AUG-B-8
THE RETREAT FOR THE LABOR DAY HOLIDAY WEEKEND
TO TRAPPE MD TO ARRANGE
THE PHOTO ALBUMS
OF LADAKH-03 AND LINGSHED-03
AS WELL AS TO PACK UP IN PREPARATION
FOR OUR TAKEOFF ON THE “NORTH TO ALASKA- IV”
MOOSE HUNT IN THE YUKON DELTA OF NORTHWEST ALASKA WITH
BOREALIS OUTDOOR ADVENTURES
August 30, 2003
I am in the
Chez Schaefer in Trappe, where I have caused quite a stir—from here to the
Trappe Volunteer Fire Department.
I arrived
late on Thursday evening after stopping at Mc Donald’s in Easton,
since I knew Craig was out to dinner. As I had my fruit and yogurt, I looked around
during the long wait I had as others filled their orders, and realized I was
the only one in the whole of McD’s within 10% of my ideal body weight, with
over half of the people standing in the queue waiting to take in more than half
their daily caloric requirements were at least two to three times over anything
safe or healthy. This would not have
struck me so forcefully except that I have just returned from a month in India,
in which only the very wealthy can afford a large pot belly bulging out of
their bared midriff sari, and here it seems the reverse---the further down the
socioeconomic scale the particular person is, the more likely that they are to
be not just obese, but morbidly obese.
Most of these folk could hardly waddle, which does not say much for the
capability of the great American work force at the grass roots, since Talbot
and Dorchester Counties are probably rather typ0ical of the great American
common de3noiminator that most folk I have to use as my own peer group. This is an epidemic of over-nutrition.
I arrived
to visit with Craig, and as he was called in to
see a patient in the ICU I went with him.
We walked around the hospital where he is in essence the only real
general surgeon, and came back to their Trappe
MD home. The grass has never been greener, since it
has been raining daily with nearly tropical rainforest heat and humidity by
day. The lawn must be mowed every few
days in this growing condition. I am
glad I do not have his three acres of mowing , which will have to be down again
before his departure which is an issue I am unclear
about other than that we are going together.
AN ALARMING EXPERIENCE
When I got
up at my usual jet-lag hour—about three AM—I laid out some of the work I was
going to do on the two photo alb ums, Album VIII and Photoksar and Lingshed
trek—03 Carol
got up to drop off three frozen bagels saying I could put them in the microwave
to defrost or pop them directly into the bagel toaster for breakfast. I set about my business, and later put the
bagel in the microwave—the one of two that they have the previous one from
their other house rather than the one that is built in. I set it for the “bread setting, but it
“dinged” off almost immediately and the bagel was still solidly frozen. So, I set it to the timer, setting it to 20
minutes, and stopping it at 50 seconds.
When I
opened the door, a ste3am cloud puffed out, with a tinge of smoke from the
raisins which had fried. I immediately
turned on the fans in their high ceilinged kitchen and living room. I stared at them and realized that will be
the height of the great Game Room in Derwood, for which 28 foot ceilings are
planned. As the steam and trace of smoke
wafted up the ceiling, the fans stirred it to go up the staircase, which set
off the smoke alarm on the upstairs landing.
This was an annoying bleating noise, but in a moment the phone rang from
Bay State
protection, and the voice asked “Dr. Schaefer,
is everything all right?” I replied that
it was and that I was just trying to get the alarm turned off from a defrosted
bagel to which it must have been ultra-sensitive. She answered: “Just plug in your code and
word, and it will turn off.” I hung up
and called Craig who gave me the code, which I
punched in but got no relief from the screech, and sure enough—up the
driveway came the fire truck with the fellows all dressed in their heavy duty
fire prevention suits and asked “Fixing breakfast?”
With many
apologies, I sent them on their way just before Craig
returned home. We went together to his
office where he had stored the hunting gear I had carried out here two months
ago, and we consolidated what we would need for the hunt. I had avoided thinking too much in advance
about the hunt, and had held off until now to get excited about it, since now
it was real, as I put in the stuff I would need for the spike camps off in the
wilderness, and the hunting gear along with some of the photo apparatus and
film. Now I can start getting excited,
since we are on our way.
I had
loaded a backpack and the Action Packer as well as the firearms in Craig’s
portable safari gun safe. We each are
carrying a pistol, a possibility since we are not driving through Canada
where they are so sticky about such devices, but still we had to follow the
standard procedures about how to pack away guns and ammo for poast-9/11 air
travel. There are federal regulations,
and then each carrier makes up its own rules, some of them by the individual
agent at the gate who makes them up as they go along. So, we carried the latest article and federal
regulations to see if we will get any further flack the already assured
hassles, particularly in such un-hunter-friendly or even familiar areas as
Dulles or Newark airports. Anchorage
is much more familiar with hunters who bring them income, and the airport at
Aniok is the kind I may have seen in Fairbanks
where the Indians carry their naked rifles on board the plane, since, after
all, they are going “up country to bring back their meat!”
The rest of
the long weekend (one day longer than I had expected since I had forgotten that
the Monday Labor Day holiday was included) was spent in filling in the two
Indian expeditions in the photo albums and labeling it half way before the
deluge of the Alaskan hunt comes back in two more weeks, and a couple of
Schaefer celebrations.
One of
these is David’s twenty first birthday,
which we celebrated with the cake and candles and all the trimmings. He had brought his Nairobi Kenya-born
roommate Rodney along, and we enjoyed a time together blowing out candles, etc,
before it was time for David to show Rodney his Dad’s toys, so they took a ride
in the Cobra and showed some of the arsenal of which we are already packing up
the heavy rifles for our hunting trip---all packed up already.
We also
went out to the usual Cambridge Diner for dinner. The Cambridge Diner is run by Turks who are
always surprised to learn of my interest in and knowledge of the remote parts
of their country. We bantered with the
waitresses and watched a very big dark cloud come over for the daily heavy
rainstorm that has hit all of Maryland
making for the biggest and best lawn growing year ever. Which means we will spend
the first half of our Labor Day laboring over the three acres of grass, mowing
it before we take off so as to have it ready for immediate mowing upon Craig’s return. We celebrated with Craig’s
Mom and Dad who were also here for David’s
birthday celebration.
Sunday
afternoon we all got together at Bill and Kim
Bair’s house for a non-pool pool party. This was the crew from the office and
attracted significant others, and we could all talk
about the impending hunt, since this will be Bill’s
two weeks on call coming up and Craig will have
a similar period when he returns. I made
rounds a couple of times in Dorchester Memorial Hospital, and can see why the
formalities and regulations make it less fun every succeeding day to be in the practice of medicine with the
absurdities of practice paperwork at every turn.
I also got
my juices going with the videotapes put together to be saved just before
takeoff on Alaska and its
vastness. Two or three things can
suffice to describe the Great Land: Alaska
is larger than all but 16 nations on earth; if you want to explore Alaska
and cover a thousand square miles a day, you will still have the other half of Alaska
to see at the end of your first year! I
am heading toward one corner of that great land I have not seen before—the
northwest corner above King Salmon on the coast and in the middle of the Yukon
Delta. It is Big Country. After we spend a long time flying from
Dulles, Newark to Anchorage and overnight in a motel there where I will buy my
tags, (licenses already in hand) we fly on a commercial (monopoly) flight to
Aniok, where e we are met by the bush pilot who will carry us into the interior
to our base camp, from which we will then spread out to scout and scope the
country. We will be amid black bears,
moose, and caribou (for which each will be carrying tags) and I would like to
have a wolf (for which I am also tagged).
But we also have fishing licenses and will plan to be eating salmon and
maybe packing a few of those back as well as the moose meat which we may have
in wholesale quantity.
You will
know all about this upon my return, and from some of the descriptions along the
way. But, for now, I must go to pick up
my mail and inspect the carnage at the Derwood cave! Glenn Murrell called and said that he was
hoping to have the demolition completed next week, since he had to have it
completed to move the dumpsters, which had to be out of there by the time the
foundation footings for the addition could be placed, which he had hoped would
be next week. For that ‘milestone”
another payment check is due, which I had mailed on Thursday so that will not
be a delay. Glenn
went on to say that it might be in his fantasy dream schedule “possible to
complete to the point of moving back in----as soon as December 23!” I believe that if they get within two to
three months of this timetable, it will be “on time” for me! I have been trying to arrange schedules of
visits to home and family before the time can come when these visits can be
reciprocated. So, I have booked a visit
on Sept 26 to Iowa, following the
Sept 21 first session of the ELDP program for which I must immediately prepare
upon my return from Alaska.
I will be traveling back to India
for my first visit to Sikkim
October 4—18. This may be the final
foreign trip for 2003 unless we can book a Haiti
week in December.
I will then try to get through the marathon
schedule of this fall (and I ran for the first three times in over a month
since climbing around in the Himalayas while I was out here in the thicker air
of the Eastern Shore—which seems almost like the tropical rainforest with all
the heat humidity and over abundant rainfall they have had this long
summer. I will then try to visit Michael
and Judy and the twins in San Antonio the third week in November in order to go
off for the sacrosanct ceremonies of Thanksgiving her with the Turkey Chase run
with Joe in the holiday morning, and then the Eastern Shore hunts in MD and PA
to follow. I may be going to the Berkshire
Medical Center
in December around the December 12 time, and then may or may not drive the
Bronco to Chicago.
Virginia
will begin her Christmas program there around December 12 to 23. Tom
Griffioen and I may be getting together
around that time to go deer hunting in Michigan
and to deliver the Bronco. I might then
return to Iowa and from there fly
back to Michigan for a family
reunion and a party to introduce Virginia
to all my family and friends in Michigan
after Christmas, perhaps around the New Year and it s Eve. The usual visit to Florida
will follow later in the month since the Cumberland Hog Hunt (possibly the
last) will be the second week of January around 1/12-14 this year. Then the whole sequence of international
trips will begin again for the 2004 year.
But, between now and then, I may have a new and renovated Home Base from
which to travel!
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