The Drive Home

When I woke up I was still feeling a dull pain but it was manageable, maybe a 3. Not wanting a motel continental breakfast Bob and I decided on real food at the Cowboy Café, and within a couple of minutes were walking down Dubois’ main street.

The ruggedly beautiful Wind River Canyon

While my gut wasn’t hurting too bad, my right knee, the one that “popped” the day before was making the 3-block walk difficult for me. However, the lure of real eggs, sausage, bacon and hash browns spurred me on and we were soon seated.

I was never so happy to get to Minnesota in my life but we still had another 7 hours on the road

The breakfast was, as expected after a week spent in the backcountry, very good. I bought a coffee mug for Yumi and started hobbling back to the motel. With any luck we’d be back on the road by 8:30 and home the next afternoon.

After quickly packing our things and topping off the fuel, I was feeling well enough to drive and in no time we were heading back to Wisconsin. A bit more than four hours later we were in Buffalo. I felt the need to pop a vicodin and relinquished the keys to Bob after filling up the trusty Rav4.

Bob put the hammer down and we flew through the rest of Wyoming and into South Dakota while I rode shotgun and relaxed the best I could. While the vicodin was certainly helping out, the pain never really went away.

We stopped for dinner at the Flying K travel center in Rapid City then pushed on to Sioux Falls, SD where we figured to get a room for the night. I still wasn't fond of driving anywhere in darkness since the "Great Mule Deer Incident" of 2009---especially anywhere there was an abundance of wildlife. Even the thought of popping another vicodin and relaxing in a nice soft bed wasn't going to change that so I crossed my fingers and trusted eagle eye Bob to get the new and trusty Rav4 to a motel parking lot in one piece

We were up early the next morning and finished the drive to Bob’s home in Oostburg without incident. I felt well enough to drive the 40 minutes back home but Bob wouldn’t have that and drove me up to Manitowoc while his wife, Deb, followed behind.

My final stop on the trip

I arrived home at about 4:15. Yumi had no idea what I’d been through the past couple of days and quickly loaded me up to take me to the hospital after saying goodbye and thanks to Bob and Deb.

One MRI and what I thought was an idiotic emergency room physician later, I was told I had not one, but 2 kidney stones. The ER doctor told me 5mm behemoth---the one I was feeling---was about ready to pass at “any time”. The smaller, 3mm stone was still up in the kidney but shouldn’t be a problem to pass. And yes, I even had a bladder infection. Cool. They sent me on my way with more vicodin, an antibiotic and instructions to drink lots of water.

Finally at home, I brought one load of gear into the house and went directly to bed. Finally, I was home.