Accident in the mountains

Continuing the case on the Woolly Mammoth Crisis...

For one thing, you should stay as far away from these creatures as you can, especially the high elevation ones. For another thing, if you've ever tried to ride one you know how hard it is to stay on...the wooliness of it and the wide back make it a very slippery and precarious ride indeed (not to mention, you never know what a wild Woolly Mammoth would do if it finds it has a human on its back!). It's a very dangerous endeavor to ride a Woolly Mammoth, trust me. But hey, the experience is priceless. Only, we can do without the falling part.

I was attempting a maneuver that wasn't the smartest and slipped and fell like you see in this picture. I finally skidded to a stop somewhere off the picture.

Docter vs. Patient (click picture to enlarge)

Wilderness first aid

Admiring each others patches

The mummy

Whose idea was this? Gross!

Interview at camp (video)

For a whole bunch of pictures from our trip go here.

My bandage is loosing it's stickiness.

Happy Mothers Day!

Dedication:
To my Mom, who never forsook me and was always there for me.

Although I had already been alive for almost nine months, I didn’t know there was more to life than doing what I was doing, or wasn’t doing. I was perfectly content there, getting fed somehow, and not having to worry about when or what to eat. I also didn’t have to worry about clothes; their look, their size, or even the absence of them! I was stress-free, although I did notice things were getting increasingly crowded day by day…nothing to worry about now though. I was warm and relaxed, and undisturbed most of the time.
But sometimes I had suspicions. I had suspicions that everything does not and can not revolve around me. This would not have occurred to me, if it weren’t for the faint voices pulsating around me. I realized that there was a bigger picture, and if I wanted to see it, I would somehow need to “burst the bubble”, as it were, that I was in. I was comfortable, but I was restless and bored. I was warm, but I was helpless and lonely. I was in bondage and would somehow need to be set free. But before long, one, nonnegotiable truth became sure to me; that I had no strength on my own to accomplish this task, none at all.

Then one day, as I was swimming in my uncertainties, I felt a squeeze. It hurt, but I shrugged it off. Until another one came, and another, greater every time. Now they were coming at increasingly smaller intervals, pressing me, each time, against the walls of my preset standards. They forced me to submit to a larger veracity. I was then pressed into and immensely tight situation. Which hurt greatly, and I thank God I don’t remember it.

Then suddenly, as I was about to give up, something seemed to snap. I was liberated. I saw. I opened my mouth in astonished wonder, when unexpectedly, a gust of unrestrained nitrogen and oxygen poured into my tiny lungs. I felt like choking on this foreign substance, but when I tried to, another blast came gushing in. It seemed to permeate me, circulating deeper into me. I was enthralled by this and almost didn’t realize the reality of what now had to happen.

Before I could protest I was brought underneath a flowing mass of transparent matter. This was similar to what I had been used to, except that it refreshed itself constantly, it was alive. It felt so good to be underneath this flood when suddenly I was disturbed once again. I was flipped, squeezed, jolted, and jostled until every bit of me was as pure and clean as the water that washed me.

Then I heard. I heard a voice I recognized. It was clearer now than ever before. I wept as I fell into her arms. I cried because I couldn’t survive by myself.

Learning to Drive

On Monday this week I got my driver’s license in Mariposa. Yes, I passed the test, and I was told I did an excellent job. I’m not so sure I did “excellent” but hey, I passed! I flubbed a few things…one being I didn’t know where the defroster was in our Range Rover. Also, I did rather poorly on my lane change (It was a left turn so I didn’t really think of it as a lane change where I had to look at my mirrors and over my shoulder). And I was not all there at the end when she had me turn the car off. I just turned it off without putting it in park! You should have seen me there fumbling around when I noticed my mistake. Very embarrassing. I was like, “oh”. And then I tried to just quickly slip it into park while the car was still turned off (as if she wouldn’t really notice my mistake). Of course, that didn’t work like I hoped. When I got it resolved, my instructor was like, “okay, take a deep breath…”. I don’t think she marked me down for that anyway. I’m leaving out an even more embarrassing driving related incident that happened on my testing day. But ask me personally about it and I’ll tell you. And don’t try to ask me in a comment, I won’t tell you there either.

We waited until I was 17½ to get my permit. That way I could skip the driver school and my Dad could teach me, and I won’t have to put in the 60 hrs of driving before I could get my license. I think part of the thinking was that maybe I would be smart by then too, so that would be good. I started studying for the written test a couple weeks before and finished sitting in the dentist office before going to the DMV. I was running off the excuse that I would do better on my test if the information was fresh in my mind. That is fairly legitimate but I’ve been known to push the limits a little bit and I think my parents were somewhat concerned for me. But I did well on my test after all, only missing one, which was somewhat of a surprise to me.

A few days later I got in the drivers seat of the car for the first time, the first time in which the car was actually going to move while I was there. My dad, who was in the passenger seat, pointed out some of the buttons, levers, and controls I would need to know about. Then he said, “Okay now let off the brake and we can head down”. So I did and the wheels started turning and everything seemed too easy. When it came time to turn, I tried to be cool like I could brake good, without a lot of jolting and disturbance. I think I made the turn a little fast for my dad’s liking, who was already risking his life just being there in the car with me. He told me not to feel like I had to go as fast as the “other” drivers, as I was new to this whole thing and still getting the feel for the car and how it handles. I argued back that I didn’t want to bore him. But he responded saying that he wanted to be bored at this time. I will admit that, of all the controls in the car, I especially liked the gas peddle.

We thankfully arrived back at the house safe and well and I think Dad was ready to relax. Susanna noted that when I was coming up the driveway she saw me, “stop right before the garage and then zoom…(laughing)…it was funny”. I think I had yet to impress her with my driving skills. Another thing that was rather comical to some (included myself) was, after a couple outings, I think I must have been tense or something because I was sore in my arms. I know that’s kind of silly to be sore from driving but I really think that is what I got sore from! After all, I’m happy to be on the road.