ELBEE Before Pack Leader gets started I would like to say that I have been following this woman into the mountains for years and had no idea it could be hazardous to my health. What was I thinking?
CHARLEY Let me add that all of these disasters occurred pre-Doods which is why my brother was clueless. With us she has remained relatively unscathed. Thank you very much.
My turn to over share. Whenever my daughter/mothers hear on the news that a hiker has been lost, found, or injured they just wait for my name so they can say, “See!” That’s not going to happen because the first thing they do on the news is give your age. I would crawl down first.
Here are my top 6 “oops” in the mountains:
- Poison oak. No one ever told me “leaves of three, don’t touch me.” I touched it, walked in it and broke out in a horrible rash.
- The broken foot. The dogs were walking nicely by my side when a biker approached like he was at the Tour de France. Watching him, I stepped in a hole, broke a bone and tore a tendon in my foot.
- The blood clot. Shortly after the cast came off my foot, I headed back to the mountains, tripped over a rock, hit my leg on another rock and got a huge blood clot on the front of my leg. And yes, I am a little on the clumsy side.
- The bee sting. A devious ninja bee stung me on the lip and I swelled up until my face was unrecognizable.
- The dog bite. Two very large, very mean dogs attacked my very sweet Golden Retriever Cody. As I jumped in to defend Cody, one of the mean dogs bit me on the neck. When I got to the emergency room (where I was quite well known by then) they said the bite had just missed my jugular.
- The rattlesnake bite. On a warm spring day, my husband, the dogs and I were walking up on a ridge through sage and wild mustard. Suddenly I felt an awful pain in my ankle and pulled down my sock to find two perfectly placed puncture marks. My buddies in the emergency room said it was probably an older snake because my foot swelled up, turned purple and twitched but I didn’t get sick. Well I almost got sick at the thought of being bitten by a snake.
On the bright side, I haven’t been air lifted out, eaten by a mountain lion (I’ve seen two) or bitten by a coyote.
ELBEE She forgot to mention that one time a hawk flew so low his talons brushed her hair. My guess is he thought it was nesting material.
GUS That’s it! I’m never going hiking again. Snakes, bodies and now a hawk that could carry me away.