I’ve been inspired by ladyn0ttingham over at Blackbird Rising who has thrown up a few photos of her most recent adventure into the natures. I now feel compelled to post a few nature shots of my own from my camping trip out in David Thompson country.
I took them with my iPhone and didn’t even bother to try and edit them. Cuz I’m lazy like that.
It’s grey and overcast here lately; Second Winter has descended upon us. So, I’m remembering Hawaii’s clear blue oceans, it’s greenery and it’s gorgeous weather.
Looking back on it, yesterday was pretty hard for me… from a keeping sober perspective, anyway.
Winter is on the decline and the sun was out, ushering in spring time… I was off work around noon and had all kinds of me time. I was euphoric and excited and stress-free, it was great! I wanted a drink though as this would have been a common way for me to celebrate a Friday afternoon of awesome freedom. And, ironically, this desire for a drink… be it a beer or a whiskey… was causing me stress on an otherwise stress-free day.
Eventually, I’d get home and was kind of down in the dumps. For the past week and a bit, I have been supercharged for planning home renovations and organizing and cleaning up. Yesterday into the evening, I couldn’t put two and two together on anything like that. The kids were out for the evening and the wife was at work until the wee hours so it was all me at that point with my own thoughts.
I was in Hell, gentlemen… let me assure you.
I had almost given myself permission to go out for a drink at a nearby bar/pub and the time was coming up on 8:00 pm. I was conflicted about the thoughts and decided that sitting around thinking about it was not the way to go. I got my clothes on, jumped in my Jeep and drove my ass down to Cabela’s.
I have been gearing up for doing more family camping and to also start doing some backpacking trips this summer. I know that I need a few more specialized items for backpacking rather than just camping; one of those things being a tent of more appropriate size. The one I bought at the start of this whole gearing up process was done in a hurry and from an uneducated headspace.
Also, I started playing Airsoft with my 14 year old son last year. After getting a gift card at Cabela’s for Christmas, I went out and bought my own gun to play with. However, to be able to play with the piece I bought, I’m going to need a second clip for ammunition since reloading a clip during a match is a good way to get yourself shot.
Finally, I have been trying to find ways to save money and trim up our finances at home. We have grown accustomed to a lifestyle of excess and waste… I am guilty as well. I decided to stop buying Starbucks coffee every morning and start making my own at home. However, I don’t have a reliable vessel to transport my morning wake-up juice in so I was on the market for an insulated Thermos.
So I bought these three items while at Cabela’s. The tent was showing as discontinued in their system and the only one left in the store was the floor model… so I bought the floor model with a $20 discount off list price.
After I left the store, my focus was on getting into nature and doing positive things rather than on drinking. As I drove out of the parking lot, I passed a liquor store… and just kept on driving, with a smile on my face I might add.
One of the things that I wanted to do in Hawaii was do the Diamond Head hike. I guess that’s me and my landlubber mentality when you are on an island surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, I’m not going to claim that it makes sense but it’s accessible for my brain. There were other longer hikes that we could have done that were close by if it wasn’t February at the time; this one is popular with tourists and I was with teenagers who didn’t want to spend an entire day hiking.
One of the great things about this hike is that you can get relatively close to the park access by city bus. We jumped on the bus that took us around the base of the volcano and then we got on a paved path that wound upwards and inwards. Access to the inside of the crater is through a narrow tunnel (which is probably the least safe part of the entire hike as there is one lane of traffic in either direction and you walk on the shoulder of the road with only a series of yellow plastic reflectors bolted into the asphalt between you and oncoming vehicles) and once you come out on the other side of the tunnel, you’re inside of the crater.
The road is paved all of the way up to and including the parking lot out front of the visitor’s centre with a narrow shoulder and then bare dirt before the steep but short drop-off to the natural terrain.
I wanted to be prepared for the hike; I opted to carry my hiking boots and wear my flippy-floppies until we got to the trail and I also grabbed two large bottles of water… all of which went in my backpack. I knew the hike wasn’t that long but there were five of us and the weather could have been really hot. I didn’t want anyone to be without water but this added a lot of weight to my pack.
We had got through the tunnel and crossed an access road entrance that connected to the main road and had turned my attention to something off to the right in the distance, saying something to Finn. I can’t remember what I was raising his attention to but was mid-sentence when I either tripped over my flip flop or stepped on the edge of the asphalt surface and took a tumble.
I fell to my left and the first thing to hit the dirt was my left elbow. The weight of the bottled water in motion propelled me immediately onto my left shoulder and the rear section of the left half of my ribcage with my legs flailing upwards. The immediate pain was to my elbow followed very shortly after by my pride once I realized that there were about a dozen hikers headed our direction who had witnessed my clumsiness.
Once we got to the trailhead, I put my boots on to lighten the load in my pack. Because of the material of construction of the boots, it didn’t help much… the stupid things are actually pretty light. We completed the hike up to the summit and back down again without further incident. As the hike went on, however, I became more and more aware that I had re-injured my ribs (I broke three ribs midway through 2015) and that my shoulder had sustained more of a blow than I initially thought.
We rode the city bus back to the area where we caught it and walked the two and a half blocks back to the hotel. And I became fully aware of what I had done. Laying down on the bed was ok but getting back up again? Not so much. The pain in my ribs wasn’t as bad as when I had first broken them and my shoulder wasn’t as painful as when I’d first dislocated my shoulder. Thankfully. But dealing with them both at the same time was a new thing and a real inconvenience. At least I know what to do and what not to do while in pain.
The amount of pain has lessened somewhat since the incident but I know that I’ve extended my recovery somewhat. There are also certain positions that I put my arm in which are particularly painful and also a bizarre feeling if I put weight on it… like it’s going to dislocate if I continue any further. So I don’t.
I’m clumsy. That’s what it is.
I haven’t ever been able to sleep on an airplane. I’ve made some long hauls “over the pond” before and for all of those journeys, I was conscious every bitter second.
Today was par for the course.
I hardly slept last night so I was aware that that today’s flights to Vancouver and then onto Honolulu were going to be exhausting. The amount of “hurry up and wait” that goes along with air travel is astounding which translates into stress as well as both mental and physical exhaustion. If I could get a wink of sleep on the plane, this might be acceptable.
But right now, in the hotel room in Honolulu, I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. More tomorrow.
