The Last Word On Nothing

Lately I’ve been having recurring nightmares about packing. In the dreams I badly want to get somewhere – onto a plane, off of a bus, into a boat – but I can’t, because I have too much shit. I can’t jettison anything in the dream, and yet there’s no way to get everything into my bags or suitcases. No matter how much stuff I cram inside them, there’s always more. I spend the dreams in a state of disarray and wake up sweating. Worst of all, there’s never any resolution: the plane is always just about to take off, my exasperated companions or partner always on the verge of leaving. 

Going on a three day river trip last weekend was supposed to simplify things – force me to strip down to the essentials, focus on the important stuff, etc. But, naturally, that is the opposite of what happened, because I am the kind of person who brings a memory foam pillow and frozen guinea hen into the Nevada wilderness. 

We didn’t have time to plan our meals before the trip, so the night before we raided Grocery Outlet ten minutes before closing time. Tossing deeply discounted items into the cart at random,  we ended up with a bargain bin feast: smoked salmon and cream cheese pinwheels, a $1.99 four-pack of boxed red wine, and – at my insistence – a dead bird, frozen solid and wrapped in plastic.

We spent the night at a motel in the mountain town of Markleeville, near Lake Tahoe. The next morning we grabbed breakfast at a tiny cafe with faux cowhide chairs and ate gravy-smothered breakfast burritos. On the wall next to the bathroom was a black-and-white painting that nicely captured the local Battleborn aesthetic. It was a portrait of what I can only describe as Prison Barbie, the word Blessed tattooed in cursive across her chest. 

Fueled by free coffee refills, we drove a few miles down the road to the launch site on the East Carson River. Vehicle break-ins are tradition here – one person found their car torched with only a charred metal skeleton left in the parking lot – so we paid a local shuttle driver to come pick up our truck and deliver it safely to our final destination, 20 miles or so downriver. After carrying my red, 10-foot inflatable raft to the river’s edge, we started schlepping all our other stuff down to the beach, in quantities that would later earn us the comment, “All this shit, just for two people?”

Our list of true necessities  –  coffee, creamer – was short and easy to remember. But that didn’t stop me from sitting on the ground, sorting through piles of clothing, ropes, buckles, first aid supplies, food, cooking utensils, toiletries, and safety equipment. Why do I do this to myself?, I silently wailed.

The tricky thing about packing for a river trip is that you have to attach everything securely enough so that, should the raft flip over, your cooler, waterproof boxes and dry bags full of food, camping and cooking gear will not spill out. This takes a certain amount of strategy and spatial reasoning – and also humility, because, even on the mildest of rivers, failing to properly strap things down is asking for trouble. No matter how many times I rig a raft, it makes me cranky. “Hand me a 10-foot strap,” I say self-importantly to Pete, like a surgeon demanding a ten-blade. “Now the roll-up table – no, the water jug – actually, nevermind, the tent.” 

In the course of all the shit-shuffling, I always end up with at least one bloody hangnail and a strained back. Eventually, though, the piles start to shrink, and we get everything into waterproof bags and plastic tubs, leaving truly extraneous items behind in the truck cab. And – unlike in my nightmares – there is always a moment when, straps cinched and oars adjusted, we launch at last. 

The boat was heavy but balanced, tracking beautifully through the swift, icy current. Only days before the water had been snow on the surrounding Carson mountains, perhaps even on the Stillwater and Pine Nut ranges. Eventually the Carson peters out in the Great Basin. Even at high water, it’s a trickle compared to the mighty rivers that ran here millions of years ago, fed by an 18-mile long glacier. Looking up, we admired the steep terraces of ancient river cobble and lava tubes rising at least 50 feet high on either bank.

A couple of hours later we reached our campsite, next to a series of natural hot springs. I finally remembered the point of all that packing: unpacking our creature comforts – tent, stove, sleeping pad and bags, dishwashing tubs, clothesline, cooler, art supplies, books – to play house on a riverbank. 

We weren’t alone: A caravan of off-road vehicles — Toyota 4-runners, Jeep Wrangler Rubicons and Mad Max-esque ATVs– had set up their own version of home sweet home next to the springs, complete with loudspeakers and shotguns, which they fired into the nearby cliff faces. They were fairly civil, so I didn’t feel particularly disturbed by their presence. I wasn’t in the mood, nor, frankly, a position to judge our neighbors as I steamed myself in the springs, munching on tortilla chips and sipping pamplemousse LaCroix.

That evening, we roasted the plump little guinea hen on our campfire and toasted each other with the boxed wine, speculating on the hangovers that would result. There was a mosquito-like whine over our heads – a drone. I yelled at the machine for invading our privacy and peace, looking for a rock to throw at it. It retreated. Settling back down into our blankets, I asked Pete, “How long do you think it will be before we can order pizza by drone to the wilderness, like a backcountry DoorDash?” 

It would be soon, we agreed. In fact, it probably existed already. Under the right circumstances, we might be tempted by such an abomination, we admitted to each other. For once, though, we didn’t reach for our phones to find out if we could get pizza with the touch of a button. Instead, we basked in the warmth of our self-reliance, and waited until the next day, when we returned to cell reception.