pulled an all-nighter

What follows is the text of an email I sent my father about events spanning Thursday night to Friday midafternoon.

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Dad,

I'm so sorry to hear about Paul Garber's passing. I regret not having visited him in the hospital when you invited me to do so. Please relay my sincere condolences to Mr. Garber's family if you see them.

I didn't realize the weather was so bad in DC; I'm glad, though, that you didn't suffer another in-house flood. Also-- sounds as though the generator works just fine. That's great. Good luck dealing with the upcoming heat!

After being pampered for a string of days here in Washington, we've been under the lash of near-constant cloudiness, cold (yes, COLD), and rain. While not torrential, the rain, when combined with the cold, has been a nasty business for me. Area locals all say that this weather is not normal for this time of year.

Last night (Thurs), I was supposed to walk over and spend the night at this hookah bar...I went over to the address around 1:45AM (had been at the Western Washington University library until it closed at midnight) and...NO BAR! At least, I couldn't find it. Maybe it was there somewhere. I checked the address several times to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, and the address seemed correct. So either the bar is extremely well hidden (one online article about the place says the entrance is unobtrusive), or the address I had was somehow wrong, or the bar had gone under sometime within the past year.

So there I was, in downtown Bellingham, a long walk from any decent hotel and a VERY long walk from any good campground, and I had a choice: wander aimlessly about town at 2AM, hoping to find some place that would take me in, or just get a-walking to Samish Island (where the Zen folks had told me I could find a huge campground run by The Community of Christ, a congregation that has allowed the Zen group to use its grounds for retreats).

I decided that because the night was cold and rainy, the best way to keep warm was to walk. I did a mental calculation; Samish Island was nearly 22 miles from where I was, and I knew I'd be dead tired by the end of such a long walk, so I guessed that I'd arrive around noon.

It was an amazing walk, visually speaking. Even at 2 or 3AM, the sky was never completely dark; it was a deep, rich, dark blue, and even along stretches of road with no lighting, I could find my way with ease. Cars were few and far between; for the most part, the walk proceeded in silence except for the natural noises of the forest's interaction with wind and rain. I felt a great deal of regret when the cadaverous dawn arrived; that eldritch blue night sky was something to behold.

I took periodic breaks during the walk, relieved myself at the roadside (sorry, neighbors), and sipped away at my Camelbak. NB: in this weather, at the distance I walked, and on terrain that presented few significant hills, my Camelbak stored just enough water to last the whole 21-point-however-many miles the walk was. Good to know: if I ever hit a desert, I suspect I'll need at least 2 to 3 times that volume of water per day.

I had a scare at first, wandering through dark neighborhoods dominated by tall forest and, off to the side, the great water of the bay; I was irrationally worried about this being bear country. Then I got a look at the garbage cans being left at streetside by the local residents (all of whose houses must cost a fortune; it's all essentially waterfront property along the route I walked), and realized that none of the cans were bearproofed. Felt better (and a mite silly) after that.

By the time I was only a few miles away from my destination (forest had given way to farmland and a big, gray sky), my feet and back were killing me. I was pretty sure I had developed blisters on my pinky toes and on the pads of my feet because my un-GoreTexed boots, while comfortable for the first few miles, became decidedly less so as the miles wore on. (My left foot also chewed that Dr. Scholl's "gel" pad to ribbons.)

As I passed some fields, horses stared at me; some even trotted up to get a closer look, becoming agitated when they saw I wasn't someone familiar. A couple huge farm dogs growled and gave small warning woofs, but none ran up to me, as happened when I did my three-day hike in Switzerland.

The rain let up for a short while in late morning, but when I got to the Community of Christ campground, we were back to a depressing gray drizzle. I was worried that my electronics were getting soaked, and in fact, my digicam ended up with a steamy, water-beaded lens (it's better now). Nothing tragic, but I'll have to rethink where and how I store things.

I reached the large COC church building. A lady working on the grounds of the church, which was about a half-mile from the camp, told me with a sure tone of voice that there would be no room for me this weekend because a children's group was having a camping event there. I thanked her and walked over to the camp anyway, determined to talk with whoever was managing the camp (I didn't realize at the time that the lady I'd spoken with was co-chair of the church's property council and the wife of one of the camp supervisors). I couldn't find a distinct admin building on the grounds, so I called the manager (saw the phone number printed on the sign at the camp's entrance); he was an older gent named Lee who spoke in a slow, deliberate manner. Lee basically apologized for the bad timing and told me the same thing the lady had said: no spaces available because of the weekend event.

So the walk was for nothing.

While I was on the phone, another gentleman at the camp sauntered up, overheard my phone conversation, and said, "May I interrupt?" This gentleman, named Glen, turned out to be the husband of the woman I'd spoken with earlier (he was the other property council co-chair). He offered me a ride to the nearest hotel, and I decided to let go of my pride for once and say yes. So much for "only in case of serious injury," eh?

Letting go wasn't hard; I could barely stand after walking 21-plus miles with no sleep. Glen said that, when he saw me, I looked like a man who probably couldn't go much farther. He was right. There was no way in hell I could have walked the fifteen extra miles to where I am now, a small Best Western in Burlington Mount Vernon just off Route 5 (without actually getting on it, I've been following Route 5 since the border crossing; it begins in Blaine).

By the time I checked into my room, I was pretty much ready to slump into boneless goo. I wrote a semi-coherent email to Alan Cook explaining my situation, took a shower, and collapsed for three or four hours.

I'm back from a late dinner; because my "wounds," such as they are, need a chance to heal, I'll be in this motel a second night before moving on.

The hip abrasions seem to be healing, but this is happening at the expense of my back: I keep the hip belt only loosely fastened to prevent further chafing, so it provides no support.

It was great meeting Glen and his wife. Glen, who was supposed to be doing some landscaping work at the camp, went out of his way to help me when he saw how pooped I was. We had a good talk in his truck while he drove; he had high praise for the Zen group's sensitive care of the campground. Thank goodness for people like Glen.

OK...off to bed for some REAL shuteye this time.

Take care!

Love,


Kevin


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