In the Evening News…
Down in the Landfill Dungeon (somewhere), there is a photo of me and my buddy Bill (a high school/facebook friend, not the GG). We were in the Sault Evening News for getting scholarships to go to the Interlochen All-State summer music camp. More about that some other time. The point is that my husband, who grew up in the Megalopolis suburb of Royal Joke and maybe have visited the yooperland once or twice before he ran into yer fav-o-rite blahgger, has been featured in this Sault Evening News article.
He is actually a bit embarrassed about this. He took a rather intense two-day wilderness first aid class at the Ann Arbor REI last fall. He learned a lot but does *not* feel like an expert at any of this stuff by any stretch of the imagination. His presentation was more along the lines of “this is what I learned in the class” than “I am a wilderness first aid expert and know *everything*”. I suspect he feels competent at some of the more mundane problems (like blisters, for example), not life-threatening situations.
So, blisters. He has moleskin in his trail medical kit but that didn’t do him any good tonight because who would think to bring a trail medical kit to downtown Planet Ann Arbor? We took our usual Friday walk down to the Oscar Tango for dinner and, alas, a blister was forming on his foot. As we began our walk home, he mentioned something about taking a taxi. Lo and behold there was a taxi just sitting around on Washington outside the Mongolian BBQ. Was she available for a fare? Yes, she was. And so we taxied home. Wouldn’t you know, our taxi driver canoe-camps all over Michigan (and knows about moleskin) and is enrolled at WCC with a mind to changing careers (been there, done that, albeit in the usual random KW fashion). Really, the GG and I would rather have walked but… And as she dropped us off, I couldn’t help but think about the times our next door neighbors the Drs. Burke would get schnockered in their back yard (on Burke’s Erection) and then take a taxi downtown (or wherever) to eat and (probably) drink more (and sometimes we would be “treated” to a midnight vision of Mr. Dr. Burke on his deck in his birthday suit, not a particularly pretty sight but certainly entertaining).
January 4th, 2013 at 10:20 pm
Well, blisters I do know something about from personal experience. I much prefer “second skin” burn dressing to moleskin. . . much more effective when you enhance it with multiple layers of tape. Don’t forget the vaseline on top of the tape to reduce friction between sock and tape. There is always compeed dressings (at least in Europe) to layer over well formed blisters when you don’t intend to quit walking, you can leave them in place for days. Only when I walked the Camino did I learn about the little “toe donut” option to address blisters between toes. So there is much more than you ever wanted to know. I do still carry moleskin in my first aid kit, but I really can’t explain why because I always reach for the second skin, tape and vaseline. My moleskin is probably 25 years old!
January 4th, 2013 at 10:39 pm
And most importantly, stop and take care of it when you first feel them forming – even if that means getting into a cab.
January 5th, 2013 at 12:37 am
Blisters hurt like crazy!! Awesome that you have a celebrity in the family. 😉
January 7th, 2013 at 12:42 pm
On a tangentially related note, back when I was rock climbing I tore one of my fingers open at the joint and has a pretty serious ‘flap’ of skin hanging there. of course I wasn’t done climbing, so put duct tape on it. then was pretty much terrified to take the duct tape off, so left it on for a week or so. by then my hands had been washed, showered, etc, enough times that I thought I could get the tape off without tearing the flap off. success!