Jan 6, The day after I got the Flu

It started with a tickle at the back of the throat.   By Monday morning, I was barking like a baby seal.   It sounded eerily familiar.  Almost the same noise as the little old eighty year old women, I while working on Aid Car 2, two days prior.  She was laying on her back, barking like a seal.  I hear that the flu is transmitted by droplets that fly out of your mouth when you cough.  Those droplets can fly up to six feet and get inhaled by the unsuspecting. My partner had checked her lung sounds and said the noise was all upper respiratory.   Hmmm, I think that describe's me perfectly.   I should have suspected.  I should have placed a filter mask over that coughing mouth.  As I type out this report I feel like a post-menopausal women.   My hot flashes seemed to spike yesterday at 102, although the 101 today is not much better.   Menopausal hot flashes.  

But back to ski touring.   Scott Otterson and I had plans to tour Monday morning.  It was his annual one day of skiing.   He currently is residing in Castle, Germany trying to come up with software to make the electric grid handle all the new forms of power, like windmills.   It seems this kind of research isn't popular in the states.  Who needs renewables, when we have all that coal and natural gas.  Burn baby burn.

But back to ski touring.  It is always good to hook up with Scott.  Each year I wonder what piece of critical ski equipment he will forget to grab.  This year it was long list, and by the time I ran the snowblower in the driveway, I had about 3 different messages.  Originally he needed a shovel.  Then he found he was missing his climbing skins.  Luckily I have a full spare touring setup and wear the same size boot.  Of course that means, Scott does not get to telemark.  That's okay, since Scott usually falls a lot on telemark gear.   Although that meant our downhill ski was far too quick.   From then on the requests were much simpler, a pair of goggles, and perhaps some poles.

Scott on way back to source lake

Oh yeah ski touring, despite the rise of my flu, I manned up for an easy outing to Snow Lake and back.   We had received about 6 inches of new snow, but right in the middle was a nice frozen rain crust.  We joined the hordes on the trail to source lake.   By the time we hit the snow lake divide, we had left most of them behind.  In fact the visibility was so crappy that I went in circles looking for Snow Lake.  I even pointed the wrong way off the ridge to some snowshoers and definitively said, Yep, the lake is straight down there.  Luckily they turned around at that point and I did another circle and found the lake.   We did two laps down to the lake and then headed home.  Mediocre skiing, but good to hook up with Scott.   And the flu?   I went home and climbed into bed.   I am sure the day did not help for a speedy recovery.