the trudge

I left late this morning because I had to wait at the pharmacy for my prescription to be filled (90 800mg tablets of ibuprofen-- take one tablet at a time, no more than three times per day; it's actually cheaper than buying even the house brand ibuprofen), and the pharmacy, while not far off, was nonetheless across town from where I was, which made for a few minutes' extra gimping.

Amanda, my CS host in Umatilla, very kindly sent me the address of the folks who will be taking me in today (thanks, Lori and Chuck); at the rate I'm going, which must be barely two miles per hour, I suspect I'll be arriving in the evening. I'm about a mile or so onto Route 730, and a little less than seven miles from my destination. At a healthy clip, I could be there by 4 or 5PM; as things are, I'm guessing significantly later-- say, 7PM.

I did something I haven't done in a while: I used MapQuest to plot my route. This was prompted by my irritation with Google Maps, whose route calculator inevitably displays longer routes than does MapQuest. GM kept telling me that today's walk would be around 16 miles, but that didn't seem at all correct when I looked at my large map. My own guesstimation was about 12 miles, and when I ran the starting and ending points through MQ, that's what I got.

But in plotting the path toward Route 730, MQ routed me through the back roads, not along Route 84. Shrugging, I decided to follow MQ's suggestion, going from Main Street, where my motel was (and where I saw that "I love me" graffito on the bike path), to Wilson Lane, which runs straight a little over three miles until you reach Bombing Range Road (not a random designation: there really is a bombing range here), which leads right to the I-84/30/730 junction..

While Wilson is a quiet, two-lane road, it's also a farming and residential zone, which means dogs. I had a scare today when, while passing one residence, three large dogs followed me along their fence until there was no fence, at which point they all ran toward me. I didn't raise my voice or make any sudden movements; I merely continued to walk along without making eye contact with the animals. There was a moment where I felt that matters might have spiraled out of control had I done anything rash, but luckily, nothing happened. The dogs rushed up to me on the street, barked a bit, then retreated to their property as I passed beyond their territory.

Sometimes the creepiest dog encounters involve silent dogs-- the ones that stare alertly at you, sometimes relaxed, sometimes in a posture of readiness. That also happened today when I passed a different residence: a little dachshund, leashed to a tree, began yapping away at me. Thanks to experience, my eyes swept the property for another dog, and there it was, way back from the main road: a huge German shepherd sitting on the gravel driveway, still as a statue, ears up and directed my way. I thanked my lucky stars that it wasn't moving, but that focused stillness gave me the willies.

I'm sitting on a dirt road by a huge field of... something, just off Route 730 and out of sight of traffic. The wind and sun today make for an exhilarating combination, and 730's shoulders have thus far been wide enough to make me feel I don't need to dodge traffic. I'm resting my knee, but will get up in a few minutes and plod on. I really don't have far to go, but it's going to take a while.

Slow and steady saves the knee.


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