fogburn

the first day of the camping adventure could really involve nothing more than setting up the myriad of supplies that will carry us through the week. i mean, how else will we cook and clean without setting up the folding kitchen, stove, two grills, awning and various tables to hold the million other things we brought? hours of set-up for a single week of camping seemed entirely excessive, but that’s how we do it so just i shut up and didn’t ask questions.

but the second day was even better than the first. after a lovely breakfast cooked on the camp stove amid the mosquitoes and flies and dishes lovingly washed in grungy water heated over the campfire, we sat, bundled up, in the low hanging misty fog for about an hour until we decided it was too cold (and boring) to just keep sitting there. so we set out from the state park for a walk through the nearby eucalyptus grove, down the state beach and by the bird sanctuary. by the time we returned from our nice long walk i realized that i was having trouble walking. had a pulled a muscle….walking?

over the course of the day my legs started to hurt worse and turn more and more red – red as in so red they were purple-red. and by the next morning from my knees down i looked like the elephant man and i could hardly walk at all. the hospital said i had second degree burns on my legs. second degree burns? from the cooking oil that someone throw on me in my sleep….from jumping in the campfire while sleepwalking?? no, no, from sitting in the fog for about 45 minutes. that fog can be dangerous stuff you know, all white and misty as it is. second degree burns!

i tried to treat the burns with aloe but i was camping so within minutes the burns were covered with dirt – oh the joys of camping! so i spent the first several days irritating my horribly painful second degree burns by washing the dirt off many times a day so that i could reapply aloe – a completely self-defeating process. my legs kept swelling, i couldn’t eat because i was so nauseous all the time from the pain. did i mention how much fun i was having on this camping trip?

the hospital finally said i had to keep my legs elevated to get the swelling down. no walking, no standing, just elevating the legs, antibiotic ointment on the open wounds that are draining nasty stuff down my legs. how much better can it get, really?

is there a morale to this story? all i can say is fog is obviously much more dangerous than i gave it credit for before this great week of camping.