Hungry Horse Lake (Lost Johnny Point Campground)

Sorry, I don't know the origin of any of the names of these places. My campsite was within 20 feet of the lake and I had an exclusive trail to my own personal swimming area. The bottom of the lake was a little silty with small pebbles. It got deep fast. About 10 feet out was over my head. The top three feet of the water was warm. Anything lower than that was cold. Jane Wiedlin's 'Icicle' kept running through my head. By 2:30 pm on the day of my arrival I had already taken advantage of the swimming hole. Aside from swimming I had agreat view of mountains with glacier like formations on them in the distance. I would sit in my chair and read or meditate on the mountains. Aslo, there were a lot of wildflowers along the road that made the place very serene. Meanwhile the neighbors I had given my spot to had a boy and girl each 5 or 6 years old. While I sat at my picnic table overlooking the lake getting depressed and trying to figure out what to do tomorrow, I could hear them playing in the water. I haven't heard such innocent cooperative playing on my whole trip I think. I don't know what they were playing but it had something to do with each repeating the phrase "ooga booga" over and over while grandma watched from shore. Later, after they had retreated from the lake, I heard the girl yell "What in the world is the matter with this bike?" At least thirty seconds later I heard a loud crash and the girl crying hysterically across the road. Apparently the chain had come off her bike. She realized soemthing was wrong, but unsure what it was tried to ride down a hill and could not stop. I guess I miss that innocence in children. I just don't see it that much anymore. Either they grow up or they never had it in the first place. I listened to the soundtrack to the movie "Phenomenon". I always liked the song Dance With Life. "I need to dance with life and leave a brilliant light behind." I don't know how to dance. The few times I have asked people to give me a few pointers, I get a very disturbing look in return. I just don't get dancing. I am probably not leaving such a brilliant light behind either. I guess I had time to think. This campground was another place I felt real comfortable at. Another thought I had was that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, it is a relationship between the beholder and the beheld. I should give people a break and stop criticizing what they see as beautiful and concentrate on what I see. Just because I look at this view from my picnic table and say "this lake is so calm and peaceful, how beautiful." Doesn't mean that it is not just as valid for someone else to say, "wow look at that cool boat with the big huge motor. Its beautiful." Of course I have to live with me and not that person and since that person encourages a philosophy that destroys the beauty I see, I get upset and end up having an agenda to keep him from enjoying the beauty they see. A better example would be the people that arrived in the sequoia forest, saw the giant 2700 year-old trees and said "lets cut 'em down" versus the people that made the law and brought in the national guard to prevent them from doing it. So what is the point of this journal entry? I had time to read and think and relax. Until Saturday night when some hoodlumn teenageres started trying to ride their bikes through my campsite, no one bothered me. No one was close enough to bother me with their normal behavior. I took a hike one day and a bike ride another. I woke up to rain on Saturday morning but by noon everything was dry. The weather was cool with a few breezes and a few clouds for the most part. It was nice. I started to get bored. Someone asked if I watch Television at all. Those that are aware that I have had the Television on whenever I am in the house since I got out of the Navy 9 years ago will find it hard to believe that I don't have any contact with television and I don't get cravings for it at all. In one class in college someone did a survey asking us how much TV we watch in a week. I was too embarrassed to put the real number, so I low-balled it and put 40 hours per week. This number was still high enough to shock most of the people in the class. Prompting one female to point out that I did not have a girlfriend. Some day I must explore the relationship between girlfriends and TV watching. The next question is, what have I replaced Television watching with? My first response was reading books, writing my journal, hiking and biking. I think the real answer is driving. Staring at the road through a windshield for 6 to 8 hours a day is the closest thing to the mindless staring at a TV screen that I have seen. Saturday night came and I knew I had to leave. I had too much time to think. I got sad thinking about leaving, but I knew I had to go. I feel I need to rent a place for a while so I have better access to electricity and the phone lines for my computer. But, seeing how I am bored at a place I enjoy in three days, I don't see how I can rent anything for an extended lenght of time and renting short term is too expensive. I know there are people's houses and guest rooms I could stay at, but I also want some kind of insulation from being social. Its going to be quite a balancing act. I still can't figure out a way to visit my relatives in Oregon that satisfies me. I can't see anything of interest to the east or south, so I planned to head back west. Tomorrow was another day I would have to decide where to stay.

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