The Dirtbag Database

After time on the road with Funk and Thorn, life slipped back into a slower rhythm. The next few weeks became a reset, a chance to recharge and ground before taking off again. Days filled with old friends, the kind of familiar faces that remind you who you are beneath all the dust and miles.

We planned an adventure of our own — me and the crew I’d run with the longest. Fin, who I hadn’t seen since that September night in Washington. The twins, Graham and Ro, carrying their own balance of fire and calm. And the man we call  B-dog — a legend in his own right.

For a stretch of time, it felt good to be rooted, back among the people who’d known me before the road, before heartbreak, before all the wandering, and now after it all too. We were together again, and adventure was inevitable. Each of us brought something vital to the mix, the way ingredients do in a recipe you don’t dare mess with.

Fin has an adventurous, unbreakable spirit — the kind you can’t teach. He summited Mount Whitney at fourteen and never slowed down after that. Gym shorts, mismatched sneakers, never a second thought — he is the father of the group, the one who pulled us all together. He’d known the twins long before I drifted into their orbit in high school, and they welcomed me like I’d always belonged.

The twins — Ro and Graham — a perfect balance. Ro is a tank, pure energy, always fired up and ready to send it. Graham, quieter in his movements, has a logical streak, a way of checking the group’s pulse, making sure the fun didn’t get lost. His easy sparkle can turn around the darkest mood.

And then there is B-dog. Unlike anyone else. A math whiz who lives and breathes numbers, and somehow makes it cool. We got close in that last year of high school, wandering into secret places, getting lost in hikes and even more in conversations that left you questioning your own existence. He knew the twins from playing tennis, and when he slid into the group, it was seamless — like he’d always been meant to be there.

Together, we are inseparable. Every day with them turns into an adventure, stitched into memory with laughter, sweat, and the kind of bond you only get once in a lifetime. Back in high school, every free weekend was spent pushing the limits of our small town, seeing how far we could get before Sunday night dragged us back. By then, we’d combed over every trail, every swimming hole, every corner of our woods — or so we thought. Back home again, something fresh was needed — something we hadn’t touched before.

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March 23rd, 2025

The five of us sat around a fire pit, sipping whiskey and picking at a charcuterie board, the way we always did before a trip. Fire pit nights were our ritual — the spark that lit whatever adventure came next.

“But where should we go? We’ve seen everything around here,” Graham said, after we caught up on the miles in between.

A few half-hearted ideas floated into the circle, old haunts we’d worn thin, places that no longer stirred the blood. The crew grumbled, restless, unsatisfied. An idea sat heavy on my chest, one I wasn’t sure I was ready to share. Still, these were my brothers. With them, any place could be gold. Maybe they deserved to see this one, a hidden spot shown to me months before. It felt like a last-chance moment, a rare chance to show them something real before life pulled us in different directions again.

A long pull from the glass, a throat cleared.

“I’ve got an idea,” the words caught. “But it’s… kind of a secret.”

Their heads snapped toward me.

“Well, you can’t just leave us on a cliffhanger like that,” Ro pushed.

“There’s this place,” the words came slow, “a spot a girl showed me a while back. A little paradise, tucked away in the hills.”

“How far?” B-dog asked, already leaning in.

“Not far at all.”

“And it’s somewhere we’ve never been?” Fin scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

“You’ll see tomorrow,” hiding a grin. “I’ll plug in the directions, and you boys can follow me out.”

They pressed for details, but some things had to stay unspoken until the moment was right. Eventually the talk turned, plans set. We’d roll out in the morning, packs loaded, fired up to steal away for a few days.

Walking home through the quiet neighborhood, doubt crept in. Was it too soon to go back there? To stir up ghosts? That spot wasn’t just paradise — it was heavy with memory, tied to someone who still drifted through my mind when nights grew quiet. Maybe it wasn’t the right time. But with these guys — my crew — it felt right. Memories didn’t have to taint each other. They could stack, layer on layer, the old preserved and the new alive in its own way. Tomorrow, they’d see it.

March 24th, 2025

Early the next morning, just as boots were laced, a car horn blared outside. The boys were already riled up, engines humming. Stepping into crisp spring light, the charge of the day settled in. The sky was cloudless, the air electric. Adventure was waiting.

We cruised down to the gas station, filling tanks. Directions plugged in, a hat tipped, a grin shared.

“Let’s get after it.”

First stop? Walmart. Another ritual. We grabbed food, missing supplies, and of course, the mandatory impulse buy — this time a cheap little fishing pole and a box of lures, agreed upon unanimously like it was law.

Back on the road, we headed north until the same exit I’d taken months earlier appeared. Ranch land unfurled around us, but it already felt different. Where January hills had been painted with thin strokes of green beneath dry oat grass, now they rolled in full color — lush, alive, speckled with wildflowers in bursts of yellow, white, and purple. The air itself felt different. Warmer. Brighter. The sun seemed to hit harder, like it wanted us to know this was a new season.

The road twisted into the hills, the same road she had once shown me, only now I wasn’t alone with her — I was leading my best friends into the secret. Their cars jostling through pot holes behind me. 

I couldn’t help but remember the first time. Dani in the passenger seat, her laugh carried out the window, the golden light on her hair. Every bend of the road still held her ghost. But now those memories overlapped with something new — Directly behind me, The twin’s suv rumbling in tow, bass music pumping faintly from the car, in the rearview I could see Graham and Ro, faces smiling, cracking jokes.  

The air felt charged, like I was bridging two timelines: the sacredness of when Dani had first unveiled this hidden place, and the wild joy of bringing my brothers there now. Tires hummed as we wound deeper into the hills, and for the moment, it was like I was watching the past and present fold into one another.

The mountains rose ahead, and with them came the turnoff. My stomach dropped.

A gate blocked the road, a sun-faded sign reading: Road Closed. Creeks Dani and I had crossed months before were now swollen and raging with spring runoff. Pulled over, ran a hand through my hair, checked my phone — one bar. Deep in now, half the day already burned.

I coaxed Google Maps into giving a detour loading… loading… loading… — ten more miles, on roads unknown. Out here, that could mean anything, but we all had ground clearance and enough spirit to push on. I walked back to the cars behind me.

“Little detour. Should be all good.”

The road turned to dirt, winding between abandoned buildings and old oaks, climbing higher. Hillsides grew steeper, corners sharper, drops falling away into dark gullies. Knuckles tightened on the wheel, but we made it through. At last, an intersection appeared — the old road I remembered. A breath let out I hadn’t realized I was holding.

Back on pavement, the last mile rolled us into a wide gravel lot. When we killed the engines, the silence roared. I looked around at my crew climbing out of their cars, stretching, laughing, completely unaware of how heavy this place felt to me. I melted into the drivers seat, stared through the sunroof. A deep breath then I stepped out. The place looked almost the same as the first time, but under a new spell: sunlight draped in softer hues, birdsong threading through the oaks, the stream beside camp swollen with fresh water. A few cars scattered through the campground, but it still felt ours.

“Not a bad place to call home for the next few days,” Graham said, grinning ear to ear.

Camp went up fast — something we must’ve done a hundred times together. Tents, awnings, stove, cooler. Everything slid into place like muscle memory. Back in high school it had been blue tarps and jet-boils; now it felt like living in style. By thirty, I mused, we’d all be rolling up in RVs.

We were stocked with food, gear, and time. Three nights, three days, far from service and deep in something spectacular. Those days blurred, as they always do when you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.

The first afternoon I led them to the pool where Dani and I had sat months before. Only now, spring rains had swollen it wide and a warm breeze rustled the oaks overhead. The water shimmered a shade of blue too perfect to ignore. We stripped down and dove in — splashing, floating, sinking into the rhythm of a place where time doesn’t exist.

Later, after our ritualistic camp-special dinner — pesto, Spam, gnocchi, and a little dirt for seasoning — B-dog and Ro crashed early. The rest of us couldn’t resist climbing the shoulder above camp. In the dark we scrambled up rock slabs until we reached the top, the Milky Way spilling across the sky like a river of silver. Silence wrapped around us.

Graham eventually broke it:

“Man, I needed this. Didn’t realize how fast life moves at school… it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this still.”

Fin nodded. “Yeah, times like this remind me how important it is to take a load off now and then.”

I hadn’t been in school for nearly a year, and though most of that time was spent outdoors, I’d been running from place to place. This felt different. Slower. Calmer.

“I think I’m experiencing the same thing,” I said. “Feels so good, so easy — to be in a place like this with you guys, the people who know me best.”

We stayed on those rocks until the stars seemed to burn hotter, brighter with every passing minute. Eventually, we wandered back down and collapsed into our tents.

March 25th, 2025

The morning came early with the sun bleeding through the mesh. I climbed out into the cool air, started the coffee, and sat at the picnic table listening to the slow rhythm of camp waking up — snoring, shifting, zippers unzipping. No rush. No plans.

By nine, everyone was moving. B-dog rolled sausages on the stove, Graham scrambled eggs, I set out muffins that vanished in minutes. Once we’d eaten, I stood.

“Grab swim trunks and a towel. We’re going up the stream.”

I remembered the narrow trail Dani had shown me. Fifteen minutes later we were standing high above a shaded ravine, looking down at blue-green pools gleaming through breaks in the canopy. The trail wound down tight switchbacks carved into chaparral, delivering us into dappled light.

It was pristine. Big flat rocks for sunbathing and diving. Pools glowing aquamarine, clear enough to see every pebble. I sprawled on a warm rock with a pineapple in hand, happy as a clam.

For hours we lounged, smoked, swam and casted lures with the dinky fishing rod, watching the day change color by color. First that thin, silver morning light. Then the hard white burn of midday, where the sun beat down warming our skin, and the rocks too. And finally, the slow descent — shadows stretching long, the world turning gold. We spent nearly the whole day by the water, leaping from rocks, chasing newts through the shallows. Pure fun that needed nothing but a good spot and great friends.

That night we circled the fire. Sparks floated up like fireflies while our voices carried — stories, jokes, half-baked philosophies. The flames and the laughter warmed us. When the stars finally burned brighter than the embers, we drifted into our tents, wrapped in that buzz you only get after a day perfectly spent.

March 26th, 2025

Morning came slow. None of us eager to move, we lingered at camp until heat pressed down and drove us back to the swimming hole. Hours blurred again — floating, smoking, laughing — until restlessness finally got us. Behind camp loomed an 8,000-foot peak, I’d heard a rumor that from the top you could see past the Coastal Range all the way to the ocean. We decided to find out.

By three o’clock, packs were slung and boots laced. The trailhead was only a short walk down the road, the path winding through meadows littered with wildflowers and stone caves carved into cartoon shapes by wind and time. These guys are my favorite people to hike with — we always fall into an easy rhythm, pace set by nonsense hypotheticals and steady laughter.

The trail meandered deeper into the hills, thinning to a faint track choked with tangled brush. I kept thinking: when do we actually start climbing? Canyon walls rose tight around us, sun slipping behind the ridgeline. In the cool shadow we crossed a gully where a stream gurgled down, and I ducked my head under, letting the cold mountain water rinse sweat from my skin. Across the gully the trail reared up. Here we go.

Conversation died out, replaced by heavy breath and grit as we switchbacked skyward. We broke into sunlight, the off-camber slope blazing in the heat. Sweat rolled down my face, darkening the dirt trail with drops. Still, everyone stuck close. We were in it together, bound by the same struggle.

At a rocky perch, we stopped to breathe and take it in — the campground a speck in the shadowed valley far below, the rocks we’d climbed that first night, the spine of the Coastal Range stretching west, and far beyond it, shimmering like heat waves off pavement: the ocean. We stopped to take it in. Catching our breath.

I glanced once more at the horizon. Only gonna get better. Then pushed on.

The sun sagged low, shadows bleeding long. Near the summit we sat in the dirt at a rocky outcropping, the valley sunk in shadow, mountains draped in gold. Silence settled. We didn’t need to speak — the mountain-high had us buzzing.

Fin rummaged in his pack and with a smirk pulled out a single cigarette. My mouth watered. I hadn’t touched tobacco since Death Valley. Smoke curled upward, catching the golden light like strands of silk. He passed it on. Old western music drifted from a tinny speaker, my hat tipped low over my eyes. Everything felt cinematic — like we were in some forgotten reel of film.

When the smoke reached me, I drew deep. The taste hit sharp and acrid, the buzz rushing from my skull to my fingertips. I exhaled slow, watching the haze catch fire in the sun’s last light. Breathless silence all around us. The mountain still. The moment perfect.

To the fading tune of Marty Robbins

The outlaw that never was rode… 

I pressed the glowing end into the back of my left hand. Skin hissed. Pain bloomed. A brand. A reminder burned into me: this time, these friends, this mountain. Tomorrow we’d scatter again, each to our own corners of the map. But I’d carry this mark with me, proof that our trails once crossed, perfectly.

Later, back at camp, the fire had burned down to embers. One by one the boys slipped off to their tents until I was the last one out, still rooted to the stump by the ring of fading coals. The stars hung sharp above me, the stream bubbling in the distance, and my hand still ached dully from the burn. I should have been wrecked from the hike, from the hours under the sun, but sleep wouldn’t come. Something in me resisted leaving that night behind.

I thought of the miles I’d come since walking away from everything I knew. The strangers who had turned into friends. I thought of seeing these streams, mountains, and trees for the first time with Dani, and of seeing them again now with my crew.

Same place, different eyes. I thought of what was to come, where the road may lead as if I had the faintest idea. Only after I had worn my thoughts thin and the cold bit through my jacket I retreated to my tent.

She was there, lying in the tall grass beside me. The whole field glowed with a sandstone-golden light, as if the sun had paused mid-set and stretched the moment just for us. I could feel the warmth on my face, the soft brush of her hair across my cheek as she leaned close. My chest tightened. When her lightning-strike eyes met mine, I was paralyzed—

—and then I woke. A jolt, breathless. Staring through the mesh of the tent into a night that was black and soundless but for the stream whispering past camp. My heart kicked against my ribs. Reality landed sharp and heavy. Dragging my palm across my face, I groaned into the dark,

“fuck.”

Then rolled over and buried my head in the pillow, trying, uselessly to shake her image from my mind.

March 27th, 2025

The next morning, after camp-stove breakfast tacos, I hugged each of the boys goodbye and watched their taillights disappear around the bend. Alone again, I wandered down to the stream — the same stream Dani and I had walked beside months before. The water carried past, tumbling over stones. I sat on the bank, my head still reeling from the dream, and pulled out my phone. Opened the voice memo app. Took a deep breath. Hit record.

“Hey Dani, I hope this finds you well,” I started, my voice catching, but I pushed through. “I’ve spent the past few days hiding away at the paradise you showed me months ago. Now the grasses are long and green. The sapphire pools are full of newts. The meadows are littered with wildflowers…”

Only she’ll ever know all of what I said sitting there.

I stopped the recording feeling empty, before I could overthink it, slipped the phone back into my pocket, and sat there for a long time listening to the stream — her stream — until I knew I had to get up or I would never leave.

Driving out, I tried to savor every curve in the road, holding it in like a last drag. I smiled to myself. That retreat had given me exactly what I needed. But the clock was ticking again, and I was already hurtling toward my next adventure.

—————————————————

REI runs, gear lists checked and rechecked, downsizing ruthlessly. This time there’d be no truck. Everything I owned for the next six months had to fit in a single pack.

Days before leaving, I took one last trip into Big Sur with Frizzy — my brother in all but blood. For three days we hiked deep beneath redwoods, talking about everything — travel, heartbreaks, wild nights in Santa Barbara, quiet ones in Missoula, all the tangled threads of our shared history. We didn’t know where we’d cross paths again, but it’d be somewhere alive. It always was.

When the trip blinked by and we stood in the fading light, ready to part ways, I shook his hand, held it firm.

“I’m gonna miss you, brother. I love you.”

He smiled back. “Godspeed, man. I’ll see you down the trail. Love you too.”

Watching his taillights vanish, I knew it’d be a while before we meet again. But I also knew — we will.

———————————————-

April 10th, 2025

There was one more thing I had to do. I gave Funk a call as I pulled up outside her house. The same Funk who I had the pleasure of getting to know only weeks before on our spontaneous adventure to Pinnacles. Who already felt like an old friend despite the short stretch of time shared between us. I leaned against my truck, as she came down the steps of her porch in the dusty rose haze of the sunset.

I took the glass coke bottle I had stuffed with a rolled piece of paper and a small bouquet of wildflowers. And pressed it into her hands. On the paper were the directions — a key to the hidden paradise tucked away in the hills.  A place I’d made a promise to myself to keep close, secret, sacred.

I told her, “Here is a quest for you, directions to a very special place, it’s not just a spot on the map. This is a token of my trust.”

She looked down at the bottle, then back up at me, her eyes soft, shining against the setting sun. I could tell she understood what I meant — A gift I would never give lightly.

We hugged hard before parting ways, and I drove off knowing I wouldn’t see her for a long time. But I felt something solid settle between us that day. As if by handing her a key to paradise, I’d marked our bond. A promise that even scattered across the map, we’d hold each other close to our hearts.

April 12th, 2025
The cabin lights dimmed. Engines screamed. I felt the plane lift, heavy wheels leaving earth, and just like that — I was gone again. Into the unknown.

When we reached altitude, I pressed my forehead against the window. Below me, through breaks in the clouds, the Big Sur coastline slid by — those same ridges and trails I’d been running just days before, now reduced to memory. The sky burned molten orange as the sun fell, then swallowed itself in darkness. Outside the tiny oval window, the world was nothing but blackness, broken only by the occasional scatter of lights, little constellations of human life, flickering in the void.  

I spent the night in an airport, a liminal world of fluorescent light and restless bodies. Shops pushed trinkets, travelers pushed past each other, everyone rushing toward somewhere. I just sat and watched, still as stone, while chaos circled me. It felt like molting skin — like I was leaving behind a shell of the person I’d been, stepping toward something unformed.