lbs. John's probably weighed that, too. I also had my small djembe hanging off the back, which added surprisingly to my level of discomfort. Eventually, we sorted out what needed to be taken in first, and set off. We got to the shuttle stop where a very beautiful sister with reddish curly hair was vocalizing, making sure that folks knew which trail they wanted to head in on. Somebody had a map, and we quickly figured out that we needed Silvergate Trail if we wanted to camp near Bliss. So we waited for a shuttle. When it came, it was a VW van. Thanks to the kind brother driving that shuttle, and all those who did shuttle duty. We love you!
We and our gear were driven (what a great luxury!) to Silvergate, where we clambered out and prepared for the hike ahead. The trail was downhill, so this couldn't be too hard, right? Wrong! 10-15 steps down the trail, the dolly that was loaded with 3 5-gallon jugs of water from home had a blowout on one tire. Much screaming and cursing from John, who was designated dolly pusher. What to do? It was finally decided that we would leave the water next to the trail, and take the dolly along with us, empty. It had been borrowed, and Mom wasn't willing to leave it. Ok, so we reluctantly left the water. Luckily, 2 wonderful brothers came empty-handed down the trail, and picked the water jugs up. We asked them to please just leave them at Bliss, which they did. Thank you to those brothers, we managed to get the water there.
Did I say that we had too much gear? And that the weather was hot and sticky and hot? And that I'm not used to hiking at all, nevermind a mile through mud in the heat? Ok, then imagine my surprise when the mile that we were supposed to hike in turned into about 400. This is my vow, to never take more than I can carry *comfortably* to a gathering. Here's a picture of how I felt.
We arrived at Bliss around 4 in the afternoon. We crossed a beautiful hand-hewn wooden bridge, then up the steep hill and suddenly we were in a kitchen. The sign said Bliss, and it was just that, just to be able to stop and get my pack off. I asked a brother if he was Gary (oops!), and finally Dragonfly came out from behind the counter (made right there in the woods!) to give me a hug. I almost cried when she hugged me, so glad that I was home and this beautiful lady was there to greet me. This was my first face contact with Dragonfly, although I felt I knew her from nearly 5 years of correspondence, and from lively descriptions from my brother Strider.
We all sat gratefully on the giant rocks that formed a rough circle around the bliss pit, then realized we were taking up too much room with all our gear, and moved to the even more giant rocks that were in the First Aid tent next to Bliss. Nobody was there in the First Aid tent, so we sat for a bit to rest and get our bearings. After a few minutes, we realized that we were wasting daylight, and still had a camp to set up, so we left our packs and hiked down the trail (towards OM Valley) looking for a suitable place to camp. We needed room to set up 3 tents, and didn't find any immediately. We went back to Bliss, down the hill, over the bridge, and saw to the right a large meadow, completely open. There was a red string at the "opening" to the meadow, strung between to small trees. A note hung on the red string mentioned "snake pit", so we turned to the left, where there was a small path through the knee-high grasses. This little path wandered a bit next to Bear Creek, and about 50 yards down the path, there was a small cluster of trees with an open grassy area big enough for our tents. We went back up and grabbed our gear, and hurried to set up camp. Putting up the tent, we decided to leave the rain cover off since it was so hot.
John and I hiked back up Silver Trail, to catch a shuttle back to Owl's Nest. Yes, I brought so much stuff that we had to make a second trip. We got up to the shuttle stop, a pick-up truck with a cap on back pulled up. John sat up front with another brother and sister, and I climbed in back. The back of the truck was full of gear, mostly belonging to the driver. I think there were 4 other folks in there with me. I scrambled up the back and sat in the only place open, on top of several full (of *very* cold water) water jugs. When we got to Owl's Nest, the driver came around and opened the tailgate. The water jugs slid out, my weight pushing them out. I slid out with them, and was lucky I didn't get hurt. What a water slide that was! We zipped down to the car, got more of our stuff, and left still more in the car, never to be brought in. Yes, I brought too much stuff, or did I already say that?
This time we hauled in the food that I had spent the past week preparing: homemade fruit rollups (strawberry and apple with cinnamon), kind brownies, cookies, and the soon-to-be-famous breakfast bars (the only thing I baked that was made totally from scratch). We had also bought several freeze dried meals, about 10 containers of koolaid, tea, and lemonade, 2 tins with tea, and 2 large cans of potato sticks. All of this was packed into 2 large duffle bags. John took the heavy one with all the baked goods, and I took the lighter, but more awkward, bag.
While we were waiting for the shuttle, it started to rain. We huddled under the shelter provided by the small map with historical data about Owl's Nest, and managed to stay pretty dry. A brother with a van pulled up, and away we went. The rain really started pouring during the drive down to Silvergate, and I was hoping it would stop, at least long enough for us to get back to camp. It let up briefly when we got dropped off. It continued to rain during the hike in, this time a bit shorter, but still not a fun hike. The tree cover was mostly enough to keep us dry. We worried about our tent getting soaked, we'd left off the rain cover and locked it inside the tent. When we finally made it back to camp, Mom had thrown a big blue tarp, which we'd luckily left sitting out, over top of the tent, and most of our stuff was fairly dry. The rain stopped for a bit, long enough for us to get the rain cover put on. With just enough light to see, Cindy and I headed up to Bliss. Not many folks were about, a few in the bliss pit. We hung out again under the tarp over at First Aid. Then the torrent began. We were sitting under a large gray tarp, which had been stretched across tree branches and tied down. It was apparently set up more with the sun in mind than rain, however, because as we stood there, big pocket of water started sagging down. A brother, Dave, came in with a young boy and starting pushing the pockets up with long sticks, draining off the water. Obviously, this was a temporary solution. He quickly fashioned a longer pole with two shorter ones strapped together with duct tape, and propped up one large pocket towards the front (creek side). Then another larger stick propped up on one of the large rocks, and voila, the tent was draining water off properly, and intact.
John came up with his rain poncho on, and we hung out for a while. More folks were gathering under the tarp to take shelter from the pounding rain. I went over and introduced myself to Dave, and as the word "Crystalhawk" came out of my mouth, a tall brother came up off the ground and said he was Earthman. I nearly didn't hear him because of the rain, but it finally registered in my weary brain, and hugs were enthusiastically exchanged. I have talked to Earthman on agr a bit, and we hung out and talked for a while. The rain finally let up a bit, so we took our chance and slid down the hill and across the bridge, through nearly waist-high ferns and grasses that quickly soaked my shorts. We got into the tent, and sank gratefully onto the air mattress. With rain pounding against the tent, I managed somehow to fall asleep. I woke up in about 2 hours to sounds of cursing. The air mattress sprang a leak at a seam and all the air went out. We then realized that our tent was 1/2 way in a small gully, which was rapidly filling with all the rain. We had a very large puddle in the tent, mostly in the area around the foot of the "bed". John yelled that he was going to a motel. I said fine, hike out in the middle of the night in the pouring rain. I'm staying here. We eventually both got back to sleep, but I kept waking us both up battling imaginary pockets of rain that I thought were threatening to collapse the tent (my subconscious reliving the battle with the tarp at First Aid). I managed to get about 4 hours sleep total Thursday night, and at every possible moment while awake, I was praying that the rain would stop so that we could stay. I knew in my inner heart that John would not be happy camping in the rain, and moved much positive energy towards the hope that this would be the last of our "inconveniences." (Happy to say, it was!)
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