After my Vaughn tragedy I had officially lost my adventure buddy. Granted the one adventure we took had been an absolute failure, but all the same he had all of the good camping equipment and I enjoyed him as a general partner in life. The summer-like all of them quickly vanished like a fistful of sand. I only had one week of summer left when I remembered my incomplete Conundrum Springs adventure from the crumpled-up piece of paper lying somewhere in the city dump. My latest love interest went by the name of Mike Dangerous. He actually just went by the name Mike, the “Dangerous” portion didn’t come until later. We had been seeing one another for about 3 weeks. Out of all the boys I had met on Tinder, he was one of the only ones I actually felt like hanging out with after our first date. He enjoyed smoking (but was trying to quit for me), If he saw a low beam or low hanging branch of any kind he enjoyed doing impromptu pull-ups on them followed by jumping down and shaking out his lats and arms like it was “no big deal.” He loved guitar, music, singing, and was learning how to play the piano. Mike loved drinking more than anyone I had ever met, and he had recently bought a butterfly knife. This gadget was kind of like a flippable fidget spinner (before they were cool) with a blade on one side. He enjoyed taking it out of his pocket and flipping it back and forth. A trick that got him cut multiple times and made me nervous to no end.

      I can’t say I particularly respected Mike Dangerous, in fact, there was something that was downright off about him, but his taste in music was great and his incessant positivity about everything except religion and pop music balanced out my generally pessimistic attitude. My dog Izzy felt the same way as I did about Mike. Izzy was one of those dogs that immediately loved everyone and could pick up and leave one day with another family and not miss me one bit. However, when Mike came over, she wouldn’t even beg to get up on the couch like she did with everyone else, but instead, would lay on her dog bed and stare at him. If we started kissing she would walk closer with her head down and refused to break eye contact. This fact remained ten-fold for sex. This was unnerving for many reasons. Unfortunately for Izzy, she has probably watched me have sex plenty of times. Both dogs most likely have. And until dog therapy becomes a thing, those are some images that both of them are going to have stuck in their heads for the entirety of their short lives. Up until Mike, both dogs would entirely ignore the situation that was in front of them and use the opportunity to take a nap. However, when I would have sex with Mike Dangerous, Izzy would walk as closely as she could get to the bed and would present a deep guttural growl accompanied by vicious looking teeth baring.

      Other than a dog’s intuition and a feeling deep in my gut, there wasn’t really anything terribly wrong with Mike. He was sincere, had many interests, was extremely musical, and when a bat entered my house we both put boxes on our heads and successfully chased it out of the house together in the middle of the night. He always seemed down for anything and up for everything at any time. But most of all, it was refreshing to find a man I didn’t despise, resent or a man who expected me to move his dead pets. I called him while he was at work on Monday morning and told him my idea about Conundrum Springs. Like usual he responded with over-the-top excitement and quickly ran to tell his boss he couldn’t work Wednesday through Friday. I told him that other than boots, I had enough camping supplies for both of us, he told me all he had was a cigarette lighter and a butterfly knife (fidget-spinner). On Tuesday we went to the store to buy food. I reminded him to get plenty of sleep that night because driving all night and then camping would basically mean 48 hours with no sleep. He told me he would try and we went our separate ways. 

      On Wednesday after work, we loaded up my car with granola bars, beef jerky, trail mix, a couple flasks, some of my old camping equipment, and we headed out. He told me that he only got a couple hours of sleep the night before because he was so excited about our journey. I reminded him that his only job was to get a good night’s sleep because we were going to drive through the night for 14 hours to Aspen Colorado. He told me he would be fine and his body didn’t actually need much sleep. About an hour into the drive I asked him what boots he brought and he said he was just going to wear his tennis shoes because he didn’t want to buy boots. I had the first driving shift because he told me he was a night owl and actually felt more awake at night than during the day and we took off. The mood was light and airy in the car as we discussed what we thought it would be like to camp by a natural hot spring high up in the mountains. We joked about the absurdity of what we were doing and how on earth we were going to pull it off. I told him if we made it to the hot springs and then back home alive I was going to be happy. Mike laughed at me and told me my goals were shitty. I told him that if you aim low, you can never be disappointed. I laughed, but the truth was, Mike’s only excitement for the trip seemed to be solely focused on getting drunk and high on the top of the mountain and it made me nervous for the rigorous 10-mile climb in 10,000 ft. elevation.

       It was difficult judging the intelligence of Mike. Sometimes he would say very smart and insightful things, generally about music and expression. While other times he would do things like, see a pack of highlighters from across the room and excitedly ask me if I had different flavors of cocaine sitting on my table. When that particular lapse in judgment occurred to him, I told him that those were sharpie brand highlighters and that I wasn’t aware their cocaine highlighters were on the market yet or what flavors the brand was soon releasing. The drive carried on into Nebraska which is probably the worst state to drive through. I started getting really sleepy around 11 and asked Mike if he could drive. Mike said sure and we switched at a gas station. He started doing push-ups and jumping jacks next to an oil slick in a small Conoco parking lot. I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was trying to wake up for his shift.

     “I thought I said you were more awake at night than in the day?” I said.

     “Yeah, but I didn’t sleep last night remember?!” He replied.

     I was far too annoyed with him to say anything else. We got on our way and I hadn’t closed my eyes longer than 20 minutes when my car started swerving back and forth. At first, I let it go because I was in that sweet moment right before sleep where your brain says, “it’s ok, if we die, at least we’ll get to sleep some more.” But the swerving continued and I couldn’t ignore it. I popped my head up and asked him what was wrong. He said he kept falling asleep. We stopped at a gas station outside of a Nebraska town, and I agreed to continue driving and away we went. Fresh off of my 20 minutes of sleep I actually felt ok. A few hours in we eventually switched and we almost drove swerve-less all the way into Colorado. Around 6AM we stopped at a little restaurant outside of Denver. We had coffee, biscuits, and gravy, and thanks to the mountains, the adventurous spirit returned to both of us. Our drive got exponentially more beautiful after driving through the first part of Colorado (which looked far too much like Nebraska). Watching the sun come up as we drove through The Rocky Mountains was absolutely breathtaking. As we wiggled our way through the terrifying drive down to Aspen we briefly discussed stopping to refill our water. Both of us agreed we didn’t want to stop with the crazy traffic and told ourselves that there would probably be potable water at the foot of the trail. With a little confusion, as to where we were going, we found our way to the Conundrum Springs Trailhead and began our hike.

      It started off as a rainy hike. We both grabbed our garbage bag ponchos and put them on as we trudged from woods to open space. Both of us were pretty optimistic about what was in store for us. The sheer success of arriving at our location without dying made me amazed. And I became slightly humbled by my new friend who I had met merely weeks ago who was willing to drop everything and go on a crazy adventure with me. Occasionally, I would turn around quickly and say, “Thanks for coming with me!” or, “I hope this is everything we thought it was going to be!” Mike would simply smile and continue flipping his butterfly knife open and closed while not breaking eye contact. “Taking a tip from Izzy I see” I nervously joked. My feelings of gratitude were soon replaced by feelings of fear. I’m not sure if it was the weather or the lack of sleep, but I had to a suspicion that Mike wanted to kill me. I came up with weird things to ask him while we hiked just to see if he would ever speak or stop swinging his knife. But everything I asked him he responded with a simple smile and a swing of his fidget knife. It became obvious to me that if he wanted me dead he could easily do so at any given point. Like a good Iowan who was afraid of everything new, he had discussed bringing a gun in case he saw a bear or moose. I convinced him not to and he reticently agreed. I knew if he brought a loaded gun, I would be the one getting shot, not the charging moose. The rain began to clear and I figured spirits would improve. However, I would be incorrect. An hour was about the extent of Mike Dangerous’ attention span and along with the breaking of his silence came the whining about how bored he was.

     “Is hiking always this boring?” he whined.

     “I’m not sure what you mean” I replied.

     “I’m so bored! Is this seriously it?!”

     “You mean the beautiful flowers and landscape with mountains in the background?            Yes, this is it.”

      “I can’t believe people do this all the time! I’m so bored!”

      “What on earth did you think a 10-mile hike up mountains was going to be like?”

      “I just thought it was going to be more fun! This sucks!”

      We continued trudging alone with little breaks in the noise of our footsteps for Mike to complain about being bored. Maybe Mike just looked at all his Facebook friends and their hiking pictures. Perhaps he focused on the destination and forgot they all had a journey beforehand. Mike and I carried on getting thirstier and thirstier. I had forgotten how dry Colorado was. It was the kind of day where every breath immediately dries out your mouth from your teeth to your throat.

We didn’t bring much water, but I was sure we’d bump into someone with a water filter. Our sea level blood cells grasped on to every oxygen molecule that the Colorado air had to offer. And with every step, we were deprived of oxygen and water just a little bit more. With more breathing only meant a drier mouth. I asked him if it would be a big deal if I just had a little drink of the water from the clear babbling creek. “It doesn’t have to be a big one and I’m sure I’ve accidentally taken gulps of much worse water while swimming before” I whined.

       He told me that it was a terrible idea unless I wanted to get giardia. The truth was, if the people who camped up on the top of the mountain disposed of their feces properly we probably would be able to drink the water in the babbling brook. However, sadly the water was consistently contaminated with human fecal deposits. The combination of dehydration and abrupt elevation change was frankly quite dangerous and I was beginning to feel pretty stupid. Luckily the Colorado air was cool and we weren’t losing much in sweat. As I was craving water, Mike began begging me for the vodka in my backpack. I enjoy a martini as much as the next person, but I wondered how on earth someone could want alcohol in the dangerous state of dehydration we were currently in. Going from 900ft. Elevation to 10,000 (and growing) was frankly quite dangerous and stupid all by itself, I couldn’t imagine how much more stupid it would be to take shots of vodka out of my flask. We thought it would help to stop and rest but stopping only punctuated the fact that we were out of water and only had dehydrated snacks and kettle one vodka with us.

     Finally, my GPS watch hit 10 miles and according to my map, we should have arrived by now. All we saw were the woods and no sign of life. We grudgingly carried on until we finally saw a sign for the first campsite. We continued hiking because the peak of the mountain and the hot springs were still fairly far off. We met a couple, explained our situation, and begged them for their water purifier. They gave it up and Mike and I made a plan to split up. I was going to go take our filter and find water to pump up our water containers and he was going to go find a place close to the springs to set up the tent and we were going to meet at the hot springs. I hiked for what seemed like far too long and through a clearing of trees I looked up. Just as I had pictured, between the two mountain peaks there was a beautiful hot spring that looked out over the valley. I saw people jumping and splashing through that delicious clean water and I got a whole new sense of motivation. The process of filling up containers with a filter pump is not as easy as it sounds. Once you figure out what end needs to go into the bottle and which end you put in your water source you need to find the cleanest deepest water available. That for me was a small stream pool full of algae. With every pump I got half air half water in my bottle. I couldn’t help but think how better equipped for this journey little Vaughn Von would have been. I’m sure he would have had a lighter tent, tons of water filters, quick drying sleeping bags, and great headlamps. We had a Craigslist 4-person tent, 2 of my brother’s old sleeping bags, two flasks of vodka, some food, clothes for the following day, and some lemonade to mix with the vodka waters. We wanted to pack light, but even still, nothing felt light about our packs the entire time. I finally got the bottles filled and went up the mountain in hopes that I would see Mike pitching the tent on a campsite that was close to the springs. However, he was nowhere to be found. I looked around and reticently started to take my clothes off to get it the spring. This hot spring was notorious for naked bathers but so far so good. I kept my bra and underwear on for good measure, packed everything else up neatly in my pack and enjoyed mass amounts of water for the first time in what felt like days. Dangerous was nowhere to be seen but deeply dark ominous clouds began to sweep over the mountain to the north of us. They were moving quickly, and almost as soon as the clouds reared their ominous heads over the mountain, it was hailing. At first the hail turned to water after it hit due to the warm ground, but after the hail kept coming all of our belongings and the ground around us turned into a sheet of ice. Shortly after the hail started I saw Mike’s head bobbing along in the distance. He was carrying nothing but the two flasks of vodka with him. When he got to me I asked where the food was. He said he had checked but couldn’t find it. Aggravatedly, I jumped out of the hot springs in my underwear and bra and asked him to show me where our bags were. I walked half-naked across the icy footbridge, down the ice sludgy path, and a quarter mile later we were at our campsite getting torrentially hailed on the entire time. When we got to the campsite I was beyond furious.

“What the hell happened!” I asked in disbelief. Before me on the campsite was all of the belongings from our bags strewn out all over the ground, now covered in ice and mud.

“It never occurred to you to put anything back in the bag?!” I yelled at him.

“I’ve never been camping before” he reminded me.

The sleeping bags, clothes and bags were all exposed to the elements. Together we set up the tent, threw as much dry stuff we could find inside, took the other bag with snacks, and headed on the long trek back to the springs. I had absolutely no idea where we were going to go from here. I was furious with Mike but being mad at him for acting like a dumb child would be like getting mad at my dogs for eating food I left on the edge of the table. Even though it was technically my dogs fault, it was still my mistake for thinking that the turnout would be different.

I had an untouched large bottle of water waiting for him once we arrived cold, wet, and frozen at the hot spring. He hopped in and, despite the hail, and the fact that we were bickering, the mood turned around considerably. I was finally allowed to eat my salty and dehydrated snacks without fear of death, and he was finally allowed to drink his vodka. We began to meet the people around us in the spring who were also currently also getting hailed on. Everyone huddled in the center of the spring under a large towel that everyone held up to avoid getting pelted in the face. Half of everyone was naked which took some getting used to. But the environment was so relaxed around these mountain hippies it actually made conversation easier. Under the towel, we learned where everyone was from. There was someone from Columbia who told Dangerous all about the flavored and colorful cocaine they had there. I asked if they had any Sharpie highlighters with cocaine in them but he said, unfortunately, those hadn’t made it to his country yet either. Mike scoffed at my comment. There was a couple from France as well but most people had originated all over the U.S. but we’re currently living in Denver. Mike and I briefly told them our story and they were quite confused about why on earth we had driven so far to do a hike. “It’s just something I’ve been wanting to do for the last 3 summers. I looked at the calendar last week and realized if I didn’t do it now I didn’t think it would ever happen. I’m really just lucky enough someone wanted to go with me.” I exclaimed. Mike and I were slowly turning back into a happy couple. By this point in the night everything was dark, wet, and frozen. The clouds left almost as quickly as they came and we were left with a full moon that almost beamed at us like the sun. It made gorgeous shadows on the mountain and valley below us. However, all of this fun in the hot springs begged the question, when and how were we going to get out of here? After much debating, getting out to check on our clothes, and feeling the way the 30-degree air bitterly hit our skin, we decided, for our safety, to stay in the hot springs all night. We began experimenting with different sides of the hot spring for both warmth, rock headrest quality, and ability to stay in one place while being suspended in water. We settled on a nice spot in the back closest to the valley and did our best to close our eyes and get as relaxed as possible. People around us were passing around marijuana-infused lotion. I put some on my hands because they were starting to prune and I hoped it would repel the water in some way. After we had our eyes closed for a while with my head resting on Mike’s shoulder, some people in the group started talking about us.

“I can’t believe they drove 17 hours straight from Iowa and started hiking immediately,” one guy said.

“I can’t believe they did it without water until the end” replied another.

“I threw up today because of the elevation change and I’m from Denver!” another man replied.

“Yeah, I mean it’s not a super hard hike but it is if you’re not used to the elevation,” said another.

On the inside, I was beaming with excitement. I had received validation from these cool mountain hippies. Regardless of what they said while they thought we were asleep, they eventually all got out of the hot springs one by one. Into their warm dry towels and clothes that the potheads had responsibly packed inside of their proper camping equipment. And all of a sudden, we were alone. The moon had come out and shone on every surface on the mountain and valley. Trees and rocks had a character of their own as they glowed in the moonlight. Some of the hippies told me tonight sucked because of the full moon that would outshine the stars. I smiled, at Vaughn, wherever he was. Because here I was again, camping under the stars with no need for a tent or flashlight because of the moon. He had been correct, there was no need for a sleeping bag or flashlight out west. The stars and moon illuminated everything anyone could wish to see. Every time I opened my sleepy eyes the moon, had moved further across the sky like a ticking clock. A sleeping Mike was next to me. My eyes had been heavy for 2 days now. My body cried out for sleep but every time I tried to nod off a seeping, a bubbly current from underneath my feet would push me upward. I had always figured it was dangerous to fall asleep in a bathtub. And although it seems dangerous to sleep in or around water, my body clearly has an emergency action plan in place for when water gets in or around the mouth. Any time throughout the night when my head would nod gently toward the water, I would quickly panic and jerk upward instinctively. It was clear to me that if anyone ever drowns here they would need to be severely drunk to the point of incapacitation.

In addition to my head nodding into the water, the second I would find myself drifting off, the bottom of the hot spring would begin to bubble and spit out hot water. The rise and fall of my body with the incoming spring made it almost impossible to fall asleep. I realized that sleeping at this point had little to do with laying down, but rather comfortably staying in one place. All around me were mossy sheets of rock that I laid across my legs and hips. This made the bottom half of my body an anchor so the top half could feel safe resting against the rocks to catch up on some much-needed rest. Finally, after two almost entirely sleepless nights, I was able to give into sleep. I awoke periodically to catch a glimpse of the moon which now felt like an old friend who I hadn’t seen in a while that was ticking its way across the sky like a clock. I woke up around 5AM to a man taking a morning dip in the springs.

“Got pretty drunk last night huh?” He said to Mike and me.

“Not even a little,” we said. “All of our things got hailed on and it was too cold to leave so we had to stay.”

“Wow,” he said, “I’ve seen a lot of people stay in here all night but they were alcohol or drug-induced.”

We chuckled uncomfortably, not knowing if we should feel proud of ourselves or pathetic. Another man walked by who had been in the hot springs the night before.

“Did you guys stay in there all night?!” he asked.

“Unfortunately, we had to yes,” we said, annoyed we were repeating this story for the second time.

“What do you have all over your hands?” he asked.

I lifted my hands out of the clear warm water and was immediately horrified. My white wrinkly dead looking hands even had a hard time bending they were so waterlogged. Not even the longest bath or longest swim practice had made my hands a tenth as terrible as they looked now. I stuck my feet out of the water and they looked exactly the same. We stayed in the hot spring for another hour making small talk with people who walked by and we waited for the sun to come up over the mountains. Once it did we made our way to shore. Dried off with cold wet towels and started the long walked down to our campsite. Mike was in charge of carrying the tent and when he remembered he asked.

“How much did your tent cost?”

“I got it for $40 on craigslist”

“Could I just give you $40 and not have to carry it down”

“You would really pay $40 just to not carry the tent?” I replied

“Yeah I just really wanna get the hell out of here”

“How about I carry it and you just give me $40,” I asked trying to make something positive come from this trip.

“Deal” he yelled while looking behind him as he took off running down the trail.

I felt like I was taking care of a child. I made a mental note to thank all of the men I had been on adventures within the past for not being so worthless. Wait, I thought to myself. Worthless would mean he didn’t do anything. His actions have actually made this trip more difficult than it would have been alone. “Your best is half as good as shit” was Landon’s father’s favorite phrase that I had been hearing since I could remember. I chuckled to myself as I attempted to strap the tent and two sleeping bags to my bag. I wiggled my disgustingly dead looking feet into dry-ish socks and into my boots. I remembered the mirror in McGregor Iowa. If I was there right now I would surely splash some water on my face and call myself badass: out loud this time. I’m sure Vaughn was glad he wasn’t a part of this misadventure. Come to think of it he probably wishes he wasn’t part of the other one either. I hiked for about ½ an hour through the forest and onto the gorgeous flower-filled valleys that led to the car. I saw Mike sitting on some logs at an opening to another chunk of forest.

“I got scared walking alone because of bears,” he said.

“Well let’s get walking then” I replied, almost calling him kiddo.

We walked together in silence. Him in front and me in back. Every so often we would see someone who was headed up to the springs.

“How are the springs?” They would ask excitedly.

“Sucks!” Mike would yell.

“It’s really nice and you’ll have fun!” I would say trying to apologize and disassociate myself from Mike like a kind mother who was desperately trying to show her child how to behave appropriately in public. As we walked, the unevenness of the trail, Mike’s inadequate footwear (tennis shoes), and his exhausted state meant that he tripped and/or jammed his toes on absolutely everything.

“OUCH!” He would yell in an exasperated shriek.

“OW! That time REALLY hurt!”

“I tried to tell you to wear boots,” I said in a condescending tone, pretending to myself that I was doing him a favor by laying down my, “told you so” wisdom.

A couple more jammed toes and snarky comments from me and we were back at the car. We quickly drove to downtown Aspen which turned out to be a much smaller town than we had originally thought. We stopped at a cute taco place and had some tacos before heading to Frisco to stay with my friend Ryan.

When we got to Ryan’s he was more than hospitable and accommodating.

“The refrigerator is full of beers and snacks which you can help yourself to, and we just got the hot tub running! Here is some wine I got from a vineyard in Germany. Our family bought a couple of vines and our exchange family makes wine from them and sends it to us. It only makes a couple of bottles a year but they told us to share it with friends during good times so I’m going to share it with you guys. Thanks for visiting!”

He invited us in the hot tub. Our skin had just gotten back to normal, and dipping it back into hot water felt awful, but Ryan was going so above and beyond as a host I didn’t want to tell him no. His hosting ability was far more than necessary and I felt bad he was using it on this guy who he was going to soon find out was such a huge loser. It wasn’t long into the conversation before Mike proved me correct.

“So what kind of stuff do you like to do Mike?” Ryan asked.

“I really like singing and playing the guitar,” Mike said.

“Wow! That’s awesome! Are you in any bands?”

“No, I’m too good and being part of a band would make me really frustrated.”

“I see, have you ever done an open mic night?” Ryan replied.

“No, I’m too good for that too” Mike retorted.

“You mean you’re too good to sit on stage in front of people and play by yourself!?” I sneered while gritting my teeth.

Mike got out of the hot tub to go get his 5th beer, clearly responding to my “emotional” response at his arrogant comments. The rest of the night went similarly. Mike drank way too much and I sat there fuming at Mike and thanking Ryan for his hospitality. We finally went upstairs and after two almost sleepless nights, we were able to slip into sweet unconsciousness. I’ll break up with him when I get home, was my final thought as I gave into sleep.

      We slept in late and were greeted by a wonderful breakfast by our hosts. It was well into Saturday afternoon before we got started on the road home. We’ll be home by around 7AM if we don’t stop much. While we’re separating our things, I’ll tell him things aren’t working out and I can be broken up with him by 7:30. That means only 14 more hours of dealing with this obnoxious human being I thought. We stopped by a Taco Bell and then Mike wanted to stop by the liquor store to get something to take home with him. “Good idea I said!” I needed to get my friend something for watching my dogs. I bought some beer from a Colorado brewery and Mike bought some whiskey. He went outside while I went to the bathroom. When I came back out I went to the car and immediately smelled whiskey wafting in the air.

“What happened?” I asked sternly.  

“I wanted to fill up my flask and I spilled it,” he said.

“Why did you fill it up inside the parked car?!” I yelled.

“I didn’t want anyone to see,” he said.

“I’m really excited to drive 14 hours with an out of state license in a car that smells like a bar!” I yelled. “We’re fucking done! I can’t handle you anymore, we’re breaking up! Your best is half as good as shit!”

After I screamed everything was silent. I got in the car and drove the entire 14 hours home by myself while he slept. We arrived in Cedar Falls Iowa at 7:00AM and Mike had driven away by 7:10AM. I was immediately greeted by my dogs Izzy and Ibsen at my house who followed me upstairs to get some much-needed sleep. I was once again single and it felt as good as I remember.