a full day

Friday was a pretty full day. I left Kyle and Amanda's house around 8AM and walked a few miles before pausing to write the earlier thank-you entry. I ended up walking all the way to the Hat Rock campground, where I stopped to eat lunch and refill my water containers. The walk in to the "store and grill," which follows Hat Rock Road inward from 730, is a bit less than a mile; while walking back out, I ran into Chuck and Lori, who were in their truck and trying to track me down to see whether I had made it all the way to Sand Station. Had I walked that far, it would have been around fifteen miles. Having walked into Hat Rock State Park and partway back out, I'd guess I walked close to fourteen miles.

Chuck and Lori drove me to Sand Station and told me they'd be willing to keep hosting me at their home, dropping me off each morning so I could walk successive segments to Walla Walla, and picking me up wherever I decided to finish for the day. I thought it'd be a good idea to take this opportunity; one never knows when such generosity might recur down the line.

So we went back to Irrigon. Lori told me that a friend of hers, a professional massage therapist named Marti, was offering me a free session across the river in Tri-Cities; we had also received a dinner proposal from Amanda, who thought we all could meet in Tri-Cities along with Kyle and his mother, who was purportedly interested in meeting me.

Lori did my laundry while I showered and de-funkified myself. When my pants and socks were sufficiently dry, Chuck, Lori, and I piled into an SUV belonging to their daughter and headed across the river to Tri-Cities.

The massage therapy session at Tranquil Waters lasted about an hour and was focused entirely on my right leg. Marti employed a gamut of gentle but firm techniques to my knee and ankle while calming music played in the background. I nearly fell asleep at least twice; at one point I caught myself in mid-snore.

Marti told me that she had found at least two problems:

1. A patellar tracking problem. This refers to how the kneecap (the patella) is supposed to move over the femoral and tibial bones of the knee joint. According to her, my kneecap doesn't roll properly along the bone grooves. She recommended a set of leg exercises to help counteract the problem.

2. An ankle flexibilty problem. It seems my right ankle is unusually inflexible, which may be affecting how the foot rolls on both even and uneven surfaces. Marti recommended a battery of stretching exercises, to be performed at least twice daily.

I thanked Marti for her generosity (the session was indeed free), and we drove over to a Mexican restaurant where I had the pleasure of meeting Kyle's parents, as well as two friends of theirs. Kyle and Amanda arrived not long after we had all settled, and Kyle's mother peppered me with questions while we all chowed down. Amanda very thoughtfully gave me a Dry Pak, which is a waterproof container for one's cell phone-- something I've been needing for a while.

Kyle's mother was concerned about my knee, so as we left the restaurant, she did a "laying-on of hands" for it, in which she put her hand atop my knee and prayed for its healing. We don't normally do such things in my church, but I certainly appreciated the gesture.

While Chuck, Lori, and I drove home, we discussed my itinerary to Walla Walla. Earlier in the day, I had resolved to try to walk 25 miles on Saturday; Chuck would (1) drop me off at the beginning of the walk (somewhere by Sand Station), (2) visit me at about the halfway point with fresh water, and (3) visit me again at the very end in order to make me back to Irrigon for the night. Assuming I can walk 25 miles both Saturday and Sunday, I can make Walla Walla on Sunday afternoon.

So that's the plan. Wish me luck... and my sincere thanks to all the people who are helping me in some way or other, as well as to the people I had a chance to meet Friday evening.


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