Welcoming a Wandering Mutt into My Sleeping Bag

my stray-dog saga at Mammoth Lakes . . .

My wicked dad, among his minor abuses, was a rotten planner of family vacations. With nine kids, some planning might’ve been fun.

Spur of the moment back in 1962 (when I was six), dad drags a dozen of us to the bottom of the Grand Canyon for an overnighter. No canteens. No food. No packs. No sleeping bags. No reservations at the food canteen. No reservations for overnighting.

Nowadays, adventurers join a two-year waiting list for a permit to FART within the hallowed canyon walls.

Rangers combing the trails would’ve stopped dad and his sorry disciples, turning us back to the trailhead, less than a mile in. For our own safety.

So, with such a bomb as my familial imprint, is it any wonder I went off half-cocked on so many of my quickie adventures?

Gustave Deresse | Writer; AI Artist grants us a peek into his atypical adventuring style, way up yonder in Canada. His entertaining confessional silently begged me to spill my stray-dog saga:

One of my repeated errors in adventuring has been underestimating the onslaught of winter in the Sierras. That’s the main mountain range, the spine of California, boasting our highest peak, Mt. Whitney at 14,505 ft / 4,421 m.

My stray-dog saga happened a hundred miles from Mt. Whitney.

Being a flatlander, we were enjoying a toasty Indian Summer down along the coast when icy winter storms were already battering the backcountry. I set off to go camping up at Mammoth Lakes on the weekend prior to the whole area getting closed down for the duration of winter.

I used to love to do that. Go up to the mountains when nobody else was around. All the noisy summer crowds gone. I never felt afraid for my safety, although I was so clueless, I prolly shoulda been afraid!

On the stray-dog trip, I got up there around evening time. All the campgrounds, restrooms and facilities were shuttered. Waterpipes were frozen. There was a scattering of snow on the ground, but nothing requiring snowplows or chains to drive the roads.

All gung-ho to hit the one campground still open.

That stray dog, a soggy seventy-pound mutt, picked my car right away. I was the only human for miles. This dog was clearly wise to the advantages of hanging with humans. He trotted along happily as I cruised the campground, trying to locate my meager options.

My prospects for overnighting in the vicinity were bleak. Had I not been so eager to stop driving and crack open that magnum of Blue Nun, maybe I would’ve . . . should’ve hit the highway again.

Besides not anticipating the harsh grip of winter in the high Sierras, I also underestimated how hard it would be to fully cook ribs over an open pit in a frozen tableau. Damp twigs unfavorable to fire.

Should I admit those ribs were frozen? Gustave would’ve spilled everything.

How quickly a magnum of wine can be siphoned through one’s kidneys during a misguided stray-dog communion beside a desperately gasping fire, obsessively testing the doneness of rubber ribs for hours into this culinary mishap.

Stray dog on standby with a salivating heart.

Somehow, I lacked the foresight to flesh out this meal with side dishes.

Test rib after test rib, I felt gypped as I chawed my mealy salty crackers, watching this stray dog scarf down my entire rack of half-raw ribs slathered in chilly sauce.

I refused to share my magnum of Blue Nun, though.

A lifelong native Californian, I didn’t own a real winter coat. (Still don’t). I was wearing a chintzy down jacket, but it did nothing for my frozen ass and thighs. I had begun my painful descent from happily drunk to horribly hungover before I threw my sleeping bag down in a snow-dusted meadow.

I had to hit the hay because secretly I was in desperate need of some dog warmth. Visualize chunky me and a Collie-sized mutt crammed into my narrow mummy bag.

I passed out with my arms around this ragamuffin mutt. When I next stirred, the dog was gone and I never saw him again.

Another wham-bam-thanks-for-the-ribs, ma’am.

Them stray dogs are all alike.