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People Like Us

By Michael Wolcott

Found in: | Outside |

Dawn creeps into the Sonoran desert. Pinpricks of winter sunlight stab the burnt-colored mountains that surround Mule Tanks, a handful of stone potholes that constitutes most of the area's available surface moisture. A few birds flick through the paloverdes.

I watch from my perch near the top of a low ridge, inside a small alcove. This is a familiar camp, one of my favorites. Fifteen miles north lies another charred, crumbling mountain range. Few forms of shelter can match the comfort or aesthetics of a small cave that looks out on desert country.

Fifty feet below, my friend K. is still asleep under the camper shell of my old truck. We are renewing a 15-year friendship. In three days, we've walked a handful of slickrock drainages, scrabbled over steep ridges, swilled coffee, and laughed - loudly and often. The talk has been pretty much nonstop. We've traded notes on our own work, on friends, family, and the latest tragicomic romances. We have talked about our demons - how they seem to be fading away, sort of losing interest in their jobs.

I come here once or twice a year, and always sleep in the alcove. This did not surprise K., who's seeing the place for the first time. Like me, she has slept on the ground a whole bunch. She has traveled alone, lived on the road. She gets it. That's why she's my friend.

"Of course you like alcoves," K. might say. "PLUs do."

PLUs? People like us.

The term is hard to define, but you could get away with saying that PLUs are "out of the mainstream." Lovers of wild dirt, wanderers, walkers of edges - they seldom choose the fast track. (Very often, PLUs choose no track at all, making their livings far from pavement, innocent of even the most rudimentary "career strategy.") PLUs tend to steer by their noses, bounding like dogs from one interesting thing to the next.

It is sometimes said that PLUs do not "act their age." It's true: grown-up PLUs can be spotted any day of the week poaching rides on their loaded shopping carts as they coast through the Basha's parking lot.

PLUs are not recession-proof, but they are recession-ready. They're already familiar with living on the cheap. They know how to cut out the middleman. They are foragers, hunters, fishers and Dumpster-divers. They might brew their own beer and maybe grow their own wilderness medicine

You probably know a few of these nature-mystified types, the ones who are always coming back from somewhere, or just about to leave. PLUs know how to make and break camp.

And PLUs do love alcoves. We also like slot canyons, skinny ridges, fat rivers, and empty skies. We like the ends of roads and the beginnings of journeys. Perennially curious and inordinately lucky, we are on average more likely to wake up in places like Mule Tanks.

People like us work on organic farms in France for a year, or take unpaid jobs as winter caretakers of remote New Mexico ranches. We finish college at 30, then become river guides, wilderness rangers, and fire lookouts. We write, paint, make music, and stare in wonder.

People like us are apt to drive long-suffering beater trucks that look a bit down-at-the mouth yet still possess a certain dignity. People like us have lived in these trucks, and lived without them.

We move around a bit. We have taken our hits and moved on. We are good at what we do.

People like us might occasionally run short of money, but never of friends. Whenever I start worrying about owning little but a couple of sleeping bags, a tent, and a box full of tattered maps, I get in touch with a PLU and talk about it.

We never get anything figured out. But we laugh a lot, and that's worth more.

We walk together in the most beautiful places on Earth. We cook killer meals on the tailgate, then sleep in the truck (or up in our alcove). When morning comes we inspect the sky, smell last night's winter rain in the air, and brew strong coffee. Then we take a walk. People like us always take a walk.

Michael Wolcott is a former wilderness ranger and dog musher. He has just finished his graduate education. It took less than one semester. He can be reached at angelpass12455@hotmail.com.