"Holster Guy"

So, who is "Holster Guy"?

When we stopped for lunch at a rest stop on I-5 on Monday near Dunnigan, California, we saw this guy and his wife having their lunch at a nearby picnic table. When they got up to leave we noticed that he had a "holster" attached to each side of his belt.  We're not sure what he had stuffed into these compartments:  Binoculars for birdwatching?  Cell phone?  Personal GPS unit? Taser?  Semi-automatic handgun?

When we've driven up to Oregon on I-5 (or for that matter, on freeways anywhere in the U.S.) it hasn't been unusual for us to repeatedly pass the same vehicle more than once during the day.  We pull off at this rest stop, they pull off at that rest stop.  We gas up here, they gas up there.  Eventually, we catch up and pass each other again and again.  It's not much different than what happens when Indy or NASCAR drivers make pit stops at different times during a race

We've also met up repeatedly with folks we didn't personally know when we've been traveling in Europe.  In Rome back in 1999 we chatted with two sisters from Omaha while standing in line to get into the Vatican Museums.  A couple of days later we ran into them in Assisi, and the next day we saw them in the Florence train station.  Later during the same trip we met a young couple at breakfast at the Cafe du Mars in Paris, then encountered them at a sidewalk cafe in the Marais later the same day.  Folks from Portland who invited us to share a table at dinner in Venice in 2001 showed up in Florence a few days later.

But "Holster Guy" made us nervous.  Where the hell did he come from and what was he "packing":?  And why did we keep running into him?

As you know from my earlier posts, he crossed paths with us twice after we turned off I-5 at Weed Tuesday morning and headed northeast across the high desert toward Oregon.  We don't know where he and his wife (or "spy" partner) bunked Monday night.  We didn't see them at the McCloud Hotel, so odds are that they stopped in another town for the night.  And we didn't see them in our rear view mirror once we left the Visitor Center south of Klamath Falls, so we don't think they are still tailing us.

But if they show up in Ashland next week, we're going to freak out.  And, of course, we don't know if he is in league with the guy towing the "Shaved Ice" machine behind his RV:  We played highway hopscotch with him on Monday and saw him on Highway 97 Tuesday long after we had left "Holster Guy" in the dust.

Good thing that the Paranoids aren't following us.