Stupid Things That I Do.......

Yesterday found us traveling about an hour and a half away to a place called, "Sitting Bull Falls." It is a beautiful place smack dab in the middle of the most desolate country I think I have ever seen. You drive and drive and then suddenly there you are, an oasis in the middle of the desert.

One of the stupid things that I did was forget my camera. Ranchgirl took hers and she will have pictures I am sure over at her blog. It is so pretty there. An underground river surfaces and you have these pools of water that run year round. They run off the top of bluffs down into a canyon. It is cool and green and there are even ferns growing out of the rocks. It is not very far from Carlsbad Caverns. They think it is all connected somehow and find new caverns every so often. Kind of interesting.

Anyway we went up there with some friends of ours who took a group of kids for the day. We had Church,ate lots of food and let the kids play in the water.

The water...that is where I did the next stupid thing. I took off my shoes and decided to explore a little. Should have never taken off the shoes. I should have just worn wet shoes. As I was tippy toeing back to where Pappy and J. and Tadpole were sitting, I was thinking "these rocks are really mossy and slick, I better pay attention." As soon as that thought was thunk...I did it. I slipped, crashed and burned in the water and in front of various tourist people. During the crashing and burning I felt something popping and hurting in my ankle. DH jumped in the water coming to my rescue and helped me get my wet besoddened self up to the dry rock, asking me if I was OK. At first I was more embarrassed then anything...everyone was looking at me. I hate to be looked at. I really hate to be the center of attention. I just nodded and tried to be stoic. At that point I just wanted people to not look at me.

Then I realized I was really hurting. Really. Dh and J. helped me get up and I decided that I would just sit on a rock and soak my foot in the cold water. Maybe that would help. DH and J. then declared that they wanted to walk up the trail to the top of the canyon. "Yes just go and have fun. Ranchgirl, Tadpole and I would just stay and hold down the rock." They wandered off. Tadpole played in the water, Ranchgirl took pictures and I sat there wondering how I was gona get out of there. By this time I was not convinced that I had not broken something, and I was pondering my escape from this hole in the ground that had very slick treacherous rocks that were out to get poor grandmothers just trying to have fun.

As embarrassed as I was to have fallen I could not imagine the embarrassment of having DH and poor J. carrying me out. Oh woe is me! Finally I decided that I was going to try to get out. It is about a 5 minute walk up and out of the canyon...fortunately the forest service has made the biggest part 'handicapped accessible' with a good cement path. Thank goodness. And I had an independent Tadpole who wants to walk everywhere and it does take him a while to get somewhere I thought we would be a good team.

After standing up I discovered I could put weight on the blasted thing..so I am thinking no broken bones. But oh my it was just a tad sore. So here we go over more rocks, slick wet rocks. I had on my shoes this time, I decided wet shoes were a small price to pay for stability. We make it to the path, hobble up the stairs and finally have clear sailing up the cement pathway. Me hobbling, Tadpole waddling. Halfway out of the canyon we met DH and J. coming back from their hiking adventure. DH offers to carry me. I give him a steely glare. I will hobble out on my own, thank you very much.

After getting back to the picnic site and consoling myself with caramel corn..which made a sore spot on the roof of my mouth, dratted stuff. We commenced home.

By now I am swelling and getting stiffer and stiffer. We get home, I do some epsom salts soaking. My daddy thought nothing could not be cured without using epsom salts. He soaked everything from people parts to horse parts in epsom salts. Funny how you learn stuff as kids and it carries into adulthood. I always have several bags of the stuff on hand. Every time my DH has a horse go lame I tell him "soak his foot in epsom salts." He always has to remind me that his horses are not on the same scale of gentleness as my Daddy's horses were and he really does not think that horses that you have to shoot with Ace to shoe will stand with a foot in a bucket. See what I get for trying to help out?

Daddy was a big fan of Listerine as well. The old kind. When we got a cut or a scrap he always said "just pour some Listerine on it." Guess it worked we never ended up in the hospital.

Anyway......Bedtime came. I live upstairs. Have I ever mentioned that? Very steep stairs, with no handrail. Oh my. Flat ground is good. I can hobble right along. Stairs. Stairs pose a problem. I go up with my good leg and kind of drag the other behind. I guess it must be a funny sight, as I could hear people chuckling under their breaths. I didn't appreciate their chuckling. So I gave them all steely glares.

So after DH wrapped my foot and I determined that no I did not have an Tylenol #3 lurking in the darkness of the medicine cabinet. We slept. He slept, like a baby I might add. Glad somebody slept.

This morning finds me......sore, stiff and swollen and slightly grumpy. Which leads me to the moral of this long rambling and pretty much uninteresting story, which I have written because I am bored. Yes I said it, I am bored. I hobble here and there and do a few things and then I sit with my foot up because DH tells me to....Oh yes the moral...now what was it? Well I don't remember what the moral was. Maybe there isn't one. A story with no moral....but maybe a warning....be careful of slick moss covered rocks.

God Bless and Happy Trails
RanchWife