Tag Archives: hike

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Masks and selfs

I call a friend yesterday and sing, “Happy Day Before Your Birthday to You”. It sounds silly. She has just gotten Covid and this cheers her up.

She is telling me about her summer and about a class at a camp. Some for adults and some for children, but one where people really dropped their masks and just got to be themselves.

What identity is your deepest self? She is talking about her nine year old self. I think mine is more like four and rebellious and skeptical of adults, adulthood and all of their rules. I don’t think I am ever out of touch with this identity, though I don’t let it talk out loud in clinic. Mostly. A rebellious four year old informed by medical school and years of experience is a pretty frightening thought, isn’t it? Or the basis for a great cartoon.

That part of me is very observant and quite smart. It does not care what we are supposed to see or the cues people give. Growing up in an alcohol household, it looks for what people do not say. This can be terribly helpful in clinic and also a bit weird. It is body language and tone of voice and what questions a person shies away from answering and the puzzle pieces that do not fit.

Last week I see a small child with her parents for vomiting and coughing and fever. I am interviewing the child and asking if things hurt. “Do your ears hurt?” I ask. She shakes her head no. I point to my throat next and she nods. Yes, that part hurts. Her toes do not. I include toes or something silly to find out if the child is saying yes to all of it. I tell the parents that we will do a strep test, that mostly people don’t cough with strep except when they do. The strep is positive. My medical assistant grumbles, “They didn’t tell me that,” but I think the parents were more worried about the vomiting and she may not have complained about her throat.

Are the masks we wear always bad? I don’t think so. I think it is frustrating if we believe our mask or never ever get to drop it. There is some formality to my role in clinic and I tend to get more formal when I am worried about someone. That has been interpreted as anger or brusqueness, but it isn’t. I am wearing a real mask with all patients because we are seeing at least one person with Covid every week. The literal mask does not help me connect with people, but sometimes I can anyhow. I have to take it off for the 90 year olds because most of them are hard of hearing and lip reading helps.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: identity.

I hiked the Beaver Brook Trail this weekend with my daughter.

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Talk

Today I will interview people in clinic, but yesterday I hiked alone. Well, no, not really alone. I spot movement and freeze. A silent interview of this rabbit, with the help of my zoom camera. There was a very young bunny further on, about 6 inches long, who hid behind a bush a year from me. I did not want to scare her, so did not get a photograph.

Lizards and crows, too. Chipmunks and a squirrel who was noisy until she realizes that I have spotted her in the small tree, barely taller than me.

I climbed the Serpent’s Trail which is an old road. It goes up and up but is never terribly steep. At the top, I can see the haze: smoke from forest fires in the Pacific Northwest and Canada is coming down. When I got home I closed up the house to keep the air cleaner. It is smokey today with lots of small particulates, not good. We will see more asthma, allergies, eye problems, emphysema and the smoke makes people headachey and irritable. I hope it doesn’t sit in the Grand Valley for a long time.

Meanwhile, the bunnies and the crows and the lizards and the squirrels, can’t go inside, can they?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: interview.

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Many stripes

Yesterday I hiked Echo Canyon in the Colorado National Monument. The first part is a shared hike, with the Devil’s Kitchen Trail, No Thoroughfare Canyon Trail and Old Gordon Trail. Old Gordon and Echo split off and then they split.

I did not start hiking until ten yesterday and it was already heating up. Echo Canyon is partly shady, once I am in the canyon. The rocks are gorgeous and there is a plethora of stripes. How beautiful!

At the head of the canyon and all through it, you can see where water carves. It would be amazing to see this waterfall, but since there are flood bits in the tops of trees, it is probably way too dangerous.

There is a pool at the base now and there was a small stream above ground in part of the canyon and a swampy bit.

And am I seeing faces?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: plethora.

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Yes, but no cigar

The photograph is from one of my hikes in Palisade in the last few weeks. The rocks are gorgeous.

The title is from an old joke.

I climbed at the gym again yesterday after work. I really like the immediacy of the walls. I do not like the auto-belays. The ones at this gym let you down pretty quickly. I climbed up one wall and then down. I tried the easiest boulder route for the second time and made it! I am a bit stiff this morning but not too bad.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cigar.

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hiking soundtrack

Saturday my daughter was still here and we hiked the smaller loop at Palisade. It is about 3.5 miles. Coming down, the soundtrack in my brain was “She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain”. I did not sing it to my daughter. One person with an earworm is enough!

My brain definitely plays music. I’ve had 24 years in Rainshadow Chorale and hope for quite a few more. Sometimes in clinic, quite inappropriate music plays. Everything from children’s songs to Bach to Blues, Rock and Punk and various oddities.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: soundtrack.

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Summer sunset

Last night my daughter and I went up on dinosaur hill for the sunset. What a summer thing to do!

Afterwards we walked on around the hill. We saw a very beautiful fox! This is zoomed all the way in on my phone, so the colors are not good. She watched us for a while and went on.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: summer.

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Wash, wadi, arroyo

A friend and I did a hike in Palisade this morning. It goes up, up and then there is a loop at the top. This is the fabulous view from the top, towards the west, with the Colorado River and the rest of Grand Junction.

On the loop we look for these:

Petroglyphs! And the bottom one really looks like an elk. Most looked like deer.

I also found this site, about the difference between a wash, a wadi and an arroyo. https://seethesouthwest.com/what-is-the-difference-between-an-arroyo-a-wash-and-a-wadi/

This is the canyon on our right on the way down, but I would bet that there is a wash at the base. These amazing mesas and rocks are carved by water and time.

And here is the mesa across from us to the north, from the top again.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: wash.

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Life in miniature

This is a log on the beach in May 2022. A tiny forest and other things growing, fed by the seawater. We don’t know how long the log has been tossed from sea to shore and sea again.

Maybe the tiny green things look at one celled plants and marvel at how small they are.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: lilliputian.