For as long as I can remember, it seems that every year, once a summer, I have found out the hard way that that I have lost a battle to poison ivy. My most recent experience came while I was on a camping trip with my buddies. Let the record show, we were hands down, without a doubt the worst campers at the camp site. We did not know what we were getting ourselves into.
A little background on how bad of farmers we were is well first off, nobody brought any fire wood, the main resource that is crucial for camping, we had none of it. Since every store within a 15 mile radius was closed we decided that we would use branches, wood around us. This lead to me, walking through high brush, in search of wood to burn. As you can see from the picture, none of us thought about the proper footwear to have on, we all felt flip flops were a great idea. With me being on “fire wood” duty, it meant frequent trips through the high brush, about one trip every 10-15 minutes. With it being pitch black, and the only form of light is coming from my cellphone flashlight, I wasn’t sure what I was stepping on at all times. There is where we run into my good ole friend poison ivy. In its defense, I don’t think I would have known what it looked like if the sun was out, and would have still walked through it. So here i am, day the morning of day two out of four, and I am covered with poison ivy. I must have itched it throughout then night because it spread from my feet throughout my whole body. Looking back on it, there is no reason to feel sorry for myself, I was walking through tall brush with flip flops and no socks on. I was basically asking to get poison ivy.
From that experience, I decided that will be my last time getting poison ivy, once a year is way to frequent. I am now an expert in everything that has to do with poison ivy. I know exactly what it looks like, areas it likes to grow in, and all the different forms of it. I have really hoping that this is the summer that I am free from poison ivy and don’t have to worry about the itchy scabs spreading throughout my body. So if there was one good thing that came out of this trip was that I made a few big realizations. First off, becoming a master in all things poison ivy. Secondly realizing that camping is a lot more than just pitching a tent and telling ghost stories around the fire. So from now on I will try to become a heck of a lot better camper than I was for that trip.
-Dominic Dockery