Muddled Trip
For fuck's sake, am I ever going to have a good weekend?
First we had the spectacularly failed Comic Con weekend that still resonates bitterly within my soul. Then we had similarly failed weekends that I didn't even post about because...well, I don't know why. I bitch to skyblade every day about how bored I am, yet can't even be bothered to post in this thing with any regularity.
Thursday night, Pineapple and I were determined to take our dogs to the lake. We have Newfoundlands--water-loving, life-saving, cart-pulling Newfoundlands--without shit to do in a barren desert wasteland so trust me when I say a trip to the lake to them is like Disneyworld to the rest of us. I immediately fired up ye olde Internets to find a secluded beach where we could set our people dogs free and let them run off-leash.
Overton Beach looked good.
Now let me just say that Pineapple HATES driving to Overton. Hates it. This stems from the weeks-long scavenger hunt he participated in last December that a local radio station was holding to find The Jingle Bell Rock, which is your average 10 lb stone painted a festive red with white writing all over it. What does the writing say? If I knew that, I'd be the proud recipient of $10,000, which was the prize for finding The Jingle Bell Rock.
For two weeks, Pineapple rose at the asscrack of dawn before work and drove the hour to Overton just so he could trudge and scrabble through harsh and unforgiving terrain along with 200 other scavengers, squinting down at his wrinkled paper filled with clues every once in a while, in search of the elusive and utterly frustrating prize.
For the 3rd year in a row he didn't win it. Hence, his blinding hatred for the town of Overton.
Which I was making him drive to for the sake of our dogs' happiness.
After a few false starts where we would leave the house, then have to come back because we forgot dog bowls/beach towels/cell phones, we finally hit the open road at about 10:30 a.m. We got home around 5:30 p.m. after standing exactly 10 minutes in lake water.
Here's what happened:
We cheerfully drove along the state highway playing The Alphabet Game. This is where you go down the alphabet naming movies starting with the letter you're assigned. One person starts with "a", the next gets "b", hilarity ensues and so on. "Q", "x" and "z" are left out because honestly, if you say you can instantly think of anything else besides Quigley Down Under, Xanadu and Zoolander, you're lying.
So we're driving, playing the Alphabet Game (I won), listening to satellite radio while our dogs snored in the back, having a grand time, when we spied the Overton exit and turned off. And this is one hick town, let me tell you what. Everyone drove a pick-up. Everyone. Even old ladies. And everyone had at least 4 in their front yard, parked right on the grass. There were no 7-11s, only little mom-and-pop markets with names like Freezies and Red Rooster Barn that were dispersed sparingly between buffalo farms.
Buffalo farms???
I begged Pineapple to pull over so I could pet one, but he staunchly refused.
"There aren't any hospitals around here so what am I gonna do if one spears you in the head, sweetie pie?" He asked.
"I didn't say I was gonna friggin' RIDE one, honey bunny." I rebuttled.
(We think using pet names softens the blow of personal insults, I'm guessing.)
Driving past fluffy brown (yet lethally horned) buffalo, we were already on the outskirts of Overton. And we'd only been driving 15 minutes, so that tells you just how small this town is.
According to our maps, Stewart Point was about 17 miles away. Now, when you think of 17 miles, you don't really think it's that far to drive, do you? See, that's because you're not driving in Nevada. If you were, you would know that after watching the same rocks and cacti fly by your window with nary a roadkill to break the monotony (coyotes drag carcasses away at first light), 17 miles gets pretty damn mind-numbing.
After about 3 years, we found Stewart Point. However, now we had another 5 miles of dirt road to contend with so with a sigh, Pineapple turned off and we thumped and bumped our way past two-room desert shacks with rusted wagon wheels for landscaping. It was totally The Hills Have Eyes, dude. Our two watchdogs in the back were completely concerned for our welfare, as their continued snoring indicated.
A portion of the lake loomed ahead of us so we found a clearing and parked. Not sure exactly how far we had to walk, I offered to get out of the truck and walk ahead to see where the water was. From our vantage point, it looked kind of...below us.
I carefully stepped over stickered bushes and other pointy fauna, praying I don't get tagged by a rattler, and stopped short. Sure enough, the water WAS below us. We were currently parked on a fucking cliff. With mental images of us repelling down the mountainside with our giant dogs strapped to our backs, I picked my way back to Pineapple.
"Well?" He hopefully asked.
Wordlessly, I gestured with a waved hand for us to keep moving. When I'm silent it's usually not a good idea to further press me, so he put her in drive and on we went.
The next stop looked a bit more promising. There weren't as many painful plants to step over and the water looked almost level with us. Almost level because even though we were still on a cliff, it was only about a 5 foot drop to water's edge. And it was sloped so the dogs could easily clamber down with us.
The whole works was tucked into a pretty little cove and the water looked shallow for a ways out. Excitedly running back, I yelled that we found our spot. I threw open the doors to the truck, woke the dogs, and together we all bounded down the slope as Pineapple lugged the ice chest out and got the towels.
The uncommonly deep footprints leading to the water should've tipped me off that all was not well in Wonderland.
See, this is why obesity is such a problem in our country. I thought with irritation. I could easily bust an ankle stepping in one of these footprint holes some fatass made! And then my foot sank all the way to the knee.
"The fuck?" was quickly followed by "NANI, NOOOOO!" as with dizzying clarity I realized our pretty little cove was actually a mudpit more dangerous than quicksand due to the receding lake water thanks to the harsh drought we suffered over the summer...and one of my dogs just jumped into the shallows.
She flailed around trying to claw for purchase in the goopy mud when suddenly she, too, sank and was firmly stuck up to her shoulders. Water waves kept lapping over her head and as I struggled to extricate myself, I was convinced she would drown as I watched 3 feet away.
Shrieking for Pineapple, I finally got my leg out and grabbed a big stick to help me negotiate the treacherous surface. Nani's head was straining towards the sky as she struggled to keep her nose out of the lapping water. Step by laborous step, I reached the water and watched with horror as Kona thundered past me and lept into the water, as well.
Knowing I would never be strong enough to save both dogs, I sadly thought of which one to say goodbye to when Kona happily came bounding back out of the water and licked my face. At nearly 200 lbs, he is one motherfucker of a strong dog so of course he had no trouble stomping around, which I didn't think of in my panicked state. Nani, however, has arthritis in her back legs so she was a lot weaker.
Wondering if I should use the stick as a...shoe horn or something to dislodge the poor thing, here comes Pineapple charging into the water, grabbing her by the collar and hauling her butt back onto shore. Then as he was making his way back, he promptly sank to his hips. Now I had two mud-encrusted and sopping wet dogs, one of which kept leaping in to the water barking happily and giving me heart attacks, as my husband of 10 years lay there looking like the victim of some particularly cruel German water torture.
As I held Nani by her collar, yelled at Kona to Come here, goddamnit! Stop playing in the mud! and yelled at Pineapple to Hold on, honey, mama's coming! (although I was doing nothing of the sort, but was in fact just standing there all agog), he was finally able to grab onto some weeds and drag himself out.
We looked like a family of Creatures from the Black Lagoon by the time we made it back to the SUV covered in black mud, weeds and an old shoe lace I plucked off of Kona's muzzle. A sorrier bunch you would not have occasion to meet on a Friday afternoon, in other words.
Wisely silent about the fact that this was all my idea, Pineapple turned us around and we thumped and bumped back along the dirt road, past the same desert shacks and the same rusted wagon wheels. I couldn't tell you what people thought when they saw a filthy they-guess-it's-a-guy walking barefoot into the Red Rooster Barn to grab a map of the lake.
"Next time we come out, we will RESEARCH." Pineapple quietly announced as he stowed the map and we drove our silent, filthy way back home.
First we had the spectacularly failed Comic Con weekend that still resonates bitterly within my soul. Then we had similarly failed weekends that I didn't even post about because...well, I don't know why. I bitch to skyblade every day about how bored I am, yet can't even be bothered to post in this thing with any regularity.
Thursday night, Pineapple and I were determined to take our dogs to the lake. We have Newfoundlands--water-loving, life-saving, cart-pulling Newfoundlands--without shit to do in a barren desert wasteland so trust me when I say a trip to the lake to them is like Disneyworld to the rest of us. I immediately fired up ye olde Internets to find a secluded beach where we could set our people dogs free and let them run off-leash.
Overton Beach looked good.
Now let me just say that Pineapple HATES driving to Overton. Hates it. This stems from the weeks-long scavenger hunt he participated in last December that a local radio station was holding to find The Jingle Bell Rock, which is your average 10 lb stone painted a festive red with white writing all over it. What does the writing say? If I knew that, I'd be the proud recipient of $10,000, which was the prize for finding The Jingle Bell Rock.
For two weeks, Pineapple rose at the asscrack of dawn before work and drove the hour to Overton just so he could trudge and scrabble through harsh and unforgiving terrain along with 200 other scavengers, squinting down at his wrinkled paper filled with clues every once in a while, in search of the elusive and utterly frustrating prize.
For the 3rd year in a row he didn't win it. Hence, his blinding hatred for the town of Overton.
Which I was making him drive to for the sake of our dogs' happiness.
After a few false starts where we would leave the house, then have to come back because we forgot dog bowls/beach towels/cell phones, we finally hit the open road at about 10:30 a.m. We got home around 5:30 p.m. after standing exactly 10 minutes in lake water.
Here's what happened:
We cheerfully drove along the state highway playing The Alphabet Game. This is where you go down the alphabet naming movies starting with the letter you're assigned. One person starts with "a", the next gets "b", hilarity ensues and so on. "Q", "x" and "z" are left out because honestly, if you say you can instantly think of anything else besides Quigley Down Under, Xanadu and Zoolander, you're lying.
So we're driving, playing the Alphabet Game (I won), listening to satellite radio while our dogs snored in the back, having a grand time, when we spied the Overton exit and turned off. And this is one hick town, let me tell you what. Everyone drove a pick-up. Everyone. Even old ladies. And everyone had at least 4 in their front yard, parked right on the grass. There were no 7-11s, only little mom-and-pop markets with names like Freezies and Red Rooster Barn that were dispersed sparingly between buffalo farms.
Buffalo farms???
I begged Pineapple to pull over so I could pet one, but he staunchly refused.
"There aren't any hospitals around here so what am I gonna do if one spears you in the head, sweetie pie?" He asked.
"I didn't say I was gonna friggin' RIDE one, honey bunny." I rebuttled.
(We think using pet names softens the blow of personal insults, I'm guessing.)
Driving past fluffy brown (yet lethally horned) buffalo, we were already on the outskirts of Overton. And we'd only been driving 15 minutes, so that tells you just how small this town is.
According to our maps, Stewart Point was about 17 miles away. Now, when you think of 17 miles, you don't really think it's that far to drive, do you? See, that's because you're not driving in Nevada. If you were, you would know that after watching the same rocks and cacti fly by your window with nary a roadkill to break the monotony (coyotes drag carcasses away at first light), 17 miles gets pretty damn mind-numbing.
After about 3 years, we found Stewart Point. However, now we had another 5 miles of dirt road to contend with so with a sigh, Pineapple turned off and we thumped and bumped our way past two-room desert shacks with rusted wagon wheels for landscaping. It was totally The Hills Have Eyes, dude. Our two watchdogs in the back were completely concerned for our welfare, as their continued snoring indicated.
A portion of the lake loomed ahead of us so we found a clearing and parked. Not sure exactly how far we had to walk, I offered to get out of the truck and walk ahead to see where the water was. From our vantage point, it looked kind of...below us.
I carefully stepped over stickered bushes and other pointy fauna, praying I don't get tagged by a rattler, and stopped short. Sure enough, the water WAS below us. We were currently parked on a fucking cliff. With mental images of us repelling down the mountainside with our giant dogs strapped to our backs, I picked my way back to Pineapple.
"Well?" He hopefully asked.
Wordlessly, I gestured with a waved hand for us to keep moving. When I'm silent it's usually not a good idea to further press me, so he put her in drive and on we went.
The next stop looked a bit more promising. There weren't as many painful plants to step over and the water looked almost level with us. Almost level because even though we were still on a cliff, it was only about a 5 foot drop to water's edge. And it was sloped so the dogs could easily clamber down with us.
The whole works was tucked into a pretty little cove and the water looked shallow for a ways out. Excitedly running back, I yelled that we found our spot. I threw open the doors to the truck, woke the dogs, and together we all bounded down the slope as Pineapple lugged the ice chest out and got the towels.
The uncommonly deep footprints leading to the water should've tipped me off that all was not well in Wonderland.
See, this is why obesity is such a problem in our country. I thought with irritation. I could easily bust an ankle stepping in one of these footprint holes some fatass made! And then my foot sank all the way to the knee.
"The fuck?" was quickly followed by "NANI, NOOOOO!" as with dizzying clarity I realized our pretty little cove was actually a mudpit more dangerous than quicksand due to the receding lake water thanks to the harsh drought we suffered over the summer...and one of my dogs just jumped into the shallows.
She flailed around trying to claw for purchase in the goopy mud when suddenly she, too, sank and was firmly stuck up to her shoulders. Water waves kept lapping over her head and as I struggled to extricate myself, I was convinced she would drown as I watched 3 feet away.
Shrieking for Pineapple, I finally got my leg out and grabbed a big stick to help me negotiate the treacherous surface. Nani's head was straining towards the sky as she struggled to keep her nose out of the lapping water. Step by laborous step, I reached the water and watched with horror as Kona thundered past me and lept into the water, as well.
Knowing I would never be strong enough to save both dogs, I sadly thought of which one to say goodbye to when Kona happily came bounding back out of the water and licked my face. At nearly 200 lbs, he is one motherfucker of a strong dog so of course he had no trouble stomping around, which I didn't think of in my panicked state. Nani, however, has arthritis in her back legs so she was a lot weaker.
Wondering if I should use the stick as a...shoe horn or something to dislodge the poor thing, here comes Pineapple charging into the water, grabbing her by the collar and hauling her butt back onto shore. Then as he was making his way back, he promptly sank to his hips. Now I had two mud-encrusted and sopping wet dogs, one of which kept leaping in to the water barking happily and giving me heart attacks, as my husband of 10 years lay there looking like the victim of some particularly cruel German water torture.
As I held Nani by her collar, yelled at Kona to Come here, goddamnit! Stop playing in the mud! and yelled at Pineapple to Hold on, honey, mama's coming! (although I was doing nothing of the sort, but was in fact just standing there all agog), he was finally able to grab onto some weeds and drag himself out.
We looked like a family of Creatures from the Black Lagoon by the time we made it back to the SUV covered in black mud, weeds and an old shoe lace I plucked off of Kona's muzzle. A sorrier bunch you would not have occasion to meet on a Friday afternoon, in other words.
Wisely silent about the fact that this was all my idea, Pineapple turned us around and we thumped and bumped back along the dirt road, past the same desert shacks and the same rusted wagon wheels. I couldn't tell you what people thought when they saw a filthy they-guess-it's-a-guy walking barefoot into the Red Rooster Barn to grab a map of the lake.
"Next time we come out, we will RESEARCH." Pineapple quietly announced as he stowed the map and we drove our silent, filthy way back home.