Monday, October 24, 2011

An evening adventure

Every once in awhile, an incident occurs that will forever shape the way you look at life and people from that day forward. I had one of those incidents last Saturday.

Occasionally I'll go hang out with my buddy Sam who I used to work with at my previous employer. He and I will go out and play pool, get dessert, catch a movie. You know, man-date kind of stuff. He had mentioned that sometimes he likes to take his AWD car out on the back roads and adventure around - he calls it hooligan'ing. I thought it sounded like fun, so last night I told him we should do just that.

He mentioned that he'd been looking for a way to get to Hagg Lake using the forest service and other back roads, and that ATV'ers and mountain bikers have managed to make the connection from Hwy 8 (via Gales Creek Road). Our mission was to see if we could find such a path. He had already taken a cursory look at Google Maps and thought he may have found a way.

After a bit of meandering we managed to get on Dodson Road. I still had cell reception so I was trying to follow along a bit. It looked liked Dodson would dead-end eventually. We weren't sure. Google Maps doesn't always have completely accurate map data, so we kept going. Well, Dodson did come to an end - abruptly at someone's driveway! Oops, so, we made a U-turn and started backtracking. About 5 or 10 minutes we pulled over briefly to check the map on my phone and Sam noticed we needed to move over because there was someone coming up from behind us that needed to get around.

However, the guy pulled along side us and then he partially blocked our path by turning sideways in front of us. What the hell? Was this guy a cop or what? Some David Crosby-looking motherfucker jumps out of his SUV and greets us with, "What the fuck were you doing at my barn?" Actually, apologies to Crosby's family because this guy wasn't even as attractive as that (Dennis Franz perhaps?). Sam was trying to diffuse the situation best as possible by explaining that we didn't mean to trespass and that we were trying to find a path to Hagg Lake. The guy's response was, "This road hasn't gone through in thirty fucking years!"

"If I find anything fucking missing from my barn, there's going to be trouble!" His barn? We weren't on the property but for 20 seconds, so it was a far cry to have had any time to actually take anything. So, he looked at the license plate and said to hold on so he could write it down. He went back to his vehicle (a Mercedes SUV - a redneck with taste?) to get something to write with presumably. At this point I wanted to snap a cellphone pic or a movie in case the dude went all "Deliverance" on us. I could only assume that the jackhole had a gun in his car. He wasn't carrying it on his person because all he had on were shorts and a T-shirt. The guy was seriously unhinged.

He then took down the plate info and asked to see Sam's license. Sam recited his ODL from memory [Sam: Didn't give him my real #] to him and gave him his first name. Sam didn't offer his last and that he wouldn't need it anyway. His parting shot was, "Well SAM, it's not such a hot fucking idea to be heading to Hagg Lake at 10pm, now is it?!?" I don't know, what's so horrible about that? It's not like we had a midterm the next day or anything.


Here's a satellite view of what we think was the asshole's house. If you ever happen out Dodson Road and run across this piece of work, just tell him that you were trying to find Hagg Lake. Oh, and tell him that Sam sent ya!

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