Summer Vacation Memories

Brewster with a healing 'nick' watches a game of crazy eights

What I know about summer vacations

What I know about summer vacations is that what we remember the most is the crazy, unexpected moments, the things that go wrong. These are the memories forever etched in our minds. Not the times when all flights went on schedule or when the weather was perfect. But the times when we were eaten alive by bugs, or when an outboard dies and we're left paddling back to shore with one paddle.

What about other peoples summer adventures, you ask.  Same.  I want to hear about some of the hardships. Did anything go wrong? Anything at all?   A little  hardship brings an antagonist into the story. Thickens the plot.

During our  trip to Afognak last weekend, Brewster got his forehead nicked by a machete. Patrick's machete. An accident which occurred while hiking and clearing the Devils Club and Salmonberry bushes out of the way of one of our favorite trails. Brewster running every which way under the jungle of bushes surprised Patrick  and before Patrick even knew Brewster was there, his muzzle had been nipped by the machete.

Brewster hardly knew what happened to him, as blood was pouring down his muzzle. I think the only thing puzzling him was why the kids were both crying and screaming incessantly.

Patrick was quick to  suggest that I sew his wound up with dental floss to which I said I'd do nothing of the sort. I don't have the faintest how to sew a wound, nor did I have a thread or a needle. It was completely out of the question.

For the first time ever in an emergency, I think I may have been the calmest one one around. We hiked on with the kids scowling at Patrick, Nora sobbing very loudly in the back of the hiking line. Patrick led the way, just heart broken every time he saw Brewsters bloody muzzle.

I was trying to explain to Nora how head wounds are especially bloody because of how vascularized the scalp is, and how Brewster didn't even know what had happened to him. I don't believe she heard a word I said.

 As I write this, Brewster naps quietly on the couch, dreaming of those squirrels he chased on Afognak. His forehead wound is healing up well with no further interventions needed from us.

He still doesn't really know what happened to him. But we'll always remember.

Zoya