BAGBY, CALIFORNA
The Merced River is cold and swift, and it gets deep surprisingly fast. I stand in the shallows and rinse off the day’s stickiness, it’s freezing and refreshing. My belly is bright red from the 45 minutes I took my shirt off in the morning.
A gang of geese is grazing in the meadow accompanied by some wild turkeys. I sit down on a sun-warmed rock. I hope the turkeys don’t come closer. Those things can be aggressive and I don’t want to have to face them in the nude.
On the other bank is the cutout for the long-abandoned Yosemite Railroad which used to snake its way along the river. Bagby had a ferry, a hotel and a saloon back in the day. Now there is only a bridge and a boat launch.
I’m the only visitor at the adjacent campground. The muscular Park Ranger’s nipples are showing through his uniform shirt as he tells me the river is too low to get boats in. Usually the place is full on weekends.
I collect dry leaves and brake open a box of firewood. The air is still warm, but a campfire will make it a cozier night.
I drink beer and read a book about people traveling through the jungles of Borneo, dragging their canoe up a river among leaches and inch-long ants. I feel fat and lazy.
As my eyelids become heavy, I extinguish the remains of the fire with recycled beer and crawl into the Volvo. The river lulls me to sleep.
The Big Dipper floats above.
The next day, I walk a couple of miles along the river, taking in the intensely blue water, the singing birds and the spring flowers. The road is disused. Trees have burrowed their roots through the mountain side and the porous stone is collapsing onto what was already a narrow roadway.
Charred tree trunks reach for the sky, reminders of previous fire seasons. At the end of the road is an abandoned campground. The setting is beautiful. I imagine it was closed because of the fire, and now the road is too bad to get here. It’s a shame.
I poke around for a while, sit down and ponder the river. In my mind, a steam train chugs up the valley on the opposite bank.
I’ve always found a soothing calm in discovering, and I can’t wait to retire so that I can do this every day, following the unused path just to see where it takes me. I’ve set a goal for myself to drive to a 120 countries in 120 months. Everything I do from now on needs to be supportive of that mission. Nothing is impossible.
Driftwood littering the meadow hundreds of feet above the river reminds me of life’s unpredictability. And that the river still reaches the ocean.
