Another hospital admittance. Been having this pain in my lower rib cage from the fall back in Spokane. Decided it needed to be addressed. Went to insta check but after the doc read my file they threw me over to the ER. I was admitted again. This time this doc wanted to see mire of my insides so i was given about a quart of contrast solution to drink in  an hour. The comment is nobody asks for seconds, me included. Same tech who scanned me that Sat night was on duty again. He remembered me as I him. results came back that hematoma is shrinking but not gone. No explanation for continuing pain. I am to follow up w/ urologist . My BP is to me very high. I have names of 2 docs for internal medicine to deal w/ bp. Some speculate it is because of not being on pain meds and body is in pain producing high readings.

Doc prescribed my hydrocodone. I have enough for a stocking stuffers. Prescribing pain and to me not getting at cause of pain.

Hospital drink cleaned me out like a prep for a colonoscopy.

Watched GU MSU game. Zags were ahead most of game but lost it in last 2 mins. Almost had it against number 2 ranked team.

Sleeping on the streets of ST George.

Took time leaving Mesquite, NV for Lake Mead area. No real place to go or thing to do and all day to get there. Stopped in Overton Lost Town Museum, but it is more of a lost funds place as the state has shortened the days opened because of budget cuts.

Drove S of town looking for big flat spot where people camp. Found it. RVs scattered about, some by themselves (like me) or gathered in clumps. Don’t know if there is a sense of community here among these travelers. I know I am not ready to embrace this type of living. I am waiting for my injury to heal so I can get back among the active living. I think I could better wait out my healing and have a better sense of life being back in Brevard, NC than hiding in desert in the open.

I sat outside in the nice sun for several hours finishing up Wendell Berry’s That Distant Land .  I am sentimental and long for the old days. His writings are of an older day that I did not know. If I would have been raised on a farm and a life he wrote about, I probably would have left it for the bright lights of the city, OK maybe on the outskirts but left the farm non the less. Previously I finished another of his books, Jaber Crow. They were very good reads and full of wisdom of by gone days clashing w/ new ways of living where people have left the land for city jobs that are disjointed and dysfunctional. Arguments can be made for both lifestyles. I choose the non Wal Mart life.

I was introduced to Wendell Berry in Dalton, GA the night before the Snake Creek Gap Challenge race siting around a campfire by a woman. The Pinhoti trail is now an IMBA epic.

That Distant Land is a collection of common thread chronologically order stories of people from early settlers to modern times. Burley Coulter’ s life is started & finished as an old man dying of old age. His family decides to “do something” and admits him to a hospital where “they” best know how to take care of him. He is dying of old age but the medical community sucks the dignity out of him to prolong his life that is no longer his. His family watches him plugged into machines to keep him alive. His son makes the decision to “kidnap” him and take him home to die. The state assigns a detective to bring the guilty to bear. Charge: he left w/o officially signing out. A contest of wills between the old family he lived in and modern medicine.

The sun goes down and the temp drops.

I am thinking about going back to ST George, UT to recover among trees and maybe some bike riders. I might seek a volunteer position to do something. I am having a difficult time just sitting.

I will work on another photo album tonight. Verizon has great wireless coverage.

I am still sleeping on the floor. I can’t sleep on my stomach because of pain from my fall back in Spokane hurt something in my chest. As a result I am not sleeping very well.

Slept late in the motel parking lot this AM. Headed west bound for Death Valley. Cogitated over last drs comments that i9 need to be inactive to let my kidney heal. Paid him heed. Chance exit off I-15 @ Mesquite, NV & stopped @ visitors’ bureau. Asked about camping & a shower. Town has a rec center: $1.00 shower & I’m clean. Shopped @ well stocked Smiths grocery chain store. Drove out S of town into BLM land in desert. Found spot off main gravel road. No trees, way open, mtns in near distance. Uninitiated might say bleak. I say not a lot of high density animals or plants.

Urologist said 3 weeks for 70% healing. Need to find out what i can do starting next Monday. I will treat this week as still recovery for 3 weeks.

Going to work my way along the N shore of Lake Mead to Las Vegas by weekend. I decided that if I went to Death Valley this week I would probably gone hiking which might not have done my healing any good.

Tuesday night Zags play Michigan State. Might stay around Mesquite which appears to be a hopping gambling town just across the border from straight laced Utah. Places to dirt bag camp in town.

It is very noticeable that the speculative economy went into the toilet in LV and even here in Mesquite as building construction and occupancy is at a stand still. Development on outskirts of LV was dead, many bldgs unfinished w/ nobody working on them. Housing developments platted but no housing starts.

Quiet night, temps around 30 & almost 70 at hot part of day.

Another go to place thought is Quartzite, AZ. I believe Mel’s dad is there. Town pops up filled w/ snowbirds. Might be a slow place to recuperate, would be staged for Sedona, AZ. Yeah, just the place to fall.