On Drowning and Muddling

I’m innocently reading my Harper’s magazine the other day and I come across this little excerpt from an article about a couple who search for drowning victims.

“Drowning, it turns out, is not difficult. Once someone falls overboard, especially if the water is cold, he gasps for air, the way one gasps when a shower runs suddenly cold. He inhales water, then coughs and inhales more water. From Dr. Jeff Kalina, at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, I know that one inhaled breath is sufficient to cause drowning. The integrity of the small pockets in the lungs through which oxygen is absorbed depends on a coating called surfactant. When water dissolves the surfactant, the pockets collapse, and oxygen can no longer be absorbed.
Drowning can also be initiated by a response called laryngospasm. When the larynx detects water entering the lungs, it closes, leaving a swimmer unable to breathe. Two tablespoons of water could stimulate laryngospasm.”

ACK! Two tablespoons! I’m pretty sure there’s more water than that in Jordanelle Reservoir. I promise you, I do not search out this information but apparently it’s still finding its way into my consciousness.

On a related note, my training has been going really well the last month. I’ve actually made the time to train six days a week and feel like I’m slowly getting stronger, especially in the pool. And then WHAM, I got sick last week: Intestinal distress and a fever and chills and all. Was this because I’ve been training too much? Because my diet hasn’t been absolutely sugar and junk free? I can’t begin to tell you how frustrated I am right now. So last week I only got in two workouts and this week so far at least I got onto the bike and into the pool. But I feel really tired and my arms and legs fell like lead. At least I've learned my lesson (knock on wood) about my diet. Help me, internet world! How can I be ready for this race and not kill myself in the process?

Nice Mane, Dude

Last Saturday we attended the Venture Outdoors Festival in Canyon Rim Park. Among the vendor booths, live music, and kiddie games, there were some people demonstrating how to ride a mountain board down a grassy hill and over a pink wooden ramp. Ava was enchanted and stopped to watch for several minutes. As we were sitting there, she pointed to a guy standing near us with a hairdo similar to this....

....and exclaimed "Horsey!" I could definitely identify with that viewpoint. I laughed and wished that he had heard her creative interpretation of his carefully constructed social statement. Then the next morning as we were playing with her barn, Ava's reality suddenly struck home with me. She was more right than I imagined.....

NOW it feels like Summer

A Glimpse of the Desert

After a camping trip with friends was cancelled last week, we decided we’d still take a trip of our own. Jon took Friday through Tuesday off of work and we headed out the door with the car packed by noon on Saturday. We drove down through Torrey and Capitol Reef NP and found a dispersed camping site all to ourselves a couple of miles east of the Park border. From the moment we stepped out of the car, Ava was running her hands through the sand; I just knew bringing a bucket and shovel was a good idea.















We absolutely love the Fruita campground but thought that we needed to have some space far from others just in case Ava put up a stink around bedtime. Whoever coined the term “parental instinct” absolutely gets it. Boy, that girl sure did wail. I did finally coax her to relax and go to sleep but she woke again in the middle of the night and for several hours we catered to her every whim- giving her light sticks, snacks, drinks, and a bed to lie between us. Finally she passed out again but only on Jon’s shoulder and the rest of the night was rough for him.

The next morning, Ava and I got up for breakfast (not such a happy camper for that as you can see) and then drove back into the Park to let Daddy sleep for a bit. We took a walk to see some petroglyphs but mostly ended up checking out the plethora of tent caterpillars that fall like rain out of the trees this time of year. A caterpillar fell onto the front of her shirt and she let out the funniest squeal of both delight and disgust and did a little wiggly dance until I got it off.

Later that day we took a miniature hike with Ava in the pack but she didn’t want to have much to do with that, either. So we headed back and of course she fell asleep right as we approached the car. Not about to disturb her, we let her sleep in the pack in the front seat of the car.

We actually had a great time the rest of the day, letting Ava play in the water and mud in the river, having homemade pie at the Pioneer House, and stopping for a burger and ice on the way back to camp.








However, when it was time for bed, Ava wasn’t about to have any of that nonsense again. She wouldn’t even go near the tent without a fight, let alone get into her crib. We both tried laying with her and anything else we could think of but since she was near hysterics and we’d just have to pack up in the morning after another sleepless night, we cried uncle. This wasn’t the first time we’ve driven home from camping in the middle of the night- at least this time it was still light while we broke camp. We made it home at 2 a.m., slept late that morning and had the rest of a fun vacation at home. We spent a great day at the park flying a kite, eating lunch, and fooling around. Looks like our family camping days will be more of a challenge than we feared, but call us crazy, we haven’t given up yet.