Thanksgiving, unplugged.

I've had occasion to discover that people who go camping on Thanksgiving aren't, by definition I suppose, really into the holiday. I fit in with that. I think it's a stupid holiday. Possibly the stupidest, but you can't disregard Easter. I'm really not into any holiday's traditional celebration. E.g., I enjoy, on Christmas, taking Amtrak to Boston to have dim sum in Chinatown. We've done so for the last ten years or so. Oh, except for that year when Asa insisted on a Thanksgiving turkey dinner. The next year we renewed our Thanksgiving dim sum tradition.

My non-festive feelings about the holiday once led me, my partner, and another couple to go camping in Big Sur for that year's Pilgrims vs. Indians game. I convinced the others that it beat cooking the big fat turkey and the big fat fixings, and then sitting around the living room feeling bigfat as we fought to stay awake, drooling.

We camped in a California state park called Bottcher's Gap, in the north of Big Sur. It's an isolated place—eight miles off PCH, no amenities, not even potable water. Because of the latter, the campground doesn't appear on state maps and the state can't charge a fee to stay there. But who cares about such frivolous amenities when you practically have a private space and the view looks out deep into the Ventana Wilderness.

There were never more than a handful of campers—and sometimes fewer—at Bottcher's Gap. No RVs or trailers could get there. There were three sites for car camping, and two or three more walk-in sites out of view. One really strange park ranger, surly and scary, lived up there. It was an odd setting for his obsession with obscure park rules. But meanwhile, plenty of space, air, silence, and unadulterated nature for everyone. Bottcher's Gap was one of the little gems that sparkle in the beach and desert sand and in the long grasses and redwood forests, all over California, for you to find along your travels and then cherish for the rest of your life.

Back to that Thanksgiving. The day before, we started picking up that the people camping around us were a little odd.

At one of the three car-camp sites, there were some men who looked like they'd come out of the dust bowl. Grapes of Wrath types. Their faces were creased from worry and sun, and their clothes were nondescript in the way that you'd never remember them if a police witness statement ever came up. (One had greenish-blue gray pants and a grayish blue-green shirt, Officer. ) These "campers" didn't do much—just sat around the campsite,  playing cards and smoking cigarettes. No tent, they seemed to survive out of a huge worn-out Lincoln sedan, packed with all sorts of things but not necessarily for camping. What were they doing there on Thanksgiving? What were they doing at all?




The second site was ours. Four women, in their 30s–40s, we looked like a sit-com version of ourselves camping. We'd driven down Pacific Coast Highway for less than an hour from where we lived—Monterey/Carmel. Our lives were beautiful, and we had all the best camping clothes and equipment. We were a catalog ad, all set to build controlled fires, cook planned meals, and sleep in roomy tents. Sing along! If you're happy and you know it . . . 





  

At the third campsite was this mysterious dude. He was camping alone. (I'm sorry but that's just weird.) His car looked to be a 1976-77 MGB soft-top. It was a mess. It had New York plates—the old black and yellow ones. Like the colors of crime scene tape.

Anyway, the dude. Notably skeevy, in attire completely ill-suited for camping. He ghosted around Bottcher's Gap all day in a kind of overall. (Someone slip this guy a Bean's catalog.)




In a hushed voice, I started working up a story for my friends that this guy could be the Zodiac Killer. That's what he seemed like. Serial killer "actions," Zodiac's strange M.O., psychopath with flair, now on haitus, camping all by himself at Thanksgiving. We were just a few hours from San Francisco.

We didn't really think the guy was really the Zodiac, really. It was just the circumstances and how he acted and dressed, while camping all by himself at Thanksgiving. Have I mentioned that he was camping all by himself at Thanksgiving? It was a weirdness beyond the Dust Bowl guys and the four lesbians all camping on Thanksgiving. Oh yeah.



When we turned in that night, we saw he was at it again: He stood among the trees, staring out at the wilderness. And this time, he had on night-vision goggles.

  

LL Bean — The Most Popular Tourist Destination in Maine (I grow pale.)

Bean's is what Mainers call LL Bean. It also gets called Freeport—the quaint little town (and name) it took over, stranding the last of its little bungalows—brave hold-outs —in a sea of parking lots. 

The LL Bean "campus" (promotional verbiage, which they're very, very good at) and surroundings get called The Outlets because around Bean's there has grown the  largest collection of upscale outlet stores in the world. (I made that part about the world up but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true.) Even Prada is there. Can you imagine a Prada outlet?? 

Bean's "Flagship Store" (cough,promotional verbiage) can make a person feel queasy. It does me, anyway. It's an underworld where nature and corporate exploitation engage in frenzied promotion of natty sweaters. 

And Bean's does some whacky sh-t, that's for sure. They are so full of themselves.  (Remember that boot. We'll see it again. And again. And again.)

If you don't see a particular species while in the wilds of Maine, you can check it out at Bean's. You won't see its natural movements; it will be still, but otherwise very lifelike. Many exemplars from each species have been exquisitely taxidermied and brought inside where they can be better appreciated.

This is an extremely rare locked-antler moose mount. mm-HM!
They almost don't look real.

Bean's took the "Bootmobile"  to Times Square and the Fenway. 

What poor sumbitches had to drive that?

 

 Inside the store, is a
 trout pond. See the trout?

                                                                  

On the level below the trout
pond (what?!), is an aquarium. 

See the trout? 

And see how that babe is 
imitating the trout?
 They hate that.

Archery range. 
But be on the alert for any wild zings by amateurs like Marge here.

 

Shooting range. 
I popped off a few rounds myself in there.
What can I say? It's inspiring. 

Your kids can play at the "Boot of Sand"!

 (Is that the "Sock of Sand" hanging 
  on it? Or... the "Winter Scarf of Sand"?) 

                         

All this at the "Flagship Store,"which is friggin' huge. Bean's also has specialty stores scattered all around it. One just for bikes. One just for kayaking. And even: LL Bean Home. Where you can buy furniture and decor to make your own home look just like Bean's.


You just can't cover all this in one day!

Hey, could we get a boot in here for this shot? (There actually 

is a 10-foot Bean's Boot on the other side.)

See the trout? Oh, no, it's on the first floor. 
And the lower level.

Bean's in Freeport is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Think about it. I know someone who worked there and he said Christmas is very busy. And it's the same people every year. Jews?, I asked. No, he thought mostly Christians. Huh. I should tell them Jesus is on his way in to clear the place.

Now for my favorite part of Bean's: the parking lots. Bean's has, like, a thousand parking lots. And each parking lot is named after an animal so that you can better recall which lot is yours. Good thing, too, because you could be out there on foot for an awful long time. Maybe even die of exposure.

The parking lot animals seem to go in descending order of size, desirability, importance. Not sure.... But right up by the Flagship Store, it's the Moose parking lot. (Well, of course.) No one ever gets to park in Moose parking lot because it is always full. Even on Christmas. 

After you foolishly wend your way around the Moose parking lot, you drive over to Elk parking lot, and then through Deer and Bear parking lots. You start to feel like you're headed down in whatever social order this represents. 

Oh, to park in 
Mountain Goat someday!

Next is Antelope lot, then Mountain Lion, then Mountain Goat. Oh, man, we're already at the Goat one....

Continue down to the much lesser species:  Otter and Skunk lots... then Vole, Titmouse, Carpenter Ant parking lots....

Now that I'm savvy about Bean's, I think, if I have to go there in the height of summer, or on Christmas day, I'm going to zoom through the maze straight to Amoeba lot and be done with it. 

Maybe no one will be there to see me in such reduced circumstances.