Somewhere out there in the rugged hills of the U.P. is one of the rarest plants around: a cactus! It's location is a closely guarded secret that only a few know. I was hoping to become one of the lucky few but wound up in the ER first. Whoops.

Based on very vague descriptions of the habitat the few cactii in the U.P. reside in, I was able to triagulate within probably half a mile its likely location. Off I went in search of discovery! The terrain was challenging, but not so bad for a bushwhacker like me. Cliffy bits, rugged rock outcrops, downed trees, it was all more of less the usual. I could tell I was close to where a secret cache of cactii would be clinging on since the last ice age.

Until the terrain got me. I slipped on a steep slope when a rock split literally in half, sending me sliding across its razor-sharp edge. I had scrapes from my ankle to my wrist on my right side with blood everywhere. It was a bit of a shock but not unprecedented, until I realized the pain in my armpit was worse than usual and the blood especially bad. It's really hard to see your own armpit so I mopped up the blood a bit with moss and kept looking for that dang cactus. I had to find it now!

After about 15 minutes reason got the better of me and I decided I should start hiking the mile or so back to my truck. I still had to drive downstate later that day and I was starting to wonder if I'd need to get patched up. When I got back to my truck, I saw in the reflection of the window a gaping wound where the rock had sliced me down to my muscle. Uh oh... that definitely wouldn't heal itself in such a stretchy spot.

So off I went in search of the Marquette ER! It was my first visit to an ER before and I got 16 stitches, most of which I'd torn open over the next 24 hours through simple things like pumping gas, washing bug guts off my windshield, and having a rave to Rōyksopp's True Electric album on my drive downstate. The doctor's puzzlement when I told them I was hiking on a cliff looking for a cactus was worth the hospital visit alone. The slice has since healed into a gnarly scar that looks like I had an operation in the weirdest spot.

Lesson learned: there were no lessons learned. I still bushwhack and I WILL find that cactus! Until next time...