From hippies to punks in a single day
Well, that was an interesting weekend.
Friday morning I took off from work and headed up to Ocala. My plywood boat had a fresh coat of 'oops' paint and my registration sticker had arrived just in time. Once I made it to Ocala I grabbed some breakfast with my friend the ever-so-cute K'nen, and I did a little bit of shopping too. A few food supplies from Wal-Mart, a new knife, and other odds and ends. I also stopped in the ABC for a bottle of Apple Brandy for me to nip on for when the temperature dropped later that night. K'nen was in the store with me, and although she is 30 she looks about a decade and a half younger, and the lady behind the counter eyed her suspiciously and said to me 'Does SHE have ID?'. Once K'nen presented it the cashiers face fell. 'You are older than me' she muttered.
Once I had all my supplies together I said my goodbyes to K'nen and headed out to the gathering. It was around one or two PM at this point. I wanted to hurry because I did not want to be caught out in the lake after nightfall. I had the entrance to the dirt road leading to the gathering on my GPS, so I did not have any problems finding it. I knew I was close when I turned a bend and saw cars after cars lined up on the side of the road. I turned a bend, and that's when I first saw the people. Lots of cars, lots of tents, a couple of colorfully painted buses, and a couple of forest rangers giving everyone a steely eye.
However, this was not the main gathering camp. That was still a mile or two into the woods. This was simply a base camp for people who did not want to haul all their crap into the woods. So I paid a small parking fee and went down a small dirt path that led to the lake. With a few grunts of effort and a banged knee, I managed to unload my boat and fill it up with supplies. Then I was off.
Once again my boat worked fantastically. It does not paddle worth shit, but once I had the trolling motor running it sped along across the lake at a brisk and happy pace. It was a beautiful day out. This was the main reason I had some out, to play with my boat on the lake. I was pleased.
However, I had a problem. I had no idea where I was going. I just sort of assumed I would see the gathering on the other side of the lake, but that was not the case. I milled about for a little bit in the middle of the lake until I saw some folks in a canoe went past me. I decided to follow them. They paddled around a bend in the lake and went right into what looked like a thicket of marsh brambles. Curious, I followed them. To my surprised there appeared what looked like a secret passage. A sort of water path had been cut through the tree stumps and the brambles, allowing a boat to go through. It was no more then five or six feet wide. The water at some points was no more than a foot or two deep. My trolling motor would not work here, too much duckweed in the water, so I brought out the oars. Paddling did not have much effect, so what I finally had to do was grab a paddle in each hand, stab it into the water until it hit the much that was the lake bottom, and then push the entire boat forward. It was quite the manly effort and it left me puffing, but eventually I broke free and entered the second lake. The secret lake. I cleared the duckweed off my trolling motor and sped off.
On one side of the lake it looked like a small tent city had sprouted; a lot of tents and tarps and a couple of full-fledged teepees as well. The air was slightly smoky from the number of campfires burning. The sounds of drums and dogs barking drifted across the lake. I sped around in my boat looking for a place to land, however, I had a bit of a dilemma. I had naively assumed it would be some sort of nice tame lake and I would be able to haul my boat up at any point I chose, however this was a wild Florida lake. Once I got close to the shore the water filled with weeds and tree stumps, making it impossible to navigate my boat through. There ended up being only two places for me to haul my boat up, a small 'dock' the hippies had built out of fallen timber. This was where most people were landing their boats. However, that would not do for me. My boat was also my shelter and this dock would not let me get my boat entirely out of the water.
My second option was a small land-shelf on the other side of the lake. It had just enough room for me to haul my boat out. I decided to go there. I hauled my boat up on the little shelf of land and then spent some time stomping down the thicket and ripping up small trees so I would have some room to turn my boat upside down into shelter mode. Once I had my little camp set up, I set off to explore.
My camping location really limited my visit. If I had known the lake would have been that unaccommodating, I would have brought a proper tent and just left my boat at the shore. To be honest, I was wary about someone making off with my boat and my trolling motor. I really should not have worried about that, the people there ended up being pretty nice. However I was alone out there and did not want to be stuck in the woods. From the little land-shelf where my camp was set up, I had to crash through the woods for a little bit until I made it to a trail that led over to the camp. While I really wanted to see the gathering at night, I simply did not trust myself to be able to find my camp site again in the darkness with a bit of apple jack in me. With the temperature dropping down to freezing that night, the thought of crashing blindly through the woods did not appeal to me. I decided to go check out the main circle for only as long as I had sunlight.
I blundered through the thicket until I popped out on to a fairly well-trodden path. I started a hippie girl and her little girl. He hair was a big tangle of dreadlocks and she wore a colorful skirt. I think I scared them because she bent down and whispered in the little girls ear and grabbed her hand and they ran away. What can I say, I am scary. I followed the path and passed numerous campsites. Everyone I passed stopped to say Hi, smile at me or, uh, hug me. I think I had more dudes hug me in that single day than I have in the past decade. I past one girl with her boyfriend and she was obviously tripping out on something. She took a look at me, her eyes roved up to my red hair; she let out a low moan of fear and buried her face into her boyfriend's jacket. I laughed.
I made it out to the main circle. A huge bonfire was burning in the center of it with a bunch of people clustered around it. A couple of them were buck-naked. I had happened to arrive right as the sun was going down over the horizon. Someone started calling out 'Make a circle! Make a circle!' and people started fanning out and lining up in a big circle around the camp fire. Curious as to what was going on, I fanned out too. Everyone then linked hands. I hate holding hands with strangers, but I did not want to be a party pooper. On the right of me I held hands with a young girl who had a puppy squeaking at her feet. On the other side of me I held hands with a tall skinny guy clad in a dirty sweatshirt and sporting a few half-hearted dreadlocks. I silently cursed myself for not being a little bottle of hand sanitizer.
There was perhaps a hundred or more people in this hand-linked circle. Everyone stood there for a moment, and then a low noise began to swell through the ranks. It took me a moment to realize that all the people had started to chant 'Ooohm'. So here I was, in a big circle of chanting people holding hands.
In the middle of the circle, a couple of dogs were furiously humping each other.
After a moment the circle broke up and people began to cluster around the fire. A couple of drums started up and some guy started twirling a flaming baton. I wanted to hang out and watch the happenings, but, like I said, I was nervous about being caught in the woods with no shelter in freezing temperatures. I made my way back to my campsite and arrived right when darkness was almost complete. So I sat on a blanket outside my shelter, nipped on my bottle of apple brandy, and watched the stars come out. They were simply amazing. Living in the city I sometimes forget just how brilliant the stars are. ON the other side of the lake I could see the bonfire. It would flare up every now and then when someone tossed a new log on it. The drums went on all night. It was like camping next to Indians or something.
The temperature was dropping down to freezing that night, however I was toasty warm in my little shelter. I had a sleeping bag and a couple of blankets, and the boat acted almost like an igloo, sealing in the warmth. So although my bottles of water outside the shelter froze, I was just fine inside. Or I would have been. The gods must have seen how cozy I was and decided to strike back.
I got a case of the squats.
I am not sure what brought it on. I guess it was the greasy Steak and Shake breakfast food that I had for lunch coupled with the nips of apple brandy that I had for dinner. Regardless, it really sucked to be all cozy inside my sleeping bag when my lower bowls suddenly let out an ominous gurgle. With a few curses I had to jump out of my shelter and bare my ass to thirty-degree weather and let fly. Now, keep in mind that the tiny land shelf I was in was not very big. I could not forge off into the brambles in the darkness to take a squat. My bowls rebelled against me twice more during the night, and twice more I had to jump out to do my steaming late night business. The next morning the sun exploded over the horizon in one of the most brilliant sunrises I had seen in years, the rays cutting through the chilly misty morning air and illuminating the frozen patches of shit and toilet paper that was littered around my campsite.
I decided not to stay a second night.
I did my best to bury my mess in case anyone else decided to land a boat there. (Land ho captain! Avast! Its shit island!) I made one last trip through the main circle before I left. Frozen ice particles were everywhere. Someone had left his or her guitar outside and it was coated with frost. One campsite had a plastic pink flamingo set up out front. That too was iced over. Dogs trotted around, not caring about the cold. (I did not see a single aggressive dog while I was there, although there was plenty of them around) People were sleepily emerging from their tents and starting up fires. Once the sun had rose enough, I decided to cast off.
I gave away a few extra food supplies that I had with me to a couple of needy hippies. I converted my shelter back into boat mode and cast off. I was relived that my battery was still going strong. It would have been a hell of a paddle back across two lakes. I zipped across the lake, once again found the 'hidden passage' and made my way across the second lake. Right when I was approaching the shore my trolling motor seemed to go a little slower. I think I made it right at the end if it's charge.
I did not want to take my boat back. It had been fun to play with, but with the leg supports I had added the extra weight made it much harder for one person to load and unload. I also needed the room in my garage; it's getting messy in there and needs to be cleared out. Storing wooden boats in the yard in the Florida weather is really not a good idea, so I decided to just give it away.
I wandered over to the holding camp and found a couple of hippies standing about. A girl with scraggly hair, a bad case of acne, and a ring in her nose was complaining to a couple of others about some bad acid that someone was handing out the night before. I stood there a moment, listening. They all ignored me. When she was finished they all turned to go, my presence there was still not acknowledged. I then said "Excuse me, does anyone here want a boat? For, like, free?"
Wow, suddenly I was everyone's friend. They were overjoyed with their new possession. They were going to use it to haul supplies across the lake and haul garbage back. A deadlocked and bearded hippie by the name of 'captain cupcake' was particularly thrilled. He was one of the gatherings organizers and he threw his hand sin the air over the boat and cried 'Can you freakin' BELIVE it!'. I was happy for them, clearly they were going to get much more use out of my scow that I would have with it rotting in my back yard.
They wanted me to stay another night and party with them. On retrospect, I should have. However my case of the twilight squats was still fresh in my mind, and I did not want to camp in the cold without the warmth of my shelter that I had just given away. So I wished them the best, they told me to come back, and I headed on my way. Perhaps next year.
I drove home and had myself a bath. My legs were crisscrossed with scratches from me blundering through the underbrush, but because of the cold I did not have a single bug bite on me. I had more than a couple of aches on me, hauling that boat around and my hikes had taken a bit more of a toll on me than I had expected. I sort of loafed around a bit that day and that evening Shallan and Alan wanted to hang out. So we headed to 'Back Booth' down town. The line up that night was a number of punk bands and the audience was littered with kids decked out in Mohawks and studded jackets. I stood in the balcony at back booth, sipping my honey beer and peering down at the mosh pit below me thinking what a strange day it had been. I had woken up in the woods with the hippies and now I was drinking a beer while stupid kids in punk outfits headbutted themselves on the floor before me for my amusement.
What a great life.
A few photographs below. Please note I did not take any pics of the hippie camp because it's considered rude. Not many people want pics of themselves naked and fucked up ending on the internet, not to mention some people out there simply do not want to be found.
leaving the launching point
following some hippies
'secret passage' to the second lake.
Boat on land.
Boat in shelter mode.
Sunrise
Misty lake
Happy hippies with thier new toy.
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