Weird omens plagued us! And by us I mean Lucky Charm, I wanted nothing to do with it. It started in the morning, when Lucky Charm, in mid pee, had to jump out of the way of a falling tree branch. Pants haphazardly pulled up, I saw the aftermath of the event. Gnarly, such bad luck. These trees are dangerous, I thought.
That little kerfuffle was dwarfed by what happened about one hour later. Lucky Charm was hiking in front with me, Merlin and Marble behind. We couldn’t conceive what would happen next and were chatting about insignificant things. All of a sudden, something fell from the sky at rapid speed and thuded to the ground right next to Lucky Charm’s feet. Another branch, was my first reaction? Merlin first saw that it was no such thing. Upon closer inspection by the four of us, we quickly determined it was a creature. A flying squirrel to be more precise. But that wasn’t the ominous part. The furry being had been cleanly decapitated. The absurdity of a headless flying squirrel dropping out of seemingly nowhere right when we passed by slowly dawned on us. How does one react to this? Utter disbelief? Hysterical laughter?
Most likely, a bird had killed the squirrel and had somehow dropped it from above. Still, what are the odds of this happening? The idea of Lucky Charm being cursed by something was born there.
Lunch was held by Timothy Lake, a great place for a tiny beach day (as I like to call it every time we stop by a lake) and a refreshing swim.
I saw Big Oil, Disaster, Big Bear and Mouse at a highway crossing, trying to hitch to the nearby gas station to buy beers. They passed me a while later, leading me to believe their endeavour failed.
At Barlow Road, one of the bigger campsites, I took a break with the aforementioned four. Big Bear had adorned his cold-soaking jar with a ‘State of Jefferson’ sticker, from Seiad Valley. The content of his jar, which Big Oil described as ‘a by-product of petroleum’ looked absolutely disgusting. Big Oil kept going on about how he ‘has to eat big to become big’. I missed that guy’s jokes. His voice has the perfect natural deadpan.
Then I got the final scare of the day. At the picnic table close by was the one person I never wanted to see again on or off trail. At the table sat Bard. I let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t recognize me. But he would surely recognize Lucky Charm when she got here. And he did. For some unfathomable reason Lucky Charm let slip that we were going to the Timberline Lodge buffet tomorrow, which he was of course all to eager to join. She really is cursed. Luckily, we were camping further than him, so we could probably escape.
Bard got up to go to the bathroom.
‘Dude’s got a big ol’ rip in his shorts’, Big Oil remarked. One of Bard’s butt cheeks was indeed visible.
‘From rippin’ all those big miles’, Disaster went on. Please let them stay in our bubble.