Vacation Expectations vs Reality

 At this point in my extended narrative (I am sure milking this vacation for as many blog posts as I can, aren't I?) I will take a moment to let you in on a home truth that you probably are already aware of; rarely is there a vacation without some sort of incident or aggravation.  You know; a couple people butt heads over something, an essential item is forgotten, a flat tire, cancelled reservation, lost glasses, someone gets sick....there are any number of things that can go awry.  

Life happens even on vacation, and life isn't always convenient. 

At the beginning of this vacation one of the things I was looking forward to was sleeping in 'til 6 AM maybe, having a peaceful early-morning cup of coffee and then going for a walk around the campgrounds.  This worked out fine the first two or three mornings. And I enjoyed my walks, and the sense of humor of the Estes Park KOA owners.  Like this:

 

Or this:


 But then after about 2 days we began to realize something.  

We are all flat-landers.

Born and bred.

Here in MO we are at about 1,100 feet above sea level, give or take depending on location.  When I Googled it, that was the listed height of the Niangua River, so those of us on the hills might be a smidge higher, but not by too much.

I was born and raised on the coast.  When I Google Eureka, CA, it gives me an elevation of 39 feet.

In Portland OR, where I lived for about 12 years the listed elevation is 50 feet.

Sooo....let's see...Estes Park is listed at 7,522'  And Trail Ridge Road, where we spent the day meandering up?  12,183'  

Oh yeah.

Elevation sickness is a real thing.  

We were all affected; but no one seemed to take it as badly as I did.  

Headache, dizziness, tiredness, feeling and being sick, loss of appetite, shortness of breath.

We all experienced the above in one way or another; and sadly it halted my early morning perambulations about camp.  By the end of the 3rd day of being in higher altitudes; even after we'd left Estes Park and were heading out of the mountains, we had an incident where Gary nearly knocked me down with the car.

Haha...

We'd found a park where we could have our picnic lunch, Gary was trying to park, I thought he had stopped, so I exited the car in a rush, but he was still backing up.  It could have been an ugly scene on so many accounts.

But to shorten my already long post here; I remained upright and made it to the restroom in time to puke.  I will spare you any other details, other than to say I didn't have any lunch.  And, in fact, stayed away from the rest of our party whilst they partook of it.

At the next town we managed to find a Walmart, and I barely managed to stumble around it in search of what I ought to have bought in the first place somewhere there in Estes Park.

I took a few hits of this over the course of a day or two and, whether because of this or because we were gradually descending into SE Colorado and Kansas, I gradually began to feel better.  

Thank the Lord.


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