May 12: Boaters with beer

Coming over the rim of Silverwood Lake this afternoon, we were beckoned down to a small beach seclusion by a group of boaters where they were playing with their children in the sand.

The woman called up to the trail asking if we would like a beer or anything. We certainly would, we responded, and trotted down to the shore.

By the time we set out again, an hour or so later, we had been amply restocked with a full box of Cheez-its, a half-bag of pretzels, a quarter-roll of Oreos, two bottle of water and an apple a piece. These people, the woman, a young well-to-do mother of two, in particular, could not believe what we were doing. Where are you going again? Canada. Blank stare, as if numbly convincing herself that Canada must certainly be the name of some small town north up in the San Joaquin valley. Oh, ok. Then, reflecting on our trip thusfar, "Three weeks is a fuckin' long time, man, here you guys need this stuff. Want another beer? Want to get high? . . . "

Most of all, this woman talked about having kids, about how much her life changed -- for the worse, mainly -- after giving birth to her boys. She must have said it a dozen times. "It's all gonna change, man. Hey honey, look at these guys, they're just like we were before we had kids!" Meanwhile he and a buddy are up in the boat slurping down cans of Coors, testing out the new sound system in the boat.

I tried to tell the woman about Greg and Varuni, their kids and their lives, but she cut me off and blabbed on in the same vein that they are probably just terribly jealous of us for having such a fancy-free lifestyle and all that. I don't think this is so. It is strange and ammusing to speak to a empassioned stranger who happens to be so preoccupied with her own life that she is unable to stop for even a second to consider another perspective. Then again, she was very generous and kind to us. People are so odd.

We strolled on for just a couple more miles, happy to have come across these interesting, very Southern, Californians -- bleach blonde, big boobs, a big boat, etc. -- especialy happy to have come away with such a bountiful booty.

We camped by the water, enjoying the box of Cheez-its to it's fullest potential.

Section C, dubbed originally section Cheri, and/or section Corri (we've taken to naming our sections after our family members -- if they only knew how much we talked about them out here), has been re-named section Crazy. The hot springs, with the lounging locals, shrouded in nothing but pot smoke, followed by this run in at the lake, with a pit stop at McDonald's on the horizon for tomorrow . . . we can only offer our humblest apologies to our dear family members for what is turning out to be a very bizarre week.