House Colonoscopy

Sara's new house in Herriman developed a sink hole in the front yard. To be sure it wasn't caused by a collapsed sewer line, we hired a guy with a camera to swim down the pipe and take video, from the basement toilet to the city line in the street. It's pretty exciting, so I thought I'd share it here. This is the abbreviated version. If you want to see the full-length editor's cut, let me know.

I didn't see this video on anyone else's blog, so here it is. Paul's family and Sara and Jared ran the Snake River on July 4 with Bob S. as skipper and Jason as first mate--overboard. I don't know how high or fast the water was this day, but I was told it was 19,000 cubic feet per minute (CFM) the day before and 27,000 CFM the day before that. I would guess somewhere in that range as it was really high and fast. Normal for the past few years has been 8-9,000 CFM.

Stupid

I know this is a banned word, but sometimes it applies.

Randy had to take his mother to Wendover yesterday, July 1, so she could meet her friend from high school and continue to Ely for a reunion. I took the day off work and went with Randy with the caveat that we go rabbit hunting and not spend the day in casinos, where he would love to spend all his nickels.

After we dropped off his mother, we drove about 50 miles south of Wendover to the middle of nowhere. We stopped, and I got my .22 semiautomatic Browning handgun out of the trunk and chambered a shell. Then I switched the gun to my left hand and made a joke about rattle snakes. Just then the gun went off and I had a tremendous pain in my thigh. I grabbed my leg and said, "Ahhhhhhh!!!! I just shot myself." Randy thought I was joking, until he saw me holding my leg. However, when we pulled my pant leg up we were lucky to see that there was no hole or blood. I then figured the gun's action must have given my thigh muscle a serious whack, making it spasm and hurt like crazy. I couldn't believe how stupid--and lucky--I was.

The muscle was starting to stiffen a bit, and it was forming a big knot at the bottom near my knee. I decided to hike around to keep the muscle flexible. So Randy and I climbed a fairly steep hill from which we could see all around. There were no rabbits, but we did see some beer bottles. We hiked down, got back in the car, and drove to the beer bottles, and I shot all the ones we could find. Randy wasn't that interested in shooting, so he didn't get his gun out. I think he was a little traumatized by the I-almost-shot-myself incident.

We joked on the way home about what would have happened if I had really shot myself. Randy said he would have been mad because he would have had to tear up his new shirt that he plans to wear to Tahiti next week to make a tourniquet. But he said he would have taken me back to Wendover soon after he finished climbing the hill. He also decided this is one of those incidents we don't tell anyone about. I guess he was afraid Leona wouldn't let him go rabbit hunting again with such a stupid person.

At home I ate dinner (leftover Chinese food from our dinner with Sara and Jared the night before), and Chieko and I rented a movie at Blockbuster. I debated telling Chieko about the incident. I went to the bathroom and noticed a bruise high up on my thigh, higher than Randy and I had checked, as well as a red spot. I thought, Wow, the gun's action hit hard enough to take a little skin off through my pants. I started to button up my pants but decided to inspect a little closer. When I stuck my finger in the hole in my leg I decided maybe I had a bigger problem after all.

Chieko was watching TV. I said, "Why don't you turn the TV off. I think I did something really bad. I think I shot myself in the leg." I drove us in the Tahoe to the new IHC hospital by Murray High and had to explain what had happened about five times. Everyone seemed to think the story was amusing. As she hooked up the IV and other paraphernalia, the nurse was kind of giggling. She said, "I am not giggling." I said, "That's ok." I guess they see a fair number of gunshot wounds, but most people don't continue hiking and shooting and goofing off and joking about it after they've been shot.

They took x-rays. The lab technician said, "Where do you think the bullet is?" I said, "Probably where that knot is by my knee." He said, "I'm not a doctor, so I can't tell you anything, but I am taking extra pictures there."

Later, the "trauma" doctor came in to tell me what they planned to do: Nothing. He said the bullet isn't near anything dangerous, and because it is super heated when it leaves the gun it is sterile. He said the bullet probably traveled down my leg between the skin and muscle. He said he doesn't know why it didn't exit, but he's not a ballistics expert. The ER doctor said lots of war veterans are walking around with pounds of shrapnel in them. He gave me a prescription for antibiotics in case the sterile bullet took some unsterile clothing into the hole with it. That was it. They didn't as much as swab the entry wound or give me a Band-Aid.

Chieko decided we shouldn't tell anyone about this, because it's too embarrassing. (Even though she couldn't stop her autodial fingers from calling John and Sara as soon as we got to the hospital, even after I asked her to wait until we knew what the doctors planned to do.)

Walking through the waiting room on our way out of the ER, I heard, "Mike, what are you doing here?" It was Brother Carruth, the stake executive secretary and former high councilman, waiting with someone for her daughter. I had to tell him the whole story. I also reminded him that I wouldn't be in PEC meeting this Sunday because we are planning to go to Jackson. He said, "You might not be there, but you will be the topic of conversation. This is better than Steve Knudson losing his truck in Strawberry Reservoir."

Anyway, I have a small souvenir in my leg.

After you look at these cool pictures, don't forget to read my Death Valley blog below, which I also just posted.






























































Back of my leg after five days.

Death Valley

Last week I chose to drive to California for department staff meetings, and on the way home I turned the 800-mile trip over I-80 into a 1,400-mile drive down the coast and through Death Valley, which I had never been to. Here are some pictures:

All of California is on fire--more than 1,000 fires this week--and everywhere was smoky. This is in the Sierra Mountains going into California.






















On the way from San Jose, I thought it would be fun to drive down Highway 1 along the rugged coast with the top on my car down. What I saw was more smoke.
















And 30 miles past Carmel by the Sea, the road was closed due to smoke and fires. I had to backtrack to Highway 101.
















I did get back to the coast just before San Luis Obispo and spent a little time on the beach. Then I headed east to Bakersfield and more smoke.
















I stayed at the Rodeway Inn in Ridgecrest, CA. The next day I passed through the thriving mining town of Trona on the way to Death Valley National Park.
















Death Valley is surrounded by some pretty high mountains. I entered from the west, which crosses a nearly-5,000-foot pass.















Then the drop into the valley.


























































At the lowest point, the temperature was 110 degrees at 10 a.m.
















Death Valley has some fascinating scenery. If you're ever near, you should plan to spend a morning here. But I wouldn't make it a vacation destination.
















Some plants grow fine in the shifting sand.

















You may not remember the Ronald Regan 20-Mule Team Borax commercials on TV. But this is where the theme came from. This was a borax mine in the 1800s, which employed 20-mule teams to pull the huge trains of wagons (wheels are 7-feet tall) full of borax, tools, and a big water tank. The borax doesn't crystallize above 120 degrees, so the mine shut down during the summer.

















The Death Valley salt flats.

















Salt crystal.

















That's all of Death Valley. The rest of these pictures are across Nevada. I didn't want to go through Las Vegas, so I took the longer route up around Nellis Air Force Base. This is a yucca plant.























I'm not sure what kind of an animal this was. It's a lot bigger than a mouse, but much smaller than a fox. Maybe a kangaroo rat. They live in Death Valley.
















I can't remember if this was in Goldfield are Tonopah. Whatever. This body shop owner needs more real business. This is just one of four or five monuments at the business.























I don't know how grateful veterans are to have a remote, desolate highway in southern Nevada named for them (Veterans Memorial Highway), but I'm sure all the aliens of the universe are happy to have this highway dedicated to them. I saw only one alien on this road.











































The late-June Nevada desert offers some surprisingly pretty flowers. When I first saw one of these along the highway, all by itself among dry-brown sagebrush, I wondered if someone had stuck a plastic plant next to the pavement.