I had been a park ranger all of two weeks and
I was already in love. Not just with the
gorgeously carved landscape of the Pinnacles that rose up all around me, but
with a young lady who lived about 300 miles away. I had met Karen the previous year when I was
hitchhiking through Big Sur and needed a place to stay. I wandered into her campsite and we ended up
sharing a sleeping bag together under towering coastal redwoods….after which I
made several hitch hiking forays down to the Orange County town of La Habra
where she lived. She was barely eighteen
at the time, and I was a not-much-more worldly wise twenty-three, living on
mescaline and unemployment checks in Santa Cruz, California.
So here I was, now gainfully employed and with
a spacious 12’ x 16’ one-room cabin, tucked amid the sycamore trees and chain
ferns of Bear Gulch, in the shadow of the rugged High Peaks. Within a month I had my own car, an old
Plymouth Valiant, and the notion to drive down to La Habra forthwith to
bringeth my fair damsel back with me to our little domicile in the
chaparral. And so it came to pass. Karen took up residence with me in the cool
days of late February as I learned my trade as an interpretive park ranger.
There was only one catch. We had to keep the fact that I was living in
sin a secret from the strict Baptist park superintendent and the even stricter
Mennonite head ranger. So Karen stayed
hidden indoors most of the time, or would venture out disguised as just another
tourist schlepping around the park. I’m
not sure what made me think we could carry on this charade for very long
because within weeks the head ranger’s two sneaky little sons figured it out
and quickly reported our indiscretions to daddy. Even more quickly, I was confronted by said
father and told, in no uncertain terms, that I’d better get rid of the girl or
get married. As I was still in a trial
period and in danger of losing my dream job, I had to make a hard and fast
decision.
“Well, I guess we’ll get married” was the
obvious choice. And the quickest way to
accomplish our union was to head for Reno, Nevada where we could tie the knot
within 24 hours. But we did not want to
do the deed alone. We wanted some of our
close friends to share in the festivities.
So we contacted Stan, Steve and Pam who readily agreed to participate in
the celebration. So the stage was
set. We gassed up the Valiant one
mid-March afternoon and headed north for the two hour drive to Stan’s
house. We smoked at least one joint
along the way.
When we reached our destination, which was
Stan’s parents’ house in Los Altos, we found him sitting halfway up an apricot
tree, stoned out on acid. Nevertheless,
he eagerly jumped in the back of the Valiant and off we went for our second
pickup….Steve and Pam in San Francisco.
They lived out in the avenues somewhere and were ready and willing when
we finally found their apartment. They
joined Stan in the back seat as we made a beeline over the Bay Bridge, and east
toward the Sierra Nevada. Over the next
few hours, much weed was circulated through the Valiant’s vinyl interior, and
spirits were very high as we climbed ever upward.
As darkness descended so did some
unanticipated snow, and soon enough we were forced to find a set of chains
somewhere so we could continue on our madcap marital adventure. It was through sheer will that the five of
us, in our spaced out condition, were able to install said chains and continue
our journey to “the biggest little city in America”. We pulled into Reno close to midnight, found
a cheap motel, and rented a room for all five of us. Karen and I took one bed, and Stan, Steve and
Pam took the other. But any semblance of
sleep was to elude us as we congratulated ourselves on having made it over the
mountains by taking mescaline.
Came the dawn and we miraculously found the
county courthouse where, after filling out the necessary paperwork, Karen and I
were wed in a ceremony so brief I cannot remember any of it. I do remember driving back up the Sierras,
this time in bright sunshine. We stopped
somewhere near Donner Summit where we all got out and had a snowball
fight. Then back into the car for the
drive down into San Francisco to drop off Steve and Pam, and then on down to
the Peninsula to disgorge Stan not far from the tree we picked him up at. But still before us was the two hour drive
back down to the Pinnacles and our little cabin of dreams. We arrived just as the late afternoon sun was
throwing long shadows through the live oaks and gray pines.
But here is the kicker. After settling back down to domestic bliss, I
was never asked to show a marriage license nor any other proof that we were
legally wed. We could have faked it, and
we probably should have. The marriage
lasted just over two years, after which we amicably separated and I bought a
copy of “How to Do Your Own Divorce in California”. I learned how to do all the paper work
myself. Karen was a dutiful respondent.
She and I split up our record collection, and she took the dog, and I returned
to my life as a solitary ranger in a strange land. In the end, the divorce cost me $18 in filing
fees.
And don’t think this valuable lesson was not
taken to heart. A couple of years later
when I had fortuitously met another lady friend, and I was just about to move
to southern Utah for a job at Canyonlands National Park, the two of us agreed
to buy a couple of cheap rings, and masquerade as an old married couple. Of course, the ruse worked. And in the long run it was a lot less
complicated and a lot less painful than making a midnight run to Reno.
