Nurse -> WFR 2021.04.17 Latergram, Nursing I’ve been retired from nursing for 12 years now, so I’m a bit rusty with all this stuff. For some reason I thought my nursing background would help my Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course feel easy. But since the WFR works on totally different algorithms than licensed clinical medical care, it was pretty challenging. I had to set aside everything I knew and do it a different way. Of course my understanding of physiology and pathophysiology was a leg-up, but I really had to back out of my nursie head and enter a new headspace. Ultimately this course was geared toward training anyone who wanted to be helpful in the outdoors in a way they wouldn’t get sued and have to sell a kidney in the end. […] Read more
Scorpion Scare 2016.10.20 Latergram, My VW Westfalia 144 miles on my new 2.2L Wasserboxer engine – so far, so good! Stopped in the gas station in Independence on 395 and this really caught my eye. I call it immersion therapy for “scorpion-phobia.” (Arachnophobia to be precise, since scorpions are arachnids, but I’m not scared at all of spiders.) I made a tag for the “Scorpion incident:” puppys scorpion sting This 3D postcard calls this scorpion an Arizona bark scorpion but I know better. Of course I might be wrong, but of >1500 types of scorpion, I think this is a regular Arizona Desert Scorpion – the kind you HOPE you get stung by (instead of the awful, tiny Bark Scorpion) if you’re going to get stung at all. Don’t. Oh hey all you scorpios […] Read more
Latergram 2016.05.28 Hiking, Latergram Excuse my language but shit! Nobody told me I was going to be walking into fairyland this morning. I would have brought my sparkle dust! Speaking of which, did you know the kind of sparkle dust in glimmery makeup and shampoo is made of scorpion shit? And our DNA is made up of the same stuff as scorpion shit – and sparkle dust? Magic (guanine). Read more
Stung by a Bark Scorpion 2016.05.27 Hayduke, Latergram Nobody told me Instagram upped its video length limit from 15 to 60 seconds! So here you have almost my entire reality TV diary-style scorpion video from a week ago. Before I was stung that night I was only worried about flash floods coming down the Kanab Creek (a real danger, and what I’m alluding to in the video except I was in Arizona not Utah) but now all I’m scared of are flash floods of scorpions! I also I think it’s funny how I was still really wanting to hike those twenty miles even though I couldn’t walk and wasn’t sure if I was a goner or not. Thruhiker priorities are funny/stupid! And sun glove finger tans are funny/stupid. And I did walk 20 miles that […] Read more
Bark Scorpion Attack 2016.05.21 Hayduke, Latergram Further down the rabbit hole: Thursday night I accidentally slept with an Arizona Bark Scorpion, the most venomous scorpion in North America. I was alone in the dark in Kanab Creek, deep in the Grand Canyon without a satellite phone or rescue beacon, so what transpired was… “neat.” I cowboy camped at Showerbath Spring, too close to the spring. Dumb, dumb, dumb. When I rolled over in my sleep at 9:40pm, I was jolted awake by the most awful thorny sensation It felt like I’d been whipped with highly electrified and very sharp barbed wire. JAB JAB! I frantically pulled off my shirt, and suddenly there it was on the ground next to my left hip. It was a little wheat-colored slip of a thing, just like […] Read more
Free warm beer! Hayduke, Latergram As if to say, “I’m sorry, but, I’m not sorry,” the universe provided me with both these finds, within a few yards of one another on my road walk, about 12 hours after my scorpion stings. Don’t care much what kind of snake or beer it was, I loved ’em both. I made the snake pose with the beer I was so excited. FREE warm BEER! In the middle of the road! In a canyon in the middle of nowhere! Where there’s no water! That’s so cool. Read more