home again. but I almost went back to the hotel last night.

[freshwest]

54. Kid was playing with a cute little skunk while I was cooking dinner. Then the poor thing died.

Had to send it to the vet to be checked. They only wanted the head to send to the state department of health but I made the vet do that dirty work. Sure enough, he had rabies.

Kid had to get a series of rabies shots. Had to drive hundreds of miles away to get the vaccine, then take it to the doctor who gave him the shots. The shots are based on body weight, which I didn't know.

I thought people got the rabies shots in the stomach or something, but since he wasn't big and was bitten in the hand, they gave him the shots there and he didn't fuss.

The state also dropped bait from helicopters with rabies vaccine for the coyotes to eat to work on the area, which was called a rabies epidemic area. I didn't know that worked, but they said they were doing it.

Learned a lot about rabies from all of that. The state health department showed me a map where rabies deaths were. One was a bull, another a goat, but I never thought about that.

And a young man bitten by a bat. He didn't pay it any mind as it was was more like a scratch. It took a while to show any symptoms. It was too late.

They told us about cases of bubonic plague being carried by coyotes and showed that on the map. And then the junta virus thing happened and those young people died.

Live around a lot of life and death in the country. It ain't like a Disney movie.