My Therapist Makes a Recommendation!

As they say in the journalism world, I buried the lead. 

We have had lots of misadventures on our camping expeditions, and I have tried to relate them as honestly as possible.  

However, I purposely left out the first misadventure that we experienced because it was just TOO Embarrassing.  Even for me.  

I busted my tailbone.

Earlier in the spring, I was relaxing in our Tiki Bar (aka the reinvented carport).  I was drinking fruity concoctions out of my Palm Tree beverage holder and laying back on the hammock.

  

I must have misjudged the size of my backside in comparison to the width of the hammock ropes, because the next thing that happened was I landed HARD on the concrete carport floor. 

For the next 3 weeks I very gingerly wobbled around with an ice pack tucked inside my shorts.  My buttocks faded from purple-y blue to a dull mauve color; and because we were isolated for the pandemic, I was able to keep this information among Just Us Geezers. 

By the time we took our first camping get-away, I had almost completely healed, and the icepack was out of my Undies and back in the Cooler.

But we brought the hammock with us.  I tried to hang it from a sturdy tree near our tent.  I tested the branch.  It seemed strong enough.  However, within 10 seconds of placing my full weight on the hammock, the tree limb Broke.  Now I landed HARD on the gnarly tree roots. 

The cooler icepacks were relocated in order to numb my nether regions.  Over the next two days of camping, I took megadoses of Advil and spent as much time as possible, "cooling my jets" in the lake.  

At home, I called my health care clinic.  This time I was afraid I might have compounded the earlier hammock landing, and seriously damaged my derriere.  

In the midst of the pandemic, my doctor scheduled an x-ray of my coccyx.  (I must admit it was a strange sensation to have the radiology technician TOUCH ME..."there”... when I hadn’t even shared an enclosed space with anyone but Geezer John in 3 months.)

The diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment:  No broken bones.  Expect the pain to continue for the next six weeks.  Schedule an appointment with a physical therapist to strengthen the connecting fatty tissue around the injured site.  

I beg your pardon!!  What do you mean:  FATTY tissue???

Because of COVID, the physical therapy appointment was held virtually on the clinic’s version of Zoom.  Weird. 

There I was, seated on the rug in my bedroom, with the computer camera capturing my attempts to do leg exercises and “bridges” while the therapist coached me on alignment and proper form.

Of course, I had to tell him how the injury had happened.  I detected a stifled snicker when I told him that I fell out of a hammock.  Twice. 

But that’s how I learned my therapist loves camping too!  

He said he and his wife (Not Geezers, probably Millennials) often camp at Greenridge State Forest in Maryland’s Allegany County.  He said they usually just drive there, pick a site, and pay with a self service fee collection envelope.   

John and I hadn’t considered camping at state forests because we’re cheap.  (Our Golden Pass senior discount doesn’t apply outside of the state parks.)  

However, we learned the forest camping fee was already half the cost of the park camping fee.  AND the self service collection procedure meant that there wouldn't be a substantial processing fee added for using the online reservation system! 

As bargain-hunters, we were excited to try this low budget camping opportunity!

Greenridge State Forest is about 46,000 acres of woods and creek.  I’m not a farmer, and I really don’t have a sense of how big that is.  So I did a little bit of research (“Uh, Siri, how large is an acre?”).  

For your information, the Vatican City in Italy is just 110 acres, New York's Central Park is 840 acres, and Disney World in Florida is 30,000 acres.  Greenridge is a big forest!

There are 100 drive-in “primitive” campsites scattered across this vast forest.  Campsites have fire rings and picnic tables, but there’s no bath houses or rest rooms nearby; and many sites are accessed only by dirt or gravel roads. 

After a couple hours of driving in circles on bumpy, windy roads, we saw only about 1/2 of all the campsites.  (There were maybe 7 of them occupied on that week night!)  

We selected a site close to a little bridge over Fifteen Mile Creek.  The next nearest site was perhaps a ½ mile away, so we anticipated an especially quiet and private refuge from suburban life.  We drove 2 miles back on the highway to the visitor center where we dropped our self serve payment in a box and logged our name and campsite number in the official camp notebook. 

We returned to the site, set up the tent, briefly limped over to the creek to soak my coccyx, and made dinner.  Then we settled into a quiet game of backgammon at the picnic table.  But BOOM! 

There was a loud explosion, and something crashed down onto the backgammon board.  DID A HUNTER JUST SHOOT AT US???

No.  According to our Maps app, there was a shooting range located on the other side of the mountain.  The loud gunshots continued for a couple hours until it got too dark for the shooters to see the targets.  

We found the deadly object that crashed our backgammon game.  It was lodged among our picnic supplies:  a black walnut.  And, oh look!  Fallen walnuts all over the campsite (suitable for roasting at home)!  

Sleeping under the stars was wonderful that night - despite the occasional sound of black walnut grenades hitting the tent and bouncing off of the car roof!  

We will return to Greenridge again, but want to explore the other campsites we didn’t see on this trip.  And we’re going to be sure to pick a spot Away from the Shooting Range.

Next week:  Camp Food that's Easy and Cheap!