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Way back when, say a decade ago, you could feel relatively free when you headed into the mountains. You could walk where you pleased, drink from the creek, build a fire, and otherwise enjoy a respite from the restrictions of civilization. What happened was between you and Mother Nature.
But that must have changed. A friend just returned from a camping trip, and he plans to stay home henceforth. He had once been an enthusiastic outdoorsman, so I figured that he had changed his mind because he had run across some terrible force of nature while camping -- lightning, avalanche, or maybe even three straight days of solid rain. However, that wasn't the problem.
We went to a Forest Service campground and set up our
tent,
he explained. It was pretty dark by the time
we finished dinner and got cleaned up afterward. But we
managed to get a fire built, so we could sit around telling
ghost stories and bear stories, which is what you always do
when you're camping, right?
That seemed reasonable.
But then the campground host appeared and said she
had received noise complaints about us. Our talk and
laughter were bothering the other campers, who already had
enough trouble hearing their TV sets over the noise of the
generators sitting beside their motor homes. We almost got
cited for disturbance.
After that, they settled in for the night. Next day,
they went for a nature walk, conducted by a forest ranger.
He said he was going to teach us to identify plants. We
thought that would be educational, so we went. Do you know
what we were supposed to do?
Learn to tell an alpine harebell from a sego lily?
No. There's a new federal program to keep people from
growing marijuana in the national forests. The ranger
taught us how to identify the plants and rip them out if we
didn't have easy access to the toxic herbicide they usually
spray on them.
You have to expect those things in a government war against drugs.
That's not the worst of it. We went on a walk by
ourselves later in the day. One of the kids spotted some
suspected marijuana and started pulling it out. Wouldn't
you know it, a deputy sheriff showed up then. Turned out
that they weren't marijuana plants, so we got charged with
destroying wild plants, which is a crime in Colorado. Even
worse, the plants were jimpson weed, which contains
belladonna and scopolamine and a bunch of other drugs -- so
we were also charged with possession of a controlled
substance. Good thing the kids didn't pluck any mushrooms.
Anyway, I sure hope the judge understands when we go to
court.
Any other problems?
Well, we'll be going to court on another charge. One
of the kids tripped and fell when she was running down a
trail. Naturally, she hollered and cried a little about it.
Just as soon as we got her settled down, though, the deputy
showed up again.
What was it this time?
How was I to know that this was the special early
black-powder harquebus season on mule-deer does between
three and five years old? My daughter's anguished sounds
spooked a deer that a hunter had been stalking all
afternoon. We were the first people to get charged under
the new Colorado law which makes it illegal to interfere
with a hunter.
That might explain why, even though we were in town, he started to duck back into his house when he saw a policeman coming down the street.
If I'm seen in public, talking to you or anybody now,
I'll be in more trouble. While we were out on that hike, I
got thirsty and drank from the creek.
Sounds reasonable.
No, it wasn't the right thing to do. I felt sick the
next day, real sick. When we got back, I went to the
doctor. It took a week of expensive tests to find out that
I've got an untreatable intestinal parasite, along with
several other agues and cramps, and some of them may be
contagious. The doctor had to report this to the health
department, of course, so now I'm under an official
quarantine. I can't leave my yard, and my vacation time is
about up, so I'm going to lose my job.
Any advice for us?
If you want to stay out of trouble, stay in town and
rob banks. These days, there are just too many ways to go
astray when you go into the woods.
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