nizo's Journal: Burn baby burn (or: man was I stupid or what?)

Earlier I was reminded of a trip that will forever be burned into my brain (maybe literally). So here we go:

Cast of characters:
Me: A much younger stupider moronic version of myself.
Hexwife (or simply Hex) : Short for harpy ex-wife, to whom I was still married at the time these events unfolded.

Hexwife and I had decided to go camping on the outer banks in North Carolina, essentially rolling dunes of shifting sands between the sound and the open ocean. Some of them are accessible via ferry, so after some reasearch we picked our destination and set off late one afternoon. After driving for several hours it started to get dark, so Hex said she wanted to take a nap back in the bed of my Toyota truck (it had a nifty little camper shell on it). After driving for a few more hours into the middle of nowhere she started banging on the back window (our method of communication since we had forgotten the walkie talkies) so I pulled over and went back to see what was up. She didn't want to get in front, she just wanted to know how far it was, how much further to a bathroom, etc.

Anyway, I get back into the cab, and realize that like a dumbass I left the door open and there is now a small swarm of mosquitos in the front with me. Apparently we were near some swampy area and the light (and us no doubt) had attracted them. Cursing my stupidity I cranked up the AC in the hopes that the cold air would keep them from sucking me dry, which actually worked ok.

We arrive at the ferry location, only to realize our earlier research apparently didn't extend to timetables of ferry operating hours. The sign on the door of the ferry building/grocery store indicated we had missed the last ferry, so we decided to spend the night in the back of the truck and catch the ferry the next morning. The nearest hotel was probably over an hour away, and we had brought our camping gear anyway so it wasn't too bad.

The next morning we realize we hadn't brought any sunscreen or bugspray. Normally I was not too anal about sunscreen since I have lightly tanned skin (thank you oh distant cherokee ancestors) so I wasn't too worried, but I was concerned about the bugs. After eating a light breakfast at the little store (which was out of sunscreen anyway) we purchased a bottle of Skin-be-gone "bug repllent" lotion (more on this later) before grabbing my pack and departing on the morning ferry.

The ferry ride was uneventful. We departed the ferry, with plans to camp out somewhere down the beach and come back on the ferry the next day. We decided to walk several miles down the beach and selected a campsite where we pitched the tent. Slathering ourselves with the earlier purchased lotion, we proceeded to frolic in the waves for the next several hours.

While this lotion didn't keep the bugs off very well, it did act very much like baby lotion when applied to skin soaking in the Rays of Death(tm) from the sun. I had discarded my shirt and Hex had slathered me liberally with this wonderful stuff, so we were both soon really crispy and lobster red. As an added bonus we also soon realized that we hadn't brought enough water.

So eventually we lay in the tent, exhausted and thirsty, contemplating our death sometime in the night and trying to get up the energy to do something, when we heard a truck driving up the beach. We ran outside and consulted with the driver, who said that the last ferry left soon, but he wasn't sure when it left or even what time it was now (we didn't have watches either of course). After a two second consultation, we quickly packed everything and began rapidly proceeding back the way we had come earlier. As tired as I was, I moved down that beach at a pretty rapid pace, hoping to at least delay the ferry until Hex caught up. Luckily when I arrived the next ferry didn't leave for a few hours. The guy at the ferry station looked at me with pity, and then shook his head when he finally saw Hex. While we sucked warm water out of a nearby faucet he consulted with another guy who had arrived with his motorboat earlier, and it was decided we looked too pathetic to be forced to wait for the ferry. We were grateful as we skimmed across the sound to the mainland in the motorboat.

We decided we were too exhausted to drive home, so we drove to Morehead City to look for a hotel. Unbeknownst to us, the (apparently worldfamous) "Seafood Festival" was going full swing there. The first two places we stopped didn't have any rooms, and we both started to dread the possibility of driving any further. At the third hotel, Hex rushed in (barely beating out some old guy and his wife who had parked at the same time we did) and got a room. Well, it wasn't exactly a room; apparently they didn't normally rent it out (it was reserved for the staff) but we looked so pathetic the desk clerk took pity on us. It was small and the bathroom door hit the bed when you opened it, but it had clean sheets, air conditioning, and a shower. I crashed while Hex took a shower.

I actually don't remember much of that night; my skin was burning all over and I was delerious. Luckily Hex had been mostly covered and wasn't as badly burned as I was, so she went to a local pharmacy to see if she could find anything to help us out. She returned with some compresses or something, with the cheery news that the pharmacist had looked at her and said, "You should probably go to the hospital". For some reason (probably heat induced brain damage) we didn't. Hex was nice enough to sit up putting compresses and wet towels on me for awhile before cranking up the AC and going to bed.

The next day I woke up feeling much better. I swear my skin felt so hot you could have cooked an egg on it. I took an ice cold shower, since any heat hurt my skin, and we both felt ready to drive home. Outside we soon discovered that any sunlight touching our burned skin was pure agony. Now I know how vampires must feel. I drove us home with a tshirt draped over my left arm to keep the sun off of it.

Over the next few weeks something happened that I had never seen before; I started to shed my skin. I don't mean little itchy bits here and there, I mean huge chunks of my skin started to just peel off of my body. For weeks, layer upon layer. Amazingly there weren't many blisters, but I would sit and literally pull what looked like over a square foot of skin off of my leg or arm. It was gross. To this day I still wonder if we should have sued the maker of that bug repellent, but then I would have had to admit that I was an idiot who hadn't worn sunscreen so suddenly I am not so keen to pursue the matter. I shudder to think about what kind of permanant damage was done to my skin. Ok this is already too long, so I think I will end it here.

Kentucky Fried People

[the_mad_poster]

Windows cannot find 'ugh'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and the click Search.

Heh. Whoops. Was thinking of what I was going to write while I was trying to launch notepad from the Run menu.... hmm....

Anyway...

Ugh. Years back my girlfriend and I went to Ocean City and I didn't wear any lotion on the beach. I was so badly burned I couldn't drive home that evening, and for the next week I could pull white shirts tight againt my che

Re:Kentucky Fried People

[nizo]

Yeah the outer banks are nice (at least the parts that aren't covered in houses). Man I miss the ocean now that I live in NM. NM: land of many beaches but no ocean :-|

my mother

[gmhowell]

Sounds like something my mother did in her teens.

Yes, you did serious damage to your skin.
Yes, you need to check the affected areas regularly for signs of lesions and cancerous growths.

Re:my mother

[nizo]

So, ehhh, what kinds of things should I look for? How long between when you see signs and it is too late? Maybe I better learn the signs of skin cancer and grow some extra eyes so I can more easily see all the parts that got burned.

Re:my mother

[gmhowell]

Check online, or check with a doc. IIRC:

Moles with a funky hair.
Moles that grow rapidly (double in size overnight).
Moles that pop up quickly (overnight you get a pea sized mole).
Moles that are misshapen.
Moles that are tender or painful to touch.
Moles that are blue/red instead of brown.

If you get any of these, IMMEDIATELY go to a doctor. Take off work, skip the kid's piano recital, find a clinic on vacation. Skin cancer, left untreated, can metastisize in hours or days.

Always layer up on the high spf suns

Re:my mother

[robi2106]

IF you have lots of new moles that have white hairs instead of whatever your normal body hair color is, then you should have them looked at.

jason

Sun Poisoning

[dexterpexter]

It sounds a lot like sun poisoning to me, something my mother had as well, and that I have had a mild case of.

He is lucky his brain didn't start swelling. People sometimes die when their sunburns become sun poisoning.

Agreed on the "check the affected areas regularly" thing.

I don't recommend

[Mantorp]

falling asleep on a beach on Oahu like I happened to do one day while on vacation. My head was turned slightly as I snoozed and one side of my nose turned into a scab. I also had whitish blotches on my stomach for a few years. But damn did I have a nice tan!!! Please melanoma stay away.

Yep

[mekkab]

Hawaii beat the piss out of me. The worst was the coppertone "Sport"- it had a alcohol base that FOOLED me into thinking I was actually putting sun screen on- I had irregular, swooping "shard" shaped red burns in between swathes where sunscreen HAD made it on to my skin.

The second time in Hawaii I was much smarter (my wife, not so.)

As for chunks peeling off; me and some buds where in Orlando and Daytona, and while boogie boarding got a little red. I think I put a bunch of moisturizer on it for a while a

Camping

[bettiwettiwoo]

It's interesting: I don't think I have ever read or heard a story about a camping trip that did not include at least one major disaster.

There were no problems in finding the beautiful spot we had already located on the map. The tent was easy to set up. There were no bugs or ants and the mosquito spray worked just as advertised. The sun shone all through the day, but luckily we had brought sun screen lotion with us. We caught some fish and grilled it on the fire; delicious. It was a lovely weekend.

See

Re:Camping

[Ethelred Unraed]

It's interesting: I don't think I have ever read or heard a story about a camping trip that did not include at least one major disaster.

Maybe you've been reading too much Calvin & Hobbes? ;-)

Honestly, I've been camping numerous times in the past and rarely had any problems to talk about. In fact I always enjoyed myself capitally. And yes, we're talking "real" camping, as in "backpack in and set up a tent", not "park your RV and set up the satellite dish".

Worse thing that happened to me that I reme

Re:Camping

[bettiwettiwoo]

It's true: I have been reading too much Calvin & Hobbes ... only not recently. Hm ... that should be rectified ...

And let me change that last sentence in my original post: not We must be mad, but You must be mad.

PS. I don't know where you are in Germany, but if you can get to Sweden without too much trouble the camping opportunities are virtually endless. Just don't pitch your tent in somebody's garden and start feasting on their vegetables -- as Germans misinterpreting the extensive Swedish right

Re:Camping

[Ethelred Unraed]

And let me change that last sentence in my original post: not We must be mad, but You must be mad.

Yes'm, I am mad as a hatter, madder in fact. I am fed on a diet of pure lunacy spiced with dashes of insanity (or inanity?), washed down with liquified loopiness.

I don't know where you are in Germany, but if you can get to Sweden without too much trouble the camping opportunities are virtually endless. Just don't pitch your tent in somebody's garden and start feasting on their vegetables -- as Germans mis

Re:Camping

[bettiwettiwoo]

The children have to be old enough to gather firewood, you see, while we sit back and leisurely issue directions.

I see you got all this camping + offspring stuff worked out nicely; nothing beats good parenting.

Re:Camping

[Ethelred Unraed]

I see you got all this camping + offspring stuff worked out nicely; nothing beats good parenting.

Of course. I already have the standard response to "Why should I do that?" rehearsed.

"Builds character."

Cheers,

Ethelred

Re:Camping

[nizo]

Ahh it sounds like my wonderful backpacking experiences as a child. My dad would walk as fast as he could, leaving the rest of us in the dust. The best part was when you caught up to him resting, he would start off again immediately. So you either kept up (pretty damn hard carrying a heavy pack with short legs) or you were always far far behind. I am amazed none of us got lost. The best trip was the one where I ate some poisonous plant and we forgot the tent stakes and it rained nearly non-stop. Yes those w

Obligatory Product Placement

[elmegil]

she went to a local pharmacy to see if she could find anything to help us out.

When my wife and I went to Hawaii, we found this stuff [kooldown.com] which is ghodly. We didn't have nearly the severity you describe, but this stuff is wonderful if you've managed to burn.

bug repellent

[lab16]

we purchased a bottle of Skin-be-gone "bug repllent" lotion

but I would sit and literally pull what looked like over a square foot of skin off of my leg or arm.

Sounds like the bug repellent did what it was supposed to. It said "skin-be-gone" on it, and your skin litteraly went away.