Step... slip... snap...
I stepped on a root while walking down a hill, and rolled my ankle. Those of you who know me from volleyball, yeah, THAT ankle. Luckily, the area I stumbled onto was flat and dry and had a stream running next to it. I dropped my stuff off and sat on the stream bank, soaking my foot in the cool water for a while. Before the sun went down, I dried off and set up my tent. My first aid kit had an elastic bandage and several doses of Motrin, so I wrapped my ankle as best as i could, popped a few painkillers, and tried to sleep. But sleep doesn't come easy when you're five miles deep in the wilderness, alone, poorly armed, and disabled, not to mention when you're afraid that you won't even be able to make it back on your own. (and you might have to end your road trip prematurely in failure.)
Morning eventually came, and I carefully walked around a bit testing the ankle. I could walk on it, so that was a good sign. I still thought it would take me five hours to make it back to my car, but after I packed up and hit the trail, the ankle started feeling a lot better! I made it back much quicker than I expected. It's still bad, but not nearly as bad as I feared.
I had given up on the idea of doing a cave tour, but once I made it back to the visitor's center, I decided to take the shortest one. Still, I was completely awed. The vast underground world is something you have to see to believe. Pics are dark, naturally, and don't do the experience justice.I left Mammoth Cave wanting to go back.
6 comments:
oh crap! so you'll still be in retirement when you come back!
hey - can you do use non-traveling people...who WORK....a favor....can you include where the smack you are...where the heck is Mammoth Cave?!? And this crazy creation place...which me as a theology phd candidate should know about?!
Sorry to hear about ankle. Hope it's not too bad.
For those of you who, um, work, I try to hotlink the sites I've been to as I blog 'em, so you should be able to click them and get a good idea of where they are. Of course, I may forget to do that on occasion...
For the record, Mammoth Cave is in southwestern KY, and the Creation Museum is in northern KY just south of Cincinnati OH.
I wonder if there is an easy way to sort of post your travels on google maps/google earth or something. It'd be pretty cool to track you like that - you could even mark the geocaches you find.
Of course, nobody has time to set that up right now, otherwise I'd ask for the coordinates of each stop.
Seems like a photo of your purple ankle to record the quasi-beginning of your trek across the country into the back woods of America would be a good pair to the beginning of volleyball arm photo...
I turned the national parks on in google earth, it helped to locate where you were - I didn't think you would be going to Voyageurs - since it is nearly in Canada - so WoW - don't guess you are going to Isle Royale, unless you made the subaru amphibious, but that would be cool!
The ankle is a lot better! I was pretty worried given its recent propensity to snap. It still hurts, but it's not going to stop me from doing anything. I also got some new boots for better support.
I thought after the fact that I should have taken a picture of my foot soaking in the stream, but that wasn't near to being the first thing on my mind at the time! Damn.
Tom, are you volunteering to put something like that together? :) I'd happily send you all my GPS coordinates.
Post a Comment