Bleach White Bones

Maybe I’d get some marshmallows and make friends. I was exhausted and too tired to stop by the store. I just missed the shuttle, and as I waited I thought about going up to the lodge to see if I could talk myself into something, anything. I was feeling quite desperate. This was my adventure I told myself, and that would be the easy/dumb way out. I rode over to Mather campground again, where I spotted a ranger. Perhaps someone would be driving to the North Rim in the morning. I spoke with her, and she advised me to stop by the office around 9am. Maybe there would be a ride. Bill had mentioned the ACE crew, an international trail crew who I share a camp with on the North Rim. I couldn’t take it to be criticized by some random group of people again, and I’m sure they would let me stay by their fire. She told me their site numbers, and I walked off towards them (about 2/3 of a mile), disappointed that she didn’t offer to give me a ride.

I walked the loop around the camp sites, with the two white vans nowhere in site. It was well past dark now, and I had no energy to pull out my headlamp. I looked over and saw a nice big fire, decided to ask them about the ACE crew.

“Are they expecting you?” I replied, “They don’t even know I exist.” The woman was about my age and was sitting with three others. “Well you’re welcome to come sit by our fire for awhile.” I dropped my pack, and plopped down by the warm fire. I began to tell them my story while they looked at me in disbelief.

The girl who had invited me over jumped out of her lounger chair, and insisted that I sit. I’ll call her Audra. Audra handed me a beer, and they had to know more. I talked for sometime before I got to learn each of their stories.

The two guys, each with dreadlocks, were hitchhiking to a rainbow gathering in New Mexico. One of them had a pet bark scorpion, about an inch and a half in length and nearly all white. His name was stinger, and was most certainly poisonous. He lived in a small little jar, after the guy had come across him in his backpack. I got a kick out of the daily walks they would take him on. Just tipped him out of the jar and let him stroll around for awhile- simply keep an eye on him. The plan was to release him back in the desert similar to where he was found... he’d be put into the grand canyon with others of his kind.
Audra was traveling with another girl over the last few weeks. Though Audra seemed to be more of an outgoing vegan type, and her friend seemed a bit more conservative, they appeared to be close friends. They had happened to come across the rainbow guys traveling around just earlier that evening. So here we were, a bunch of young adults traveling the world, simply doing what we love to do.

We drank beer and shared stories around the campfire late into the night. Chanting, singing, harmonizing, and playing instruments. These are my kind of people! Audra had asked me about my foot, which was now wrapped up in gauze, and had offered to help heal it. “Anything would be fantastic,” I told her. “Have you iced it?” she said.
“Ice... Now that’s in idea!” After my time in Zion, I had accepted the sad truth that ice wouldn’t last in the desert more than five minutes. Audra gave me that disbelieving motherly look, and quickly brought back a bag of ice for me. She rubbed tea oil on the bag and instructed that I keep it there for the next hour. It stung, but I knew it was for my own good. We continued our conversations around the fire. I held that ice bag on, as the pain grew to be unbearable. I’d listen in, occasionally squishing up my face, and leaning back to help me let the stinging perhaps go unnoticed. I could hardly keep ice on any longer, I was sneakily pulling i
t off when I could. Then finally Audra said, ok you’re done! Thank god! She came back with a cinnamon hot rub, tube out, ready to put over my wounds. I leaned forward pouting a bit, “Please don’t hurt it.”



I knew she had nothing but good intentions, and I was certainly feeling like a bit of a baby. I sat back while she put on the rub, and added Neosporin to my gigantic blister- now the size of a 50 cent piece. Though my foot was numb from the cold ice, it still throbbed (like a mo fo). I wrapped it back up in gauze, and I made sure to not move or let it touch anything. I was having too much of a good time to worry about it now.

I knew I was in great company as when Audra handed me the bottle of jegermister, (to take away some of the pain), and we sung away, harmonizing late into the night...

“Bleach white bones, leave them alone. Let them sit forever on the cold hard stone.”
“Bleach white bones, leave them alone. Let them sit forever on the cold hard stone.”