Thursday, July 16, 2015
I got up at 6:30 to a cloudy day. It started to rain lightly
by the time Jane got up at 8:30. I made blueberry pancakes while Jane cut up a
peach. We ate the last 5 slices of our pound and a half of thick-sliced bacon.
The intensity of the rain progressed to a downpour when we finished eating.
“I’m glad we’re not canoeing today,” Jane said as she
finished her last cup of coffee.
Our plan was to pack a lunch and drive the Greenwood Lake
loop, which we do every year. I made steak sandwiches out of our leftovers and
put them in a cooler along with our water bottles, yogurt, trail mix, and the
last of the carrots. I had my doubts about an outdoor picnic at McFarland Lake.
We would see. We had to do the loop in reverse this year because we needed to
get gas in Grand Marais before driving anywhere else.
We drove out of the rain and into a nice day soon after
leaving the Hungry Jack area. After filling the gas tank, checking our messages,
and making phone calls while we had reception, we headed up the lake shore to
Hovland.
We turned on the Arrowhead Highway. We saw things that we
had never noticed when we drove the other way, such as a sign that informed us
that the white and red pine we were seeing were 185 years old. Jane and I
talked through the math and arrived at a planting date of 1830, which I guessed
was after the first time the area was logged. An open question is when the sign
was put up.
We had a nice picnic at McFarland Lake. The sky was blue.
The breeze off the lake was sufficient to keep the flies and mosquitoes at bay.
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| Picnic area at McFarland Lake |
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| View from the picnic area |
We saw grouse at three different places along the road that
runs north of Greenwood Lake. The last one had five little babies with her. I
wanted to get a video of the babies but they were way to fast.
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| Crappy photo of grouse and babies taken through the windshield |
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| Grouse with fluffed up neck feathers and spread tail |
At the intersection of Greenwood Road and Gunflint Trail, I
said, “It’s 2:15. Do you want to go to Sydney’s?”
Jane gave me a big smile. “Do you?”
“We didn’t have any custard yesterday,” I pointed out.
“And from here it is only a 32-mile round trip instead of
60.”
We stopped at IGA to get a box of baking soda to get the tea
stains out of the cabin mugs. I thought it would be easy in and out. Well. IGA
does NOT keep the baking soda with the sugar and flour. It keeps the baking
soda with the raisins and other dried fruit. Go figure.
Meanwhile, Jane had noticed in the reflection of the car in
IGA’s windows that one of the headlights was out. We checked all the other
lights and the blinkers, which did not go well because Jane failed to tell me
what she was turning on and off, and I didn’t know what to look for. In the
end, it was only the one headlight that was not working.
The next step was to look up how to replace a headlight bulb
in the manual. It did not seem obvious to me. We proceeded to the new Grand
Marais Welcome Center next to the Dairy Queen. Jane asked the lady at the desk
about mechanics. There were two, she said, and they were across the road from
each other down by the IGA.
We had spotted them before, so the new information was that
there were no others. Jane picked the one that was next to the Napa auto parts
store so the mechanic could just run next door if he didn’t have the bulb on
hand.
I waited outside while Jane went
in. In a few minutes, a mechanic came out, popped the hood, removed the bulb,
and walked over to the Napa store. A few minutes later, it was all done. $12
for the part, $8 for the labor. Jane handed over a $20, and we both felt
better.
We went to Sydney’s, which was
hopping. I put in my usual order of two single chocolate cake cones.
Jane and I sat on our bench by
the shore and ate our cones. A family of ducks swam by. The babies were so big
it was hard to tell them from the adults.
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| Our traditional custard-eating location |
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| Duck and and ducklings |
I made G&Ts for happy hour.
There was a little bit of tonic left in the bottle. We sipped off the top of
our drinks while sitting on the deck enjoying the beautiful afternoon. I
emptied the bottle into our glasses and took it to the recycling can around the
side of the cabin. On my way back, I didn’t lift my foot quite high enough to
get it on top of the deck. Before I even had time to form the thought, “I’m
falling,” I had my face in the big rock at the end of the deck railing.
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| The scene of the accident. Step I missed to the left, rock I landed on to the right |
I will never be able to piece
together exactly what happened. My glasses, which were more of an immediate
concern to me than my head, were folded neatly on the deck as if I had taken
them off and put them there. I had a shallow cut and a lump the size of a
walnut at my hairline. There were two scrapes in the middle of my forehead
above my right eye, one below my eyebrow, one at the bridge of my nose, and one
on my cheekbone. I had a sense that the rock had neatly fit into my eye socket
in such a way that it caused damage all around while leaving the eye alone.
There were two scrapes on my right knee where the denim had taken off the skin.
Why two? Why not one continuous one? I had a cramp in my neck and another in my
left hip.
We poured out the G&Ts, mine
because I saw Tylenol in my future and Jane’s because she saw driving in hers.
And we debated. Go to ER? Not go
to ER? The only injuries that were really giving me pain were the crick in my
neck and the scrape on my cheekbone. I was pretty sure I was fine. I didn’t
want to have a lot of expensive and ultimately unnecessary tests to determine
that I was fine. Jane, on the other hand, was afraid I was going to die of a
brain bleed like some actress I’d never heard of who was in a skiing accident.
In the end, we decided it would be best to go. I got one of the half-thawed ice
packs out of the cooler we’d had for our picnic and wrapped it in my hand
towel. It was perfect. The thawed gel around the outside fit the contours of my
face while the frozen core kept the pack cold.
I believe in ice now. I kept that
ice pack on my face for the 45-minute drive to Grand Marais and never had any
pain in the cheek afterward. It was amazing.
The emergency room seemed to be
staffed by one nurse. She was very nice. I explained that I had done a
face-plant on a rock and handed her my driver’s license and insurance card. She
gave me a clipboard with a form to fill out. I returned to the bench in the
hallway and started writing my name, address, next of kin, and so forth.
When I returned with my filled
out and signed documents, the nurse whisked me off to an exam room down the
hall because the emergency room was full. She brought me a small ice pack
wrapped in a full-size pillow case for my head and began asking about the
extent of my injuries. I had to hike up my pant leg so she could see my skinned
knee. By this time, a paramedic had also shown up. She asked him to get ice for
my knee. He left and returned with a washcloth and a zip-top bag with about ½
cup of ice chips in it. Thanks, buddy. Y’all got an ice shortage here? I didn’t
say anything. The knee did not concern me. There was no brain behind my knee.
“Any neck pain?” the nurse asked.
“Yeah, I got a stiff muscle
here,” I replied, pointing at the side of my neck.
“I’ll get a brace.”
I am not a real doctor, but I was
pretty sure my neck was not broken. Still, procedures are procedures, and I
knew the nurse was working through a checklist. If neck pain, then neck brace.
Neck braces are not comfortable.
I felt like I was choking. She adjusted it again, explaining that it was the
pediatric brace, and it just wouldn’t go any smaller. She left the room to
check on the other patients back in ER while I waited for the doctor.
There I am, sitting on an exam
table with a sandwich bag on my knee, a pillowcase on my head, and a neck
brace. Jane, in a touching show of sympathy, got out her cell phone to take a
picture. We laughed and laughed.
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| Me in the emergency room |
The nurse came back and started
going through my medications. The doctor came in toward the end. She was a
solidly built woman who radiated quiet confidence. She started poking and
prodding. I answered her questions, giving a detailed description of what happened
(which didn’t take long); that I had not lost consciousness, no headache,
dizziness, or nausea; where I had pain; etc., etc.
After she looked in my eyes and
ears, a bed was open in the main ER. The doctor and I walked down there
together so I could lie flat for the neck exam. She took off the brace and held
my head gently in her hands, moving it this way and that, asking if it hurt. I
told her the only pain I had was exactly the same as when I slept wrong.
“You seem to be fine,” she
concluded. “It’s not that people with broken necks can’t walk into ER, but you
don’t seem to have the kind of pain they do. I don’t see any reason to expose
you to radiation.”
“That’s the right answer,” I
assured her.
“I don’t see any sign of bleeding
or concussion. And you seem exceptionally with it.”
“I thought I was probably okay. I
wondered if I should come in at all.”
“No,” she said firmly, “you were
smart. You were also very lucky. If you start to feel funky in any way tonight,
come right back in.
Dr. Emery told Jane to wake me up
every couple of hours to be sure I knew who she was and gave me pages and pages
of discharge instructions downloaded from the Internet—closed head injury,
contusion, and wound care for abrasions and punctures. And we were free to go.
The whole thing was over in an hour and a half. Not bad for an emergency room
visit.
The ice pack in the car still had
a frozen core. I put it back on my face for the drive home. It wasn’t quite
dark yet. On our way down Hungry Jack Rd., a black animal somewhat larger than a
standard poodle but with a more rounded back ran in front of the car. I said
the first thing that popped into my head, “Dog.”
Jane, remembering where we were,
said, “I don’t think so.”
“Ah. Bear. The hips were too
low.”
“And dogs don’t run that way.”
The bear put both front feet
forward and then brought up both back feet. Dogs move the front right with the
back left and vice versa. From the size, we figured it was an adolescent cub.
After a quick supper of leftover
brats, I took my Tylenol and went to bed. It was a restless night with
migrating muscle aches and neck pain.
Because I am always up during the
night more than Jane is, we had agreed that I would wake her up to tell her I
was fine rather than the other way around. I got up twice to go to the
bathroom. Each time, I stuck my head into Jane’s room and said, “Hey, it’s Bev.
You’re Jane. I’m okay.”
And Jane groggily replied,
“Uh-huh. I’uz just gettin’ up tacheck.”
Friday, July 17
Morning did come eventually. We
had scones for breakfast. I was supposed to take it easy. It was too windy to
take the boat out, even if I had been up to rowing. It was a nice day to sit on
the deck. The wind kept the bugs away.
So that’s what we did. Jane and I
drank our coffee and tea, respectively. We took pictures of our favorite cabin
scenes, such as the stairs down to the lake with a moss covered log floating in
the water in the background. We watched the birds.
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| Stairs to the lake |
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| Close up of the moss-covered log |
While I was napping after lunch,
Jane sat on the deck and watched two of the largest rabbits she had ever seen
wander back and forth across the road. “They had really long back feet,” she
reported. I guessed it was a snowshoe hare. I walked up and down the road to
see if it was still around. No such luck. She had also seen a hummingbird. I
miss all the fun.
We went to the office to settle
our bill. Nancy confirmed that they had a bumper crop of snowshoe hares this
year, including a pair that had been hanging around their property. “If you want
to see them, just drive around at night. They are everywhere.”
We took showers and put on clean
clothes to go to the Red Paddle Bistro for our customary last night meal of Bistro
burgers. We arrived well ahead of the dinner rush at the restaurant. Jane had
fries with her burger. I had the creamy mushroom soup of the day, which was
very good. It had not only mushroom slices, but tiny bits of mushrooms chopped
in a food processor. I must remember that. It was very mushroomy.
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| View from our table at the Red Paddle Bistro |
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| My Bistro burger and mushroom soup |
We were back at the cabin by
6:30. We set aside our clothes for the following day and packed everything
else. We got everything that could go in the car in the car. We put all the
dishes away, threw away all the food we weren’t taking back with us, and made
sure we had enough freezer packs for the coolers and my head for the way home.
For the first time in a week, I
set the alarm on my cell phone before I went to bed.
Saturday, July 18
I woke up a few minutes before
the alarm was supposed to go off at 5:30, which was a good thing because I had
only set the alarm; I hadn’t saved it. If I used that alarm more often, I might
remember that it was a two-step process. A look in the mirror told me that the
blood from the bump was on the move and that I would have two black eyes, not
one.
I took a shower to wake myself up
and got Jane out of bed. While she showered, I emptied the contents of the
refrigerator into a cooler and put the cooler in the car. We had so much room
this year! We must be getting better at streamlining our pack lists.
We stopped for breakfast at the
Cascade Restaurant by Cascade State Park. I sat with my right side toward the
wall because that black eye was worse than the left one. We both had the
breakfast special, two eggs, American fries, and a 3-ounce slice of ham, The ham was very good, and the
eggs were perfectly cooked.
And we drove. Every time I looked
in the vanity mirror behind the visor, my black eyes had gotten worse. It was
amazing how fast the blood was spreading.
“I suppose,” Jane said, “that if we are
getting pie in Osseo, we can’t get ice cream in Chippewa Falls?”
“They are quite close together,”
I observed.
“We could get the pie to go,”
Jane suggested. I agreed to the plan. Last day of vacation. What the heck.
The Norske Nook was our last
planned stop. I called Terry to tell him we would be home between 7:00 and
8:00.
“Walworth County is under a
tornado warning until 5:00,” he said. “We just had a hell of a downpour here.
You’d better call me back in a little while to see what’s going on.”
I didn’t have a chance, though,
because Terry called me back in an hour to tell me the front had moved though
and was gone. They had gotten 2” of rain in 30 minutes. A tornado had touched
down in Harvard just northeast of our house.
And we drove through sunshine all
the way home, eating nothing but desserts all afternoon.
Here's how I looked by Sunday morning:
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