Woke up to an unusual sight...Kim had developed some kind of hives during the early morning...large bumps complete with itching. Mostly on his left arm and both hands but there was a single isolated spot on his leg and his upper lip swelled also. He said the lip was weird...it was fine and then about 4 minutes later felt very fat. Been going over what he could have been exposed to, environmentally or food wise, that could cause it. Nothing unusual in either of those areas. We were out in the sun yesterday but he had a sweater on so his direct exposure to the sun was minimal. Plus he’s never had a reaction to the sun; in fact, he always sports a deep tan but we couldn’t discount it either. We’ll both be monitoring it (me probably more than him) to see if it gets worse and needs medical attention but in the meantime I was in possession of anti-itch cream so he’s been applying that in an effort to keep the scratching to a minimum.
Update: By 10 a.m. the hives were gone from
his arm/leg and the itching was very minimal on his hands. By the time we reached Alamogordo the itching
was gone, the swelling on his lip was gone and he said everything felt
fine. And we are clueless as to what
caused it but are grateful that it went away.
Still going to monitor it though.
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Sun
was up over the Sacramento Mountain way too soon for how late I went to
bed. The weather app says that first
light this morning was 6:16 a.m. with sunrise at 6:31 in Tularosa, NM whereas
first light in Charlevoix this morning was 7:02 with sunrise at 7:32. So I was out the door by 7:30 a.m. in New
Mexico into full on daylight when this time of year at home I would just be
peeking my eyes open. No wonder my body
clock is confused.
Anyway some part of me was saying it was too early to be up and walking
but a bigger part was saying “Yes, it’s good to be moving!” My phone indicated that it was 39o
but since there was no wind when I started out it felt downright balmy out in
the full sunshine. In fact, my
sweatshirt was proving to be a little too warm on the return trip. A good sign for the rest of the day.
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Today
we planned on going to Alamogordo to visit White Sands National Park. We’ve been there before but that time I was
more concerned about getting a chance to sled down a dune than anything...not
doing any sliding this time. This trip was more about really looking at the
area and possibly doing some walking.
We discovered last night that our hot water
was only sort of warming the water; Kim thought about the options with the
water heater and figured changing the heating element was the quickest,
easiest, and cheapest solution. If it wasn’t a heating element solution then we go
to Plan B whatever that was. So we added a parts stop to our
pleasure trip.
The
water wasn’t even close enough to being warm enough for me to take a shower but
Kim braved it because he wanted to eliminate any topical issues that could be
causing his hives. When I got back from
my walk he explained what happened when he turned the water on in the shower:
water started squirting out the sides of the shower head handle. And besides that, the shampoo I had found for
him was actually conditioner so he had to wash his hair with hand soap! He managed to complete his shower. Shampoo and a shower
head was added to the parts list.
Oh, and we need dish towels...add those
to the list, please.
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This morning when I walked to the bathroom I
looked up in the nearby hill that we walked yesterday and thought I saw the
roof line of the bathroom/picnic area that we couldn’t find yesterday on our
walk. Grabbed my camera and took a
picture but didn’t get an opportunity to look at it on the computer until later
in the day.
When
we got back from Alamogordo Kim set right to working on the water heater. I grabbed a walking stick, some water and set
off up the hill to find the bathroom on the hill for the sake of finding
it. To be able to say that I found it.
Didn’t matter that nobody in my life would care about my accomplishment...I
would. Met a young guy who was preparing to walk up
the hill also. He introduced himself as
Rocky from Carrizozo. I told him about
my mission and he said he’d keep his eyes open too. I took off at a good pace. We happened to meet up on the hill...I had
taken a different route than yesterday but still couldn’t find the bathroom and
was going to head back...I wanted to be back in camp before dusk. He was going to continue up over the next
ridge to see what was there. I told him
what camper was ours and encouraged him to let me know what he found. My return trip was a bit slower because I
took the time to look at the petroglyphs.
He was back at his car by the time I came out of the campground bathroom....he
didn’t find the bathroom or picnic area either.
Bummer!
I got
back to camp and took the time to review the pictures I took this morning. When I saw them on my computer screen
rather than my camera screen I realized that what I had seen wasn’t the picnic
area roofline but a display set on the petroglyph ridge explaining the mountain
range out in the distance. I had nothing
to give me distance perspective so I had assumed what I had seen was up beyond
the petroglyph area. Wrong! It was smack dab in the middle of it.
So I hadn’t seen the mysterious picnic area/bathroom after all but I did get a good walk in and I made a new acquaintance....Rocky from Carrizozo.
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My quick walk up the big hill took a bit more than an hour. When I got back to camp Kim was in the process of fabricating a tool necessary to getting water heater open. Can’t say that I understood what he was trying to do but he hooted like a child who got exactly what he wanted for Christmas when it worked. He quickly replaced the heating element and closed it all up. Next up was replacing the leaky shower head and hose. By then enough time had passed for the moment of truth...turning on the hot water faucet. What would come out...hot, sort of warm or cold? Kim came as close to doing a dance of joy as he’s ever likely to do when the water turned very hot. 😀
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Making a tool for the water heater repair and having it work was the
best part of Kim’s day...his hives disappearing was the best part of my day. 😎
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