Well, I'm no longer an immersion virgin, as my friend Nick calls it. Thank goodness I dumped in the Pigeon instead of the Eel. I don't even like sticking my feet in the Eel. For one thing I never see any water plants in the Eel or many fish or turtles, and in places you can't help but smell the agricultural run-off which makes the brown color of the water off putting. Granted the Pigeon has more of a sand bottom, with the end result of me also having a sand bottom. It was a fun trip despite the scads of beer soused yahoos on livery rentals for the holiday. So many of them were going down the current sideways, solid packs of them stopped just upstream of tree snags. Why? It made for a fast trip, I just kept paddling trying to get ahead of them, but there were just more and more, yelling, swearing, some with small children in tow. I noticed most of the women were silent, passive and for once I was almost glad to be single. I enjoy the Earth Adventure group so much, have met some great people, and nary a drunken yahoo in the mix. The kayak trip was the highlight of my week, the rest of the week was spent squirreled away at home with a nasty case of Pink Eye. This time I saw the kid coming, with one eye fire engine red. He asked to borrow a pencil and when he returned it, I even wiped it down with an antiseptic wipe. Within a week I had Pink Eye too. That's the second time that's happened in my 30 years of public service. Why can't people stay home when they're sick?! I did, feasting on sugar snap peas, sun sweet tomatoes, and black raspberries. It was a long boring isolation, couldn't read or watch TV for long, but I did take some great naps. Now, I'm finally beginning to feel better and it's time to go back to work. Oh well, not too long and I'll have some vacation coming. I'm doing a three day kayak trip with the Indiana Paddlers in Lafayette. That should be fun. Hopefully I'll stay in the boat for that trip.
2 comments:
Better you fall in the water while kayaking than the bike taking a nap while riding.
Hope your eye feels better. There is a reason we call kids petri dishes - they are all harboring something......
My eye still isn't back to normal. It wasn't Pink Eye after all, which I learned after another trip to the doctor. It was a viral infection which explained why the anti-bacterial drops the GP prescribed didn't fix me up. The eye doctor prescribed some analgesic drops and said I'd just have to tough it out. I guess I'm lucky to be doing as well as I am. He said some people have it for a month and that he was surprised I didn't get it in both eyes. He also made me feel unclean when he said he was going to wipe everything down with alcohol when I left. I'm back to work now, but having headaches from eye strain, the cornea in my right eye is still clouded and affecting my vision. I wish people would stay home when they're sick!
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