I Was the First Asian Person She Had Ever Seen

Day 7 National Parks 2011

The moon was bright and I didn’t  get up middle of the night to watch the milky way and stars.  I woke up at 4am to pee and to listen to the birds.  I meditated from 6:50am to 7:20am.  I packed for the next hour.  I was glad I didn’t have to get up to sign up for the wait list at the kiosk.  I took the tent down and loaded the car.  

I made quinoa.  It took 20 minutes on the induction burner.  I plugged it in the restroom and cooked it right outside.  I sat on the ground while I waited and kept my eyes on it, being aware of it bubbling over.  I think a rice cooker would have been easier.  Shall I add a rice cooker to my gear wish list?  It was difficult even after twenty minutes, it still tasted chewy and undercooked.  I ate it anyways with nori and nutritional yeast.  I finished at 9:45am with clean up. 

I knew my roll off time for the next campsite was 10:50am so I sat and waited.  I wanted to shift things in the car and chat with the Pearse family one more time before we part in our ways.  They somehow guessed I was a vegetarian and didn’t offer me bacon for breakfast but offered me eggs.  I passed, I don’t do eggs either.  Mr. Pearse recommended that I don’t do the Alpine Tundra trail because it is all in snow.  I really didn’t get that then.  I just didn’t have any reference of what he was talking about at that time. 

Ranger Mychala didn’t recommend anything else on this side of the park because it was all in snow but she recommended something else further away and that Fern Falls is worth skipping in her opinion.  These were all good advices. 

Mr. Pearse and I chatted over trail GPS and he bought last year’s model at 50% off at $200 and said it worked last year, it should work just fine this year too.  I said the family I hiked with yesterday had one and they marked the spots they were on so they can look at it later on Google Earth.  Mr. Pearse said the thick manual to the Trail GPS is a code to crack.  We exchanged emails and parted.  They headed for Estes and then home in Denver.

Their mission was a success!  Scarlet did okay.  Well, I think it was because her mom carried her most of the way on trails.  She then slept all the way through the night rolling onto everyone and was still asleep at 9am.  Jessica did not sleep well because of it.

While I cooked the quinoa, a little black girl who was adopted found me fascinating.  I think I was the first Asian Chinese person she had ever seen.  She was so curious, she approached me timidly without words and reached for my feet, to get close to my skin and feel them with her hands.  I looked so different to her, yet I had hands, feet, hair like anyone else.  She didn’t make skin contact, she went for the flip flops instead as a substitute.  I didn’t bite, I didn’t scare her, she survived her first contact with someone who is not like her, black and someone who is not like her parents, white.    

I made it to campsite #14A, my new campsite is one I reserved over the phone.  It is near the elk meadow, close to campsite #1.  When I pulled up to my site, I saw a Korean family named Kim with a western wife from LA with a rental SUV from Denver.  I set up my tent as they took theirs down.  They are scheduled for June 15 departure date but they are leaving early.  The mom had a split lip, and it was bloody from altitude adjustment and dehydration.  The daughter looked like the mom.  Mr. Kim spoke Korean English.  





When they rolled off and they didn’t get far.  They just started the engine and had just turned the wheels and the car stalled, died.  I offered to jump the car to the son who was instructed to have me move my car for safety.  The son came back saying the father refused.  I saw the father refused the son’s suggestion because it came from the son.  The son was trying to help.  The children were teenagers and were put in their place as children to sit to the side and not meddle.  Mr. Kim was super frustrated and upset.  He was not actually upset at his children but at the situation he was in.  But it came out venting on the children and delivering a different message.  I saw clearly why I had to be here no later than 11am.  I knew I had to be here to help them.

So I rolled my car to another parking spot and sat in the hot sun to wait for Mr. Kim to come around and surrender to his frustrations of being the head of a family and experiencing vulnerability in public.  The rented SUV, most likely wasn’t cheap either.  It is suppose to perform well and not create such a condition on his vacation.  Regardless, the situation presented itself.  He can wait for a whole day for the rental car company to send someone into Rocky Mountain National Park to jump his car or to deliver a new one to swap this one out.  Regardless of which he would have to unload and reload all his things or he could just get on with the most efficient way, and let me help him.

I was nosy, I waited and approached the kids to read the manual of the car so that they can learn something and be of help to this family crisis.  Be engaged and proactive instead of feeling useless and hopeless.  The father found the jumper cable in the car and finally came to me for help.  I rolled my car back to the spot I was at, next to theirs.  Mr. Kim clamped the cables in with my engine running and the wife said it has to run for awhile before they start their car.  I said no, and had them start their car right away after mine.  It worked without draining too much of my battery.  I suggested they let the rental company know this. Mrs. Kim said she loves nature and didn’t enjoy living in LA much.  She looked like a hippie in Berkeley in the 60’s or in Santa Cruz, stuck in the last century.  Well, another mission accomplished.  I am here to do this for them and it is done.  This karma returned can be checked off my to do list. 

I saw I was to roll off at 1pm and it was only noon, I had an hour to kill.  It was all quiet in the campground.  Everyone left, they were the weekend crowd.  I was the only one around.  I plugged all my gear in the nice new restroom with power flush of the Toto toilets, fancy.  I laid on the bench and rested for the time.  I saw three young men, friends walked by to use the restroom before heading out on a trail.  It was warm and sunny.  I sat watching their interactions.  What beautiful friendship they had and to have been able to observe such beauty between them. 

12:50 rolled around and I unplugged everything and rolled off for the Alpine Visitor Center.  I did the tourist thing and pulled over at each lookout.  There were lots of cars on the road.  I have noticed people gentle in this state.  They will just pull over to pass you without honking you or throwing you a dirty look, hurling their toxic violent energy at you.  They will just roll around you and let you be.  

The Alpine Visitor Center was cold at 12,000 feet in elevation.  The outhouse toilets only had 3 working toilets out of six.  I sat at the visitor center looking out the snowy mountain for 30 minutes until they closed.  All the trails were covered and buried in snow.  I didn’t even stop on any trail heads today, just as Mr. Pearse suggested.  I now see what he meant, I get it. 

The wind was strong and the road was blocked with one car accident, followed by another car that brokedown going east bound, my direction.  There was no sense in sitting in traffic.  So I continued to kill time at the gift shop waiting for the road to clear and traffic to move.  The café was closed too.  I was able to ask for a cup of hot water, which I pulled out my own chocolate powder to make hot coco.  The café and shop had worn out staff and this was just first week of the opening of this Alpine pass.  It had been covered in snow and inaccessible, they had just carved it open two days before my arrival. 

I ended up spending $62 at the gift shop.  I bought boxers for my nephew Noaki with a raccoon and a bear in a pond that said, “natural gas.”  I found a night gown for my sister with a bear hug.  I then bought myself a shirt that said, “The higher the altitude, the better my attitude.”  I totally felt this way. 

It is super chilly cold here.  People had on slippers and flip flops, totally not dressed for this temperature, not even a jacket on.  A grandma shivered to the restroom and we let her go in first, in this very long line.  A convertible tour bus pulled up and all the guests looked very unhappy.  It is 20 degrees with the wind chill plus a moving vehicle with added wind, it sure will feel like zero.  Silly tourists and lame tour company who should have informed their guests.  I hoped no one gets severely ill from this. 

I drove back to camp sometime after 6pm and felt my back in pain.  It was so intense, I was glad it didn’t knock me out while I drove, it would have been so dangerous on the mountain road of tight turns.  I actually do not know who drove and was grateful I did not drive off the mountain.  I was fading in and out as I drove.  I did not get back to camp until 7:45pm.  This evening, the campground was full again, filled with families traveling with older kids, teenagers.

For dinner I had Saag and Dal, nutritional yeast and nori powder.  The fatigue and pain made me want to skip my wash for the day.  But I went for it anyways and I did feel so much better, I always do with the basics of taking care of myself, especially when I am tired and in pain or ill.