2008 – US 395

Summer, 2008 

Jhni and I left Portland at about ten thirty Monday morning, and got on US 26 to head over the Cascades.  We stopped in Government  Camp, the town on Mt. Hood at pass level, because it is our local version of Big Bear in California, the resort community Jhni lives in.   We drove on to where 26  meets  US 97 and turned south, headed down the state on the other side of the Cascade range of mountains. 

I had been planning to go on US 97 to the juction with OR 31, cutting across the center of the state diagionally to Lakeview, where we’d pick up US 395, but looking at the map, Jhni saw that the turn off to Crater Lake National Park was just a dozen miles further down 97, and why not, since it’s "right there" go see the Lake?  Why not indeed, and so we turned off our route and headed into the National Park.

There was snow there.  In July.  A lot of it.  None on the roads, but obviously, LOTS of snow had fallen this last winter and tall berms stood by the roads and dappled the forests and added to the specialness of my fourth trip to the lake.  It was without a doubt, the shortest visit I’ve ever paid to the lake, and the only time I haven’t driven the 32 mile loop around the lake.  K* and I went there last year and got there after sunrise, spending a good 7 hours taking in the views of the lake and taking a LOT of pictures.

We left the National Park on a highway I’ve never driven on before, aiming for Alturas, California.  That part of Southern OregonNorthern California is amazingly empty – lots of cows and fields and a whole lot of open space.  The roads aren’t marked quite as well as I’d like, and the map we are using is 11 years old; I stopped to ask directions a few times.  Nightfall found us near Alturas, a dinky little town in the middle of all that open space.

Jhni was registered to sign up for classes the next day and we knew we had to find a library with internet access, so we gassed up and asked where the library was so that we could go find it, and we hoped to find a place to park nearby and sleep.  The city park nearest the library was a little dark for my taste, so we drove back the way we came, through town, back to the gas station we’d filled up at.

I had to use the bathroom, so we parked behind the station and I left Jhni in the car to go in and do my business.  I walked in, and there were three people talking.  I asked where the restroom was and went the way they pointed and into the bathroom.  Let us avoid TMI and let me just say that after sitting in the car all day, not all things flowed smoothly out and I began to be concerned that I’d be seen as taking "too much" time, so I hitched up my britches and flushed and washed my hands and walked out of the bathroom (in the back room of the station) and found…

They had forgotten me and locked up and left.

I checked the two doors and both were locked.  I called out "Hello!" repeatedly.  No one was there, and they had locked me into a store with days of cigarettes on the walls and a forest of liqour bottles on the shelves too.  I had to laugh at the irony of it all… but I was trapped in a store, lights out, and no way out.

Well, fuck that noise, I said to myself and shoved the door, hard, and of course, the alarm started blaring.

I had my cell phone with me and pulled it out and turned it on (it’d been off most of the day because it was using up the battery, searching for a signal).  The phone lit up and began searching for service, reporting that it had no signal in the end.  Damn.

I remembered though reading of lost hikers in the woods recently,, and of learning that even if your cell phone shows no signal, if you have to call 911, try it anyway.  And it worked – I got the 911 operator and said "Hi.  My name is such and such, and I am trapped in the Modoc Minimarket on US 395.  I set off the alarm trying to get out and am calling to let you know and to ask if someone could please let me out – I came in to use the bathroom and they forgot about me!!!"

By that time, the alarm had quit shrieking, and the 911 operator told me that the local cops would be here soon.  I made sure to stand in full view of the (locked) glass doors, with my hands in plain sight and a not so desperate look on my face.  I saw, out on the road, a police car go by, and my heart leapt, but the car kept going and I resigned myself to waiting some more, looking around at the smokes and the booze and wondering if I had played it different if they’d have found me on the floor the next morning, drunk and happy.

Another police car pulled up, and the officer got out, hands near his gun, flashlight in his hand, and looking very cautiously at me behind the glass.  Another officer came around the store from the other way (hot blonde, btw), and they both stood outside, looking in at me, and made gestures that indicated that I would be in the store a lot longer, that they had no keys.  Nuts.

Eventually, the owner (I guess) showed up and opened the door for me, apologizing profusely as the officers laughed.  The blonde looked at me and said "Oh, we’re Soooo gonna give what’s her name a ration of shit over this!" and dissolved into very un-police lady like-laughter "forgot a customer!".  The cops asked our plans, and when they heard we were about to park it for the night, the blonde said "park it here – we’ll keep an eye on you".  Grateful to see a happy ending to the adventure, we agreed and spent the night right there.

The next morning we woke up hours early for the library opening time and drove on south, but the night before?  We’d met half the police force of Alturas, California.

*****