bugbitesandblisters

[bugbitesandblisters]

2. Storm Chaser by Grazia Curcuru

My winter semester is coming to a close, and between the chaos of studying for finals, tutoring others for finals, spring cleaning, and household drama, I’m still feeling restless. I need to get out of this house. It’s the kind of itch only a road trip can satisfy. I only had 5 days between winter semester and the start of my spring/summer classes, so I had to plan this strategically. Adam’s birthday is coming up, and he is obsessed with storm chasing videos, and tornado season is upon us. I have a reckless idea to go to Tornado Alley during peak tornado season so he can use his storm radar and we can hike some trails. 

I pick up some doubles to pay for my part of the trip, and slog through finals. Once I ace pathophysiology and my other finals, I’m all set. We load up my old Jeep full of hiking gear and a cooler of potato salad to feed us along the way. Adam recently gifted me a 50lb sack of potatoes as a “joke,” and he is going to suffer through the ramifications of that gift and help eat them. 

On the first day, we leave at dawn and drive 17 hours to Lawton, Oklahoma, fueled by potato salad, bananas, and dreams. As I drive into Tulsa, a huge storm rolls in. Crashing thunder, bolts of lightning. It looks so different out here in the Great Plains, no trees for miles and miles, the open sky ahead. When lightning hits, the whole sky illuminates, brighter than I’ve ever seen. The thunder reverberates, like haunting laughter. Gusts of wind are so strong that it's hard to stay in the lane. My knuckles ache from how tightly I’m gripping the steering wheel. Normally, I hate driving during storms and at night, but Adam gets to sit in the passenger seat and track the storm on his radar. This is my gift to him; he looks so happy. This was just a thunderstorm, but I’ve never seen anything like it. 

We crawl into the motel late that night, load the contents of the cooler into our motel fridge, and await the next day’s adventure. 

In the morning, the first stop is coffee. Medicine Park, Oklahoma, is a beautiful little cobblestone resort town nestled in the Wichita Mountains. We stumble into Mrs. Chadwick's Bakery for coffee, drawn in by the bright blue shutters, and wander around by the river, sipping our caffeine and taking in the view. Yesterday we were in Michigan, and today we are out West. 

Adam drives us up Mount Scott while I stick my head out the window like a dog, so happy to be in the mountains. From the top, it overlooks the Wichita Mountains, Medicine Park, the Wildlife Refuge, and sparkling blue lakes. The Wichita Mountains are full of enormous boulder fields. Our hike today explores these massive boulders up close, as we adventure to Charon’s Garden, requiring us to scramble strategically over boulders. The object of the hike is to find these apple and pear-shaped, house-sized boulders.

I’ve never done anything like this before. As we set out on the hike, I realize why it’s referred to as a scramble, and not a hike, since I’m often using my hands just as much as my feet. The trail is marked with blue paint up until a certain point, all the trail marks mysteriously drop off around the large gap where I must leap between two boulders, with a deep trench in between. I just know if a paintbrush was dropped here, there’s no getting it back.

It’s much more difficult to find the trail without the blue marks, but I notice some stacked-up rocks and recognize them as cairns. These are stacks of rocks used as trail markers. I first learned about them when I backpacked on Isle Royale. The problem I’ve noticed is that some people like to build them for no reason, and if cairns are not directing the trail, they’re more confusing than no trail marker. 

The sun beats down, and although I wanted to protect my skin from the sun with protective clothing, that feels less and less important as I begin to overheat. I’m a notorious overpacker, always want to be prepared, but this is a day hike with a high level of activity, and I brought a big bag full of nonsense. 

“There they are,” Adam calls out, pointing up ahead. Nestled atop slabs of rock are our house-sized boulders, the apple and the pear. But from here, it’s hard to imagine they are house-sized. They sit so meticulously on a cliff’s edge, as if they could tumble over from a gust of wind. In actuality, they are massive, heavy, and not going anywhere. I snap a picture of the big rocks we worked so hard to see, and we scramble our way back, eventually seeing the blue paint marking proximity to civilization yet again. 

Adam and I hang out in the parking lot to stuff our faces with potato salad. I made a lot of potato salad, but after a grueling hike, I’m grateful for carbs. In this heat, I’m glad I didn’t make it with mayo. I was being healthy and made a vinaigrette with herbs, which was refreshing. I also made some chopped cabbage/kale salad with chickpeas, all of which holds up well in a cooler, assuming the lids are tight. We learn that blocks of ice don’t melt as quickly as bags of ice, less surface area. Ice blocks are just harder to find.

After eating our weight in potatoes, we drive to the Tiny House we are staying at outside Palo Duro Canyon, Texas. The drive takes us through a weird part of Oklahoma, where the roads are all named “country road 2050, country road 2052, etc,” all laid out on a grid, as if no one bothered to name anything except the next number in a sequence. As we cross the border into Texas, I’m immediately met with a foul odor. Not the best first impression, I realize we’re passing a giant factory farm, so I’m not loving my first moments in Texas. 

We pull up at the tiny house. There’s a cluster of tiny homes nearby with a shared fire pit and grill area, and fairy lights strung up overhead. We make dinner on the grill burner and eat under the stars, before retreating inside for the night.

In the morning, I make coffee and breakfast and start packing up for the day. I’m not sure where Adam went when I hear him call from outside.   

“Grazia! Can I keep this?” he yells, and I walk outside to see what he found. He’s holding a ginormous tumbleweed. 

“Where are you going to put that?” I laugh. 

“Oh yeah, it probably won’t fit in the car,” he says, throwing it behind him. I watch as it picks up in the wind and starts rolling across the field, lost among the other tumbleweeds. What is this place?

Our hike today is at Palo Duro Canyon. As we drive in, everything is bright orange canyon dust. I wear a white shirt to keep the sun off my shoulders, which will be forever stained with canyon dust. We hike the Lighthouse Trail up to an iconic rock formation that stands tall and mighty like a lighthouse, with a long slab leading up to it like a runway where people pose and take pictures. Adam talks about the geology of the area, the sedimentary rock, and points out the light banding as a layer of gypsum that formed when a body of water evaporated. Adam’s a big rock guy, full of rock facts. Meanwhile, I’m very entertained by the dung beetles pushing around pieces of poop, and this is the moment I realize that’s how they got their name. I laugh at the dung beetles for way too long. 

When we get to the top of the Lighthouse, I’m astonished by how massive it is. The scenic runway drops down into the canyon on both sides. I wonder how nature forms such a masterpiece, as I sit against an adjacent rock in the shade, eating a banana. Families and couples saunter up to pictures, strut the runway, and leave. And I sit in the shade, and watch the towering rock, and people watch, and think. It’s May of 2021, and this is the most people I’ve seen since the world shut down. My classes are online, I tutor on Zoom, I work in a small group home, and I see the same few people every day. But I am deeply isolated and unsatisfied with my life and relationships. I’m so bitter and jaded when I see happy people; I’m jealous. Adam corroborates my resentment. We feed off each other.

We travel to another part of the canyon to go up to The Big Cave. It’s easy to get to, right off the road, but there’s a steep path up. Standing in the cave looking out offers a whole new perspective on the canyon. The air is nice and cool inside, protecting me from the Texas sun. The darkness contrasts with the bright, vibrant red rock just outside its walls. I feel at peace in the dark, but people are waiting, and I must return to the bright world outside.

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A few hours pass, and my head is throbbing. We’ve crossed into New Mexico, closing in on an elevation of 7000 feet, and I feel queasy. It’s only day 3 of our trip, and we’ve gone from an altitude of 950 to 7000 ft, a recipe for altitude sickness. Adam doesn’t feel a thing. He carries our luggage into the hotel, and I drag my body inside. It’s Cinco de Mayo, we throw together some kinda sad-looking tacos, cooking in the hotel microwave, and I nurse my headache. I do not sleep; the pressure in my skull keeps me awake.

As dawn breaks, I am more exhausted than when I went to bed. I get a coffee, and we decide to take it easy. Today, we’re exploring downtown Taos. I went to Taos Pueblo with my family when I was 13, but we never explored the historic district. 

There’s a shop called Chokola that sells Mexican sipping chocolate. Hot melted chocolate, some with a hot kick of chili, it’s rich and velvety, only a couple of ounces. I wouldn’t think it would be refreshing on such a hot day, but it is. The place is all chocolate – chocolate mousse, cake, bars, sipping chocolate. I perk up at some vegan chocolate mousse cake, and Adam orders us a slice to split. It’s divine. We sit at the patio in the shade, admiring the adobe architecture of the downtown and the cobblestone streets. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains paint a scenic backdrop across a perfectly blue sky. This feels like the kind of town that can only exist in your imagination. 

We tiptoe into several identical tourist shops, gear stores, and little art galleries, buzzing on sugar. I love it here. Eventually, we must say goodbye to make it to our next reservations. A quaint little cabin in the ski town of Red River, New Mexico, is calling our names.

My Jeep will make its way along many questionable paths, but this is the first time Adam will drive it through a flowing river. 

“What are you doing??” 

“I’m following the directions!” The map shows that the road is here, but water flows through it nonetheless. “It’s just the wet season, everything’s melting, so water’s flowing, don’t worry.”

 I’ve never been skiing, let alone to a ski resort, but there’s something peculiar about going to ski resorts off-season. It’s like going to beach towns and dunes in winter, which we have also done. Show me the beauty of nature minus the tourism, let me hear the whispering wind without the chaos of the crowd. Maybe I will find some meaning out here, maybe I will find an answer. 

Red River, New Mexico, sits at nearly 9000 feet elevation. If I wasn’t already altitude sick, I certainly am now. I want to curl up in a ball and watch my comfort show, Gilmore Girls. Adam indulges me, and that is exactly what we do. I fall asleep in a stiff bed, in the Rocky Mountains, while Netflix autoplays Gilmore Girls episodes, 1400 miles from home. 

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Adam has an ambitious hike planned for today. He did not account for altitude. He still feels fine. I still have an unbearable pounding in my skull, feel very weak and dizzy. I suggest taking our coffee for a walk in the mountains, while we’re here, even if I can’t do any technical hike. I feel bad, we’re heading home today, just one more reservation tonight in Kansas along the way. 

We’re driving through New Mexico when a tumbleweed rolls across our path. Adam stops the car. 

“What are you doing?” I question.

“Can I have this one? Last chance!” He’s already shoving the tumbleweed in the backseat. 

“Fine, let’s just go before I can change my mind.” He’s already driving away. 

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Our next stop to round out the trip is Joplin, Missouri. We haven’t seen many storms on this trip, not since the first night in Tulsa. The town of Joplin had a devastating Tornado in 2011, and there’s a tornado memorial with a butterfly garden in Cunningham Park. When you drive down the streets, you can see the split down the center where the tornado came through and caused wreckage – a line dividing new builds from older construction. Satellite maps still show the scar left by the tornado.

Wildflowers grow for the butterflies. There are stone panels with testimonies. One testimony was from a young girl, who survived the tornado; she claimed she was saved by a butterfly. The little girl said she was drawn into the tornado, and she tried to clutch tightly onto the grass but lost her grip, when a butterfly held her down and saved her. I’m really glad we didn’t find ourselves in a serious storm. We can save the storm chasing for the experts. I think I’ll stick to hiking.

[bugbitesandblisters]

1. In the Depth of Winter by Grazia Curcuru

In February of my twenty-first birthday, I’m feeling cooped up. I grew up camping, hiking, and backpacking. Now I’m working overtime at a group home, caring for people with traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and taking a full course load of prerequisites for nursing school. I finally moved out of my parents' house four months ago, only to take on the stresses of homeownership and the tension of renting out rooms to friends, which will ultimately strain and eventually ruin those relationships. My therapist suggests that I indulge in more of what brings me joy. I hate this therapist, but she makes a good point. I’m newly dating an old friend while navigating transitional life changes and an explosive breakup. I feel very lost these days. 

To cheer me up on the dark days of winter, Adam takes us on a day trip to Grand Haven, Michigan, the day before Valentine's Day. The forested areas of Rosy Mound have towering trees, which contrast with the glistening snow. We walked the wooden steps to the frozen beach and took pictures in frozen waves, creating little caverns. Then, to the Silver Lake Sand Dunes, covered in snow. There’s nothing like that silence, only white as far as you can see. There is deafening wind, numbing cold, and the crisp crunch of fresh snow. The only footprints are our own, soon to be swept away without a trace. 

 My birthday is a week later, so he hits up his friend Cat, who goes to school at Michigan Tech. She says we can stay with her… on the floor of her college apartment. 

It’s a 9-hour drive to Houghton. We pack up my old Jeep with an air mattress and some hiking gear, leaving early enough to stop at the Falling Rock Bookstore and Cafe in Munising for a pick-me-up more than midway through the drive. Hooks line the walls for regulars to keep their mugs on. There are shelves floor to ceiling lining the walls, full of books, and numerous spots to sit and read. I love this place, it’s a new favorite every time I come up North. 

Our first hike is at Hogback Mountain in Marquette. On our way up the incline, a woman coming down wipes out all the traction by sliding down on her butt. 

“Way easier this way,” she sighs in relief, while the man with her tries to act like he doesn’t know her. Wiping out all that traction makes things far more difficult for everyone else, however. I decide “butt scootching” should be banned, especially on our descent, when I nearly wipe out due to the slick snow and steep decline.

As we drive closer to Houghton, it feels like we are sinking deeper and deeper underground, as the walls of snow around us rise higher and higher. Eventually, there are gaps of light, and I see snow sculptures surrounding us, several feet high and in great detail, left over from Winter Carnival, preserved in the frigid weather. 

We stop for the ubiquitous Yooper pasties, a handheld pastry, normally filled with meat and root vegetables. We take our pasties to go and deliver one to our host. I’m introduced to Cat in her apartment, which is covered in plants and vulva art – I know immediately we will get along. We sit around and talk, Cat and I meeting, while Adam and Cat catch up. I meet Cat’s cat, Pumpkin, who is terrible. 

Adam sets up the air mattress on the floor, between the couch and the kitchen counter. It looks questionable at best, and I wonder if I will wake up on an air mattress or the floor. After a long day, I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. 

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Although less than thrilled to wake up on the floor, I cannot say I’m surprised. The memory of an air mattress sits beneath me as a mockery. My hips ache. It’s my 21st birthday, and I came to Houghton, Michigan, where there is 4 feet of snow to hike and snowshoe, and sleep on the floor of a Michigan Tech apartment. 

Adam goes to Roy’s in Hancock to pick up breakfast pasties and pastries while I stay back for coffee with Cat. She has this stunning stainless steel French press that is sturdy and insulated. We sip our coffee, and it’s nice to have some girl talk. My friendships have been draining me for a while, and Cat is a breath of fresh air. Adam comes back with the food, and we feast before our hike. Cat rents 3 sets of snowshoes for free, and we load up in the Jeep. 

The mission today: to snowshoe Mt Baldy in the Porcupine Mountains. It’s a 6-mile round trip with 1089 ft elevation gain. The obstacle: Cat and I have to pee on the way there.  We ask Adam to find a place, but we are in the middle of nowhere, in 4 feet of snow. He tries to pull over, and the Jeep gets stuck. We try everything, we’re pushing it out, shoving towels under the wheels for traction. Wandering down the road, asking strangers if we can borrow their shovel to dig our way out. All the while, Cat and I are crossing our legs because we still have to pee. The borrowed shovel is old, not in the best shape to start. As Adam starts digging out the snow, the wooden handle snaps under the weight. This is just our luck. I have already initiated AAA, but with our remote location, it’s a 3-hour wait time, so we’re hoping to get a quick fix before then.

Two men pull up on snowmobiles, saying they were drinking at the local bar. They both help push the Jeep, while Adam gives it gas, but it doesn’t go anywhere. The men are from Wisconsin, and the Keweenaw Peninsula is right on the Michigan-Wisconsin border. 

“We’ll go back and see if we can’t find a guy with a pickup to give ya a tow,” one of the strangers said, as they hop on their snowmobiles and disappear. Within 10 minutes, another kind stranger appeared with a pickup truck with a hitch and ratchet straps, so I canceled my AAA service call. I did end up in a bar on my 21st birthday, but just to pee. We returned the broken shovel with cash to replace it. Then we were on our way to the Porkies, back to the mission, we had a mountain to snowshoe. 

The thing about snowshoeing is, it needs to be cold. If it's significantly below freezing, the snowshoes disperse your weight, and it helps you float on top of the snow. Even though there was 4 feet of snow on the ground, we were nearing freezing temperatures, it was late February, and even though it was 18 degrees when we left earlier, it had warmed up and is nearing 30 degrees now. And we are sinking through the snow. The snowshoes are probably making this hike harder than just trudging through 4 feet of snow without them. I’m floating, floating, floating – SINK. It’s Russian roulette but for randomly sinking into the snow. It would be miserable if the whole point of the trip wasn’t to embrace winter, snow, and cold during these dark days of winter. 

Cat keeps flopping on her back in the snow and doing snow angels, and crawling around. It’s a grueling hike in all this snow. Most of the tracks here are from cross-country skis, that’s the right idea, it’s so steep, at least on the way down, there’s a slope. There’s a spectacular outlook uptop that makes the hike worthwhile, with a panoramic overview of the Keweenaw, at this time blanketed in snow. 

We hike back to the Jeep, damp with sweat and melting snow. We take turns showering at Cat’s apartment, and I start making homemade vegetarian chili and cornbread for dinner, joking that cornbread will be my birthday cake. We three sit side by side on the couch with our bowls of chili, topped with avocado, and fresh cornbread. Cat suggests we watch The Bachelor. So we watch the Bachelor on her laptop, and talk over it, cozy and warmed by layers of blankets, hot chili, and close friendships.