When we were younger grandma oddball and I spent a lot of time relaxing by camping and hiking. At the time we naively assumed that official maps and literature describing forest service and national park trails and campgrounds were somewhat descriptive of the areas we planned on visiting. Unfortunately the people who named some of the places we visited must have had a perverted sense of humor. For instance take the inaptly named Elysian fields.

Elysian fields, sounds attractive doesn’t it. Nestled in a valley on the far side of the mountain it was the perfect sounding place to spend a night camping while hiking around the volcano. Setting out we looked forward to spending a relaxing night in idyllic fields filled with mountain flowers and pleasant company. Alas after a gratifying day hiking the mountain trail we arrived at an insect infested bog perversely known as the Elysian fields.

Our first inking of the impending disaster was the aroma of skunk cabbages and rotting matter wafting across the valley and up the trail to assault our nostrils. As we closed on our proposed campsite the full measure of our planning error became apparent. A fog spread out before us filled with every variety of mountain fly, mosquito and flying insect. Frogs, lizards, and a full assortment of other noisy or noxious creatures infested the boggy campsite.

Quickly assessing the situation we decided NOT to spend the night there but to risk a park citation by pressing on and trying to find a reasonable place to camp (park rules only allow you to camp in designated areas only – clearly no one from the park service has spent the night in the Elysian fields!). It was dark when we finally stopped at a bare spot by the trail, climbed into our sleeping bags, and waited for morning to dawn.

I wish that the Elysian fields were the worst designations we encountered but regrettably there were worse experiences to be had. When we lived in Idaho we often were able to get away easily for a weekend of relaxation out in the national forests. When our daughter was young I got a job in Santa Barbara, California. We were excited about the move because we knew that Santa Barbara was a picturesque resort and looked like a nice place to live. As usual the reality was somewhat different.

Oh, Santa Barbara was a nice enough town to visit but boring boring boring to live in. I suppose if you like the beach instead of the mountains it would be fine but even the beach near where we lived had problems. Oil/tar globules from natural offshore seepage littered the beaches coating your feet with sticky goo that proved difficult to remove until we discovered the secret for removing them (cotton swabs and baby oil work the best). Otherwise we exhausted the local sites in a few weeks.

The hills around Santa Barbara were national forest land so we tried exploring the trails in the mistaken belief that we could use our Idaho experience in this “new” forest. Not so, the hiking experience was certainly different and somewhat interesting but hot, dry work with little reward with the trails winding through mostly brush covered hills. After we’d been there for awhile we needed our mountain fix (yes, we were junkies). At first we hoped to travel east to real mountains but a quick look at a map revealed just how “isolated” Santa Barbara truly is. In order to go east you first had to go south many miles (to near Los Angeles) or many miles north. We just couldn’t afford the time.

Inspecting the maps further we could see this huge area call the Los Padres national forest and there, in what looked like a reasonably accessible location, was our next disaster the Pine Springs campground.

Pine Springs, the name had a nice ring to it. Described as a campground in a “midget forest” of Pinyon pins and juniper it sounded exactly like what we were looking for. I suppose that the midget forest phrase should have warned us. Anyway we decided to give the place a try.

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Tags: Humor

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