A Bear at the Door

        At 2:00 in the afternoon, I was sweeping the living-room floor before going down to the pond to dig up thistles (I'm after those thistles!) when I heard a click-click-click on the deck. Not a deer sound but a bear-paw sound. I looked up to see a huge chocolate-brown bear just then lumbering off the deck opposite the living-room's glass door.

        I know this bear. He's been here before. He has put his paw or nose prints on windows in every downstairs room in the house – living room glass door, guest room window, bathroom glass door and windows, kitchen window. A very clear five-fingered paw print smudges the wall under one window, and at the outdoor shower I see paw prints at head-height (five feet), where the bear had stood up to grab the bath scrubber I keep (kept) hanging on the shower head. (After he gnawed holes in my shampoo bottle, I have been taking all soap and shampoo back into the bathroom after my shower, but the scrubber must still have had the smell of soap in it because he shredded it and left it hanging.) The paw prints on the bathroom door are even higher than the ones behind the shower. He has torn a hole in the cushion on the chair I keep on my small front porch.  He has carried off a shoe from that same porch. He has bitten a hole in a carton of deer repellent I keep under the deck and drunk it all. He has even bitten holes in a gallon of paint I kept in the same spot.

        I NEVER feed bears (or any other wildlife). But this bear must think I do.

        I have heard this bear at night, and I caught a glimpse of him a few nights ago, wandering in the woods above the house. But here he was again, walking around my deck, in the middle of the day. While I was at home! Now was my chance to scare him off. If I hurried, I thought, I could run upstairs and get my air horn, where I keep it next to the bed for immediate access in case the bear comes 'round, and give him a good scare before he left the premises. But just as I turned to go upstairs, the bear changed his mind about leaving. He turned around and started climbing back onto the deck.

        That was too much. I jerked the door open and yelled, "What do you think you're doing?! This is my house. Run! Run! RUN!" The bear was running. By the time I got to the first "run!" he was already at the pond. The last "run!" was hurled at the diminishing sounds of his crashing through the woods. He couldn't get away fast enough – for him or for me. I'm sure my yells were heard miles up the road.

        I have been making sure all the doors and downstairs windows are locked when I leave the house or go to bed. I never leave soap or shampoo at the outdoor shower. There is no more deer repellent at my house. I bring all shoes inside. I keep the car locked, knowing there must be food smells in it and remembering the bear that opened the car door of a neighbor and, when it shut behind him, got trapped inside the car. I do believe I can live peacefully with this bear, as long as I remember that bears will eat anything. I don't think he'll be around again, though, after his Big Scare from the Big Bad Woman at the House – at least, not until the apples get ripe.

        (For obvious reasons I have no pictures to go with this post.)

The 75-mile Hike

        One of the items on my 75x75 project for my 75th year (doing 75 things of 75 repetitions each) was to hike 75 miles. Mike agreed to go with me, so last week, packs on our backs, we set off for ten days on the 40-mile Rogue River Trail. Remembering that Mike was only a month past six months of chemotherapy, we would take a leisurely pace: five days to the end of the trail at the Illahe Lodge, a night at the lodge, then five days for the return to the Graves Creek Trailhead.

        The first step was an easy one.

         The Rogue River Trail follows the Wild and Scenic Rogue, a popular rafting river, for forty miles, mostly high on the canyon walls rather than riverside. Every day we saw rafting parties floating lazily down the river or running the rapids. At Blossom Bar, one of the notoriously most difficult, we stood at a vantage point and watched five or six rafts and kayaks negotiate the route. One kayak flipped, throwing its paddler into the water. We could see his helmeted head bobbing through the rapids until he was picked up in still water by one of the rafts. 

        The trail had a lot of long flat stretches through the woods, nicely shaded and easy to walk, but it also climbed up and over the ribs between the streams that flow into the Rogue, so there was a good amount of effort in the hike, too. It wasn't a lazy walk, especially with backpacks. Yellow tarweed, pink clarkia, white bistort, and purple crown brodiaea ornamented the hillsides. Poison oak was rampant, but avoidable with careful steps. Ospreys soared over the river. There were mosquitoes at the campsites, which were almost always in the woods, on a creek. We made camp in the early afternoon, then had some leisurely hours for reading, napping, exploring the creek, or, for me, if a swimming hole were available, taking a swim. We worked a New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle each evening. 

        Our fourth night we camped at Brushy Bar, a less than perfect campsite because it was at a distance from the creek, the creek was too small for a swim, and the mosquitoes were ferocious. But the tent was on a nice flat spot, and I was sleeping soundly when, around 4:00 a.m., I awoke to hear Mike yelling, from beyond the tent, where we had left our packs and bear barrels, "Git! Git!" Then he would give an exasperated, "Aw!" and start yelling at what I correctly took to be a bear. I thought I should get up and help chase the bear away, but I couldn't find one of my shoes, and my flashlight was stupidly in the pocket of my pack. Mike finally came back to the tent. The bear had been reluctant to leave. He had taken one of our bear barrels (backpackers' bear-proof food canisters), but Mike had retrieved it from the woods. The bear had torn the rain covers off our packs. We decided to assess other damage in the morning and tried to sleep. 

        As soon as dawn blossomed, I found both shoes and got up – and saw the bear! He was still hanging around, in the woods on the path. I yelled at him, but, yes, he was hard to intimidate. He did finally amble deeper into the woods, and I turned back to the campsite to check our gear. The bear had bitten a hole in one of my plastic water bottles and another hole in Mike's water filter system. Fortunately, I had another water bottle and another water filter. Mike's pack cover was more shredded than mine, but both were still usable. The packs were unhurt, and, of course, the bear was unable to get to our food. But we had had enough of this campsite. We packed up and left, stopping for breakfast farther down the trail.

        That day, Day 5, would end at the Illahe Lodge, which, as it turned out, was over the longest, steepest hill yet, and the temperature, we learned when we got to the lodge, was 103 degrees. It was a bear of a climb. When we got to the lodge, Colleen, the owner, gave us cold lemonade and frozen banana slices with peanut butter. We took showers, and while Mike was showering, I put all our clothes in the washing machine, as we were wearing the extra clothes Colleen had available for hikers and trail runners while they were doing their laundry. Dinner was good and nutritious, after five days of trail food: turkey, bean salad, potatoes, corn, homemade rolls, just-made carrot cake with ice cream. That night, since we were the only guests and our room upstairs was hot, we brought sheets downstairs and slept comfortably on the couches. 

        After a substantial breakfast of bacon, eggs, sticky buns (homemade), and fruit, we left for the return to the Graves Creek trailhead. Colleen and her father, Ernie (who had sold Illahe Lodge to Colleen a few years ago), had told us about a bear-proof, electric-fenced enclosure at the Tate Creek campsite, for packs and bear canisters. We found it and camped there the first night, sleeping well without bear worries.

Packs and bear barrels inside the electric fence

        In fact, the only bear problems we had were at Brushy Bar.

        The best thing about the Rogue River Trail (which I've hiked four times now), as far as I'm concerned, is its swimming holes. They are some of the deepest, greenest, coldest, and biggest swimming holes I know, always a treat whether at the end of a day's hike or somewhere in its middle. Even the long, very hot hike along Mule Creek Canyon on Day 7 was bearable because I could look forward to one of the best swimming holes on the trail at the day's end. Another of the most beautiful is Flora Dell, about three miles before the end of the trail at Illahe.

Swimming in Flora Dell

        On the tenth and final day, we left our campsite on Russian Creek early. We would hike almost six miles to the Graves Creek trailhead, making a total of 78 miles. Since I only needed to hike 75miles to accomplish my goal, Mike kept a close eye on his GPS. "You have two-tenths of a mile to go," he would say. "Now it's only one-tenth. Point 8," and so on until he said, "Congratulations! You have hiked 75 miles." I stopped right there to mark the victory.

Having hiked 75 miles

        Then we hiked to the Graves Creek trailhead, where we had started the hike ten days before. I was elated, not only because I had hiked the requisite 75 miles but also because I felt like I could have hiked another 75 miles, or ten days, without a murmur. Not bad, for turning 75 years old in a month.

The Honeymoon

        After the wedding, the honeymoon, of course. Ours was in Trinidad, a small town on the north coast of California. We walked through the redwoods, strolled on the beaches, ate great food, drank good wine, had massages, and walked through the old parts of Eureka and Arcata. All this was made possible because of our honeymoon registry. (Since we won't be living together, we asked for no gifts. Would we tear the picture in half and draw straws for the toaster?) As thank-you notes, I wrote poems describing various parts of the honeymoon that people had specifically paid for. They'll work for a blog post about the honeymoon, too.

Turtle Rocks Inn

From our room in Turtle Rocks Inn

we could look across the ocean 

to its blend with fog and sky.

Muted circles of green and gray

spotted its surface like the back of a turtle.

Whitecaps clawed through ocean depths

rolled over themselves and sank from sight.

Waves split their sides against rocks

or disappeared beneath the bluff 

on top of which calla lilies and foxgloves 

brought earth-awareness into ocean scene

at Turtle Rocks Inn

A Hike through the Redwoods

Daylight enters redwoods from above 

changing color as it slides down long trunks 

catching viridescence through lacy limbs 

mutating with ochers around bark

changing like light streaming through stained glass,

complying, as it drops to ferns, 

to the supremacy of the trees

who are both the structure that holds the numen

and the god-being itself

the spirit by whom all who journey here

become different beings

by being here

in this cathedral

of arboreal gods.

Dinner at the Larrupin’ Cafe

“Larrupin’”

(LAIR-a-pin)

developed from the verb “to larrup,” 

meaning “to thrash”

indicating a thrashing good dinner

at the Larrupin’ Café in Trinidad,

on the north coast

of California

served at a honeymoon-private table 

in a corner with a vaguely Eastern décor
(samurai picture, tapestry rug)

good food steaming on the plate

a good red wine sparkling in the glass 

ocean larruping below 

everything combining 

for a larrupin’ good first night  

of a larrupin’ good honeymoon.

The Feel-good Profession

Massage is the profession

of making a person

feel good.

Nurses ease your pain

but don’t necessarily make you

feel good.

Physical therapy induces pain

before you 

feel good about it.

Feel-good 

is usually a by-product

of the musician’s aim.

A good chef can make you

feel good, too,

but overindulgence makes you

feel bad

whereas massage 

as far as I’m concerned

could go on for hours

and never cease 

to make me

feel good.

A Day in Arcata

Art galleries

Where Mike bought a bride’s gift (art-piece earrings)

And I bought a groom’s gift (an art-piece photograph)

Victorian houses ornate with turrets and curlicues

Good coffee, pastries

A bookstore

A fabrics shop

And the start of the three-day kinetic sculpture race:

The elaborate Hippy-otomus with its six pedalers,

The rainbow zebracorn blowing fire from its uni-corn

The man trampoline-pumping his vehicle down the road

All for the glory!

and a glorious honeymoon day.

(Honey) Moonstone Grill

Atop a coastal bluff

(fishing boats tiny in the harbor

beach-walkers dots of movement 

cloud-dispersed rays of evening sun)

at a table for two under large windows

a cocktail toast to our marriage:

pear vodka with elderflower liqueur for Mike

apricot liqueur with Prosecco for me

dinner beautifully presented, perfectly cooked:

salmon for Mike, swordfish for me.

Desserts: cinnamon cream brulée and

double chocolate coffee (vodka, chocolate liqueur) 

a honeymoon meal

at a honey-moon-stone place

The True Meaning of Honeymoon

“Honeymoon” originally referred to the way love wanes 
      (they say),

mutual sweetness diminishing after marriage.

Now it means the time beforelove wanes, 

as when one says, grimly, when quarrels begin, 

“I see that the honeymoon (when we sweetened each other’s 
      days and nights)

is over.”

But I think the term refers to the moon sweetened through 
      newlywed lovers’ eyes 

or the way I was mooning over my honey, 

all last week

on my honeymoon.