The next morning, I wake up relatively early and am greeted with indoor plumbing! Oh what a relief! I don’t have to check for bears, don’t have to dig a hole…. So exciting! Alright, I’m in house improvement mood this morning. I start with finding what is bugging Sarah the most. The electrical work. She needs GFI sockets replaced along with some light fixtures changed. Man that shit takes longer to do than I expected, but 5 hours later the kitchen is done and looks good. Except, it needs new paint. So, we paint. And we clean. And we get the kitchen completely done and looking sharp. It felt good to accomplish a room. There’s a lot of projects halfway done in this house, so having a room be done feels great.
After a full day of working on the truck and cleaning some of my gear, we decide to call off the night early as we need to be up at midnight to get Kelli from the airport. Her flight lands on time, and by 2am we are home with Kelli.
I suppose I should divulge how I became friends with Kelli. We were both working as biologists for FWC, but in different sections. Our paths didn’t cross at all even though she was regularly coming around the office to get gear, pick up work trucks, drop off deer heads in the cooler, you know, normal stuff. PS if you aren’t familiar with chronic wasting disease in deer, you need to educate yourself. Short synopsis is there is a disease similar to mad cow in the fact that it deals with prions in the brain, impacting the wild whitetail deer populations in the US. Not just deer, but that’s the only animal that FWC was focused on while I was working there. These deer slowly waste away as their brain becomes like swiss cheese, hence the name. It’s super contagious, and can be passed through urine, spit, blood, feces, just about anything. Anyway, it’s not in Florida yet but it is definitely on its way. The more you know….
Eventually, I was invited to a house party at Kelli’s beach abode in Panama City. You know, I don’t have a lot of friends, I might as well go! There are lots of bios there, so at least I know other people in attendance. Wile I was there, I meet Kelli, and Kelli’s fiancé, Sarah. Oh shit! Another lesbian! That’s cool! Now I didn’t get to hang out with her before leaving, but as I was walking out the door, Kelli stops me and says, “hey, you’re cool, let’s be friends. Can I get your number?” And in my drunken state, I took this as her hitting on me for some reason? Which was not something I was interested in. You introduce me to your fiancé and then hit on me? Classless move asshat. So, I say, “you don’t need it,” and walk out. PS I didn’t drive, don’t freak out.
The next day, my girlfriend at the time tells me how much of a jerk I was. This other biologist was looking for new cool friends and I just told her off. Turns out the asshat is on my head… I get her cell number from a friend and apologize. Kelli doesn’t give a shit because she’s chill, and we decide to be friends. From that day on, about 3 nights a week were spent drinking IPAs on Kelli’s couch while watching Intervention or My 600 Pound Life. Kelli almost always passed out on the couch while I was there, so I’d always let myself out while she was open mouth breathing with a dog on her lap. Oh, PS. Kelli has 4 dogs. Kelli is also the bleeding heart individual mentioned earlier in the blog who found my cat Moab out in the woods.
The next morning was a bit slow due to Kelli’s 2am flight. All I know is that it’s a Tuesday, which means it’s taco Tuesday, which means I get to gorge on tacos with zero judgement. Sarah has been talking up some falafel tacos and I am DYING to get one. The only kicker is that Kelli has to work. She’s got a side gig at the Forest City Brewery in Cleveland as a bar tender. If you’re in Cleveland, go check it out. Maybe just walk through? Not the best beer, but super fun, large indoor and outdoor venue. They had a legit Oktoberfest beer and a jalapeno cider, but that was about it.
So, Sarah and I drop Kelli off at the bar for work and decide to meet up with another friend of the couple for tacos. We of course promise Kelli we’ll bring her some grub.
After Sarah and I gorge on cheap, amazingly tasty tacos, we bring Kelli food and plop down at the bar where she’s working. It’s a quiet night, so we’re able to chat a bit. We decide that we want to go camping starting tomorrow. Sarah has to work tomorrow in the morning, but if we have everything packed up and ready to roll when she’s off, we could get to West Virginia before 7PM. Why WV? Kelli did her masters work out of Marshall University, where she did research on hellbenders. Oh. While you’re researching Chronic Wasting Disease, pop over and google hellbenders. These are the largest salamanders found in the US, and arguably the largest amphibian found here as well. The reticulated siren is similar in length (up to almost 16 inches) but the hellbender is a chonk. Weighing up to 5.5 pounds. The siren is a skinny little thing. Anyway, they are huge, and fabulous and sauntering towards extinction as their waterways are becoming more and more polluted and altered. It is my goal to try and find one in the wild during this camping trip, and Kelli is my hellbender sherpa guiding me in the journey.
So, Kelli and I prep the camping gear, drop off 3 dogs at Kelli’s mom house, and wait for Sarah to get off work. We’re going to be taking one dog with us. Arthur. Arthur is a complete shit head. Too smart for his own good, too stupid to stay alive without significant human intervention, and too annoying to leave with Kelli’s mom. He’s the youngest of the 4, and is another foster dog Kelli had that never was adopted out. The fact he was never adopted even though significant effort was put forth does not surprise anyone.
With Sarah home, we load up my truck with everyone plus Arthur, and drive south. The one aspect of the drive south that I’m so excited about is food. Kelli has been talking up pepperoni rolls while we were packing and planning. Created by miners, they are dough rolls filled with delicious cheese and pepperoni bits that supposedly were favored by the underground workers. As we drive south, we listen to a podcast on Mormonism, and talk extensively about pepperoni rolls.
Once in WV, we hit some pretty windy, small roads that are surprisingly terrifying to drive on. Kelli tells me how people in WV “drive through the curves” all the time. That means, they just drive straight. To save time. If you’re on the other side of the person driving through the curve, you could easily die in a head on collision. We see lots of folks driving through the curves here and it’s scaring the shit out of me.
Eventually, we find a gas station that is also a grocery store, and saunter in to search for pepperoni rolls. Kelli finds the pizza rolls, but they are kept in the refrigerator. I Don’t know any better, but apparently, they are not supposed to be cold. These rolls should be hot, or at least room temp. You know, ignore all those food safety requirements. We buy three rolls and head on our way. I should mention that every time the truck turns, or slows down, or has to do any maneuvering, Arthur whines. He has taken a liking to sitting like a human behind my seat and whining directly in my ear. This habit became evident as soon as we started on the windy WV roads, and is pretty consistent now that we’re in the backwoods.
So, we’re on the road again, unwrapping cold pepperoni rolls, with a constant dog whine being emitted as the twisty roads continue. It only took a few bites of the roll to decide they were awful. Arthur got most of the rolls. Even he had a hard time choking them down, but he’s no quitter.
As we get closer to where we’re camping, I ask Kelli for an address to put in my phone. I like to know where we’re headed. But service is crappy, and no one can really get a good signal. When we do get signal, we put in the town of Durbin, WV to get us in the general area of the camp site. I didn’t know it then, but Kelli has this thing where she thinks she knows where all of her old survey sites are. She knows them all by heart even though years have come and gone from grad school. It became evident pretty quick that Kelli in fact did not remember where all of these sites were. We do many U-turns. Lots of dog whining. When we do find the correct forest road to traverse, the best camp site Kelli was envisioning is taken by other campers. Crap. That’s ok. We have other potential sites to find. A few more miles down the road we find a nice, open, empty site. We find a flat spot for the truck, a spot for the tent, and start collecting fire wood.
It was cold, clear, crisp, and we had a rolling fire. We pass out cups (to me and Kelli) and let the jack and ginger flow. The one issue that has become horribly apparent through this trip is that late night drinking binges ultimately end with many pee trips throughout the night. I hate having to climb out if the truck and get cold as hell to take a piss, but it’s a necessary evil.
After we get Kelli and Sarah’s and Arthur’s tent erected and all of the gear inside, we head off to bed. Me in my plush truck set -up, and them a few feet over on the cold hard ground. I tried to give them the truck but they wouldn’t take it. So, we filter off to bed.
About 2 in the morning, my bladder can’t take it anymore. I open up the back of the truck as quietly as I can and proceed to climb out. Now, the moon is suuuuper high in the sky and shining like a binary star. I find a pee spot, and start to squat when I hear Kelly and Arthur rustling around. I hear her zip out of the text and step out as soon as I start to pee. What do I do? Just stay quiet and freak her out when she steps over this way to pee? Stay quiet and hope she doesn’t see me? Not wanting to give her a heart attack, and decide to speak out, “hey, Kelli, I’m peeing over here.”
Now, what I forgot in that moment is that Kelli is a hard sleeper. A grumpy sleeper. And attempting to wake her up was not my best idea. But, I try again. Because obviously she didn’t hear me, “Hey Kelli! I’m peeing over here!”
Ok, that got her attention. But she came back in a full yell. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE!”
I of course respond, “I’M PEEING YOU ASSHOLE” which begged a response,
“WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME AN ASSHOLE!”
Which of course had my response of, “BECAUSE YOU’RE YELLING AT ME!”
Before either of us could escalate from this point, Sarah gets up and has to reel Kelli back into bed, “Why are you guys screaming at each other??” We obviously woke her up with our yelling peeing match. In our half sleep slumber, neither of us really knows why we started screaming at each other. Things just escalated very quickly.
The next morning, we all woke up to Sarah starting a massive fire. Much better than the fire the night before. We tell Sarah how nice her fire is. It’s the best fire, greatest fire. Most extravagant fire in the world, maybe ever. This pleases Sarah. We make grits, peanut butter tortillas, and Kelli pours a jack and ginger as I sip on coffee. We sit over the fire and just enjoy being in the woods for about an hour. Man it’s nice not to be alone.
After an hour or so, we decide to go walk to one of Kelli’s old hellbender sampling sites. Just a little jaunt down the dirt road. We search for salamanders, and I hunt for mushrooms. It’s a nice little walk. I enjoy the Appalachian Mountains more than I should. Maybe it’s because it’s different than Florida, maybe it’s the thick, dense, cool forest that brings back some primordial sense of landscape productivity. Maybe both of those things… We’ll never know.
We walk back to the campsite, and pack everything up to head into the nearby town of Davis. There’s a burrito joint that Kelli is excited to take me to. It’s named Hellbender Burrito, and I’m absolutely in love. A hole in the wall with wood paneling on the walls and ceilings, this place seriously looks like you’re stepping into the galley of a boat. I get the Hellbender Burrito and gaze at all of the restaurant’s propaganda. I want everything. The shirts, the cozies, the hats, the glasses… They all have a fat, shitty little hellbender standing up showing off its fat adorable belly. It’s awful, and I love it.
As we sit at the bar, drank some local beer, and stuffed our faces with amazing burritos. I ate an entire one, while Kelli and Sarah split one. Quitters.
Don’t worry, we took turns checking on Arthur in the car. It was chilly out, so he was balled up on a blanket in the backseat. Finally, he’s being quiet. Or maybe he’s only quiet because I’m not in the same room as him. I’m ok with both.
We traveled to the next town to get Sarah some delicious coffee. Now, we’re in West Virginia. A bunch of gays chilling in West. Virginia. But, this place is actually pretty progressive. We drive a few minutes and end up in the town of Thomas where we step into a coffee shop that looks like something you’d find in Portland or Jackson Hole. Sarah gets her Chia latte or whatever bullshit drink girls in leggings doing yoga order, and head out to find a hike in the woods. Oh, we also picked up some pepperoni rolls to try for later. These seem promising, and I can’t wait to replace the memory of the shitty dough roll from my first taste test.
Kelli is again wanting to find everything by memory. We get to the general location of where a cool hike and picnic area is within the Monogahela National Forest but can’t exactly locate where we are trying to go. Signs are pulled down all over the place, so I can’t blame Kelli this time. We drive on dirt roads for longer than needed, and finally decided to do another hike that looks interesting within the forest. It ended up being pretty cool with some old growth spruce. But not exactly the high altitude knob we were looking for. Back at the car, we eventually did find the knoll we had been searching for, and got another small hike in. This place had a carpet of soft, spongy moss coating the landscape. I enjoyed it very much.
After our hike, it was time to find a campsite. The entrance to the section of forest we were utilizing was within a neighborhood. Kelli, for the first time, was able to accurately locate exactly where we were going. Hooray Kelli!! You finally did it!!!
The entrance led to a gravel trail through beautiful woods. As we drive, Kelli shows us where people regularly find hellbenders, and tells us that we can come back later and search for salamanders in the dark. But, I’m way too excited, and talk Kelli into searching now. I park, and we climb down the steep bank to reach the river covered in long, flat rocks. The water is only ankle deep across most of the river, so we slosh in with our shoes and pants in search for amphibians. It’s breeding season, so salamanders should be active in the water. We walk around, searching for animals, but came up short after 30 minutes or so. Oh well, at least I learned what kind of rocks they like, what type of water they enjoy, and how to best visually search for hellbenders.
We get back into the truck with soggy feet and head off to a potential campsite. As we get further into the woods, we pass a couple of campsites that look amazing. Every time I see a good site I slow down and say… “this one??” And Kelli shoots me down and says NO NOT THAT ONE! We keep driving. Eventually, we get to the “perfect site” and it’s taken! By like, an entire family that looks like they have been living at the site for two weeks. Which honestly, in this part of the country, is pretty normal. We keep driving in hopes of finding another site. Kelli is pouting. Pouting until we run into the next camp which has a fucking covered wagon train?? Like straight up Oregon trail oxen pulling a god damn cover wagon with men that look like they have never seen electricity. Oh we stop and gaze at their antiquated setup for only a moment when every member of the group turns to look at us. Oh hell no. I slam the truck in reverse and skid out of there just as the banjo music became audible. The many empty campsites we passed on the way here will be just fine.
We pull up to a site on the water and survey the area. Good hellbender stream adjacent to the site, lots of room for a tent, firewood, this site looks pretty great! Oh, until Sarah found the shit bucket at the back of the site. Oh, there’s trash everywhere. Oh, is that a dirty diaper?? Oh….
We clean up everything into trash bags and decide this is as good as we’re going to get. We’ll just ignore the shit bucket and act like that never happened. Once the trash was collected, the site was pretty damn nice! We get Arthur tied up to a tree and start our firewood collection. I get dinner cut up which contains potatoes, veggies, cream of bacon and some other odds and ends we brought with us from Cleveland.
We get the fire going, the grill set, and chairs set up to enjoy the fire, cook, and have an adult beverage. All with a beautiful stream bubbling in the background, hopefully hiding hordes of hellbenders under flat, smooth rocks. While dinner is cooking I finally unwrap the pepperoni roll that was purchased earlier from a gas station. We kept these bad boys on the dashboard for warming, and now they are a perfect temp to consume. And perfect they were. The complete antithesis of my first experience. I want more. We need to buy all the pepperoni rolls…. Kelli promises we shall buy more on our way home. Hell, we can even make them at home. YAS!
So, we cook, eat, and finish listing to our Mormon podcast. When it’s finally dark, Kelli and I take to the water with flashlights. I slowly creep into the river with my crocks, hoping to find an adult hellbender sauntering around the rock bottom in search of a mate. We don’t want to flip rocks to search for the animals, as we could disrupt very sensitive nesting rocks. As we grid the river bottom with out flashlights, we come across a plethora of huge crayfish. If only I could catch some to throw on the fire for a tasty snack… I try, but without a net I was destined to fail.
Our river search turned up zero hellbenders. I’m disappointed, but not surprised. They are hard critters to come by. We climb back up to the campsite, and snuggle in close to the fire to warm our wet feet.
As we sit around the fire talking, we are constantly interrupted by Arthur whining. He won’t lay down, won’t stop fidgeting. It’s getting pretty annoying. Eventually, we lay a towel down on the perfectly dry, comfy leaf litter and he instantly lays down. This little shit didn’t want to lay on leaves. But throw a towel down and he’s a happy pooch. What a queen. We toss the end of the towel over him as he looks cold. Arthur definitely hates camping.
The next morning, We pack up our site and try to get on the road at a decent hour. But, Kelli promised to help me cut my hair. We were supposed to do it last night, but I couldn’t find the proper scissors. While I was making coffee in the morning, I finally stumbled over the correct cutting apparatuses and show Kelli. That apparently means it’s time to cut my hair.
“Shunk!” There goes six inches of hair!! And what does one do while getting a haircut in the woods?? Why you create a creepy ass face in the truck of a tree and hang your hair up as a mustache! Duh. Is that not what you do??
We finally leave the site, with creepy tree face growing small in the rear view mirror. Wish I could videotape the reaction of whoever sees it next.
