Morning.

I am back at my saddle log, perched above the tumbling water. It's sunny today. The sunlight falls dappled on the forest floor. Here in midstream, with no trees to block it, the sunlight is a warm blanket, and I bask in the early morning warmth.

I was cold last night though. The rain and the wet foliage were enough to soak my clothes thoroughly as I made my way back to camp. "Did you go in?" asked Mac, meaning the stream. No — just bounding through the underbrush.

We had a fine talk last night. We sat by the roaring campfire (Mac likes a big campfire) and talked over a meal of hot dogs and baked beans. After dinner we smoked Swisher Sweets and reminisced about college. We went to different colleges, at different times, but the experience is almost universal.

Later, after the fire had died, we played cards.

I slept soundly. The blackness was more complete than any I have ever known. It soothed me. When I got up to relieve myself in the middle of the night, I couldn't see anything. I used a flashlight to find my way, but for a thrill I turned it off and stood still and listened. And looked. All I saw was blackness. Only if I looked directly overhead could I make out tiny pinholes of light, stars floating far above the treetops.

In the morning I woke to a tinkle-tinkle sound, metal on metal. Was somebody in our campsite? I looked out of the tent but saw nothing. Later, when we were making breakfast, the source of the noise appeared: a big white dog with pale blue eyes, a sort of greyhound/Dane mix. A ghost dog. He barked at us and kept his distance.

I am barefoot today. I've been barefoot all morning and intend to remain barefoot until my feet are too cold or too sore. (Presently they're luxuriating in the sun — positively glowing in the warmth.) Mac laughs at me, but I love to be barefoot.

If I were truly alone I might strip and roam naked through the forest.

Two bears loafing beneath a tree:

Papa Bear: sniff Do you smell that, Mama Bear?

Mama Bear: No. What is it, Papa Bear?

Papa Bear: Human. A nice plump one, I think. sniff Curious — he smells naked.

Mac has found the path to my saddle log. He's on the other side of the stream with his camera and tripod. He's already used several rolls of film. I've not made a single photograph.

But I’m barefoot, and he's not.

My foot fetish lasted five hours. After lunch my feet were sore, raw from a morning of clambering over logs, tramping through the stream, and stumbling over stones. I've a big gash in my left pinky toe. I've yielded to modernity and donned my shoes.

We spend the afternoon lazing around camp. Mac reads Bradbury's Dandelion Wine; I read O'Brian's The Unknown Shore. We snack. I doze. We light a fire. Mac dozes.

In the evening we decide to drive up to High Rock to photograph the south side of Mount Hood. We drove up there yesterday while looking for a campsite.

"There's my rabbit," Mac says as we drive past its corpse. Yesterday our first sign of wildlife was this doomed rabbit, which darted in front of us, dying with a thud against the right rear wheel of Mac's truck. The rabbit is flattened now.

We spot a young buck, and as we slow to pass, he vaults up the steep hillside. We've seen little wildlife, actually: the rabbit (now dead), the deer, the ghost dog. Also a chipmunk, which flitted through camp after lunch. No birds, though, and no fish. Mainly hordes of insects: bees, flies, mosquitoes, gnats. Our fire this afternoon was not for warmth — it was to ward the annoying insects.

We drive upward from dusk to daylight. At the camp, evening had arrived; the sun had sunk behind the trees and the hills. As we drive higher, time reverses and it becomes late afternoon. The trees are bathed in golden sunlight.

High Rock is really very high. We can see Mount Hood to the north and Mount Jefferson to the south; we make many photographs and then drive home to another dinner of hot dogs and baked beans.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2004 — Alaskan Voyage: Inside Passage   This cruise is pleasant, and I'm grateful to be here, but after only a day aboard ship, it's clear that this is not the sort of vacation I would choose for myself.