Adventures in geocaching!

lets see, where to start? we ( me, cynicalifornia, ccwrestlechick, and another one of our first time friends) started the night at our east side caching headquarters. after grouping up we headed off into the night. as we got close to the coordinates we found ourselves on top of a bridge, when all of a sudden the gps said 40 ft to the south (once again, our habit of not reading the info on the cash, or the previous logs came into play) so we continued over the bridge and went into the neighborhood. under the bridge we crossed earlier there was some railroad tracks, so of course we thought the cache was under the bridge possibly by the tracks. we pulled off into the dirt, and noticed several bars from the fence by the tracks were missing. so of course we went in. we searched all over under the tracks, and i decided to climb to the top and check on top of the bridge to look, while the others where still down below. im not on the roadside by the bridge for not more than 3 min when all of a sudden a squad car pulls up and blocks of the road, then another one pulls up and blocks the other side, and then another. the first cop gets out of his car, and asks me where im goin, i look at all the squad cars and officers, and say "im not goin anywhere". he then tells me to put my hands up where he can see them. as soon as i do, all the cops rush over to me, grab my arms, put them behind my back, and continue to put me in handcuffs. he then asks me if i have anything illegal, as he begins to search my pockets and pat me down. i tell him i have a pocket knife in my right pocket. after that he starts to ask me what is in each of my many pockets before he goes through them. got a weird look when i told him one of my pockets had a camera and oreos. after he goes through all my pockets, he askes me who is down below, so i tell him its my buddies, and they are actually on there way up here, he then says no they arnt, as a squad car pulls up beside them. he then asks me what i am doin out here, and in my most serious voice i tell them that i am geocaching, which of course they have never heard of. i am met with blank stares, so i tell him it is like treasure hunting with gps. now they give me a funny look as if to say , what is a grown man doin treasure hunting in the middle of the night. then they ask me what im looking for, and i look like a bigger fool, when i say i dont know what im looking for. i then try to explain that it could be any number of things. all of a sudden i hear over the radio, "yeah it looks like these guys are doin some sort of treasure hunting thing". after that (its been about 15 min) they take the handcuffs off and let me go. apparently someone called the cops cause they thought we were taggers. one of them sticks around for a couple min. helping me look in the bushes cause he is curious to see what i am trying to find. after a few min of no success he takes off to. after a min or to i am reunited with the rest of the group. we search all over, up down and on both sides, eventuallyl cynicalifornia goes back to his vehicle and gets online to read more about the cache. after that it is an easy find. we log and then continue on with the rest of the nights adventures!

"right turn clyde..."

One friday morning in july, (might have been the 7^th) in 2007 or so I get up early, with my house mate chris and we head off on an early morning training ride before work. For several years, some friends and I have made it a goal to try and ride (on bicycles/road bikes) from my parents house in palmdale, to ventura beach on labor day. Its about a hundred mile ride give or take, depending on what roads we use. In anticipation of this ride, chris and I had been getting up early in the mornings and riding about 20 miles or so everyday to make sure we were in shape. On this particular day, we were on the home stetch, only a couple miles away from the house. We were riding pretty close together, to utilize the draft. I was right behind chris, my front tire over lapping his rear tire about half an inch just to the right side. We came up to an intersection, and I thought we were going to go straight, instead chris made a right turn. Because I was not expecting the turn, our tires rubbed and as I tried to jump off my bike to avoid injury, I couldnt get my feet unclipped from the pedals. I ended up going over the handle bars, and of course the first thing I did was to put my arms out to break the fall. When I finally stopped rolling and got seperated from my bike I began to feel the pain in my left arm. As I look down at my arm I notice that it is slightly bent in an unatural way. While chris is helping me up and making sure I am ok, a guy (the grout dr...he gave me his business card) pulls up to the intersection and checks to see if we are alright. When he sees what has happened, he offers to help us out. He throws my bike in the back seat of his car and gives me a ride to the house while chris rides his bike back. When I get to the house, I thank the guy for the ride. I put my bike away and change clothes as quickly as I can. When chris gets back, he does the same, then gives me a ride to the urgent care ( garrison family medical group). After I fill out the paper work, we take a seat and begin the wait. To pass the time I start examining my arm a little closer. I lean over and put my fist down on the carpet, and then try and bend my arm. It bends, but not at the wrist where it should, instead it bends near the forearm. I immediately decide I need pictures of this awesomeness. I pull out my phone and start taking pictures, about this time I notice the rest of the folks are watching me with horror in their eyes. As I put my phone away they call my name. Shortest wait ever! I head to the back, im sure to the relief of the folks still waiting. They sit me down in one of those small rooms and then dissapear for a while as usual, except this time I got to keep my clothes on! When the nurse, or assistant, or whatever the person who is not the doctor is called comes in to take a look, I explain what happened and immediately tell them ( just like I told the lady at the front) that I dont have insurance and will be paying in cash. (meaning dont do anything more than you need to!) the lady immediately says I will need to get x rays. So they take me into the little x ray room. Since I have been moving my arm around, and it has not been more than an hour or so since the crash I can still move my arm fairly easily to the positions they need for the x rays. I am then taken back to my little room. After a little while the doctor lady comes in. she is holding the x rays up to the light as she asks me what happened. After I recount my tale, she looks as my and smiles as she says “your not the brightest, but at least your kinda cute”. She then tells me I will most likely have to have my arm set. They dont do it here, so I will have to go to some other place. As she is telling me the name of the place, her assistant comes up and tells her I dont have insurance. The Doctor lady, pauses and then says “nevermind, the only people we send there are the ones with insurance, and the ones that are independantly wealthy”. She then gives me the name of a county hospital that I need to go to that is on the way to L.A., its called olive veiw. They put my arm in a sling, I pay my bill, which seems really low especially for having x rays taken, they hand me the x rays and send me on my way. We head back to the house, and then chris heads off to work, while I start looking for another ride. I call kim (she was the relief society pres of the singles ward at the time), I can tell by the way she answers that I have just woken her up. I ask if she has anything planned for the day, she answers with a weary no. so I ask her “if she minds if I ruing the beginning of her weekend”? She laughs a little and asks what I need. I explain the situation to her, and she replies that she would gladly give me a ride, she just needs an hour or so to get ready and head over. After hanging up with her, I call my boss Clay over at the tanker base and let him know that I will not make it into work today because I have to go in to get my arm set. He gives a short chuckle and tells me to let him know when I can come back to work. Soon kim arrives at the house, I grab my x rays and off we head. Olive veiw is roughly a little over fifty miles away, luckily traffic on the freeway is relatively light. After about an hour we finally arrive. We get out of the car and head inside to discover that the place is under renovation. There is plastic sheets and cones laid out all over the place. Since neither of us has ever been here, we talk to the guy at the info counter and he gives us some crazy directions (over the river and thru the woods type of stuff) so that we can navigate around all the construction. After about 20 min we make it up a couple floors and down several dark hallways to a small counter in the back of what looks like a storage room. Despite how difficult it was to find, there is a line! When I finally make it to the front, and tell the lady why I am here, she looks at my arm and tells me that they only set broken bones in the hand. For anything above the wrist I will have to go to USC -L.A. County General. Great, another place that I have no idea where it is! The lady at the desk was kind enough to give us a map. As we try and navigate our way back, I realize we should have left a trail of cookie crumbs to help us out. When we get back to the car, I ask kim if she can take me to this new destination, being the kind person she is, she says yes. We then hop back on the freeway and head deeper into L.A.. after about 30 min, my stomach reminds me that I have not yet eaten today. I thank kim again for wasting her day and helping me out, and tell her that I will take her out to eat after we finish at this next place. It takes a while, but we finally get there. There are so many buildings and so little parking! This makes the last place look like a piece of cake to navigate. After some searching by trial and error, we find where I need to be. Luckily they have the routes painted in different colors on the floor which makes the indoor navigation rather pleasant. We make it to the waiting room, grab a seat, and you guessed it.... we wait, and wait, and wait, and then wait some more. After several hours of waiting in a room where only a handfull of us speak english, they call my name and direct me to a back room. I start to get a little excited, cause this means progress. In this back room they ask me what happened, where do I live, work and tons of other basic questions. The lady asking me all the questions diligently fills out several forms at the same time. After about an hour, she sends me back to the waiting room. By this time, my arm hurts a lot, even the slightest movement sends pain screaming up my arm, and I have yet to be given any sort of pain meds. After a couple more hours, they call my name again. This time they direct me around the corner to a line in front of a small counter next to one of those doors that only opens if someone on the other side lets you in. this line moves relatively fast, and after about 20 min I make it inside the magic door (kim is forced to stay behind and wait) which contains a long hallway littered with gurneys, and a large semi open space that has been sectioned off in many places by curtains hanging from the ceiling. There are also several small cubicles set up. At last something that resembles the workings of a hospital instead of a gloomy waiting room!

Once thru the door, I am asked several questions and then one of those fancy medical bracelets gets attatched to my wrist. They sit me on a gurney in the hall way, and I begin another session of lets see who can wait the longest. As I am sitting there, I lean back against the wall and close my eyes in an attempt to sleep. I am exhausted, and am not sure what time it is since there are no clocks on the walls. After about forty five minutes, someone wearing scrubs leads me to a back room where there is a short asian man waiting. The first words out of his mouth are “we need to take some x rays”, to which I reply, I already got some today, they are right here. I then hand him the envelope with the x rays from that morning. To which he replies, we still need to take more, we dont use any x rays that are not ours. Of course my first thought is yea right, you just want to make more money! He then leads me to the xray machine and directs me to place my arm on the table. As I place my arm on the table in the only position it will go, he informs me that he needs it turned a certain way in order to get the view he needs, and procedes to grab my arm and attempt to turn it the desired direction. Immediately intense pain shoots through my arm and I grab the edge of the plastic chair I was sitting on. The xray tech flinches and backs away when he notices I have bent the chair. He then runs out of the room, when he returns he has a doctor with him, and I can hear him tell the doctor that he will not try to take the x rays again until I have been shot full of pain killers. Of course upon hearing this, the doctor thinks he knows best and tells the x ray tech that he was doing it wrong. So next the doctor tries, and of course gets the same results. I am then led out of the room and back down the hallway where I am told to sit on a gurney. A couple minutes later the doctor comes by and injects me full of morphine. I am then left to myself for about ten minutes before the doctor returns and escorts me back to the xray room. After several tries, they realise the morphine was not strong enough. At this point, wanting to just get it over with, I ask them to show me what position they want my arm in, and then tell them they better be ready to take the x ray. I give them a 3 count, and then grit my teeth and yell out as I use my good arm to bend the broken one and force it into the desired position. The doctor watches for a couple seconds and then leaves the room. A few moments later the xray tech comes back and asks where the doctor went, I tell him im not sure. I never saw that doctor again. I was then led down a different hallway by some nurse that I had not seen before. She took me to a large room that was partitioned off by curtains, although all the curtains where pushed aside so you could see everything going on. There were several people in their own area either lying or sitting on gurneys. I was pointed towards an open one and told to lay down. After what felt like forever, another nurse came by and asked me if I had someone I could call for transportation when they were done with me. Feeling like I had been here for way to long, I inquired of the time, and was informed that it was 7pm. I told her about kim who was still in the waiting room. The nurse then told me to send her home since I would be here for several days. “several days! Why does it take several days to get a broken bone set and a cast put on!”. At the time I was informed that I was going to need a steel plate and some screws put in. of course they wouldnt let me walk back out to tell her, so I wrote a note and attatched it to the useless xrays I had been holding on to all day, so that the nurse could give them to kim to hold onto for me. The nurse then left, and I was back to laying there watching and listening to what was going on around me. Apparently one of the nurses was upset that she got called back into work, and several of the nurses were feuding with one of the doctors. There was a girl that looked like she was about 16 sitting on the gurney straight across from me. She had a bruise on her face. All the other people in the area were non english speakers. The nurse that was pissed off was the one assigned to keep track of me, so everytime she came by to check on how I was doing, I made sure I was really nice to her, so as to avoid any wrath she might be ready to inflict. After the nurse had come by several times and I was certain she was not going to drug me and harvest my organs if I made her mad, I asked her if I could get something to eat, since I had not eaten all day. She told me I had to wait for the doctor to check me out first. After another couple hours, the doctor finally came by. He was quite upset to find that my arm was still in a sling. Apparently it was suppose to be fully extended and splinted to make sure I did not do any more damage to it. So he called the upset nurse over to help him remove the sling and straighten out my arm. And can you guess what position he wanted my arm in..... thats right, the same position that was needed for the xray! As the doctor starts to maneuver my arm, the nurse notices the scoul on my face and the deathgrip I have on the edge of the gurney, so she yells at the doctor to stop. The doctor of course ignores her and continues on. At this point I happened to look across to the girl sitting across from me, who after watching my ordeal is now freaking out. Another nurse comes and escorts her away, and I dont see her again either. After a few more seconds of useless effort the nurse tells the doctor that she will refuse to help him if he does not get me painkillers first, pointing out my facial expression and grip on the gurney. So the doctor gives in and soon I am injected with more morphine (definitely good that I was nice to the nurse from the beginning) and left to sit for a while to give it a change to kick in. eventually the doctor comes back, and successfully gets my arm splinted into the desired position. I am then wheeled down the hall and into an elevator. I am taken several floors up and wheeled into a giant room with no dividers. There are 4 other people on gurneys in the room. One old guy, 2 guys that look like they are in their 20's and a girl also in her 20's who barely speaks any english. Its not long before I realise the 2 younger guys are handcuffed to their beds. After talking to one of them for a little while, I find out the floor above us is for the prison, and they are the overflow. When the next nurse comes in I try and get some food, but she tells me I am scheduled for surgery on sunday and that I cant eat for at least 24 hours before surgery. Since it is now 2 am on saturday she cant give me any food! She then gives me another shot of morphine before leaving. Eventually I pass out. When I wake up I find that cell reception in the hospital sucks. I manage to call my boss and tell him where im at so that he doesnt expect me to show up for work for a while. At the time my parents and brother were in hawaii with some friends on vacation ( a vacation I passed up cause I couldnt miss work) so I sent them a text letting them know I broke my arm and was at the hospital. I dont remember who, but someone called my cousin josh and let him know of my perdicament, he was able to come by and give me a blessing. All day saturday I waited with anticipation for the surgery to be done with so I could get some food!. I killed time by texting friends and slipping in and out of morphine induced sleep. One of the times I awoke, I found that one of the guys had slipped his cuffs and was having sex with the girl on the other side of the room, I just closed my eyes and drifted off back to sleep.

Eventually sunday came, and everytime a nurse came in the room I was expecting to be wheeled off to surgery. The nurses came in a dropped off food for the other people in the room, and gave out medication, and of course more morphine, and then they would leave, with me still sitting there waiting. Sometime around 11 pm the nurse finally came in to get me for surgery. This was met with cheers and applause by the others in the room, as everyone had began to wonder if it was really gonna happen. The nurse wheeled me back to the elevator and took me up to the top floor. I was then placed in a large room filled with papers and machines that I didnt recognize. This place was run by a couple of korean ladies, who preferred not to speak english. After waiting for a while they brought me consent forms to sign and gave me a run down of what was suppose to happen. After a couple hours they gave me more morphine and then started to wheel me to the operating room. When we reached the operating room, I was parked outside in the hallway and told to wait for some one to get me. After about a half hour a nurse came and started to wheel me back to the room I had just come from! She told me that the hospital had just received several gunshot victims, and since they take priority I would have to wait till another day. After several handoffs by different nurses I eventually made it back down to my room with the room with inmates. They were all surprised to see me back so soon, and even more surprised when I told them what happened. The one that had slipped his cuffs earlier flagged down a nurse and talked her into bringing me some food from the cafeteria. It was now early monday morning and it was the first time I had eaten since thursday night. After eating what little food the nurse could scrounge up, I got my much needed dose of morphine and went to sleep. I woke up several hours later with a regular tray of foot on the table next to me! Finally back to a normal eating schedule. Later on that day I was moved down the hallway to another room, where I had a different nurse who was in charge of me. The room was petitioned off with sheets every 6 feet. After laying in my sheeted off section and listening for several minutes it became very apparent that I was the only english speaking person in the room. I split the majority of my time between eating, morphine and sleep, and the occasional text when I could get reception. Tuesday morning I awoke with the great expectation of food, only to be informed that I was scheduled for surgery on wednesday, and since there was a no food for 24 hours prior policy I would not be getting any food for a while :( tuesday was filled with more morphine and sleeping. Wednesday arrived, and I waited and waited and waited, got some morphine and then waited some more. Sometime late in the afternoon I was wheeled back up to the korean fortress in the top floor. After a repeat of the signing of paperwork and waiting forever to move to the operating room, a group of nurses finally came in and took me away. On the way they asked if I had any questions or concerns for them or the doctor. I wasnt really worried about the surgery, my only request was that I could stay awak and watch, which of course they said no to. On the way to the operating room they injected some magic sleep potion into my I.V. And I was out. I woke up what seemed like only moments later being wheeled down a hallway. I could hear the nursed commenting that I had woken up much sooner than expected. They told me the surgery was over and that it went well. I was taken back to the korean fortress and parked on the other side of the room next to several other beds. Shortly after being parked I began to feel excrutiating pain in my arm. I asked the lady in charge of the area for some painkillers, and she told me she was not authorized to give me any, which I found irritating since she had already given me morphine on 2 other occasions. So I waited for a few minutes, and the pain continued to get worse, so I asked again. Of course she told me again that she could not give my any. Through clenched teeth I told her if she wasnt gonna give me any then she better hurry up and find someone who could she was gonna start hating her shift. After about a half hour of her sitting at her desk doing nothing I started to yell for some one to get me some painkillers. The lady was not happy with this course of action. She told me I needed to be quiet. I refused and told her she had her chance but since she didnt act she was stuck with me. After a few minutes of this, she decided she couldnt handle it and left to find some one who was authorized to give me painkillers. Several minutes later a doctor came in to find out what the problem was. When the lady told the doctor was was going on he gave her a look like she was retarded and told her if I needed some painkillers to give me some. So they gave me a shot of morphine, and nothing happened. The pain stayed. Shortly after they came and wheeled me away towards my room. I kept telling them something was wrong with arm, and that the pain was getting worse. When we got to the elevator they gave me another shot. Which also had no effect. When they got me back to the room I was practically screaming for them to get the doctor and find out what was wrong. At this time they gave me another shot with still no effect. I continued to tell them they needed to find out what was wrong, and that if necessary they needed to cut my arm off if it would make the pain go away. All the other patients and there visitors looked terrified. Around this time the doctor showed up, and like all the others gave me another shot as he asked me what was wrong. I told him it felt like someone was trying to cut my arm off. So he looked at the bandage and discovered it was put on to tight and was cutting off all the curculation. As soon as he noticed this he undid it. Instantly I felt a huge rush go to my head and it felt like I was falling into a sea of clouds! I later found out that the bandage had prevented the morphine from flowing through me, and so when it was undone all 4 shots hit me at once ( which was amazing by the way. I can now see how people get hooked on that stuff). I woke up many hours later, and noticed a tray of food on the table next to me. I ate several bites before I fell back into my sea of clouds. Over the next day I would wake up long enough to eat a few bites and then pass back out still feeling the effects of the morphine. Later on that night, 2 hot chicks came in to check on me. They informed me that they were the surgeons who did the work on my arm and that they just wanted to make sure I was doing alright. I talked to them for a few minutes, long enough to find out they were both married. I asked them if I could take their picture since none of my friends would believe that 2 hot doctors were the ones that had stitched me up. They were nice enough to oblige. (if I can find the photo I will post it at the bottom of the story). Thursday was mostly uneventful, until about mid day when they told me I was gonna be able to go home if I could find a ride. I sent out a couple texts and a few hours later I was signed out of the hospital and on my way home! I’m pretty sure it was Melissa who gave me a ride home.

                                                              

"Blinded by the light!"

Way back in the fall of 9five, I was starting my sophomore year of high school. Several friends and I went on a beach camp out with the scouts to el capitan st beach. During this time in our lives, several of us were really getting into surfing, and this was gonna provide us the perfect opportunity to try some night surfing. After school got out on Friday, we all raced home, packed our bags and then headed off to meet up with the rest of the scouts. Shortly after meeting up, and packing all our gear into the vehicles, we were off. The drive seemed to take forever, we were all excited that we were gonna get to stay at the beach overnight. It was almost dark when we finally arrived. We found our spot, unloaded the vehicles and began to set up camp. By the time everything was unloaded and camp was set up, it was well beyond dark. After setting up camp Steve and I decided to die our hair red with that Halloween spray die stuff, not completely sure why, most likely just cause we could. A little later several of us (john, Dave, Steve, and i) decided to go down to the beach to check out the waves to see if they would be big enough to surf. When we got to the beach, I realized that I was the only one who had brought a flashlight. Now at the time, the in thing was sun glasses, and not just any sun glasses, but the kind with the small circle lenses that were tinted either blue or green, even though they didn’t really block much sun. so I found myself standing on a dark beach in the middle of the night, wearing cheesy sunglasses, while I used a small flashlight to look at the waves. After a few minutes of this, I noticed I was the only one watching the waves. I turned around to see what everyone else was up to. It was at this time that I noticed that john had a large pillow case with him, and they were all gathered in a small circle trying to light something on fire. I walked up to the group and asked them what they were trying to light, to which Dave replied “black powder”. I then remarked “doesn’t that stuff blow up when you light it?' to which I received the reply “no, you pour it in a line, and then when you light it, it follows the trail... just like on the road runner cartoons”. Of course any time someone uses a cartoon where the main character is constantly blown up or crushed as a reference it should have automatically sent up all sorts of red warning flares. I then asked what was in the pillow case, to which john responded “bullets, black powder, matches, and some fireworks”. Now to most of you, this might seem like things we should not have been able to get our hands on. Johns dad was big into making civil war replica black powder rifles, and ammunition. For us, it only seemed normal that all of this stuff could be scrounged together, and find its way to a camp out with us. So without a second thought, I stood and watched as they continued to attempt to light the powder on fire. As I stood there watching, it immediately became clear that the moisture in the sand was what was preventing the powder from lighting. Every time the match got close to the sand, it would go out. After I pointed this out, it was decided the best course of action would be to put a match in the sand with the head sticking up about to inches, and then pour the powder on top of it. Now the container that held the black powder was one of those giant metal containers like the ones that hold lacquer thinner and other such things. It held about a gallon of powder although it was probably listed in something like liters or ounces on the side. All of us huddled around the match in the sand, with me shining my light for all to see while Dave grabbed the container to pour the powder. Just as Dave was about to pour I took my sunglasses off so that I could see better. He then began to pour the powder onto the light match. With all of our combined experience with fire, to this day I am still amazed that none of us realized how this was going to play out. As soon as the first grains of black powder met the fire, a lightening fast reaction sent the flame from one grain to the next, following the trail (just like I was told) up into the container instantly lighting it all on fire and causing a giant explosion! Out of reflex, all of us tried to turn away from the blast as soon as we saw the giant fireball. I have blown a lot of things up, and caught a lot of things on fire, but this still stands as the loudest and brightest explosion I have ever been apart of. Immediately I was deaf and blind. Gradually I noticed the ringing in my ears, as the colorful spots gradually faded from my vision. As we all regained our vision, Steve and I noticed that johns hair and some of his clothes were on fire. We immediately began slapping him with our hands to put the flames out. Once that was done we all began to assess our injuries, each of us yelling (partly cause we were still partially deaf, and part adrenaline) “how bad am I!”. At this time I began to hear Dave yelling “im maimed!, im maimed for life!” we all looked down at his hand that had been holding the metal container, which he was waiving around while he was freaking out. His thumb was noticeably not where it belonged. It was pointing almost straight back and was closer to his wrist than it was to any of his other fingers. As we were trying to calm Dave down, we all started looking at each other and realizing how bad we all looked. Everyone was wondering if they looked as bad as the guy they were looking at, except Steve who lucked out and did not have the missing flesh and charred skin that covered the rest of our faces. It did not take long for us to feel the intense burning sensation in our newly received wounds. It was immediately decided that we need to wash our injuries out. So like any good victim not fully thinking, john starts taking off his clothes and running to the ocean. I yell out for him to stop, to which he replies “but its water”. I shout to him, that it is salt water! He gives me a blank look, like its not registering. So I remind him of the old childhood jokes about whats grosser than gross- sliding down a razor blade and landing in a tub of salt water. I then see his facial expression change as he grasps what he was about to do. Some one shouts out that they see a bathroom off in the distance, so we make our way towards it. When we get there john asks if its a girls bathroom, to which I reply that at the moment I don’t think it really matters. We rush inside and immediately begin flushing our faces with the water from the faucet to cool the intense burning sensation. We each take turns with the 2 faucets and looking into the crappy steel scratched up beach mirrors trying to see how bad we really look. During this fiasco, I hear Dave yell that he is going to stick his head in the toilet and that he needs someone to flush it for him. I don’t give it much thought, till I hear the toilet flush. I then call him back to the sink. After about fifteen minutes of this we decide we have the pain under control and that we should head back to camp. On the way back, we run into a small group of people walking on the beach headed the direction we were coming from. They ask us if we saw and heard the explosion, to which we reply that we did. They then proceed to tell us they saw it from about a mile down the beach. They ask were it happened. I point in the general direction and tell them im not sure exactly where it was. We then hurry off back to camp. During the rest of the way back, the burning pain starts to return and gradually gets worse. We discover that fanning our faces cools them down to a tolerable level. After a while Dave decides running around in circles is much more effective. As we make our way back, we talk about what we are going to tell people, to make sure we all have our story straight. We decide that we are gonna try and pass it off as mud/ dirt on our faces from playing in the sand (I know, we should have been able to come up with a much better story). So we stroll into camp and pretend like nothing is wrong. I keep expecting someone to ask us why are faces look dirty, but no one does. After a few minutes of trying to act somewhat normal, Dave cannot take the pain anymore and starts running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Even thought that is somewhat normal behavior for Dave I realize that we are not gonna be able to pull this off, I find Glenn and tell him that we blew ourselves up while we were at the beach. At first he thinks I am joking, I point at Dave and tell him why he is freaking out. Glenn then pulls me over under one of the lanterns to get a better look. The heat from the lantern is intense and magnified by the burns. All of the scout leaders converge and quickly come up with a plan of action. I don’t remember who, but one of them has a cell phone (which was pretty rare back then) and calls to find out where the nearest emergency room is. All of us involved and a couple of the leaders pile into Wayne ashers old forest service green suburban that I think was from the seventies. We then head off down the road. Its not long before we realize the inside of the suburban is incredibly warm, which translates into unbearably hot for those of us that are burned. We quickly roll down all the windows which provides a short relief. Soon after, the rolled down windows are not longer doing the trick, so we resort to acting like a bunch of dogs sticking our heads out the windows as we drive down the road in the middle of the night.

After what seems like an eternity, we pull up to this small building in a dark parking lot. We make our way to the door, finding the temperature unbearable once we step inside. Dave, john, and i soon find ourselves lying on gurneys while needles and IV's are being stuck in our arms for fluids and pain killers. Gradually whatever good stuff they decided to pump into us starts to work, and we no longer act like possessed fools trying to run around the room screaming how much it burns. 2 of us were given blessings, I cant remember which one of the others turned it down, I just remember how it struck me as odd at the time that they would turn it down. Eventually it was decided that we needed to be transported to the Sherman oaks burn center, which was a long ways away. I was pretty excited at this since they told us we were going to go by helicopter. After what seemed life an eternity of waiting, we were informed that plans had changed, we would ride in an ambulance instead. At this point I was so tired and all I wanted to do was sleep, but that was not an option. They had me walk out to the ambulance carrying my bag of fluids that was hooked up to the IV in my arm and climb into the back of the ambulance. I had the luxury of sitting on the most uncomfortable seat in the world. After I sat down, the brought john out in a wheel chair and put him in. shortly after that Dave was brought out and loaded into the back on his gurney. Both of them passed out pretty quickly on the drive, while I woke up with every bump on the road. I tried to talk to the medic in the back, and asked questions about how bad we looked, and the odds of us healing. He was not interested in my conversation choice, and would not give me a straight answer. After what felt like forever we arrived at the burn center. We were taken out of the ambulance, I was put in a wheel chair and we were all pushed down this not so well lit hallway. I’m not sure where Dave went, but john and I both ended up in this room that had several metal tables with what appeared to be shower heads over them. Several older Scottish nurses came in and helped us onto the tables. As I lay down, I could hear the nurses telling john he needed to take off his clothes, he was not having it and kept refusing. Eventually I think they cut them off him. The nurse then turned on the water and began washing me down, trying to clean off the burned areas. As soon as the water hit the top of my head, what was left of the red hair die began to run down onto the table. I heard the nurse scream and start yelling for help, saying something about a head wound and blood. It was then that I remembered the dye. I quickly informed her what it was, which calmed her down and she called back for whoever she had called for to never mind it was a false alarm. At some point during the washing process I passed out. I came to a couple hours later in a small room, then passed out again. The next time I awoke my dad was also in the room, my first thought was what is he doing here? I asked how much trouble we were in, and the then passed out again. Sometime later, I was moved to a different room. I was now sharing a room with john, Dave was in his own room just down the hall. For those of you who have had extended stays at the hospital, you know there are 4 different things that will occupy your time. 1. the actual medical part, 2. visitors, 3. recreation, and 4. the food.

Lots of friends and family trickled in to see us the first few days. My mom and step dad flew up as soon as they were told what had happened. They came by several times a day to see how I was. John and daves families were also around as often as they could be.

Eventually the doctor told us that we had 3^rd and 4^th degree burns (I didn’t even know there was 4^th degree, but if your gonna set the bar, set it high!), and that the constant burning that had been so painful was all the small grains of black powder that had lodged into our skin was still slowly burning deeper. All the air we kept forcing on our faces to help cool them off was actually continuing to fuel the powders slow burn, and that we were gonna need skin grafts to fix all the damage. Before we could get the grafts, there were some things that needed to be done, like take blood. Every day, several times a day they came in a took blood. The other thing that needed to be done, was to remove the dead charred skin (at least what was left of it). This was done by taking a steel wool type material and scrubbing it all off. After we were all cleaned up, they put giant bandages on us, covering the majority of our face and head. They were kind enough to leave eye and mouth holes. Our stay at the burn center was filled with daily visits from family and friends, watching lots of movies, and of course the awesome game room. The game room had a small table, and a couple of chairs that you could use to play board games or cards. There were also several arcade games, that were free! There was Mrs pacman (yep I set the high score!) and a couple others, one of them was kinda like marble madness on the original Nintendo. During our stay, I was the one with the most unrestricted movement. I pretty much went wherever I wanted as long as I pushed my IV stand with me. I explored the hallways, went and met other folks that were also stuck in the burn unit. There was this one kid who was a few rooms down, who had climbed a power pole on a dare and grabbed the wires. The electricity cooked him pretty good, and he lost both legs and one arm. There was also a truck driver who had rolled his rig and got trapped inside. His rig had caught fire and he was burned pretty good. Other times I made my way to daves room to see how he was doing. They didn’t give john and i a lot of details, but he was not doing as well as john and I. Dave was rarely conscious and when he was awake was usually in a lot of pain. Occasionally john joined me in the game room, when he had the strength or when there was someone around to help him get down the hallway.

One night the doctor came in and told us that the next day they were gonna do the grafts. He asked if I knew what grafting was, to which I replied taking skin off of one part of the body to put it on another. He told me that was usually what was done, but they were gonna do something different with us. All the blood they had taken from us had gone down to a lab in the basement, where it was mixed with cadaver skin in a petrie dish and used to grow new skin. This skin was what was going to be used for our grafts. At the time I had no idea that such things were even possible! The down side to the surgery being the next day, meant no more food till after it was over. The next morning they came bright and early and carted me off the surgery room. They gave me a brief explanation of how the surgery would work and that they were gonna put me out for it. I asked if they were gonna use gas, or the shot (I think they might have been a little shocked at how much I knew about operating procedures)? They told me they were gonna use the gas, to which I quickly informed them that the gas would not work on me cause my body would reject it and I would just starting coughing and choking from lack of air, they would be better off just using the shot. Of course they didn’t listen. After about 30 seconds I ripped the mask off cause I couldn’t breathe and felt like I was suffocating. The nurse then gave me the shot. After I had been given the shot, I did the whole I told you so routine, while several of the doctors laughed as I gradually faded out. When I came to, they informed me that the surgery had been a success. I would still have to keep the bandages on for a while, and would have to spend several hours a day in a hyperbearic chamber to help with the healing process. Most important, I was not suppose to touch my face for fear of messing up the grafts before it was properly healed. Of course one of the first things I asked was if I could eat. The doctor gave us the go ahead to eat, and after some questions from our family and friends gave the OK for us to eat anything we could get our hands on, especially milkshakes. From that point on I was averaging 6 milkshakes a day from various places including carls jr.. john and I ate good, folks brought us pizza and shakes pretty regular. All of this food did not take place of the regular meals provided by the hospital. On one particular morning, the nurse came in and asked what I wanted for breakfast out of the available choices. I choose the one with the scrambled eggs, since I cant stand eggs any other way except hard boiled. After a few minutes she returned with my tray of food. Once it was placed in front of me, I immediately grabbed the eggs, pulled the lid off only to find not so scrambled eggs! They looked like they had been cooked for about 30 seconds tops. It was just a gooey mess of undercooked slime. If I would have eaten anything yet, it would have come right back up. (for those of you who have ever wondered why I wont eat eggs unless I make them myself, now you know.) I didn’t even bother touching the rest of the meal. That ended my breakfast experience for the day.

I’m sure many of you are wondering what on earth a hyperbearic chamber is. The ones I used were a giant glass tube, similar to those you see in sci-fi movies where people sleep during long deep space voyages, only ours were laying down instead of standing up. These tubes are just wide enough for a person to fit into, and since they are clear glass it is hard to tell the boundaries once you are inside, so I constantly hit my head whenever I tried to look around. There was really only room to just lay there fully extended, no room to bend your knees or turn on your side. Once one is inside, they seal it off and pump in pure oxygen, not the crap we normally breathe. This speeds up the healing process. It feels like your in an airplane and your ears need to pop constantly. They had several of these in a giant room, and they were kind enough to hook up speakers to them so that while they had us trapped inside them we could watch movies. Well it was more like listen to movies since you couldn’t really adjust yourself to see the screen for too long without straining your neck. During our many sessions in these, john and I made it through all 3 star wars (that’s all there was at the time), Indiana Jones, and several other older movies.

One night, I woke up to the sound of music and laughter. I climbed out of my hospital bed and headed out into the hallway to see what was going on. I was surprised to see a bunch of patients dancing with the nurses up and down the hallway. I don’t know what the cause for celebration was, but it lasted for several hours into the night. A couple of days later the doctor came in and took all my awesome bandages off to get a look at how well I was healing. Everyone was quite surprised to see that there were no scars. I was then given permission to take my first shower in weeks, on the condition that I not touch my face. They even sent some old man to watch me and make sure I didn’t. A couple days later I was released from the burn center. I was given special lotion and sunblock that I had to use several times a day, and I was not to go out into the sunlight without at least a hat on. They told me I would have to do all this for a year! Eventually john and Dave were also released with the same instructions. It was an interesting and intense experience. I became closer to the siggard and yadon families from this trip than I had ever expected to. It definitely made the next year very tedious.