Santa Cruz Island

THIS past weekend, my friend and I spent the night out on Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the Channel Islands. We woke up early, took the boat out, and packed up to the Del Norte backcountry campground. And it was very quiet. We met a really neat ecologist on the boat ride over, who I was really clicking well with - I think we may not have lined up on a lot of issues, but boy would we have a lot in common in terms of thinking styles. I think we both were in a position of being able to easily appreciate the other. Anyhow, as luck would have it, we never saw him again. He was off to backpack in other parts of the island to check up on the bird population. Instead, we camped next to three other "boys" ("Two doctors and an engineer" to be precise). These were our lone companions in the sparse, desolate part of the island.

One of the doctors was a pretty nice, ethical sort of guy. The other one (the engineer, ohh, i'm so impressed) was too young and cocky to be taken seriously. The other doctor was, as I told my mother when I got back, smarmy. I'm not sure if this is a real word, but you know exactly what it means, huh? Maybe I'm repeating this, but for now I am going to give myself full credit for inventing this masterful word. Anyhow, both these docs were in the process of becoming anasthesiologist, and the smarmy one described going under as this: First, you give the patient and overdose of HEROIN; then you keep them as close to death as possible by having them breathe DRY CLEANING FUMES. And he described it in a really calm, cold sounding voice. I can just picture him being a cold-blooded killer, or peeling skin off of people. From the moment I sat down at their picnic table I felt my low back tensed in defensiveness. And then I narrowed it down to just the smarmy one.

The trip was good. We saw a few pig carcassas, remnants of the old days when wild boars roamed freely. We saw some nice wide stretches of ocean, and blessed a few moments of pure sunshine that broke up the otherwise overcast weather. There was lots of new spring green grass, and tons of clovers and licorice plants. There were also beautiful bright yellow flowers, and butterflies. The pack was weighing about 30, and I was feeling pretty good with it. The new walking poles and the new boots are awesome. We're going to be in some good shape to enjoy Kauai, come April!