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Pine HillJuly 24, 2010 Trav and I walk Pine Hill most mornings. We've got a couple of long circuit walks that don't include it, but most mornings it's either Halcyon Way to the footpath behind the school, across Old County Road, along the field at Misty Meadows, and home by Pine Hill. Either that or the reverse. Pine Hill is a dirt road. One end is directly across Old County from the little parking area at Misty Meadows. The other branches off the Doctor Fisher Road in the woods near the stockade-fenced lot where Bizzarro's trucks are parked. There are houses at either end, but between the Boucks' (who enter from Old County) and Porter's (who enters from the Doctor Fisher Road) there's about a quarter mile that's overgrown, deeply rutted, and passable only by all-terrain vehicles with good clearance. Hardy Vineyarders will use almost any nasty piece of road if it saves time or avoids traffic getting from one place to another -- think Cook Street in Vineyard Haven, or the stretch of the Stoney Hill Road from the Levins' to what used to be Chicama Vineyard. Among other things, this is our way of supporting the island's mechanics. But no one drives Pine Hill between Porter's and the Boucks'. So a week or so ago I was surprised to see a white Toyota pickup (Tundra or Tacoma? can't remember) blocking Pine Hill just where it comes out of the woods near the Boucks'. House guest, I thought at first, though they've got plenty of room closer to the house, and overflow usually parks in a little spur a few yards toward Old County. Then I noticed the cooler on the ground near the driver-side door. And the beer cans. And the smashed liquor bottle on the dirt road. The truck was gone the next day, and I brushed it off as an aberration -- until this morning. This morning Travvy and I encountered an E-Z-Go golf cart. While verifying the styling of the name, I learned that the manufacturer now makes "street legal" vehicles, but this was not one of them. There were several empty Heineken bottles under the dash, on the floor, and in the rear cargo space, where there was also a nearly full two-liter bottle of some raspberry-red stuff. I was not tempted to drink it. Travvy stood stock-still and glared at it, tail curled over his back. He edged closer. He wooed vigorously, challenging the intruder to wake up and give the password. This is his standard greeting for tractors, lawn mowers, and my Miele vacuum cleaner. Finally he edged by, wooing all the way, and we continued up Pine Hill. Just before we got to the Baileys' (whose official street address, like mine, is on Halcyon Way), we found a cooler sitting in the road, next to another Heineken bottle. The cooler, I surmised, had bounced out of the cargo hold, unbeknownst to the occupant(s) of the golf cart, then a little further on they had run out of either gas or nerve or, possibly, both. The number of empties suggested the possibility of enhanced nerve but diminished navigational skills, especially if all that Heineken was consumed by one person. What that theory doesn't explain was the box turtle in the road, about halfway between the cart and the cooler. Travvy was fascinated. The turtle, wisely, gave little clue that there was anything alive under the brown and yellow shell, but I detected watchful eyes and some head action in there. I shortened Travvy's Flexi lead and we passed the turtle by. I'd never seen either a turtle or a golf cart on Pine Hill before. Could there be a connection between one and the other? Was the turtle perhaps in hot pursuit of the cart? -- Come back with my beer, you jackrabbits! I don't know. I do know that it's already been an eventful summer on Pine Hill, and we're still a week away from the end of July. Update, same time, next day: The cooler is gone, but the golf cart is still there. There's a gas container on the seat, nearly empty. The bottle of raspberry-red liquid is gone, as are all the Heineken bottles. The turtle is nowhere to be found. The morning after the morning after: The golf cart is gone. The cooler, the cart, the turtle -- gone, all gone.
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