Field
Notes - Dispatch 16 – Moab, Utah – slick-rock bike area –
Rommel's Desert Sand Camp
Saturday,
October 11, 2014
Hello
Fellow Adventurers!
The
first rule of a safari is don't poison yourself. Well, really, that
is the second rule. The first rule is no drunken shenanigans with
firearms as my pal Stubs can attest. Let me give you an the poison
rule.
We
have been hiking or biking everyday for coming up on two weeks. I am
exhausted but MR, like the Energizer Bunny, just keeps on going.
Yesterday she guides us into the Fisher Towers formation to see the
Titan, a 900 foot tall sandstone spire, the largest in the world.
But that is a death march saga for another dispatch.
Finally
we survived that hike and made it back to town where MR wants to
immediately go to the visitors center to see her Nat. Park back
country buddies and plan another adventure excursion for the
following day. God help me. So while she is busy doing that I wander
across the street to a hippie juice bar to find something refreshing.
I discover the strawberry banana – organic pear smoothie and order
the large 32 oz size because I deserve it. The hippie girl taking
my money raises an eyebrow but I just figure she thinks I'm cute and
I flash my wedding band so she knows I have already been scooped up
and she is out of luck. Surprisingly she did not seem particularly
disappointed.
So
I am reading the newspaper and about thirty minutes later MR bounces
in and is all bubbly about the trip she has outlined for the
following day; a trip almost guaranteed to cripple me. She then asks
what I had to drink and I tell her. She look at the menu board and
says, “You idiot, that says organic PURGE, not PEAR!” At at that
very moment my innards started gurgling like a set of old steam
pipes.
I
will spare you the unpleasant details but over the next six hours I
pretty much evacuated everything from my brain stem down. I did not
know what a hippie health cleansing was but I sure do now. Turns out
32 ounces is about enough to do an African rhinoceros and is usually
administered only under a vet's careful supervision. Damn hippies
anyway!
Well,
I am better day and feel refreshed in so many ways. We are off for
another adventure and will return home in the next few days if I am
lucky.
Over
and out for now.
Your
rejuvenated pal,
Old
Trout
