Bobby Greer wrote:
>
> Kyle,
>
>         I guess I am glad that I am not the "outdoors" type. About four
> years ago my son and some of my brothers-in laws four wheeled into the high
> country in
> Colorado and the altitude got me.

Man, Bobby, if you're not used to altitude >5000 ft, it can MESS YOU
UP!  Once you get about a mile above sea level (Memphis is pretty low by
comparison), the O2 carrying capacity of those red blood cells starts to
diminish.  Above 10,000 you can get altitude sickness rather quickly.

I spent two weeks at 11,500 in '98 and the first couple days were a real
drag.  A headache like you wouldn't believe!  I also remembered a lesson
learned a long time ago in Wyoming:  Do not drink alcohol in the High
Country.  What's nice is spending time at altitude and then coming home
to 800' above sea-level.  Man, what energy!

I think what gets me more than anything is the rapidity with which my
balance, flexibility, pain-level got bad.  If it had been a relatively
gradual process I think I could have coped better emotionally.  I get to
thinking, "Sh*t, if it's this bad now, what's it going to be like in
five years?"

The other thing that sucks is that if I take enough
pain-killers/antispasmodics to let me hunt/hike/fish without undue pain,
then I'm not really being safe.  Fishing would be bad enough, but
hunting???  No way!

(Sigh)  Like Laura says, "Kyle, ain't it a bitch?  You've got the body
of a 70 year-old, but the mind of a seventh-grader".  ;>)

-Kyle