RSS 2.0 FeedRealtime Content, Tales From the Trails
On Twisted Ankles and Other Hazards
Stuff happens... let's be careful out there!
Approximately a year and a half ago, my family and I were hiking on Rainbow Mountain in Madison, Alabama. The purpose of our hike that day was to scout out a good hiding place for the kids' first cache placement. The trails on Rainbow Mountain are quite rocky. My son was happily leaping from rock to rock as eleven year old boys tend to do. Unfortunately, he missed the landing on one of those leaps and managed to come down, off balance, on the edge of a rock, badly twisting his ankle.
The next day, I took him in to see his pediatrician. Our doctor asked my son to explain what had happened. "Well," my son began, "I was geocaching with my Mom when I stepped down funny on the trail and popped my ankle."
"Geocaching? What is that?" Doc wondered. The next 15 minutes of the visit was filled with questions and answers about one of our family's favorite outdoor activities. Doc was intrigued; he said it sounded like a great way to encourage kids to get out on the trails more often. Then he patted my son on his back and reminded him to be careful when jumping around on those tempting rocks.
Over the next several months, we had a few other visits with that same doctor, many of which were the direct result of being in the great outdoors such as a poison ivy rash and a suspected spider bite.
Let's fast forward to this spring. While on a family vacation in Gatlinburg, my daughter fell on a playground and broke her arm. She was with my sister while her dad, uncle and I were, you guessed it, searching under rocks for the elusive micro. I had to take her to the pediatrician for a follow up when we got home. When he asked her what had happened, she began her tale with, "I was geocaching with my Mom…"
The doctor just started grinning. "It sounds like geocaching with your Mom is a dangerous hobby!"
Epilogue: Our pediatrician and his sons have taken up the geocaching game themselves. And, we did find that micro in Gatlinburg.