Santa Cruz/Scorpion 9/12/04 Production Shoot Journal Entry:

"I’d be scared sh--less if I could actually see the true danger we were in.

Pinned in the back seat of an ancient Chevy Blazer by two guys and a load of camera equipment, I’m fortunate to be on the inside of the narrow, gravel-strewn trail as we heave up the hill in the pre-dawn darkness. I keep my head turned away from the cliff we’re skirting, and face the bushes that scrape against the dewy window to my right. Double-checking my grimy seatbelt I realize this won’t actually save my life, but will at least keep my body close enough in proximity to the wreckage that the rescue team won’t have to search hard for my coyote-gnawed corpse. If, that is, we don’t execute this trail just right.

I wish I had more confidence in Danny, a 21-year-old ranger who brags that he hasn’t bathed in two weeks. He leans out the driver’s window (the front windshield is mottled with spray paint which, were the wipers actually functional, wouldn’t swipe clean anyway) squinting at the moonlit road, and negotiates the switchbacks; sending a deluge of skree onto the campsites far below.

The headlights are busted too, although Wanda offers to hang out from the passenger seat and shine her flashlight up ahead. But this plan is abandoned when we realize her window doesn’t roll down. We settle for Danny’s somewhat familiarity with the trail and the valor of a testosterone-packed, ‘I-am-immortal’ 21-year-old, and chuckle a lot. Heh heh heh.
It occurs to me how pissed the producer will be when she loses her whole film crew, not to mention the expensive equipment and the whole weekends’ films. And when she has to repay the Park for the aged Chevy. If only I hadn’t mentioned the sunrise shot over Anacapa, we would all still be warm and safe in our bunk beds. Dare I say that I hope the shot is ‘to die for?’"

-Entry from the Field Journal of Betsy Crowfoot, EISF Writer for "Jewels of the Pacific: The Channel Islands"