Dopamine Reset

 Aka “A New Hope” (Episode XXIV)

Just returned from my beautiful mini-campout weekend at our new Palo Pinto Mountains State Park - a project which has been 15 yrs in the works… My dear deceased colleague Dr Gail Conway helped with some of the initial trailblazing, & words are inadequate to describe how beautifully it turned out! (Yes, I will certainly have to transfer a few pictures as technology allows)

There was no cell phone service except in certain areas of the park - I enjoyed this mini-dopamine reset; in some ways it was very refreshing, but I had some minor anxiety about being out of touch. Peran had sliced off the pad of his R thumb on Thursday - I stitched it back on, but had my concerns about devitalization & infection! He had taken a box cutter to a stubborn box of laundry detergent - I heard him exclaim “Shit!” but nothing else; I followed him after he had proceeded rapidly to the bathroom, trailing blood. Fun times!

(I offered him the option of going to urgent care vs having me stitch it back on - there will likely be devitalization across the tip, but at least the skin is providing its own support during the healing process)

I didn’t see anything else I could do for P therapeutically, so I carried on with my campout plans: drove about 3 hrs W of the DF-Dub, set myself up in the pristine brand-new campground, & enjoyed 2 d of riding & hanging out w/4 of my girlfriends. (It wasn’t that husbands weren’t allowed; just none of ours opted to come!)

We rode almost 19 miles over Saturday & Sunday - the trails were awesome; Sharon termed them “mini-Colorado” which was apt as we wound our way amongst the jumbled boulders. Of course, our climbs were relatively mild but I was still thankful to be horseback vs afoot! We left roughly 11 more miles of trail unexplored - obviously that can be our next mission. “I cain’t hardly wait!”