Do you believe in luck? I don’t. But sometimes you have to wonder.

A couple days ago I posted about getting into, and staying, in hiking shape. Right after I posted that, I went rollerblading. Now I am not an expert skater by any stretch of the imagination. But I have been skating since I was a kid, both quad and inline skates. I have had my share of spills, but nothing serious — just minor scrapes and bruises.

Well that changed on Friday. Instead of eating lunch, I went for a little trip around my housing track. Picking up speed on a long stretch of road, I (unintentionally) perfectly aligned my wheels with a long, wide crack and entered it parallel to my wheels. Boom. Instant stop. As a result I dislocated the #2 and #3 fingers on my right hand. Sitting up I stared at my hand in disbelief. The fingers were bent the wrong way. Bad luck? Nope; inattention.

I pulled both fingers back into alignment and carefully skated back home. Fighting a little nausea, the trip back was uneventful. The past couple of days the fingers have been stiff and sore, but a couple Advil every 12 hours has made the pain manageable.

This week I had planned on doing a hike with some class 3 climbing — something I would not want to do with this injury. But as good luck would have it, my son Joe wants to go car camping. Joe likes to backpack and I was surprised he wanted to do the car camping thing. But it has been a while since we have been out hiking or camping, so it is going to be a fun trip. So it is off to Joshua Tree National Park first thing in the morning.

If this post seems a little disjointed (pun intended), it is probably because typing is difficult and painful. Hopefully my hand will be better next week, as I have a backpacking trip planned in southeastern Nevada.