We Have Our Own Tour Guide ...and Asthma!

Whaddup Chroniclers?

Ev’rybody ready? You gotchyer coffee?

Day three is in the books. We followed the New Guy again. He’s all excited. He’s in his element. Trees, rocks, dirt, and sand that was sculpted over hundreds of thousands of years by the Good Lord Almighty. You can’t even wipe the grin off his face.

We actually had no idea how familiar he was with this area. The whole crew was up and ready at nine, except for the New Guy. We looked toward Mrs. New Guy quizzically. She just said, “You know how he is. He just wants to make an entrance. He has something he wants to show you all.”

As if on cue, his RV door whips open, and there’s the New Guy, standing at the top of the stairs, hands balled into fists placed strategically at his waist in a perfect superhero pose. He was wearing from the bottom up: hiking boots, desert sand knee socks folded perfectly symmetrical under his knee caps, green cargo shorts with a matching shirt with “JUNIOR RANGER” embroidered over one of the pockets. But the cherry on top was his Smokey Bear hat.

“I’m ready,” he sang gleefully to his audience

We all looked back and forth among one another, puzzled…”Let’s go,” I said.

We all jumped into cars and followed the New Guy into Bryce Canyon National Park. To our surprise, the New Guy is very well known at Bryce, except everyone seemed to know him as “E.B.” We were all perplexed until we overheard one of the staff members whispering to another excitedly, “The Energizer Bunny is back!”

We figured out what they meant when “EB” led our little expedition all over hither and yon, pointing out red rock formations to the left, right, and in front of us. 14,000 steps later, an exhausted group made their way back to the cars. The only person in the group smiling from ear to ear was our little Jr Ranger.

We have to remember that we are at 8000 feet above sea level. When we returned to the RVs, your hero had a little breathing episode. The good thing about traveling in a large group, there’s help for all sorts of emergencies. We discovered that the Centurion’s wife had been holding out on us. It turns out that she keeps a pharmacy handy in their RV. When the HB called out, the Centurion was at my side, measuring my pulse and screaming out medical terms that only he and the Pharmacist appeared to understand.

The Pharmacist ran to their coach, opened the third drawer of the Craftsman tool chest, which up until that very moment, we’d all assumed there were tools inside, and withdrew a white box. As she ran back, she yelled medical terms that no one understood except for her assistant, the Centurion. The only thing we caught in the exchange was, “STAT!”

The Centurion, still holding my wrist, nodded at the Pharmacist. Both had very serious looks on their faces, making me anxious, and the Centurion tapped the inside of my elbow to get my vein to pop.

“Hey!!! Wait a min— !!”

The next thing I knew, the Pharmacist gave me two to three puffs of an inhaler, and my lungs opened up. The Centurion was just playing magician, getting me to look one way while the Pharmacist was giving me the ability to breathe. Admittedly, I felt as if I was underwater. Although not the smoke I was talking about, the Pharmacist brought the smoke straight into my lungs. She wanted everyone to know she saved your hero’s life.

Meanwhile, what was McCroc doing? He was checking the insurance papers to see how my double indemnity clause would benefit him. As soon as I could breathe again, he folded the forms back up and stuffed them into his pocket. Some BFF, huh?

One band, one sound.

Drink ‘em if you got ‘em!

#coffeehousechronicles