Everyday Occurances

[eyesup]

I’ve noticed that too, Jbee. When walking in the desert I seldom run into plants big enough to be a barrier. When I do I am always more careful when moving acacia or mesquite out of the way.

Avoiding cactus or ocotillo is an automatic response.

JOhn,
Don’t forget the fallacy of the bulletproof mentality. It’ll never happen to me, has enabled many a young person, convinced that they are immune to danger, to prove otherwise.

Combine that with the risk compensation behavior and you end up with a candidate for the Darwin Award.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

Came back from Pools of water in Romero Pass yesterday. It was somewhere near 100F when we left. Fortunately, we were able to stay nude all the way to the trailhead, the afternoon clouds began to get more frequent and with these some breezes as they displaced air of other temperatures. It was this that gave me so much trouble during my first trip to the pools, but that time, I had no water left in the car. We had filled our bottles with newly filtered water, but it was rapidly disappearing. We had to be sparing today, until I reached the parking lot. When I got there, the water was like hot tea, but welcome.

We hurried off to our doctor appointments, but first a trip to a fast food restaurant for ice in a cup. So very refreshing. At my appointment, I read that a hiker from Illinois was found dead next to the desert trail, on the other side of the mountains, with an empty water bladder.

It can come on very quickly, before you know it. Be careful out there.
Jbee

[eyesup]

I've had that happen to me a couple times. Ran out of water  on a hike during the summer and had none left when I got to my car. I was beginning to feel the heat by the time I got to the car. Luckily I always put a cooler in the car with water and gatorade in it.

The thing most people forget when you start getting too hot is that you are losing minerals also. I started putting the gatorade in when I heard in the news once that a man died in the emergency room after collapsing at home while working in the yard. He was drinking water all day but forgot about the electrolytes.

We've lost count of how many people we've seen heading off to a hike with only a water bottle in hand. We warn them and tell them to carry more and they all say, we're just going to be a few minutes.

No pack, no kit, no supplies, no map and they're lucky they don't get lost.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

Yesterday, one mom, two small kids with sunburned faces, looking very tired. No sign of a water bottle. Heading in teh corect direction, home.
Jbee

[eyesup]

That reminds me of this that I posted last year. My wife knows folks that park at a trail, get out and walk off carrying only a water bottle in hand. IN THE SUMMER!

It's hard to believe sometimes. Most of the time they are just lucky.

Duane

[Greenbare Woods]

Another exciting day mowing the yard.  Always naked mowing my yard.  Chores never end. 

We are  having about 70f today (21C)  after rain and 55f yesterday.   Warming to perhaps 85f (29c) by mid week.
 

[eyesup]

I would get arrested if I mowed my grass like that.

I was reading on a local WNBR website about the ride and a legal firm had a post on it about the risks if you want to go totally naked. It doesn't look good for Nevadans. It is a misdemeanor but no matter, you will end up on a sex offender list. For riding a bike!

So I'll continue mowing wearing as little as possible. There is a spot in my back yard where I can mow naked for about 5 minutes. 

Duane

[jbeegoode]

Weed eater. Here, water is too pricey and precious to grow grass, and the summer heat reeks havoc. You go to Sears, Ace or the big box and a mower is simply not found. Wanna smell grass? Buy a bale of hay, or learn to play golf.
Jbee

[Davie]

I learnt a lesson whilst taking a shirt walk in Zion National Park. I'd bought a bottle of frozen water this king would soon melt but still be cool. It didn't so I was stuck with a bottle of ice and dribbles of water. Fortunately it was only a short walk and I walked a shorter distance than I intended recognising the potential problem. Similar but different to water water everywhere but not a drop to drink.

Replaci g the salts is vital not only in the heat but after diarrhoea.

Low salt can be extremely serious. Mrs D had nine days in hospital as a result. She has endocrine problems, no purgatory gland and an interactive thyroid. A simple cold  suddenly became a medical emergency. I couldn't fault the ambulance service and A &  E.

Davie 

[jbeegoode]

Water is essential to flush out toxins, and give the body something to work with. It is a part of every system and something like 75% or 90 something % of the body. Water just has to throw things off if in short supply. Since we are products of a salt water ancestry, it follows that our balance of salt water is essential, too. So, we go out into a heated area, where we will sweat out toxins and also naturally be cooling the body in response. The body gets out of balance and stressed, without the water.

I get dizzy without water in the heat, and I then know what is wrong. Time after time something tells me to drink something. The body gives out warnings, tells us inately that we need to drink, if we allow that and listen. The intellect just needs to figure out how to keep and adequate supply of water for the body. It varies how much water is being used, how hot, how humid, how much exertion and how shaded or nude that the body is. It is all very good, until there is a shortage of water.

When I fast, all I need is water. It is a blessing. It is me, I am nothing without it. It stores memory and senses, collects nutrients, discards waste, all in an automatic system. It provides everything. It is right up there with sunlight. The sun has been treated like a god, as god, and water, too.

When my water is half gone, I head back to water. All of my trips are planned around water. How to lug it, how much to take, how long I'll be gone, where it is along the way, concern with the purity and filtering, and keeping enough around for food.

Then, I see these people taking off with just a dab, or no water. I just can't fathom it! 
Jbee

[eyesup]

We are in the process of putting in desert a landscape in our front yard. We always do these kind of projects as we can afford it. We don’t do them on credit. The pictures here are of the 1st phase which we finished up last weekend. We removed 2 trees and a lot of shrubbery when we did the entryway. The next part is in the fall, after the heat is off, we will be removing all the grass in the front yard and putting in the desert landscape.

We are keeping a small section of the back yard with grass. We will have got rid of probably 70% of our water load on landscape.

Duane

[eyesup]

. . . no purgatory gland and an interactive thyroid.

Did you mean ‘pituitary’?

Not quite sure what a purgatory gland would do. Not sure either that I would want to find out.
Would a purgatory gland manifest itself immediately after the transition? 

Duane

[Greenbare Woods]

I learnt a lesson whilst taking a shirt walk in Zion National Park. I'd bought a bottle of frozen water this king would soon melt but still be cool. It didn't so I was stuck with a bottle of ice and dribbles of water.
Davie 

For years I have often frozen a 1/2 full bottle of water and filled it with liquid water before going on hikes.  Carried in a back pack it cools your back, and will thaw out by the time you want to drink.  Probably freezing a whole bottle would end up with the 1/2 bottle of ice that you couldn't drink.

Bob

[eyesup]

I put about 1/2 to 3/4 of a liter, depending on the temperature, of water in my 3L water bladder and freeze it. In the morning I fill it all the way up and put it in the pouch in my backpack.

As Bob says, keeps your back cool and cold water cools your core temp quicker. And it feels sooooo good when you drink it.

Duane

[JOhnGw]

There is (or was) a folk tradition in my childhood that a cup of tea was much more cooling than a cold drink - but we didn't have the high temperatures you get in parts of southern USA.