April Sweeps - Day 87

So, I owe you a write-up on yesterday's trip to the canyon.

The problem is, today was the biggest work day for me since I started these posts, and I just got done at 6:42pm, but still need to get something done before I can sit down and blog.

PLUS, I'm supposed to be writing!  After three or four days of less than a thousand words, I'm mighty close to dropping below that for a daily average.  And this particular "Dead & Breakfast" story probably doesn't work.  It's the third Mason-centric one (after "The Old Man and Me" and "The Last Friday In December," or, if you count "Never Let Him Go," I guess it's the fourth), but it was supposed to be about him meeting this girl, them hitting it off, and him saying, "So that's what that's like.  Huh," but it's not really going in that direction.

Somehow, I decided to introduce a new, malevolent ghost that haunts the building, setting it up as the ultimate bête noir for when I finally write the Mrs. Bice story that was meant to close out the anthology.  And then, as if that's not bad enough, the love interest leaves town and Natalie, Mason's would-be true love, tells him not to pursue this new girl, because she is vulnerable and damaged.  It's a little bit too much story for a short story, or even two at this point.

So, last week, I came across two trails (well, there were three, but one of them got me lost, so I suspect it was a false trail)--the one that led up to the top of the waterfall (this was rocky), and another, woodland trail that went in the other direction.  I did the waterfall one first, and then tried to do the second one, but only made it up a third of the way before it was getting too dark (and my legs were getting too tired), so I turned around and went back to my car.

As I had stumbled around in the woods earlier, I grabbed a big stick off the ground and used it to keep me up as I tried to make my way back from my wrong turn.  This stick was fun to use and when I reached the bottom of the woods trail, I left the stick propped up against a tree so the next person to come along could use it.  That's just the sort of dude I am.

But cut to a week later, I had options of where to go, and I meant to find the trail I went up about a month or more back, where I took the AT-ST picture (and sang a David Bowie song) . . . but I couldn't find it.  Instead, I went to the exact same place as last week and decided to try out the woodland trail this time.  And to my surprise, my stick was still there, propped up where I left it.

I scooped it up and it helped me quite a bit as I went up the winding, unpaved trail (I say unpaved because, even though last week's was also unpaved, it had obviously been man-made, with lots of rocks placed along the way to help people climb to the top of the waterfall, whereas this one was meandering and occasionally more dangerous).  I didn't know where it was going, but there were ribbons occasionally placed in trees which led me to believe it had been marked to help people know they were going in the right direction.

Something, something, carry a big stick.

At one point the trail split into two forks, and as I glanced at the less-prominent fork, I saw somebody's phone case lying at the bottom of an incline.  I figured a hiker had set it down while they peed or something, but nobody else was around, and after a minute, I scooped up the case and found a new-looking, expensive-looking 5G Samsung Galaxy 10 phone, along with a medical insurance card, a couple of restaurant member cards, and a debit card, all with a woman's name on them (Megan, we'll call her).

Well, this sort of thing has happened to me before (the last time, it was a bag with an ID, a debit card, and a wad of cash), so the first thing that I did was try to wake up the phone, in case there was a "If Found, Please Call" number on it (I suggest you try it--it's breathtaking).  But the phone was locked, and didn't have an emergency contact number, and besides, there was spotty cellphone reception there at best.

I felt a little strange about it, though, as I held some stranger's phone in my hands, and got guilty pangs when I put it in my backpack, just in case somebody was watching and thought I was stealing it.  But you could do a lot worse than me with your valuables.  That phone of yours with all the private stuff on it, including those pictures you should not have taken of your daughter's teenage classmate . . . well, it's pretty safe with me, and besides, you have a PIN number lock on your phone, don't you?

I went up the trail, and encountered a young couple walking together.  "Are you Megan?" I asked the woman.  But she wasn't, according to her, and if she was lying, well, she only hurt herself.  It turned out that this little trail went up to the top of another mountain, where a tiny waterfall emerged.

Purty stuff, but surprisingly loud.

The big falls from last week are impressively large and can be seen from the highway, whereas this one I had never noticed before, and I doubted anybody had ever died climbing down that one.  Somebody had put up a hammock downstream a hundred feet or so, and there was a couple making out on it.*  It didn't occur to me to ask them if they were Megan.

I had climbed directly up the rocks where the waterfall flows, but there was a winding path that went alongside the waterfall, and once I had gotten there, that's how I decided to go back down.

Well, that turned out to be something of a deathtrap.  While it's fairly easy to climb a sheer(ish) rock cliff, I had a bugger of a time trying to get down it, my shoes slipping multiple times in the effort (for a while there, I actually kept count of how many times I'd slipped.  Must've been seven or eight), and depending on the walking stick to keep me from falling.  One of the slips caused my sunglasses to fly off my head, and they went down the rocky embankment before stopping a few feet down.  I tried to scoop them up with my stick, but only managed to knock them farther down.  Finally, I went down on my butt, picked up the glasses (which now had a big scratch on the right lens), went back up to where I had lost them, and backtracked to the waterfall, going down its base like I had climbed up.

Taken moments before my sunglasses took their tumble.

As I was coming down the trail, listening to music and slipping two or three more times (it must have been the shoes I chose, with worn-down smooth bottoms, which I had worn instead because my ankles were bothering me and I hoped it was just the shoes), I heard a cellphone ringing.  And it wasn't mine.

I quickly stopped, pulled my backpack off, unzipped, and reached for the found phone, figuring I'd say, "Megan's phone" when I answered it, then explain what the situation was.  My own phone got no signal up there in the rolling hills, but this stranger's 5G one did.  Didn't matter, though, as the caller had hung up before I could answer.  I tried to call them back, find a way to redial, but there was no way of accessing anything (except for "Emergency Call") without knowing the passcode.  I put the phone in my pocket, in case he or she called back.**

There were a lot of people out, both hiking and walking their dogs (as well as the usual gathering of grab-assing teenagers), and even though I'm alone, it helps to see all these people around, so I can imagine we're all alone together.  If I survive this year, maybe I'll look back on all the writing, hiking, and exercise I got during this stretch with fondness, maybe even pride.  Might be nice not to look back, though, or see anything for a while.

I must admit that I tired out easier this week than I did last week, and both trips put together didn't equal the trip up and down the road from the week before that.  My legs have started to ache, and I'm experiencing the shin splints Big Anklevich used to complain about.  As a result, I walked just a little bit more once I came down the trail (going to where the little river is dammed off and imagining seeing a body floating down there), then headed back to my car.  It's the first hike I've done this month without recording a (probably annoying, I realize) song.***

That used Selfie Stick has already been worth the $1.00 I paid for it.

When I got home, I loo--heck, it was before I even got home, it was once I got back to town--I looked Megan up on Facebook.  The problem is, there's an awful lot of Megans out there, and the last name was not uncommon enough to narrow it down.  I found one that had a photo that MIGHT have been the face in the tiny picture that comes up on the lock screen, and I sent her a message asking if she had lost a phone on a hike this weekend.  I waited for her to respond (even a friendly, "Nope, that's not me" would've been useful), and went over to Instagram to see if she might be there (a lot of people I know have jumped ship from Facebook to Instagram because it's so much hipper and such).

Instagram was worse than Facebook because there were just as many Megans with the same last name, but nearly all of them had their accounts set on Private.  Really, say what you will about having a Private account, how great it is that a creep like me can't see what clubs you go to, or pictures of your nipples, or find out who your friends are . . . but in this case, the only person your selfish little Private account kept at arm's length was you.

They say you always hurt the one you love, and in this case, I guess you just did.

After that, I posed the question on Facebook, because a year or so back when I did an episode of my podcast where I talked about finding the bag with the wad of cash in it, and what I did, I was surprised that a person or two told me I was not the forkiest spoon in the drawer over that.  So, pray tell, what should I have done?

Somebody told me to Google them (which I did), somebody told me to turn the phone into the police and let them deal with it, one person told me that finders were technically keepers, and one person told me to shove the Samsung Galaxy phone into my nether bungslide.  We will see what happens in the next few hours.

The pain in my ankles (they even hurt to touch) caused me to skip going for a run that night, though I figure the hiking days count as a perfectly cromulent running substitute, but then I did my usual run Monday night, and paid for it afterward.  I'd say it's not fair that I'm doing all this exercise stuff, and my body is betraying me over it . . . but none of it's fair, boys and girls.  It's time you remembered that.

Words Today: 811
Words In April: 29,682

P.S. For some reason, I post one of these daily.

Day 27. Oh, I'm going to go against the grain and pick not a heartbreaking love song, but a different kind of sad song. "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles.
My pal Katie, who was more than a year younger than me but always seemed older and wiser, first told me about the song where a lady picks up the rice after a wedding and nobody misses her or goes to her funeral when she died.  I still remember her misting up telling me about that song.  Would've been 1991.

*Isn't that nice?

**He or she didn't.

***Oh, wait, that's not quite true.  I recorded this bit at the top of the waterfall, knowing the sound would be drowned out by the roar of the falls, but not realizing that my phone would screw up and record a horizontal image vertically.  If this is fixable, let me know.