[Andy H.]

Just getting over a very nasty 3-day GI bug. I've lost about 10 lbs on this purely miserable unintended weight-loss plan complete with 102 degree fever & chills. Not to specify lots of other less than pleasant effects and a lost day off work and lost weekend of boating before the flows drop. I don't know for certain where I picked this bug up but strongly suspect it was the July 4th cookout where we had all kinds of delicious dishes and appetizers out, people eating out of shared bowls of food, multiple people preparing food, and little kids running around with grubby hands reaching into everything. And at least one other guest who had a similar bug a few days earlier.

The point of this post is to serve as a warning to everyone else during this summer cookout season. If this were a multi-day river trip, we'd have had one or two hand sanitizer dispensers out and made sure everyone thoroughly washed their hands before handling any food or even reaching for the appetizers. I'm so conscious of sanitation on the river, why did I not insist on it on dry land??

Please pick up some hand sanitizer on the way to your next cookout and encourage your friends to use it and to wash their hands before handling any food others are going to eat. Remember proper sanitation and keep the kids' hands out of the veggie platters and chip bowls. And if anyone's had a bug in the last couple of weeks, they could still be contagious so kindly keep them out of the food prep areas.

Good times are for sharing, stomach flu isn't.

-AH

 

[carvedog]

Hand sani my ass. I just run around with a teapot of boiling water and nail anyone who gets close to the food. : )

Sorry you got it Andy.

 

[restrac2000]

Sorry to hear it, Andy. GI bugs can be a painful experience. Hope you heal up soon and don't miss too much boating in the process.

Phillip

 

[Andy H.]

Thanks guys. I'm still dumbfounded that I take so much caution about that stuff on the river and totally blew it off at a cookout.

 

[readNrun]

Thanks guys. I'm still dumbfounded that I take so much caution about that stuff on the river and totally blew it off at a cookout.

It's interesting you should say that because that was exactly my thought this past weekend. In fact I was so close to grabbing my river hand wash station and bringing it to the lake we had a cookout at...but I didn't. Sanitation was a mere glimmer compared to what we do on the river. Not only washing hands but food prep as well.

The consequences suck either way so I think I'll consider better attention to it for camping and cookouts.

 

[sleighr]

When I show up with my Hand wash at an out door event people look at me like I have suddenly sprouted an extra eyeball in the middle of my head... but by the time they have used it a little they are taking notes on how to make one themselves....

 

[restrac2000]

Our passengers on the last trip made the first day's lunch at home, a cold calabacita filling for burritos. My wife got a durable cold the next day.....thinking one of the sick kids in the family passed it on to the cold food.

Buyer beware.....most people don't wash their hands for food prep at home.

Phillip

 

[carvedog]

I touched on this in another thread too about sanitation at the put ins for the Middle Fork.
At both Boundary and Indian Creek I have rarely if ever seen a 'handwash' setup. Sometimes a bottle of hand sani. I think about how many hands touch the toilet doors going in and out and how many touch the water spigots at those places and it does make me cringe. After last summer's GI or Norovirus stuff on the MF I wrote to the FS about sanitation at both these places. Never heard a reply but it looks like they are changing some things that I suggested or it is just the hundredth monkey or some bright mind in the FS saw my suggestions and claimed them for their own.


While I don't chase around with boiling water, I do get the hand soap and some nice warm water in a clean coffee pot and go around to everyone.

Occasionally I meet resistance. Resistance is futile. I persevere. Since I am usually the PH or TL it doesn't get too difficult since I am persistent.

 

[zipbak]

Hey, Ya know what's funny about oral-fecal contamination?
NOTHING!

 

[emptypockets]

idk about hand washing stations or bottles of sanitizer, but I'm a big fan of moist toweletts. I usually take a tube of Wet Ones antibacterial hand wipes and another tube of Clorox sanitizing wipes. They're great for cleaning your hands, doing dishes, having a whore's bath, etc.