After the race, I experienced a new "thrill." I was assigned the less-than-glamorous task of dumping the trailer's waste (conveniently separated and categorized into "body waste" and "liquid waste" -- nice euphemisms, but let's call a spade a spade, shall we: it was shit and piss, and smelled accordingly!) The good news? I hardly got any on me.
Dumping "Body Waste": A Hose (Er, Rose) By Any Other Name...
After settling in at the Mt. McKinley Campgrounds, a whole bunch of us decided to go down to the lake for a little dip. Jim let me borrow his kayak, and I attempted several times to complete an "Eskimo Roll" (a 360-degree flip through the water). Unfortunately, I only managed each time to get halfway around, filling the kayak (and my lungs) with a lot of water, before popping back up again. On my last attempt, I did manage to get all the way around, but only by cheating (I pushed off the bottom of the lake with the oar).
---------"Kayak Chris" In Between Eskimo Roll Attempts-----------------
After a surprisingly good dinner of minestrone and rice, the racers held an autograph session, and I got them all to sign my hat.
Next, I spent a couple of hours talking to Andre Noel, Michel's trainer. He is a psychologist back in Quebec, who specializes in hypnosis, and he told me (sometimes via the handy French-to-English translation of Val) all about the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of hypnotherapy. He said some amazing things, but I was rather skeptical and wanted proof. Unfortunately, he couldn't use me as a test subject because of the language barrier (nor even Val, as good as she was managing with her old High School French), but he could hypnotize Odile, a fellow native French Canadian. For some reason, Odile wasn't too keen on the idea, but I think I can wear her down eventually.
Then it was time for the big Pente rematch with Val. And true to my word, I kicked her ass! Humbled before my awesome display, she eschewed any further games and surrendered to my superior skill (she claims she was merely tired). We called it a night and slipped inside our respective sleeping bags.
1 comment:
Ugh, that is THE WORST job of owning a camping trailor...unloading those nasty hoses to their proper places. Yuck. My parents have a camping trailor too, I have helped. Nasty.
As for the hypnotherapy, I want to do that someday. It is neat that you got to learn about it. What is Pente, by the way?
(pssst, that was me the other day, the weeping tree).
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