How Stress Made My Back Hurt
by: Manny Aragon
A couple of weeks ago my wife announced to me that she was taking the whole week of her birthday (august 14th) off and that she would like to take a vacation. After rejecting her initial suggestion of San Diego (we have been there a few times recently) we settled on Bend Oregon. Bend is smack in the middle of Oregon and at the crossroads of the verdant mountainous region of western Oregon and in the transitional area into the high desert of eastern Oregon. Plus my wife’s college friend had settled there some years ago so we could kill a few birds with one stone so to speak.
Problem was, we had waited too long to plan our trip and everything within reason had been booked up. After scouring the web for accommodations, I realized that the coolest and most fun way to experience Oregon was to camp on one of its many rivers. But alas, the camp spots were all reserved in advance so I chalked this one up as a trip we would take next year instead- camping on the river and bringing our inner tubes to float downstream in the beautiful Oregon sunshine.
Now that camping was on the agenda, I was intrigued with many of my friends and clients stories of Mammoth Lakes, a place I hadn’t been since I was a child (skiing, of course) and a place I had never even considered visiting in the summer. But the stories I heard were compelling, I had camped many times in the Eastern Sierra, Mono Lake, Owens River, Bristle Cone Pines, High Sierra just outside of the Eastern Gate to Yosemite and so on but never Mammoth.
Mammoth was booked up as well but I was able to snag a one night reservation in the Twin Lakes campground, betting that the next morning I could find an open first come first serve camp site for the rest of the week. After a long day prepping and driving, we rolled into our campsite at around 9:30pm and just as we got out of our car, a bear strolled into our campsite after being shooed out of another campsite.
Now I don’t know about you, but when I see a bear headed my way with a canister of food in its mouth, I get out of the way and that’s just what I did…my wife and I jumped into the car with the kids and let the bear pass. What a welcome! Needless to say, we skipped dinner at that point, hurriedly putting up the tent and putting everything with any smell whatsoever in the bear box provided at the campsite.
That capped an eventful first day and we all slept quite well despite the hardness of the ground, the unfamiliar ambient noises, wind, etc. I woke early in the am determined to be the first one to know who was vacating their spots for good and with my good luck ran into the camp host who generously provided me with a map of all of the campsites with the non reserveable first come first serve spots marked.
I took the map and drove all around the camp ground, marking the three spots that would be vacating that day and also open to our family staying for the rest of the week. One of the spots was empty- #4. So I put my money in the kiosk and put my receipt on #4 (noting that #69 and #50 would vacate later in the day). I went back to the site where we had stayed the night before and got my family and belongings and hurried back to #4 but when we arrived, someone had put their receipt over my receipt…NOT COOL!. Long story short- luckily I knew exactly which other spots might be free- I returned to #69 and it was free so with the help of the camp host we transferred our payment to #69 and got a great spot (better than #4, right next to the lake and next to a friendly family with kids of similar ages to mine.
Needless to say, after all of the stress of prepping the day before and driving, the bear encounter and the stress of almost not getting a campsite for our vacation, my back was pretty uncomfortable. You see, all of the stress had riled up my sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response) more than it is usually riled up and my whole body, back included, had contracted- hence the back pain. I was pretty tired too, (not to mention the campsite is at 8600’ of elevation…). So, did what any reasonable person would do- I did yoga and then I took a nap.
When I awoke, all of the stress seemed to finally be gone and lo and behold, my back felt great. I then proceeded to take the kids on a short 4 mile hike up a mountainous trail (about 2k’ elevation gain for the geeks out there) and back, cooked dinner, cleaned up, and so forth- all minus the back pain. It left and won’t come back – at least on this vacation, now that the stress is over…