Woe Unto Me

Seattle finally gets a stretch of amazing weather and I land the biggest whopper of a "summer cold".  I use quotation marks because the popular term does not even begin to describe the one-two punch that is an Epstein-Barr viral infection coupled with a Streptococcus pyogenes bacterial infection.  I have lost three weeks of my life people, three weeks!

When I told my friend what diagnoses had come through the response was, "what are you, twelve?!".  Leave it to me to get a childhood/young adult disease when I'm neither a child nor young adult.  I thought I deserved a pat on the back for avoiding mono but noooooo, turns out it would have been better had I gotten it then instead of now.  And not just for the lack of responsibility when you're twelve.  You know how you feel after you've run up a really big hill?  Not the "yeah, I did it!" feeling but the "oh wow, that was a lot harder than I thought" feeling?  That was eating breakfast.  Or changing clothes.  Or trying to stay awake for a 90 minute movie because you don't have the brain power to do anything else.  And taking a shower is on a whole other level, a whole other, more difficult level.

It is important to remember the positives.
1. For as long as I can remember, I've not slept well.  Problem solved with mono.  Slept like the dead for fourteen to sixteen hours a day.
2. My cat was horribly ill only a month ago and now she's better. This is great because I don't know that I would have been able to take proper care of her while I was down. She has been enjoying snuggling up to me these three weeks.  That's been nice.
3. I'm not going to die, at least not from this.  Better yet, I'm improving.  I still need phone alarms to tell me every eight hours that I need to take an antibiotic (brain's still fuzzy) but I haven't had to take a nap in two days!  My lymph nodes have reduced from strawberries to grapes and I can talk again.  For two weeks I had a sore throat so awful that I became dehydrated due to the pain with swallowing.  No voice for a Chatty Cathy is tough stuff.

With September around the corner the roads will once again be turned over from the teens wandering aimlessly / driving recklessly all over the roads (while texting and updating Facebook on their smart phones) back to the commuters that curse the teens as all adults are meant to do (while emailing and updating Facebook on their smart phones).  Ah, the circle of life.

Here's hoping the weather stays fine for recuperated me to get in another backpacking trip!

Kendall Katwalk

It only took five years of trying to hike but failing due to snow or forgetting it was there entirely to make it up to Kendall Katwalk.  It's part of the PCT and a great, scenic hike to spend the better part of a day traversing.  The drop-off is impressive.  You can make out the dirt path in the rock face on the right of the picture.

It was doubly exciting to find the geocache up there.  I almost never remember to look for nearby caches before arriving at a trailhead, where inevitably there is no cell service.  Huzzah!

Red Mountain was looking mighty fine as well though my camera phone doesn't do it justice.

Looking forward to the next small adventure, hoping to make another backpacking trip.  Hurray for summer!

Backpacking's triumphant return!

Finally had a spare Saturday so I ventured to Headlight Basin with some friends a couple of weekends ago.  It was great to get out again and I was reminded of just how heavy a pack is with what seemed like only the bare essentials.  The only thing I could think to take out was food, but I always over-pack food. 

I enjoy seeing wildlife when out and about and backpacking is no exception.  I prefer, generally, to see wildlife at a distance.  Not an option on this trip.  There were 20-30 mountain goats roaming the basin and they were not shy around people.  This is disconcerting for a number of reasons.  The most amusing one is that they are salt fiends (who knew?!).  When the need arises, hikers are advised to urinate on rocks to avoid needless destruction of vegetation by salty-urine-seeking goats. While the females on this trip utilized a nearby, secluded back-country privy the lone male flaunted his ability to urinate in the open with minimal risk of exposure.  HA!  A goat appeared out of nowhere and charged in his direction so quickly that to avoid a confrontation activities were suspended mid-stream followed by an adrenaline fueled flight back to camp.

It was a bit buggy (netting worked like a charm!) but otherwise a very pleasant evening with Zombie Dice and camp margaritas.  Mt. Stuart was lovely, especially at sunset when the west face was all pink with alpenglow.  And that is when all heat left the world, or at least left me.

The trip reminded me (yet again) that I am incapable of thermo-regulation.  If I am moving, I am warm.  If I am not moving, I am freezing.  This did not bode well for an overnighter in the 50s.  Most people would be fine.  I however, retreated into my tent after dinner, put all my clothes on, climbed into my zero degree Fahrenheit bag, and tried to sleep. Now, I've had people tell me that in a down bag you are supposed to go in with very little clothing to be the warmest possible you, kind of like lying skin to skin with someone will warm them up faster.  Lies I tell you, lies!  Maybe with a buddy that works but I've never experienced warmth solo unless I was rugged up so only my nose peeks out of the bag.

The winds during the night whipped up the fine dust upon which we had made our camp and the front half of the inside of my tent (only one vestibule at the front) was completely coated in a fine layer come morning.  Luckily backpacking tents are light and a few quick shakes took care of the worst of it.  The benefit to a not so sound night's sleep was that I had a baby unveiling to get back to in Seattle and I got a nice, early start.  Made it home in plenty of time to shower and even do a load of laundry before running off to see the three week old wonder.  She was gorgeous, sweet, and let me hold her for ages before declaring me unfit company.  Successful weekend!