'Not even Wensleydale?'

-
There are a few places when mentioned to some English, causes them to get a wistful, faraway look in their eyes and smile dreamily. The Yorkshire Dales is one of these places. 'Oh, the dales!...' they'll say before composing themselves long enough to tell you that there's no way to see it all in one day. Indeed not! But we tried to see as much as we could. We started in Grassington. What a lovely little town. Oh, the dales are also a place that cause me to overuse the words 'lovely' and 'charming' but seriously, there are no better adjectives for it.

We stopped liberally, which meant pulled over a lot, because there is no shortage of lovely views, but there is a shortage of safe places to pull over and enjoy them. The hills got higher, sheep more cheeky, and the ammount of dry stone walls was incredible. It's like the dry stone wall salesman came to town, for real! We stopped in Hawes to go into the Wendsleydale Creamery. Cheese, Cheese, Cheese! Who cares how it's made when there is a refrigerated tasting room with 20 different cheeses and no shortage of toothpicks.

We drove on, ending up at Aysgarth Falls which gave us a lovely walk in the woods and good views. The roads from here got more narrow, curvy and steep, but was truly beautiful. We made it up to the Tan Hill Inn, Englands highest pub. It's literally in the middle of nowhere and even had sheep the porch. The road from here followed a far more gentle slope down the other side of the mountain. You could see for miles down the ribbon of tarmac which inspired me to get a manual driving lesson on it. It's not that I didn't know how to drive a manual, it's just that I haven't had much practice. And by not much practice, I mean I've driven one about 1000 yards in a cemetery and didn't get above second gear. And that one time when I drove about a mile.
When we picked up the car and I learned we were getting a Ford Fiesta (diesel, no less!) I was ecstatic and couldn't wait to get behind the wheel. I was really hoping for an opportunity to storm a beach or outmaneuver baddies in a mall, but a nice straight, traffic free road would do nicely. I mean, what better place to perfect the skills than a foreign country on the wrong side of the road? Dad did point out that most people hone their skills in a parking lot.
The prevailing conclusion from my longest stint of gear shifting is why don't we all drive manuals? I mean, it is fun! I couldn't help myself from shouting 'power!!' a la Clarkson as I went into 5th and gleefully honked at sheep in the road. Admittedly, honking at sheep had nothing to do with manual driving, but it certainly made me laugh maniacally, and is, by the way, the most effective way of getting them out of the road. They scatter like flies!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dueling Blogs

-
I have the immense privilege to be sitting right across from Maddog Medic in the flesh. We aren't speaking, though he is listening to me. Want to solve this riddle? He is transcribing an interview he did with me for his blog at this very moment. And I too am blogging at this very moment! How crazy?! I am stationed this week at the EMS today conference to stock up on professional wheelings and dealings and learn some stuff. This is a wonderful conference full of networking and new products and I learned already that one dose of glucagon costs $130. That's out of control! I cannot wait to catch up on disaster literature and EMS tricks of the trade and get as many free pens as I can at the expo tomorrow.  As for now, I'm headed to a class on smart stuff and pediatric breathing problems.  I am surrounded by EMS nerds and I love it! I spent the day learning about things above my pay grade such as how to read a chest x-ray and how to differentiate between subarachnoi...
Click for More

Clothing Removal

-
Image
Last week I had a patient who fell from her horse while jumping at a show. When I got there the BLS crew had immobilized her and, well, that was about it. She was complaining of neck pain and at that moment couldn't remember what had happened. I used my horsey knowledge to build up a healthy rapport with a scared patient. In general, not a lot was wrong with her. My biggest problem was that she was on the backboard and still had on all of her fancy English riding clothes. I made my best efforts to get off her button up shirt with high collar and black outer riding jacket, but it caused her pain, and then I made it worse. Worse than falling off your horse, worse than the public embarrasment of having an ambulance called for you, worse than defenitly losing your show class, was the stupid paramedic who cut off your expensive riding clothes. I, too, had never felt worse for cutting someones clothes off. She cried and shrieked and you would have thought I was punching her in the gut. I...
Click for More

The Race

-
Sometimes this job is like a race. Like you're carrying this person on your back, and it's a messy race. You're tripping and sweating and you almost drop them. It's bouncy and there's trash everywhere. And if you can just get them over that line. To the line and throw them over. Throw them over and into the ER, you're obligation is fulfilled. Your job is done. You've won the race. And for a long time, that was it. Mission accomplished and I wasn't responsible for anything else. I didn't care about anything else. Get them to the hospital.  Dust my hands off and pat myself on the back. But somehow, they crept in. What did happen?  Did they live?  For the first time I asked myself.  I began to bring them home. I put them on a shelf and they stared down at me. They said, did you run fast enough?  Did you fall?  Did you drop me?  You threw me onto this island- over your line, but was it salvation?  I left in a hel...
Click for More