The Shortcut Debacle

This will be the last post for a while – I’ve got City Slickers camp the rest of this week, and then I’ll be in and out for the rest of the summer until school starts!  Maybe I’ll fit one in before I get too busy with back to school stuff.

A few months ago, a large contour map of National Center West appeared on Ebay.  I lost the auction, but the seller posted some very large close up pictures of the map.  I received permission to download the pictures, and I then stitched them together in Photoshop.  The original would have obviously been a lot clearer, but I just wanted to get an idea of what it looked like.  Take that, person who outbid me by a penny!  This map brought back one of those “this isn’t very funny right now, but we’ll laugh about in the future” memories. Well, maybe not.  Who knows.

After I started this blog, I made a list of various stories that I wanted to share.  Some of them are short, and others require names – kind of like The Scut Farkus Affair*.  I call this one The Shortcut Debacle. 

Now that I think about it, The Shortcut Debacle could have ended in fisticuffs much like The Scut Farkus Affair.  Thankfully it did not, because I probably would have been on the receiving end of those fisticuffs.

During the Trip Out West™, four of us – Jenny, Sally, Beth C/T (the adult), and me – were set to go on about a 5 mile backtracking trek during our week at National Center West.  Pretty neat, eh? I know I was excited about it!

By the way, I’m sure Beth C/T has her own version of this incident, but mine is more truthful and funnier.  There are 28 years between then and now so some details might be fuzzy, but still, consider this the canon.   Twenty-eight years?  Dang I’m old.

So the day comes for the backpacking trek!  There was some camp-wide event happening midday that every troop was supposed to attend.  I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I believe it also included lunch.  The four of us were supposed to leave from that event and then eventually return back to our troop’s campsite.  Keep in mind that it’s about five miles, and it’s broken up over two days.  Not bad at all, really.  Right?

Now this camp-wide event is held at a location that’s about two miles (TWO MILES!) away, so everybody is driving to it.  Everybody. OUR WHOLE TROOP gets into our van to head out, and Sally and Jenny put their backpacks in the van as well.  When I start to get in, I’m suddenly pulled backwards out of the van and told that I would be hiking to this event.  With my backpacking gear.  Accompanied by Beth C/T.   So aren’t Jenny and Sally doing the same thing?  No.  At this point, I must have looked toward the open door of the van with pleading eyes and asked, “Isn’t anyone else coming with us?” because Marla jumped out and said, “I’ll come with y’all!”  God bless you Marla.  I’m sure her presence saved my life, and I will forever be grateful to her.  😉

“OK, see you there!”  The van door shuts, and our troop drives away. Now I’m standing there still trying to process that I will actually be hiking an additional two miles with my backpacking gear on just to get to this event when EVERYBODY ELSE IS DRIVING THERE.  It wasn’t the distance that bothered me – it was the principle of the thing.  Well, maybe the distance bothered me a little bit.

So I guess I finally come to the realization in the parking lot that this is actually happening as all of the other cars are leaving.  Thus began our longest journey together.

I don’t know how far we had gotten down the road before a car pulls up and the driver asks, “Hey, do you want a ride?” and the people in the backseat open the door.  “Yeah!” I say, and I start to get in (while wearing my backpacking gear).  I am once again pulled backwards out of the car but this time by the frame of the backpack.  I seem to remember attempting to hold onto the door of the car by my fingers while getting dragged out.  Beth C/T smiles and says, “No thanks, we’re walking!”  The driver looks at us kind of funny, shrugs her shoulders and says, “OK, see you there!”  The car drives off into the distance and the clouds of dust finally dissipate while I am once again standing there in disbelief.

And now I’m mad.  What sort of prank is this?   I mean, it’s not like I haven’t been on my best behavior on this trip and Lord knows, I haven’t been obnoxious to Beth C/T at any point, right?

To be quite honest though, I still to this day do not know why she wanted me to hike an additional two miles.  Now that I’m a parent and a GS leader, my guesses are: 1) to completely tire me out so that I would shut up 2) to exact some sort of sadistic retribution or 3) both #1 and #2.   Maybe one of these days we’ll run into each other and I’ll find out.  This is assuming there’s no restraining order.  😉

But back to the story!  At this point I am very angry and annoyed and decide to make her miserable every step of the way until we get to whatever event we’re going to that’s TWO MILES away.  So I start complaining and whining and kvetching and fussing and going on and on and on and on until finally…

“OKAY!  FINE!  WE’LL TAKE A SHORTCUT!!!!”

At this point I shut my mouth.  I’m even feeling a little smug as thirteen year olds do after getting their way.   Marla’s still with us and just going with the flow as she always does.

Beth C/T takes out the contour map of NCW (probably the same one I downloaded from ebay) and takes a second to figure out which way to go.  And we start walking again.

We’re making good time until suddenly we come up on a canyon.  I’m not exaggerating.  It’s like a mini Tallulah Gorge.  Marla asks, “Maybe we can somehow get over it?” but there’s obviously no way over or through this canyon as it stretches as far as we can see.  Unfortunately, my filter is not working (does it ever?) and I blurt out, “WELL WAY TO GO BETH.”

Suddenly I have a vision of my dead body lying at the bottom of this canyon, and I realize my mistake.   Marla just stands there and probably realizes my mistake as well.

I have no memory of what was said or how loud it was or how long it went on.  I just know that we backtracked and walked in silence the rest of the way.  We finally arrived, and some members of our troop ran up and said, “What happened?  You missed the whole thing!”  I just mumbled something about a canyon and ate a hot dog with my tail between my legs.

Update 9/25/15: Through sheer serendipity, I came across Beth C/T online and confirmed it was her via email.  She read this post and has no memory of this incident.  (Frankly I think she blocked it from her memory 😉 ).  Therefore, I now declare this version as the gospel truth. 

FWIW, the rest of the backpacking trek was a lot of fun and had some beautiful scenery of woodlands, meadows, and aspen groves, but I don’t think I said anything for a few hours.  And boy, was I worn slap out at the end of the day.  So if those two things were Beth C/T’s goals, then mission accomplished.  We just had to go around a canyon to get there.

There really is a dearth of information about NCW out there, so I’m pulling all this together in the hopes others will share their experiences and photos.  NCW is now in the hands of The Nature Conservancy, and it’s open to the public.  I’d love to go back and see it again.  No shortcuts though.  Here’s the map that I scanned and pieced together:

Recently Mrs. Vickers told me that she had given our troop’s NCW scrapbook to the Northeast Georgia Council sometime in the 90s.  There’s no telling where it is now since the merger happened.  Gah!!!! I MUST track it down!  They better not have thrown it away!

* Does anyone know why Scott is spelled Scut?  This has bothered me ever since I found out it was spelled S-C-U-T and not Scott. 

Addendum 12/26/2015:  There’s more to the story (I think).