The Olympics are many things to many people; the hard work, the blood, sweat, and tears—all of that cliche stuff.
Also, this?
Looks like they wanted to keep lots of people from going home with more than a medal. If they didn’t, I imagine they would have to open up the ‘gold’ express lane at the clinic.
I guess the Olympics is all about love. Hah!
Here I am sitting in my house three days before I was scheduled to be home from my backpacking trip. I checked the calendar before I left and sure enough it said August. I checked the map and sure enough I was heading to central Oregon. Then why in the name of everything that is holy did the weather act like something out of a Charlton Heston movie? When we got to the trailhead it was sunny and about 104 degrees, typical for the geography and time of year. That night the wind moved in, 30-35 mph gusts. The next night the lightning moved in to go along with my friend Mr. Wind. The night after that Rain Jr decided to show up to the party. And last night Rain Jr’s father Papa Downpour decided to dance on the face of my shelter with his friend Cyclone Jim. I mean there were torrential downpours and wind gusts upwards of 45 mph or more. Last night was probably the most miserable night I have ever spent in the wilderness. I was laying in my rain-soaked down sleeping bag looking up at the bottom of the tarp and just waiting for it to give way and fly off into the night leaving us even more unprotected. Somehow our knots held and the shelter construction held pretty well through the night; I only had to get out and tie down the tarps two or three times throughout the night. And did I forget to mention I FORGOT MY RAIN GEAR!!!!!!!!! This was my fourth time taking college students into the wilderness for a week and never before had I ever encountered even a drop of rain. Last night sucked.
Other than the weather that was more unpredictable than Cher on her wedding night the trip was pretty good. The students I had were great and rose to almost any occasion with high spirits. They worked together and surpassed my expectations. They were encouraging and supportive of one another. They never questioned my decisions. In short they were pretty awesome. But the weather blew. While on the trip I had to keep my tongue and watch what I said in order to set the right kind of example. I needed to keep morale at a high level. Now I could care less. I want to vent. I want to complain. I think I am done. Thank you for listening, or would it be reading?
I mentioned in the post about my son getting a pebble stuck in his bronchial tube that there was a story to tell about my family and three other families camping and white water rafting/kayaking on the Rogue River in southern Oregon. This is that story. It was amazing. There were parts of the trip that were hard but more that were not. We went down with our small group from church. I have been part of small groups before but this is the first one I can honestly say functions like what I think a small group should function like. We share life together, not just Sundays. It took a little getting used to, for everyone I’m sure, to know how to camp with so many other people. I think we figured it out pretty well.
This was the first time any of the families, except one, had been camping with kids. My wife and I are pretty avid outdoors-men, or outdoors-persons to be more accurate, and have spent a lot of time in the backcountry; our kids are one and three and have not. The main difference I found between backpacking alone and car camping with kids is that camping, or being for that matter, anywhere with kids is fifteen million times dirtier. It was dusty, muddy, outdoorsy bliss for anyone under the age of five. The first thing the kids started doing when we got to the campsite was to start digging a hole. Seems pretty exciting. They worked on this hole the entire trip. It was an obsession for them and they went at it with the fervor of a rabid wolverine fighting a pack of marmots. I bet when they are all older they will say to one another, “Hey do you remember that time when we were camping and we dug that hole?” …pause for staring off into the distance and ford remembering… “That was a great hole.”
Apart from the hole digging there were other things that happened as well, all of which pale in comparison to the hole though. We took a trip down the Rogue River in rafts and inflatable kayaks. This was incredible. I have not been on any white water since moving to Oregon three years ago and never in a kayak. I’m sold. If I have my druthers I will never ride in a raft again; it’s kayaks for me all the way. We went down with a company called Obrien’s Rogue River Outfitters. They were amazing. I don’t normally make plugs but it was probably the best guided trip I have ever taken. They have some pictures and a little blurb about our trip on their blog, http://www.rogue-river-rafting-trips.com
The only blemishes to the weekend were when my son inhaled the pebble, even though that probably shouldn’t count because we didn’t know about it until 10 days later, and when our friends’ son tripped over one of the guy ropes on my tent and got a spiral fracture of the femur. That’s right I said a spiral fracture of the femur. Crazy huh? It not like he was traveling with any great velocity either. He was running as fast as a two-year-old can run with only having 10 feet or so to gather momentum and tripped over the ropes and got a, incase I didn’t mention it earlier, spiral fracture of the femur. He has to wear a cast that goes from his ribcage to his ankles with a dowel between his legs and a chunk taken out of the crotch so he can do his business. So basically for the next five weeks or so he has to either lay down or stand up, and by stand up I mean be propped up against the wall. If it were me I think I would name this chapter of my family’s life “Benadryl and Movies All Around.” But that’s just me.
I am glad for this trip on many different levels. I am glad that we got out and did something outside with my family. I am glad that despite two of the children needing to have surgery because of the trip we are still looking forward to the next time we can cam as a group. I am glad that we shared in so many different levels of experience together. And I am glad our small group goes beyond superficial groups I have known in the past to being friends in the best sense of the word and when things are hard and some of us need help and support it’s there.
I am in Dublin (California, not Ireland) for work. We’re implementing new software at work, and I’m here for training on one of my portions of the software. During my travel today I’ve realized some things about who I am, neither good nor bad.
My first real job right out of college had the opportunity for extended travel. Something like spending a few months at a location building and configuring a network. I was single, and the money would have been good, but the economy turned sour and I lost my job before I had a chance to do this. Since I never got to travel for that job, I didn’t really get to find if I enjoyed it or not. I liked the idea of it, though.
The job I used to do full-time (now half-time) had me going to Boise 2-4 times a year. Typically for 2-day, 1-night stints. And I’d typically go over with Brendon (and others), so I wasn’t required to get outside of my introverted shell to have social interaction. The last time I made that trip was now 14 months ago; that seems kinda odd, but that’s what my Outlook calendar says.
Maybe it’s the fact that I now have two kids at home that makes this a little bittersweet (I can hear my wife asking if I’m crazy). Maybe it’s that I’m used to traveling with someone else, and not flying solo.
I’ve been on the ground in California for only 5 hours now, so I probably need to relax a bit. I’m sure once the class starts tomorrow things will be better. I’m just glad that I do this infrequently, because I don’t know if I could handle being on the road by myself a lot. Even though my kids drive me crazy sometimes, they are my kids, and I miss being around them (again with my wife asking if I’m crazy). I also wish I would have had the forethought to fly my wife down here for the weekend, and we could just cruise around the Bay Area for a couple of days together. I’ll have to remember that for next time.
