Timothy Birdnow

I know, I know...it's been a while since I regaled you all with an Ozark Hilton tale. It's time to make amends for that.

Well, as best I can. I haven't been to the Ozark Hilton much at all; my last visit was in early May. I just haven't felt up to going, and when I have I've had other commitments, so the great trash heap in the oaks has suffered.

But it was reasonably cool and not so humid for July, and for once I felt pretty good - well enough to make the arduous and exhausting trek into the wilderness of south central Missouri.

It IS arduous too; I'm usually trying to recover for days after.  For one thing there is no electricity, so I have to forgo my CPAP machine, meaning I get little to no sleep there. I have severe sleep apnea and NEED the machine! (I suppose I'm like Darth Vader, more machine than man now, at least where sleep comes in.) I am able to sleep o.k. for a few hours in summer, even if it is sitting up in a chair. In winter it's much worse because I have to keep the fire going too, or wind up a Birdcicle. At any rate I don't get much sleep.

And even if I don't do a lot of work I still have a lot of stuff to unload and take in and set up. I have a cooler. I have a portable DVD player, and I bring a 12 volt battery to run it beyond the couple of hours the machine's battery gets. I bring down DVD's because otherwise once the sun goes down I either sit there doing nothing - something I enjoy, but only to a point, or I watch movies. I used to read, but my eyesight has gotten a bit too bad for that, especially in the low lifht. So I lug a bunch of movies down with me. And some CD's for the long trip (three hours).

I have to bring all my medications. And since someone robbed the place I now have to bring down batteries and battery-operated lights (which I need to augment my kerosene lamps).

I have to bring water - enough to assure me to last the night at least.  The Ozark Hilton is as dry as Mike Pence, and if I want to drink anything I have to tote it in.

Occasionally I have to bring in kerosene; I have a five gallon can I fill up and schlep down.

All this has to be carted from my pickup and taken inside. In winter I have to move a bunch of firewood in too.

This year - and last - I developed a problem; wasps settled into my babreque pit. I was going to move the pit out away from the cabin this winter, and take steps to guarantee the wasps didn't return. But I didn't make it down in time and they were present this spring when I finally got there.

And unlike wasps of summers past these guys aren't happy about me being there. Last year I got stung up good by them. And this year they are making life miserable. I have to keep one eye out for them every time I sit on the porch.

At any rate, I'll get back to the wasps; let's discuss this trip.

Not a whole lot to tell; everything went smoothly, by and large. I felt good, unusually good. I had a fine bowel movement at home - an important consideration in a place where eyou have to take a toilet seat out to a couple of cinder blocks.

I DID have to stop at my personal outhouse at St. Francois State Park. I've been "enjoying" that place for years now. It's usually clean, at least clean enough for a hole in the ground. I want to start a petition to get it renamed for me; I'm it's principle patron, even if I live sixty miles away from it. I can't pass the place without a stirring in my innards!

But this time the house had no toilet paper. It was clean, yes, but sans a very necessary item.

As it was crowded there anyway (being close to the playground) I moved on to a lesser-used outhouse in the park.

Drat if that wasn't out of toilet paper too! I don't know if the Park Service was just out or if this wasn't some money-saving program; you can use our hole but you must supply your own paper?

Didn't know and didn't really care. I had to go into the back seat of my pickup for the needed item.

Now the back seat of my Ford F150 is rather like the closet belonging to one Phineas J. Whooopie from the old Tennessee Tuxedo cartoon; open the back door to the truck at your own great peril!  All manner of things will spill all, and you may well be trapped beneath a pile of refuse and debris. I've got everything imaginable back there. (I guess I picked it up from my mother, who was a pack rat of old.)  I always have toilet paper back there - if I can find it.

Fortunately I was able to find it and unearth it without too much of an avalanche.

So I did my business and was on my way.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. Traffic wasn't too bad and while it was a bit drizzly and overcast it never really rained.

I was worried as I approached the turnoff to the cabin; we had some pretty wicked storms roll through and there was a real possibility of fallen trees. I need not have feared; the road was clear, and nothing was amiss at the cabin itself.

And I didn't see any wasps buzzing about. I hurriedly packed all my supplies into the cabin, which looked good. Nobody had been inside, nor had critters made any sorts of messes.

But when I came out I saw a wasp flying about. He clearly was sent out to check up on me.

Drat! That meant I had to stay at most on the porch, and even then I would have to keep a watchful eye lest he decide I was too much trouble to guard and decided to run me off!

He did buzz over my way a couple of times as I sat on the porch, but eventually we reached a period of detente' and he kept to his side of the porch and I to mine.

The only bad thing was I needed a bottle opener from the truck and couldn't go to get it. I wound up using a pliars, which worked pretty well. But I dared not walk past the wasp's domain. I could have walked all the way around, but that's a bad deal; you have brush out there and will get ticks and chiggers, and there are holes in the ground obscured by fallen leaves that can lead to a fall and possibly a broken ankle. I avoid doing that as much as possible.

So I just made do with what I had.

I sat on the porch and enjoyed the silence. And it WAS silence too; no bird song, no crickets, nothing. I heard a woodpecker once, hammering away at some tree, but only for a moment. It was eerily quiet.

No armadilloes. No opossum. Nada.

So I hung out on the porch and serviced my many kerosene lights (I currently have eight in operation, though in the night one of them had the globe crack so it's out.)  I like as much light as I can get down there; it's still too dark, at least for me with my eye problems. The Atomic Beam langerns I bring down help a LOT provided the batteries are fresh. I use them sparingly, and have to remove the batteries afterward as they will be drained by the gadgets. Poor design. But they put out a LOT of light for portable lamps.

So anyway I sat out until I got a little cold and went in to watch movies. Brought down a bunch of different movies, but I pulled out the sci-fi movie Passengers which was o.k. (not great but o.k.)

I did hear one critter, I might add; something was rooting around inside the cabin where I couldn't see it. It was too big for a mouse; probably a rat. That would also explain why I have seen no evidence of mice; rats hate them and kill them for sport when they don't just eat them. (I don't blame the rats overmuch as I hate mice too but the rats are not an improvement.) I do worry; rats can carry any number of diseases and sharing my cabin with one doesn't make me sleep well at night. I wish that big old black ratsnake would come back; I didn't mind sharing the cabin with that fellow a bit! And it was rodent-free with HIM on the job!

Anyway, the night was uneventful and I slept pretty good for four or five hours, nearly a record for down there! Packed up early and the wasps were still a-snooze (they like to get up late in the morning like welfare recipients.) I was rolling down the highway by seven a.m.!

I drove up the road to Clearwater Lake and stopped at Piedmont Park - a camp ground just below the dam. It was crowded and the bathroom I had my eye on was full. So I drove around the park (I'd never actually done that) and it gave me an unsettled feeling as the earthen dam rose way above the campground; should that dam break nobody there would survive.

As I say it was crowded with people, most in campers, a number in dome tents. I saw one tent that looked like a small circus tent! I kid you not; it was round with a high pole and frill on the outside. Never seen anything like that at a campground.

Anyway the drive home ws uneventful and I made it back safe and sound. It's good to not have problems, but then the problems are what give me good stories. Sorry I didn't have any big events to speak about, but then it was what I needed - a quiet, peaceful getaway.

Cheers!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:14 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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