NPS Week 5/6 and Stuff

This is going to be a bit random.

I spent the last eight days camping and working in the wilderness. It was nice--muddy, but nice. Anyway, I shan't bore you with the details other than to add that I am sore and tired, and even after a long shower after I got back I still have dirt ground into my skin.

But here are a few things of note, and random thoughts that this latest excursion sparked:

Showers and Toilets
I have never in my life gone for eight days without some sort of cleaning ritual. Sure, my family was without running water and other societal amenities for a year, back in my younger days when we first moved into our cabin, but we compensated for that by heating water on a camp stove and bathing in a wheelbarrow. But camping in the wilderness offers no viable alternatives other than plunging into barely above freezing glacial runoff water, which I am not willing to do. So, this was the longest time I have ever gone without bathing. . . wow. Showers (and baths) are awesome! After about the fifth day, you start to have a hard time being around yourself. . . On a personal note, I do not have stinky feet, I never have. But after several days in damp leather boots, my feet did develop a nasty odor. . .

Along these same lines; toilets are awesome. Sure the porcelain may sometimes be cold, but generally they are quite comfortable and clean smelling. I like them.

In short, don't take indoor plumbing for granted.

Pain
The second day out on the trail, I developed one of the worst headaches that I have had in years. It was so bad I couldn't work, or even think. . . I tried to be a tough guy and not show my pain to the rest of the crew, but after a while I had to sit down and start punching myself in the head (don't ask me why, but the shock creates a jolt and then ebb of pain which I find preferable to straight blind pain). Anyway, I solved this problem by downing two Excedrin (which I must add, is a god-send), which I have never before done. . . usually one is enough to knock out my headaches, but this time two seemed prudent. Eventually my headache went away, and then I was high on caffeine for the rest of the day (65mg per Excedrin. . . whew!).

This got me thinking, and I realized that the worst pains that I have felt in life have been rare headaches like this one. I've sprained my ankle, broken fingers/toes/thumbs, woken in the night with a terrible wrenching stomach pain, developed water in my hip joint so that I could barely even walk, and fallen--unconscious--on a wood stove and burned my arm. . . all these pains I seem to have forgotten, but I don't forget the pain of headaches.

Headaches suck. Thankfully for me they are rare.

Wolf
At some point we were working on the trail, and a wolf passed by and watched us. We found his tracks very clearly defined in the mud, but never saw him. . . his prints were five inches across.

Alaska Rules!


I miss ballroom. . .