Seen to be Believed

You better watch out.
You better not cry.

   Many tales have been told of Santa's other job. The one he does on the other 364 days of the year. It is true he knows when you are awake, for today he came to visit us, on his time off.
   We had paused momentarily, beside a road, reviewing our google maps. We were searching for a convenient back passage to explore for a place to pull up stumps. When coming to a halt and turning around a white van pulled in alongside us. A little concerned, we wound down our window to see a white bearded man with a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses looking back at us. Clearly Santa Clause on holiday, he says to us, "Nice van, is it a rental?"
   After a brief explanation of our van, he introduces himself, "I'm Mike, I'm Vice President of the North West Vanning Council." We were surprised, Mike may have thought it was at the honour of meeting the Vice President of the North West Vanning Council. We were surprised at the cleverness of Santa Clause's disguise. Who else could ever come up with a ruse like that?
   Mike takes a moment to inform us that his friends call him 'Bubba'. Through further conversation we explained our current situation and Bubba replies, ""I have a property 'a little way up the road' that you can park at if you want?"
Of course we reply, "Yes." We are on holiday and we both love Christmas. So off we go, following a man called Bubba in his van up a winding road through the forest to his property.
Jamie took a quick photo of his van in case our phone was ever found and Bubba wasn't able to delete the pictures after burying our bodies.

   The van indicates to pull into a driveway on the right so we slow down and follow him in. We drive over some dry lawn and around to an area of mixed furniture, fire pits and what we perceive to be a collection of junk in a half assembled tin shed. We pull to a stop and come together to commence demonstration of Bubba's camping area.
   Sure enough, through Mike's description's we slowly saw the remnants of a cozy campsite with plenty of toys and odd items you may possibly need if you are ever bored and looking for distraction. Maybe, just maybe, this was where Santa Clause does his tinkering, or Bubba his slaughtering.
   Through this unveiing, we begin to learn more about Mike.
While we still had our suspicion's he is Santa Clause on holiday, he seemed to work hard at dispelling this truth. Mike's job was delivering ice, he had hundred's of bag's in his garage and this was his busy period. He could fit 500 bags into the back of his truck, we were sure it could fit more than just ice.
   The property used to belong to his Grandfather and his older Brother Bob lives across the road. Bob does firewood, Mike does ice. We thought that was convenient, one can store bodies while the other burns them. Maybe Bob looked like the Easter Bunny. All up there were 78 acres, he had a younger brother but he sadly died in a car crash a few years ago. He does have a sister and his parents live further up the road.
   Twice a year he holds a van event at his property, the last one was in July, it was on a Wednesday so he made it camel themed to coincide with 'hump' day. At the Van event it can get, "Pretty wild." He tells us, as he points to a blue tarp sitting over a large metal drum with a hose draped into it. "That's the jacuzzi, we drag it over the fire and all the guys hop in. It got a bit hot on the bottom, the guys were burning their feet, so we had to put some more wood in the water so we could sit down properly." We wondered how many could fit in the jacuzzi and the creativity of stoking the fire while in the tub.
   Mike continued, "Clothing is optional." Jamie and I turned to each other, our eyes widening in an acknowledging gesture. Mike carried on, "We had a swimsuit competition for the ladies, and a speedo competition for the men. Last year 9 guy's ended up naked running around. Like I said, it can get pretty crazy."
   We continue our stroll around each object, "Have you seen Gilligan's Island?" He asks. We replied we were familiar with the show. "You know the Professor? Well, his Son made that gnome." We look to where he is pointing and there is a small wooden garden gnome. "I need to finish painting it, but it's pretty neat." We admired the gnome.
   Jamie pointed out some traffic lights at the back of the shelter. "Yeah, pretty cool huh? I won that at a raffle in Spokane." Mike tells us.
   We notice that a lot of what Mike had done to the place was still in progress. Bits here and there still needed finishing touches to be complete. He picked up some metal racking from a garage sale he thought might be useful against the wall on the side. He just needed to get a wall for the side, before he could put the racking on.
   "I like ceramics," he tells us as he pointed to a small ceramic bird bath in plastic on the table.
"I like to sit in the sun and paint them." He held up some spray cans.
   We walked around the shelter and he gestured to the one standing wall, ""Do you like my painting?" he asked. We admired the creativity and his display of vans. "It looks better from the road," he added. We tended to agree.
   Below the artwork were some glass smoking bongs, Mike didn't say this but instead remarked, ""I guess you know what they are," and left it at that.
   Along one section of tree line Mike pointed out he is collecting scrap metal. He finds it wherever he can and when it builds up, he borrows his brother's excavator, piles it onto a truck and takes it into town to sell it. We wonder how big the pile needs to be before that happens. We continued walking, "I like to collect things." He reminded us.
   He pointed out two porta-loo toilets. "One doesn't have toilet paper so you better look before you sit down" he advised. "They also haven't been cleaned since July so admittedly they may not be 'pretty'". Mike also remarked alongside the toilets is his gun range. He likes to practice there. We both made a concious reminder not to go anywhere near the toilets.
   Our tour took us further behind his property, to one of his pride and joys, his motor home. Mike used to drive a school bus many years ago. An opportunity came up for him to buy, not one, but three of them. So he did, "People like the engine's," he tells us. Two of them he sold and even though two other guy's wanted the third, one for his truck and another for his boat, in the end, both declined. So instead, he converted the bus into his motor home. He invited us in and as we stepped on board, we felt like we'd snuck into his secret North Pole.
   Inside, the retired yellow school bus was the converted dream home that one particular person had always wanted. Custom curtains that at first glance suggested a Disney cartoon but with closer inspection told you more about the owner than you knew before. The bus now contained tables, a gas stove, electricity and water, a toilet and a bedroom. All custom built by Mike, it was certainly his pride and you could hear the enjoyment in his voice as he told us.
   It was still road worthy, he loved to drive it to other vanning events, one such event was the 45th Corncob Campout. Mike sort of left the conversation there as if we had heard of this event from Australia. We waited, he began again, "They have a large open fire drum that is filled with corn cobs, you take one out, they put one back in."
   As we exited the bus, he pointed out another smaller blue van off to the side, up on blocks and with much of the engine missing. He hopes to get that working one day.
   We made our way back towards our van, Mike offered water and electricity if we needed. We happily accepted the water while electricity was not required. He demonstrated the electricity by turning on a sound system that plays music, we're encouraged to use it, though the Karaoke machine is in his house. If we wanted, he also had an outdoor shower, he just needed to hook up the gas to it. He pointed to a tree towards the front of the property in the middle of the yard. As incredibly grateful we are for a shower, we felt a little funny showering out in the open. Mike pauses, waiting for us to respond, then adds, "Like I said, clothing optional." We politely declined.

   As we returned to our van, we thanked Mike for his hospitality and the tour of his property. We suggested we have important jobs to attend to in our van and that we must get cracking. Before he leaves, Mike provides a few wildlife warnings. A cougar has been spotted in the area, as well as two black bears. Some time ago he dropped a large pile of cranberry skins out the back and the two bears came investigating. He took photos but hadn't seen them lately. He said the mother cougar had been caught but he knew it had some older cubs. So we'd best be mindful. We assured Mike of that.
   As he began to head off, he told us he needed to get his ice organised for tomorrow. He was also having left over spaghetti for dinner. He enjoyed it last night and has two bowls he was looking forward to tonight.
We bid him farewell.
   As we sat down together, we looked at each other in silence, slowly shaking our head in amazement. Less than 40 minutes ago we were sitting on the side of the road looking for a camp site. Now we knew so much about this remarkable person. While we still felt a little uncertain about what we were doing, we agreed we had more worries about the wildlife now than from Santa Clause.
   We settled our nerves with a glass of wine and a game of 'The Perfect Pitch'. Ian won the first, Jamie the second, then we called it a tie, washed a bag of clothes and prepared dinner.

   A good hour passed, we sat in our van with the doors open, relaxing and reading. We heard a voice call out, "Having a nap?" As Mike drove alongside our van in a small purple Nissan. He had just been out to a small fire nearby, he is a volunteer firefighter. The fire was okay and well under control after they poured 2,000 gallons of water on it.
   While sitting in his car, Mike provided us a few more snippets of history from the area. An old rail line nearby, logging dams and trees floating downstream. He talked of his old dog, 'Snowbastian', who passed away last year. He wanted to rebuild his property fence before he got another dog. He had a dog before Snowbastian called 'Falcor', you may know the names from 'Never Ending Story.' His Dad had a dog and would visit often, Falcor kept following him home along the road and one day he got hit by a car. He swore he would never let that happen again so he wants to rebuild the fence. He has a cat around, though he doesn't feed it, it is just around.
   These were all fascinating stores that we thanked Mike for telling us. As he continued to sit in his small purple car, he offered suggestions for our journey the next day. In particular a waterfall nearby and the possibility of seeing a beaver dam. He gave us some information about the North West Vanning Council and a poster of his event back in July. He hadn't had the chance to eat his spaghetti yet as he rushed to the fire, so he was about to go do that.

   His final message to us, he asked if we could please sign one of the metal beams on his tin shack with a Sharpie texter, as a type of visitor book. "Otherwise, people will not believe you were here." He said to us.
As if we were the fantasy that had to be seen to be believed.