ab workout

I woke up feeling a little off this morning. As we were de-constructing camp, this turned into a bit more than just a little discomfort, and I found myself lying down on the ground in between pulling up tent pegs, in order to get up the energy to pull the next. I couldn’t think of any reason why I’d be feeling so bad, though, so I decided it must be in my head, and just forged on – very slowly still, though. We decided it might be a good idea if Ann drove, and I meditated in the front seat, hugging my pillow for comfort.

About halfway through town, I decided it might be a good idea to have a bag handy, just in case, and emptied out our perfectly-sized map bag for the purpose. Just thought it would be a good comfort thing to have it out, didn’t think I’d use it. Oh, but I did! And here’s an important lesson I learned: carry-holes are not a good feature on barf bags, because if you’re feeling too sick to notice they’re there, bad things happen. Fortunately, I hadn’t had much to eat. So we stopped to get some water and ginger ale for me, and drove on.

I was feeling fabulous after getting whatever bad stuff it was out of my system, and this lasted for a good 45 seconds or so, during which I decided I was 100% okay again and loving life. Then it hit me again, and I went back to being silent passenger, afraid of what might come out if I opened my mouth at all. I significantly decreased our Useful Empty Grocery Bag Supply on the way down, and decided a nap in Ann’s mother’s hotel room might be the best course of action while the rest of them went to a long lunch. Our plan was to head back up north toward Taupo, camp tonight and skydive tomorrow, but Ann’s mother became my personal hero for the day at least when she treated Ann and I to a room next door. Ann and her mom went out to get groceries for dinner while I took a long hot bath (this was during one of my cold phases, which alternated with the sweaty feverish ones, at unpredictable intervals of course, just to make things more interesting).

Sometime in the early evening, after staring at the Saltines Ann and her mom had gotten for me, I decided to exert the tremendous amount of effort required to pick one up and consider eating it. Five or so minutes later, I had polished off the entire cracker, and things just got better from there. I even had a little bit of beef stroganoff!