NOT OC: WHAT I LEARNED ON MY CAMPING TRIP

Garden in the village of Somewhere on Thames

The queen of England and the queen of my heart

Some of you know that I planned to spend most of August tooling around from campground to campground in my new camper van.  So why am I at home so early?   I will tell you.

The first week of August went well.  I visited the Kellys, in Cordova, where we  caught a few fish, ate many fine meals, and generally just relaxed.  Even the trips to and from were tolerable.  I find that it helps to carry a cane; people (as, TSA people and flight attendants) coddle you to an amazing degree.  I’m sure it’s mostly that they don’t want you dying on their hands, but it comes over as solicitous respect.  Whatever, I’ll take it.

Then a few days after arriving home I took off again in my van, bound for SE Idaho, where I joined about 15 or so fellow members of the Anza Desert State Park Paleontology Society  (hereafter the  Paleo group) for an extended look at the Paleozoic.  It went well at first, and we all had fun.  Here are some things I learned about camping with my little van:

              If you make coffee using a percolator,  buy coarse-ground coffee.

              If you do use a percolator, do not travel with it assembled or the rattle will drive you nuts.

  Before beginning a trip, assemble all your maps and store them in a convenient place.  When you    have used one, put it back – don’t simple pitch it somewhere. 

You may think you know how to get to someplace without checking the map (which you have lost), but you probably don’t.

If you are old enough to have lost some of your eyesight and most of your agility, don’t walk around after dark.

Which brings me to why I am home, instead of in Montana:.  One evening near the end of the period I meant to spend with the Paleo group I sat dozing in my folding chair until well after dark.  Then, when stumbling toward the van, I stubbed my toe on something, pitched forward onto a pile of rocks, and fractured three ribs.  Also, I broke my glasses and turned my right forearm into coarse hamburger.  I have camped all over two continents for over 50 years without serious injury.  I wonder what was different this time?

Anyway, after two full days of unpleasant highway driving I am home.  I stopped at the emergency room in LaGrande, Oregon – without a doubt the most pleasant emergency room experience of my life. I left LaGrande with an X Ray, a brand new tetanus shot, another shot (pain meds),  two prescriptions, and a half-inch stack of official paper.   So here I am at home, filled to the earlobes with pain medication and looking forward to an indefinite period (“oh, it will take a few weeks”) of being useless.  But that won’t stop me from writing this blog; I have two NCI Cancer Bulletins to digest.