Taggart Lake Trail, Grand Tetons

Hi Everyone,

     Today is a cloudy day with spotty showers and the potential for thunderstorms.  Therefore, it became a day for chores and errands.  I did laundry early and got to talk to several other people there about their travels.  I keep forgetting to mention that we have met some of the nicest people during this trip along the way and at our campgrounds.   I have to say that this community that we are part of that travel around using RV’s and campers are not only really nice but also a great resource of information.  We each have similar issues regarding traveling in this manner and so often can rely upon someone else’s experience to problem solve along the way...

After laundry, we ended up running an unexpected errand to the local urgent care facility which was a fabulous setting both in their ability to move through the process as well as their experience and knowledge.  (more on that later)

Yesterday, Eileen and I decided to go for a hike to the Taggart Lake trailhead at the base of the Tetons.  I was having one of my good days and wanted to take advantage of that and enjoy some exercise and fresh air.  It was a beautiful trail with a varied habitat of forest, meadows and streams.  There were quite of few people using the trail so unfortunately, there was limited opportunity to see wildlife.  On the positive side, we could basically ignore the bear warning signs :)

I felt like I should keep pinching myself to see if I was dreaming because I was hiking around with views of the Grand Tetons throughout the trail!  They are magnificent!  That was the first day Eileen and I would be trying out our new hiking boots. We both purchased low hikers and mine were with a much wider toe box.  My old hiking boots, despite being fitted by professionals at EMS, were giving me constant pain and open blisters.  Some of that, of course, is the physical conditions that I suffer from, but some of it is simply the style, size and shape of a boot.  Thankfully, these new boots worked out so much better!! I developed some reddened areas but no actual blisters, it was a miracle and so worth the money!! Hopefully, that good outcome will continue in the future...

As we were hiking up the trail and the elevation gain began, I started to feel a bit winded, which is perfectly normal as you exert yourself in higher elevation areas. As we got to the top of the trail it seemed noticeably worse that usual since it’s not normally a problem for me, so I decided to rest and hydrate more.  I was also having a terrible time with my allergies again and stopping for tissues constantly!!  We made our way back towards the trailhead and decided to look for a spot to soak our feet.  Eileen found a stream nearby that had a small, backfilled pooled area which was perfect!  We took off our boots and spent some time cooling down our feet; it was glorious!!  Then we prepared to dry off and get back out to the trail to exit the area.  Next thing I know, I hear Eileen cry out and heard a splash!  She took a fall on the slippery rocks!  After a few tense moments, we evaluated her and concluded that she came through the episode with nothing broken.  She did however, have scrapes and swelling on her wrist, leg her butt!  She was very lucky!! She was soaked through her clothing (her new boots!!!) and was sloshing in her footwear back to the car.  She ended up changing into drier clothes before we headed back to camp.

Meanwhile, I am feeling totally drained and experiencing shortness of breath with even small amounts of activity.  Again, I’m thinking it’d dehydration and exertion. We stopped to get some bike rental information, check out the liquor store :) and grabbed some bargain clothing for Eileen on the way home.

We cleaned Eileen’s scrapes (the wrist was the worst) and bandaged and iced her up.  Again, we counted ourselves fortunate that she didn’t hurt herself worse and that we were close to exiting the trail when it happened.  After getting settled at camp we went our separate ways and I tried to rest to see if my symptoms would alleviate themselves.  They did not.  My chest was really painful and it burned very badly when I took a breath, which I could only take shallowly....  I didn’t want to jump the gun by going somewhere to be checked out too soon so decided to give it the night to see if things improved.  It turns out that Eileen and I had both separately checked out the local medical facilities.

When I woke up this AM the chest pain was still severe so after speaking with Eileen we decided  to go to the local urgent care down the street.  They of course, took me right in just to be safe and rule out cardiac issues.  I had not been concerned about that since despite all of my many physical problems I’ve always had a clean bill of health in that department.  The doctor wanted to be sure so the EKG was run which came back fine.  We spoke about my bad allergies contributing to the respiratory distress and he ordered a chest X-Ray.  He came back into the room asking if I was a smoker and Eileen and looked at each other thinking, UH OH.  It showed that my lungs were hyperventilating.  This is what was causing the severe pressure and burning pain in my chest.  The diagnoses was bronchitis related to inhaling whatever allergens I am sensitive to.  He put me on an inhaler and oral steroids to calm things down.  He sent me with blood work to the hospital to rule out cardiac and infection issues and all those tests came back negative.  Now I just have to rest and let the meds work to heal my lungs. This is not something that I would be able to cheat on and break the rules because breathing is not really optional....  

For the last few showers there’s been a leak happening so this afternoon the campground manager came over to tighten things up in the tub; so hopefully that’ll be the end of that!  While he was here I asked him to fix the cable TV since it’s been fuzzy for the past week.  It hasn’t mattered much since we haven’t been home much to watch TV but now that I’m supposed to rest it’ll be nice to have the distraction..  It was a simple matter of flipping a switch from air signal to cable!  It’s part of the whole learning process of living this lifestyle:)  While he was here he hooked up Eileen’s as well.  That’s good because I at least had the sound of the TV and news while I was over here alone and it’s nice to hear something in the background when you’re by yourself.

Eileen and I are going to heal up and recover and be a little laid back for a bit.  We are dreading telling the boys when they get back because they are going to do the old thing; ‘see what happens when we leave you guys alone?’......