Wednesday, February 25, 2025 – A Mostly Good And Some Bad Day at FITS

Hiya Darlin',
Had a mediocre night sleep, despite taking two ibuprofen. I coated my knee with Icy Hot, and once the hot kicked in, it burnt like hell, so it was a fitful night. My knee felt marginally better for about 30 minutes this morning, despite taking three iboprofen, then it was back to agony again. Thank goodness I have a quad Mule to carry me around! I spent most of the day leaning heavily on your beautiful walking stick whenever I had to get out of the mule. I reported for work at 8:00 a.m., finished putting up some signs, helped where I could before trailers started coming in that needed to be situated. Fortunately, they were spaced out quite well, so I never had a line, and never had to wait too long for the next one. Good news, Rick did me a great favor and picked up my tires for me, which is a great weight off my mind. I'm sure part of my bad night sleep was worrying about how I was going to solve that problem. Bad news, at 3:30 this afternoon, several of us got an email from the forest informing us of a 3200 acre aerial burn, located directly where one of our ride loops was. So with just a few hours of daylight left, our ridemaster, Kelsey, had to go out and remove seven miles of trail markings and figure out where to make them up on another loop. I had another talk with Logan about it, and of course, they can't do anything to prevent the burn, but I pressed him about what we need to do to try to avoid these kind of conflicts. He said they don't know which trails we are using, I asked how much lead time they needed to get a map of what we will likely use, and he said a couple of months. So, at there is a possible path to avoiding some of these conflicts in future, though whether it will come to fruition or not remains to be seen. Chelle said the permit did say all areas north of Apex, which is where the burn is taking place, so they should have had warning, but I don't know how long ago the permit was issued, so another angle needs to be explored. Anyway, I finished situating my last camper around 7:45, came back to camp, promptly got in my hot tub, which thankfully was at full temperature, followed by a hot shower, and now, a cup of tea. Everyone has been very helpful and sympathetic with my pain, one man gave me a copper-laced knee brace, telling me to use Salon Pas on my knee after my shower and put the brace on overnight, which I am doing, several people got me food and drink during the welcome meet and greet, and everyone voiced their concern, which was very nice. I hate being an invalid! But I won't have time to see a doctor until next Thursday, at least. Much as I love your walking stick, I'm thinking crutches might be more helpful. Can't wait to find out how to fix this! Anyway, I'm finishing my tea and going directly to bed. Good night, babe! Love you!