a dilemma
Monday, September 7, 2009 at 11:38AM 
With an hour or so prior to breakfast to find some material for a photograph the morning of Monday, August 10, I headed out Humm's Road, crossed the single lane bridge over the 5 mile road from the dolomite mine to the processing plant, and continued to the end of the road, where I pulled off to the side and parked well out of the way. No one was in sight, but I could hear the distant thrum of the powerful processing plant where immense slabs of dolomite rock are crushed into a powder used in steel and float glass manufacturing.
After a quick preview of a potential site beside an abandoned pit mine, I returned, set up the Linhof, and recorded this image, now found in the Exploring the Wilderness slide show. There were potential images everywhere, and I fully intended to return later the same day, but it was time to return to the bosom of the fam who was patiently waiting for me to do some breakfast.
I returned to the rented Red Dodge Avenger and opened the trunk lid without opening the doors to the cab, experimenting to see if this could be done. Indeed, it works. I absently put the key ring with both of the two keys to the car on the latch mechanism inside the trunk, noticed that it dropped out of sight into the trunk, and swung my pack off my back and into the trunk. It took only another couple of moments to arrange the pack and the tripod. Perhaps only twenty seconds had elapsed since I set down the keys, but nonetheless, in a haze of empty headed blankness, I slammed the lid of the trunk shut - with the keys inside. It took another five seconds for the severity of my stupidity to sink in. I was at the end of a deserted road two miles from an intersection with the main thoroughfare through the island along which vehicles only traveled every hour when the ferry unloaded. I had absolutely no means of communication: our phones didn't work on the island, and I hadn't bothered with the walkie-talkies because I would be out of range. Indeed I was at least ten miles from the cabin where the family awaited my return before they commenced their day's activities.
What is to be done? Firstly, assign blame. That was easily accomplished for the next five minutes as I circled the mocking vehicle while I bellowed repeated admissions of my mental minuteness. Ultimately, what's the answer?
Start walking...
Reader Comments (4)
Beautiful image you linked to (Dolomite water). Ouch on the keys. Hope your walk was OK.
The story goes on for another 20 hours more or less, but it's been told enough times by now that I couldn't bear to repeat it again. Suffice it to say that the walk/hitch-hike/rides total experience allowed me to encounter some wonderfully helpful local individuals and my own humility.
Thanks for the thumbs up on the image, Joe. I wish there were more. The digicam snaps still don't really "count."
Well rest assured you are not the first. When I was young I had a new Camaro, blew a tire. Fixed it, now I am dirty, sweaty and fuming so I throw the tire in the trunk, the jack and then the keys and shut the trunk, "Keys I say to myself?" I was able to take the back seat out not easy but I finally got them out.
The mechanic helping me out eventually got through the rear seat, but we first had to get into the car. It took most of the first day to wait for a key to arrive from a dealer 50 miles away to be brought over on a ferry by a returning medical worker. The next morning James found out the Avenger rear seat back simply pulls forward w/ a loop on the side, and you're into the entire trunk. But by then, it was nearly 24 hours after I'd locked the keys in the trunk.
Don, I don't have youth and and annoyance as my excuses for this maneuver, only brain vacancy.