We Meet The Sellers

Now it was late August of 2008. We decided to drive up to Duchesne and meet the couple who were selling the property. They owned it for 20 years, and had their regrets over letting it go. Many wonderful memories, but ultimately their health prevented them from being able to keep it up. It was a beautiful late summer day, and we decided to take my oldest son Jedidiah and his two boys, Little Jed and Benjamin, to see the place.

Karen, the owner, and her husband, were waiting for us at the first of two gates and a chain that keeps uninvited visitors from coming in. As we drove, we noticed that we could see the peak that the trailer and property sat on, but we couldn't see the trailer itself. So many dead trees around the property! I wondered why I didn't notice this before.

We visited with Karen and her husband, walked around the property, looked at the trailer and two campers that were there, and she showed Jerry where two of the property markers were.


Huffing and puffing, I soon discovered how out of breath one can become while hiking around at 9,000 foot altitude. Again, I was struck by how many trees appeared to be dead or dying.

All in all, we were very happy with our find. The existing trailer, campers and structure seemed to be in pretty good condition, although old and a little bit ratty (literally and figuratively).

Karen mentioned that a pack rat had made a home under the trailer years ago (I swear it must have been at least 10 or more years by the size of debris), and pointed out the 3 foot pile of sticks, bark and trash that had piled up directly beneath the trailer adjacent to the front door, and in the storage area at the back of the 5th wheeler.

While I am basically a mountain girl (I grew up in the Sierras in Northern California, and was a tomboy by all definitions, so I don't consider myself delicate), I don't like the idea of living in the midst of rat or mouse droppings and other things that are difficult to define but easy to smell. So Jerry and I put that at the top of our "to do" list; clean out the pack rat nest. I think it made Karen feel sorry for the poor little pack rats who would soon become homeless; but I figured that they would take off for better diggs anyway, when they discovered that a big black
dog named Perla had taken up residence.

She showed us the loft that was built into the roof structure that protects the 5th wheeler during the wintertime; what a fun place for kids to play in, and did it ever stir memories of my childhood days spent in Sherman Acres at my grandparent's cabin! I still dream of those times, snuggled deep in my blankets usually with one or two sisters or cousins next to me, my parents and grandparents down the other end of the loft in their own beds, and my great grandmother Ida Marshall, locked in her little "cubby". At 90, she had old age dementia and would tend to wander if not kept in a safe, secure place. Those mountains were no place for a 90 year old person to be wandering around, lost and cold.

One time in the 1960's, my father, a barber and bartender, decided to walk from a party back to
Tamarack Lodge where my parents worked; this was a

20- mile walk in 40 to 50 degree temperature through the forest, at night time, with bears and mountain lions inhabiting the area. My father had an incredible sense of direction; he was something like a mountain pigeon with a built in homing device. If anyone wanted the very best guide in the Sierra Nevadas, at least along the Ebbetts Pass on Highway 4, my dad was the one to choose. We kids heard a little bit about his adventure the next day, but didn't get all the details like the grownups did, until years later. Not only did he make it back by morning; he did so after drinking a LOT of alcohol. He was about as close to a mountain man as you could be in the 1960's.

Jerry and I also decided that the dead trees had to come down. Not only were they a fire hazard, but a big wind could easily push them right on top of the structures, or worse, on a person. And, beside all that, they were really ugly.

The long drive back to the city was full of chatter and planning what we would decide to do with this great piece of land. I, however, was preoccupied with how we were going to get rid of the pack rat nest, and the smell that eminated out of the midst of it from beneath the trailer.