This essay was written last week, and thank god I wrote it when I did. Under normal circumstances I would post new material to the writing section of my website this coming Friday (3/1/19). Unfortunately, the situation surrounding a rapid decline in my father’s health is dictating that I need to fly down to Texas tomorrow. That being the case, I’m posting the essay today (2/25/19).

This is part III of a series of ongoing essays leading up to my trip to Kenya in spring (leaving March 27). Just getting all the inoculations to take this trip is turning out to be an effort in and of itself.

Word Count: 666

Kenya Kurudi

Part III

Everyone’s heard the old cliché, “Be careful what you wish for, it might come true,” and in this particular instance that definitely makes a great deal of sense. In the past I’ve been known to tell tourists that it wouldn’t bother me if we got 120’ of the white stuff every year as opposed to the standard 120” we get most winters. From a skier’s perspective, the more the merrier I always say, and after last year’s non-winter conditions and a huge lack of moisture, it sure feels awfully nice to be experiencing all this snow at the present moment.

Then again getting ready for the Kenya trip, all this extra moisture has put somewhat of a crimp in my preparations. Case in point; last Thursday I needed to drive down to Durango to get my Typhoid Fever & third of three Hepatitis B shots in preparation for the trip. This appointment was actually a re-assignment of an earlier doctor’s visit that was supposed to take place in mid-January. That trip had to be re-scheduled because southern Colorado (and Durango in particular) got nailed with a snow storm that basically paralyzed the entire town in January.

Sure enough, another low-pressure front moved into the region two weeks ago, and what would normally be a 50-mile trip over two passes and down the mountain of less than an hour turned into a one and a half hour bare-knuckle driving odyssey-just to get there mind you. Durango was a total mess with snow coming down in big wet flakes at a record rate, and after getting the shots it took me almost two hours just to get back up here. An old timer once told me, “You only drive as fast as you want to wreck,” and that particular saying has become my mantra whenever driving through the middle of white-out snow storms. Last week’s trip wasn’t even the most arduous of the inoculation odysseys in order to prepare for the trip either.

This past Tuesday I was required to drive to Albuquerque in order to get my Yellow Fever shot. Since I don’t have much of a hankering to turn a trip such as this into a mini-vacation, my original plan was to get up before the butt crack of dawn, leave here around 5:30 am, get the shot at 11:00, then turn around and drive all the way back home in the same day.

We aren’t getting enough snow this winter, so another low-pressure front moved in, and the Four Corners region got hit with a storm that rivaled or surpassed the earlier moisture producers. So bad that my little sister called me from Durango that afternoon and told me I definitely needed to re-schedule the Albuquerque trip to next week. Turns out the entire region and all of northern New Mexico was transformed from a Winter Wonderland into a Class V Kill Storm situation. That is if one happens to be the unfortunate soul driving the highways in the Four Corners on that particular day.

Luckily, this Yellow Fever inoculation happens to be the last shot I need to get in preparation for the trip. I do need to get a prescription for my anti-malarial pills, but that will happen through a doctor friend of mine here in Silverton. Now all I have to do at this point to get ready for the trip is one or two minor things, and I’ll be pretty much set.

Here’s the irony of the situation. The day I arrive in Kenya is the exact same day this whole BREXIT referendum for England kicks in (March 29^th). Kenya happens to be a former colony of the British Empire. Total coincidence, maybe?