The Visit

"If he had asked, I would have just given him the money. No one wants to get pistol whipped and shot twice in the head." ~ Dan B.


I got off the bus, and walked in the direction I guessed the hospital was. I was expecting it to be right on the intersection where I was directed, but it wasn't. So I started off irritated. I guessed wrong which side of the street the hospital was on. More irritation.

The irritation vanished as I approached the hospital. It's not a standard hospital. It's a rehab joint. The people here aren't rushed in bleeding and broken, or diseased. These are people that are already in the process of getting better. But there was a stretcher at the door...waiting for something to go wrong, to be loaded and rush someone off to the emergency room. Suddenly, irritation was replaced with a mild sense of terror. I hate hospitals. Being around the dying.

I took a deep breath and pushed my way in. I approached the wrong side of the reception nurse's desk, and tried to smile. She was polite enough. I told her I was there to see a visitor. No, a patient. She informed me that visiting hours were not until 4pm. It was 2:30. I was told on the phone that visiting hours were 11am-8pm. Irritation was back.

So I went for a walk. 3 blocks up to Walmart. Looked around at the camping gear. Bought a bottle of Vanilla Coke to sip on the walk back. After an hour, I headed back.

Irritation had built up while I wasted my afternoon waiting. I tried to bury it as best I could when I reentered the hospital. I stopped at the restroom before going back to reception. It was my first time in a hospital restroom. It was amazing how clean it was. You could eat off this floor. It was beautiful.

Back to reception I went. I didn't bother with pleasantries. "I'm here to see a friend."

"I'm sorry. Visiting hours ended 10 minutes ago," the nurse offered, with a sly grin. Irritation was defused. "I remember you from before. Thank you for not getting mad at me." There really is something to be said for exercising some restraint. Anger would have gotten me nowhere, keeping my mouth shut earned me brownie points.

I had to sign in. I had to wear a visitor's badge. I was given a secret code to get into a secure area. Dan is in a special brain injury unit. A unit where people have injuries that impair their abilities to think, and reason, and sometimes control their own actions. In order to keep them from wandering off, they are kept locked up. I was instructed that "the patient" could not be given the code. [This message will self-destruct in 10 seconds].

I had been told by Dan's co-workers that he had called the office, asking for visitors. He was bored and lonely. After hearing that he had been shot in the head twice, this was comforting news. After suffering that kind of assault, bored and lonely are good problems to have. I was expecting the same old jovial, sarcastic Dan.

He was sitting in his wheel chair, watching TV. He turned to look as soon as I stopped in his doorway. There was no recognition in his eyes. I stepped forward, timidly, a little afraid that the empty eyes would be the most real contact I would make with this old friend, and my heart lept when he lifted and extended his hand to shake and said "Hi Mark."

The desk clerks told me what had happened. A would-be thief jumped the counter, hit Dan and knocked him down, then shot him twice in the head. And then didn't get any money. In the end, all he had to do was ask. He didn't have to ruin Dan forever.

I sat down on a chair next to him. His head rolled in my direction. His eyes rested on the visitor badge on my chest. "They did a number on me, Mark. My own dog won't even come to me. He just sits and growls at me." I thought he was going to cry. The sadness in his voice was overwhelming. It was very uncomfortable. It was hard to look at him. My eyes kept wandering to his television. There's a measure of paranoia in his manner, now. The doctors, the hospital, the company he works for...everyone is against him. Even a moment of suspicion directed at me. As his eyes remained fixed on my visitor badge, he asked "You too? You work here, too?" I got the impression that he thought everyone that had come to visit him was working for the hotel that had him locked into the brain ward and wouldn't let him out.

His left arm is completely dead. The left side of his face hangs limply. He cannot keep from drooling. His speech is no longer crisp. His doctors tell him in 3 years, he can expect seizures as a result of the bullet fragments in his brain.

After a long hour, and already late for another appointment, I painfully told Dan I had to go. I told him I would be back again, and asked if I could bring him anything. Finally, a spark of the old Dan peeked through. He forced his mouth into a smile, leaned close to me to share a secret, and said "Yeah. An escape vehicle!"

Armed and Dangerous

Hand me my adventuring hat, I'm ready to hack my way thru any jungles that would tempt the likes of Indiana Jones.

I am now the proud owner of a machete.

It's an unwieldy thing. It's very heavy at the end. Not at all balanced like the professional types I handled at the Military Surplus store. Those were real monsters. 2 foot long blades. Still, mine is a beast at a mere 18 inches in length.

In the middle of the desert, you'd think a machete wouldn't be necessary. For the most part, it isn't. There are some areas in the mountains and canyons that get heavy growth, but not so much that it's really needed.

Mainly, it's for defense. I'll be out in the middle of nowhere, all alone. It's a good deterrent against any axe murderer that should happen by. Just nicking him gently under the chin lets him know that I'm not interested in being hacked to bits, and that it's time to go find another victim - I'm not available.

It's also part of my broad-minded future planning. Acquiring equipment that will be used for a lot of different journeys. It doesn't hurt to own it now, and it makes me look oh-so-sexy with a sword strapped to my hip....I couldn't resist.

Covered in Blue Fuzz

[The camping trip, part 2]

I am two steps closer to the big journey into the wilds. I have purchased an orienteering compass, and a sleeping bag. The sleeping bag is a perfect fit for what I want to do. It's super light, and super small, which is important for a long journey, because I don't want to be bogged down with equipment.

The bag is a simple fleece sleeping bag. It's rated for 50 degrees, a bit on the high side for sleeping in the mountains of the high desert, but for me it will work. It would be no good for sleeping out under the stars, with the crickets and worms crawling on your face at night, because it has no outer shell to repell moisture. It would act as an environmental sponge, and you'd wake up a living puddle. But, since I will be sleeping in a tent, it's exactly what I need.

The bag has only one real drawback. Blue fuzz. My khakis are covered in it, just having opened the package to take a good look at my new possession. I'll have to fix this before I go into the wilds. Sierra Club members that hike by might spit at me if they see me covered in blue fuzz. That just wouldn't do.

Wisdom has gotten the best of me, and the week long experiment has been shortened to a 2 night educational trip. Had it been a jump-n-go thing, I'd be up there already, and probably dead from exposure. But since I had time to think things over, I realised that going up into the mountains for 7 days, with no way to get help, was.....well......stupid.

Every year here in the Vegas valley, some hiker or hikers die from stupid mistakes of the inexperienced, thinking they can just walk out into the wilds with little or no knowledge and conquer Mother Nature. I decided it would be more fun to return home after my trip, than to become a statistic. So, two days to gauge how much food I eat, and water I drink. Get a better understanding of how I will handle the absolute isolation, even if just on a shorter scale.

Now, I'm running over in my head the options for backpacks. I know I want a big frame pack, so when I come across other hikers, they will know I am for real. Just like my golf bag. I can't hit the ball to save my life, but I have a giant golf bag, so I look like a pro, and get the respect I deserve (or, the respect that a pro deserves, and I pretend to).

I've narrowed it down to two bags. The giant backpack. And the Uber Giant backpack. They are only $30 apart in price, and both hold just shy of everything I own in the world. The big question is how much hiking will I do in the future. For this trip, neither is really that important. I'm getting dropped off, and I will be camping near the drop point. No long distance hauling of supplies and gear needed.

The Giant pack is designed for what the manufacturer calls "moderate" trips, or long weekends. And it surely is big enough to pack a good load. But it's also not so huge that it would be ridiculous on an afternoon hike through the mountains. The Uber Giant pack is for long trips. It's great, because you can drive to your starting point, pack your jeep in the backpack, and walk till you're ready to start driving again. But for an afternoon hike, it would be a ludicrous. The frame is taller than my mother is. You can carry a sleeping bag, a tent, and enough food and water for a week (plus, of course, the jeep). It's a bit much to climb to the top of a hill, shoot a few pictures and climb back down again.

What I hate to do is buy the wrong one. The smaller one wouldn't be enough for a really good trek across the mountain range, but if I never get to that point in my outdoorsing "career", the Uber Giant bag is a total waste. I guess, I will have to do the only sensible thing.

Get both.