The blood was gone

I got home and the trail of blood was gone.

Gone, I said....gone.

Whose blood, and where it went require me to start back a ways, so sit down, grab some bon-bons and listen up...

It all started back over Father's Day weekend. We went camping at a state park with our friends. There were some great hiking/biking trails (my thought...'how nice for the hikers and bikers'), but our friends are rather active so we brought our 2-wheelers along. Now, in order to bring our heart-attack inducers I had to connect our large (6x12) utility trailer and bungee-cord down the bikes. Lame, to be sure - but it worked.

So we bike and such and suddenly I'm Lance Armstrong. Pulling the trailer henceforth is simply not going to cut it. What to do? Well, I've come to discover some discounted treasures (used junk) that I thought could be useful to me on the Craigslist site. After realizing that a 5-bike trailer-hitch bike rack will run far north of $450, Craigslist is looking better and better by the moment.

A search brings up.....absolutely nothing. Man, I hate Craigslist.

Only kidding there.

So I'm 0-for-1 when I see a new cool little feature 'Craig' added. If you don't get your desired result (meaning, zilch-squat-zippo-nada-nothing), the search engine searches near areas (communities) for what you're seeking.
And there I see it - A SIX BIKE RACK!!
Six bikes? Yes, six bikes!! Now, Nate can't ride yet (nor can he walk yet, but hey, he'll get there) but eventually we'll need a six-bike rack!

The only catch?
It's attached to a camper.
Now most people might see that as a deterrent, but not me. I see that as an expensive bike rack with a free pop-up camper to boot!

Fast forward a day and bingo-bango, I'm pulling a pop-up home, happy as Clark Griswold on his way to Wally World.



I love used stuff. You beat the depreciation, and if it's been well taken care of, you score big. However I like to customize my purchases to make them 'mine.' So after changing out the door and drawer handles, the floor is the next obvious choice.

I'm also a believer in having the right tools for the right job, so a quick trip to Home Depot and a new 'super sharp tile cutting' Husky utility knife later, I'm ready.

I begin installing the new floor and it's looking good. I'm feeling confident about the decision to upgrade the floor, and looking forward to going camping again the following day when all of a sudden my blade somehow jumps over the metal straight edge and fillets the end of my finger.

For a second that seemed to last much longer, there was no pain. Then like 1980 Mt. St. Helen's, the finger erupted and the molten-lava (blood) started gushing. I rush inside, leaving a gruesome track of every step, and race to the sink to wash it out.
I can't even see the cut, but can feel the skin barely hanging on, so I wrap it with medical bandages and tape and head off to the E.R.

1 hour and seven stiches later, I return home to complete the job, finger throbbing and all. When I get inside I look down expecting to see that awful dark-crimson stained reminder of my miscue but can find nothing.

I head in to the laundry room, where I left quite an impression trying to find the proper bandages. Again, nothing.

The kids come rushing in to see how the patient is, and I ask about the blood trail. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought, but in fact it was; and worse.

While I was gone Andrew (14 y/o) voluntarily cleaned up everything. EVERYTHING. He got down on the tile and cleaned up the mess.

I didn't tell him to, I didn't ask him to, and I didn't expect him to.

But he did it anyway. And I was (and am still) totally blown away. When I was 14 I would NEVER have done something like that. And although it's somewhat grotesque, it makes his self-less act that much more impressive.

Sometimes our kids drive us to the brink, and other times they make us bonkers. But once in awhile you get these little pockets of behavior that reveal who they really are inside, and it makes you so proud of them it takes your breath away.

That day, there was no step-this or step-that, we were just a family helping one another out. What a day, and what a great kid!