Transcript: "Well, here I am, evening of Day Two of the 3-Day. I'm here at 'Camp Dusty' reporting in. [I'm] calling it Camp Dusty because, well, it's really really dusty around here, especially around the dining tent and all the services tents. The dust just gets right into your shoes and drives you nuts. Luckily the camp came at the end of the 3-Day, well, the end of the day, rather than at the beginning. Though that really doesn't bode well for tomorrow, now, does it?
"It's been an interesting day. It was perfect weather for walking this morning, slightly overcast, nice nice temperature. It got warmer and warmer as the day finished, and a lot of people are really tired and really grumpy and really hot.
"I didn't finish myself, I got swept again. [I'm] not happy about that, but I figure I'd rather enjoy it* than end up not being able to sleep at night because I'm in too much pain.
"Speaking of pain, I've discovered that I have not one, not two, but three blisters on the bottom of my left foot, one of them between two toes so it's really hard to bandage it.
"Still, I'm gonna try to finish the 3-Day tomorrow. At the very least I'm gonna walk the beginning and the end. If I have to skip the middle, I have to, but I'm going to try to do the whole thing.
"This is a lot harder than I thought it would be**. I mean, I knew it would be hard, but this is even harder than hard. This is... this is really next to impossible. The route they picked for us today was... well, let me put it this way. We had a Walker from the East Coast who said, as she was climbing one of our little hills, 'where we come from, these are called mountains!' and we all chorused 'welcome to Seattle!'
"I guess a lot of the East Coast folks were not expecting hills to be, well, hills. Steep inclines, ten-fifteen percent***, climbing way up, climbing way down. It was a really bad day for hills. They claim that tomorrow will be better, but you know, even better isn't... well... easy.
"Anyway. Very tired, very grumpy. It's been a long day. Disappointing day. I think if I ever do the 3-Day again it'll be as Crew, not as a Walker. 'Cause I just can't imagine doing the walking, but at least the Crew aren't doing one single thing the entire time. I mean, they're on their feet a long time too, but they get chances to sit down and rest****. There aren't really chances for the Walkers unless you're swept.
"I'm happy to report however that most of my team made the walk. Another team member had a knee problem... she's out. She may not be able to come back. And someone else twisted an ankle.
"Earlier this morning someone, not from my team, ran into a fire hydrant while talking to somebody and apparently there was enough blood they called 911. But once they got her patched up it wasn't nearly as bad as they thought. From what I heard she may be walking tomorrow.
"There's been a few cases of heatstroke. Blisters by the billions. I mean, that first day with the heavy rainstorms... everybody's got blisters. Wet socks... and you know, that just doesn't do much for anybody*****.
"Anyway. I think it's time for me to go back to my tent and see if it's cooled down a little. [The sun is shining] directly on all the tents, and they're turning into little oven boxes. It's quite impressive, really, how hot it is in the tents. I'd rather sit out in the sunlight.
"Hopefully I won't get burned. I suppose I should reapply...******"
* "it" being the 3-Day.
** I have newfound and deep respect for Eric for having managed it.
*** I pulled this number out of the air. I'm not really sure how steep the steepest hill we climbed was.
**** It's important to note that the Crew also have two extra days of work, setting up and cleaning up, and they get up WAY earlier than the Walkers. Crew would not be easy either, but I might be more suited to it.
***** What I'm trying to say here is that people's feet got wet, and they didn't have dry back-up socks, and wet feet cause blisters, so there were a LOT of blisters on the 3-Day.
****** I got cut off. I didn't think I was talking that long, but I guess I did. All those pauses and "um"s really add up. I finished my thought in the next blog entry, which isn't worth transcribing, so I won't.
0 comments:
Post a Comment