At White Pass, Mile 2292

Got up this morning, and it was pretty clear that my leg wasn’t better. I went down to the store, had a heaping plate of biscuits and gravy, and decided to take a zero. A zero is when you stay two nights in one place, and have zero miles on the middle day. It gave me more time to organize my resupply, and to rest my leg. So after breakfast I went back up the (steep) stairs to the motel, and paid for another night.

I planned on hanging out at the store, and spending time napping and icing. I met Fluffy Star (aka Kathrin Schulte), a girl from Germany (who likes fluffy things, and stars). And I met Peanut (aka Teri Stalcup), and Goat.

After lunch, I bought another bag of ice and headed back to the motel room. A few hours of reading, napping, and icing later, I gave it up and had another enormous sub sandwich for dinner.

While I was down there, a woman named Peter Pan (aka Denise Lane) arrived. There were no more hotel rooms, as there was a large high school cross country camp going on. I offered to share mine, and so we got her situated. A couple of the guys wanted to share as well, but that was not where I needed to go.

I called Steve from the motel room, and said I thought I needed to see a doctor, but that I’d decide in the morning. A bit later, Denise (who is an acupuncturist from Oregon) was looking at my leg, and saying “Oh, that’s not good.” It was getting more red, hot and swollen by the hour, and I finally called Steve and said I needed to go to the doctor first thing on Friday 7/31.

So his plan was to arrive by nine, and we’d head into Yakima. I packed up my stuff, carefully so that everything was in its place, and not haphazardly like I didn’t care anymore. Because I do care, and I need to have hope.