Camping with ZED Pt 2 - by sarah thorne

[sarah thorne]

Zed arrived back into the bedroom, grinning as I fretted about my hair having now dried a funky way due to not having brushed it right after I got out of the shower. He dug for and found a brush and began to brush my hair for me.

On the highway, he pointed out a rest area that was his father’s property that the state had taken to – well, make it into a rest stop on the interstate. We got off the exit toward the national park and Zed drove me all around. It rained off and on, some times looking quite ominous and other times, the sky was just as clear and sunny as could be.

This mattered not, however, for what we were doing. Zed showed me where his family’s Memorial Day weekend family reunion took place. I spotted a tire swing and longed to get on it, but below it was a huge muddy puddle of water. He tried to make me get on it anyway. I knew what he was after. He had his camera ready and poised and he wanted a picture of it. I finally convinced him to leave me be, as I had no desire to fall into the muddy water.

Before this, I had went back to the van to retrieve my jacket, as the wind was a bit chilly and when I opened the back, my whole box of loose pictures fell out at my feet. I sighed heavily but of course, Zed took a picture.

We visited an old abandoned church and walked the graveyard, looking at headstones. That is one of the most fascinating things for me. I love to look
at headstones. We went inside the old church as he told me that it was a place his father had once preached in and that he remembered being there as a kid, sitting in the back pew. We found a Trojan condom package, unopened, underneath one of the pews.

Pulling out, we trekked around the small town some more, he pointing out spots of memories and empty lots that may have contained a grocery store or house at one time which was now gone. He took me to his childhood homes, as they had lived in a few in the town as he grew. And he pointed me to the building where he was born, which was a doctor’s office at the time yet was now an insurance agency. He told me the story of some boys who came speeding down a hill one night, as we stood in front of a new building, and had crashed into the corner of that building where his father’s shop used to stand. He said it was like a bomb – the whole building collapsed and the boys died. Where his father’s shop once was, two garages were now.

We walked the catwalk over the Green River, looking down so far to the water as he pointed as far as we could see and showed me his old high school which was now the town’s 5th and 6th grade building. He took me down to the dam, to one of the broken locks, and we watched the water rush. It was then that a bug chose to make its landing on my shoulder.

Squeamish, a bit, I tried to swipe him off and Zed walked ahead of me and continued talking as if I was still directly behind him. The bugger wouldn’t budge. I remembered Zed’s speech about ticks and how they were plentiful and there was virtually no way in hell that I would get out of there without ticks. The very thought made me shudder. My head started to itch just thinking about it. Nasty blood sucking varmints.

He took pictures. As we walked the trail back up to where we left the van, he veered off the trail. “You keep going; I am going to commune with nature.”

How unfair is that? The world is a man’s toilet. I continued up the trail, still making swipes at my shirt for bugs, thinking maybe it would have been beneficial if I had just used deep woods OFF! for hairspray. The sun went behind a cloud and I wished it would decide whether or not it wanted to shine. I wanted to roast marshmallows. I wanted s’mores. Yum!