Angie loves nature. She loves learning about animals and doing
things like picking up mountain lion poop and breaking it up to see what
the lion was eating. Well, we were walking on a trail, trying to
catch up with Greg, Tom, and Bill. The trail leads to a wash (a
dry creek bed) up which we walked. Along the trail, we saw these
huge desert millipedes. They were about the size of a pencil, I'd
say. Angie picked up the millipede and was hamming it up for the
camera, holding the millipede like she was going to eat it, you know,
holding it over her open mouth. I'm a little slow with the camera
and I'm looking through the view finder when I see this blob of gunk
drop out of the millipede and right into Angie's open mouth. I
said, "That thing just pooped on you." The photo to the
right is taken a second later as she dropped the millipede (you can just
about make it out near the second rock from the bottom) and started
spitting out this millipede poop. I laughed a lot and she smiled
and laughed, which just shows you what a good sport she is.
Notice,
too, in the picture, she has a bottle under her left arm? This is
a desert area and it's always possible to slip and twist an ankle or
otherwise get stuck out for a while, so we always, always, carry water
with us.
To
the left here, you can see me in an inflatable kayak. These are
affectionately known as duckies. A couple things to point out -
the first is that I'm wearing a helmet. I'm not sure why this is
the case but it seems that rafters hardly ever wear helmets. I
suppose the likelihood of falling out is lower (though not completely
unlikely). Anyway, kayakers are almost always seen with helmets
on.
Another thing is the line you
can see about halfway back on the boat, under where I'm sitting.
This is a flip line. If the kayak tips over and you're lucky
enough to come up next to it, you can reach for the flip line and tip
the kayak back over and then hopefully scramble back up into it.
I'm
also wearing a wet suit. This is a neoprene suit that is not
watertight. The idea is that if you fall into the water, a thin
layer of water is trapped between the wetsuit and your skin. You
warm that layer up and you don't get hypothermia too quickly. The
downside of these is that people sometimes pee in them, releasing a bit
of warmth into the system. Also, if they aren't dried out well
each day, they get a pretty serious stink going and that transfers to
your clothing or your skin. Everyone around you will think you're
naturally stinky.
Finally,
LOOK AT MY ARMS AND SHOULDERS WOULD YOU???!
To
the right here, I'm giving a few pointers to Kary before she starts out
on her first time in the duckie. See helmets again! Kary was
a Peace Corps volunteer (one of two on the trip who had served in West
Africa, they were college friends before they went into the Peace
Corps.)
