Tag: outdoors

Whoa What a Ride!

Everybody has lived through one of those “I can’t believe I survived that” moments, in fact I’ve had a few. Sometimes I marvel at the fact I’m still here. Mitch and I have more than our share together. I think together we have done some really stupid things. Of course you don’t think about that while you’re in the midst of your adventure.

One of our many dumbest moves was years ago, when I was going through my Divemaster training. It was my first open water work weekend at Table Rock Lake, about four hours south of here. The plan was that I would ride down with another divemaster-in-training student on Friday, do my water work on Saturday and Mitch would buzz down after he closed the dive shop on Saturday evening. Then we would drive back together on Sunday.

Well no one told Mother Nature that we wanted a nice weekend, so instead we got cold wet rain on Saturday. Someone would say, “Well you’re in the water anyway, what’s the big deal?” When you get out of the chilly water you want to get dry and warm, but that didn’t happen for us all day. I couldn’t wait to get back to my hotel room and take a long hot shower. Mitch showed up soaked to the bone about midnight, after closing up shop. Of course he had ridden his motorcycle.

Sunday morning Mother Nature decided to help up out. The morning dawned sunny and much warmer. Training was more pleasant but we had a lot to catch up on that didn’t get done the day before. By the time we wrapped everything up, if was about two in the afternoon and we had to get back to KC in order to check in the dive gear that other students had checked out. It was decided that a friend would drag my gear back for me and I would ride back with Mitch on the back of the motorcycle.

Mitch trying to make up for lost time, was flying down a two lane highway at breakneck speeds, passing cars like a madman, doing around one hundred miles an hour. Me, I was so tired after being in the water for two days, fell asleep behind him. That’s not entirely true, I always fall asleep riding in a car, and riding back seat on a motorcycle isn’t much different, right? He only figured out that I was asleep when my helmet banged into the back of his helmet. Can you imagine the jarring effect of getting whacked on the back of your helmet when trying to maintain control of your motorcycle at a hundred miles an hour? Mitch jerked and banged his helmet back at me and yelled for me to wake up. Easier said than done, I tried, but kept dozing off whacking Mitch in the back of the head for the next three hours. I finally woke up about the time we hit Kansas City. Luckily we survived the ride mainly due to light traffic, Mitch’s skill and in spite of me.

We beat the other divers back and Mitch finally relaxed about an hour after we checked in all of the rented gear.

Early Morning Photos

Silly geese swimming toward us
geese swimming

Charlie and Orso checking for new smells
the boyswater reflectionwaters edge

Calm waters in the early morning

Summer Blooms

Hens and Chicks
Hens and Chicks

Echinacea
Echinacea

Daylily
Daylily

These were taken with my Canon Rebel using a Zoom Lens EF-S 10-22mm

Sunday Snaps

Some photos for Sunday morning
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“My teeth are bigger than yours!”

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“This is deep enough thank you very much!”

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Just chillin’

Photos taken with my Canon Rebel

Beware the Harvest Moon

Fiction for Tuesday

 

The harvest moon hung low on the horizon, orange and large, just coming up.  Adam ran along the trail enjoying the brisk evening air.  He always ran in the evening, fewer people around.  On this evening, as Adam ran he noticed a figure ahead walking in the middle of the trail.  As he got closer to the figure he noticed it was a woman, small and slim with long black hair.  He moved to the left to go around her, but it was as if she knew he was there and also moved to the left blocking his path.

Adam then moved to the right starting to get a bit frustrated and the woman moved to the right.  Adam pulled up just in time to avoid crashing into her.  The woman slowly turned around to face Adam with a slight smile on her face, amused that she had caused him to stop.  She had creamy white skin with pale blue eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight.  Adam choked back an irritated response to the woman who caused him to halt his run.

She took a step toward him and laid a hand on his chest and looked into his eyes, Adam felt frozen in his body waiting for her to say something.  This was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life.

The woman smiled slowly, leaned in close to his chest and spoke softly, “I’ve been watching you for a long time, waiting for the right moment to speak to you.”

Adam nodded unable to speak, wondering why this beautiful woman had approached him and why was she watching him?

The woman’s voice almost a whisper said, “I know much about you and want you to know me.”

Adam stood mesmerized but finally found his voice, “Why do you want to know me?”

The woman laughed softly, “Oh Adam, you are the man I want.  I have chosen you to be with me forever.”

“What, wait what are you talking about?  Be with you forever?  I don’t who you are or even your name.  How can you just say you have chosen me?”  Adam tried to take a step back but found that he couldn’t move away from her.

“Tonight is the one night that we have to walk this earth and choose a mate.  I choose you.  After tonight you will know an eternity with me.  You will learn all about me in time.  You will learn to love me and appreciate the gift I am about to give you.”

 

“No!”  Adam screamed but no words came out, he stood frozen unable to move as the woman moved in and wrapped her arms around him.  She lifted her face up to his and placed her lips on his.  Adam felt a strange sensation, like his body was growing lighter.  He looked down at the woman and watched as her face changed from beautiful to ugly with red glowing eyes.  Her fingers became claws with long razor sharp talons on the end.  The talons pierce his back ripping the flesh and shredding the skin.  The pain and agony of his back being shredded was nothing compared to the feeling of weakness, his heart pounded in his chest.  His heart exploded then Adam felt nothing anymore.

After a brief moment, Adam was gone with only a small pool of blood on the running trail.

Saturday Morning

Saturday morning at the dam.  Charlie and Orso checked out all of the new smells.

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Somebody was definitely here before us.

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Charlie hot on the trail of a strange scent.

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Orso suddenly remembered that he doesn’t particularly like swimming.

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Both dogs enjoyed the morning outing.

Growing up Without a Helmet

Today’s world has changed so much from the fifty plus years ago that I grew up in.  I’m lucky I survived.  Or maybe today’s world would not have survived fifty years ago.

How we survived is a miracle in itself.  Bicycle helmets were unheard of in the sixties.  Elbow and knee pads, are you kidding me?  We took our chances and actually showed off every skinned knee and elbow like a badge of honor.  We relished the retelling of our accidents with great animation and embellishment.  Of course after shedding huge tears and getting swabbed down with iodine, which stung much worse than the scrape.

My first trip to the emergency room was when I was three years old.  I was hot rodding on my tricycle and fell forward splitting my chin wide open requiring three stitches.  After that was when I grabbed a knife by the blade, of course, at four and sliced open my left hand.  I didn’t go back to the emergency room until I was eleven when at a huge family get together, I was showing my uncle how good I was at walking on my stilts.  My cousin sprayed me with a hose, causing me to lose my balance and the right stilt slipped and stabbed my left leg below the knee, leaving a huge gash.  That required thirteen stitches, three of which I promptly broke.  I didn’t have any more bleeding accidents after that, but suffered two broken toes and twisted ankles too many times too count.  I was not any more graceful growing up than I am now.

Today you get a ticket if your kids are not in safety seats or strapped in with seatbelts.  When I grew we sat on our parents laps or even stood up in the front seat while driving down the road.  Cars didn’t even come with seat belts.  We rode around in the back of pickup trucks and even sat on the tailgate while the truck was moving.  Granted I’m not advocating that, but we survived.  Today, no way, not with all of the lunatics on the road that are doing everything behind the wheel but driving.

Our parents would send us outside first thing in the morning and tell us not to come back inside until lunch.  There was no adult supervision while we played guns and war, had hideouts and forts in the woods.  We played on swing sets, swinging as high as we could then jumped off the swing just to taste the brief moment of flight.  There was also no predators (the human kind) either.  Today children are not allowed outside without adult supervision and rightfully so, because of the evil that lurks everywhere.

Today our parents would be arrested for child endangerment if we were allowed to live and play as we did fifty years ago.  We survived in spite of ourselves.  I know that a lot of the safe guards in place today are needed, but I also believe that some are too intrusive.  I for one am glad that I grew up when I did.  I don’t think I would do as well growing up today.

Baby Robins

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Dinner time and the family is ravenous

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Mom with the grub (literally)

Orso My Big Sweetie

Yesterday I posted pictures of Charlie.  Today is Orso’s turn.  He’s my big sweetie weighing in at 98 pounds.  He’s kind of a goof ball, but that’s what makes him so endearing.

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Orso is playing King of the Bed taking on all challengers

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This was taken in December on our very frigid hunting trip.

Orso is squirrel hunting

Kind of a clown, daring the squirrel to come down.

Photos taken on my Canon Rebel

The Long Weekend

If I survive the weekend, it will be a miracle.  Friday started off with great promise.  I had an appointment to get my stitches out, woo hoo!  That meant a real shower in my future.  One that doesn’t have my foot and lower leg triple bagged to stay dry.  A shower that I could luxuriate in letting hot water wash over me with a wonderfully scented shower gel that I could lather up all over.  Ah, heaven.

But no, that is not in my future, not for another week.  My doctor unwrapped my foot, poked at my toes and wiggled them around to show me that everything is healing nicely even though my foot was very swollen.  After the sharp intakes of air and scrunching my face into grotesque masks of pain, the doctor left to get some contraption he said would help bring down the swelling.  Mitch told me how proud he was of me.  I asked him what he meant and he said he was surprised I didn’t start swearing.  I said that it was close, but I controlled myself.  I didn’t want the doctor to run fleeing the room in fear for his life.

He came back in with a compression squeezer that I have no intention of putting on because it was terribly painful when he slipped it on and dragged it past my stitches.  The doctor then pulled at two of my stitches and explained that though the incision was not gaping, it was not healed enough to remove the rest of the stitches.  Did I mention how much it hurt to have the two stitches removed?  Anyway after all of the manipulation, foot squeezing and stitch pulling, I was ready to go home and lay down for a while.  Plus I was so bummed out that I didn’t get my stitches out.

After resting for a while, I got up to get something unimportant, lost my balance and fell backwards hitting the back of my skull on my nightstand.  God that hurt so bad.  Crying and grabbing the back of my head to feel for blood, luckily I didn’t split my skull open but there was a huge lump already.  I dragged myself over to where I could reach my cellphone and called Mitch who was walking the dogs, because I wasn’t sure how bad it was and I was scared.  It was this awful stabbing pain that felt like a thousand needles in the back of my head.  All I could think of was that I had fractured my skull.  Mitch rushed back, helped me off the floor and put me back in bed.  He examined my head and got ice packs to help bring down the large knot at the base of my skull.  I think I scared him as much as I scared me.  No blurred vision, no nausea and my pupils worked so we decided not to go to the emergency room.  Just rest and watch me.  Sorry not this time Aflac.

Saturday I woke up, surprise I didn’t die in my sleep.  I’m really glad for that.  We went to the grocery store, my first outing since other than work and the doctor’s office I’ve been pretty house bound.  The day was pleasant, clear skies and mild, Mitch was going to mow and weed eat the yard.  This is my job because when Mitch mows or weed eats, he mows and weed eats everything growing.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  It’s in the way, so it has to go.  In order for that to not happen, Mitch set me up in a chair on the porch and with blue flags he walked around the yard pointing at various plants waiting for a mow or no mow sign from me.  If I gave the no mow sign he planted a blue flag next to it.  The grass was terribly tall, so mowing would take a while.

The dogs and I decided to go back in the house while Mitch slaved away.  I opened the kitchen door let the dogs in and started in myself.  I hopped in got the left crutch planted when the door closed on the right crutch throwing me off balance.  I started to fall forward and accidentally put weight on my left foot.  As soon as I realized what I was doing I lifted my foot which caused me to fall forward to my knees.  There is no way I could stand up from that position so I had to drag myself to the bathroom and pulled myself up on the toilet.  I am so graceful.

Please just let survive this weekend.