Today is Wolf Bird’s birthday!!!! I am so grateful to have him as my hiking partner on this trail and truly couldn’t have gotten through some of my toughest days and scary sections without him by my side. I have been really excited that we get to celebrate his birthday on the trail together.
For the past month or so, I have been trying to think of creative gifts I can give him that aren’t heavy that I can secretly carry in my pack. Back in Packwood, I bought a bunch of lottery scratchers as well as a pack of balloons. Then when we stopped in Greenwater (when Devilfish was driving us around), I got him a cool Bigfoot birthday card. I had no idea we’d be in town on his actual birthday… if I had known I probably would have tried to ship a gift here. Oh well.
Anyway, my plan was to decorate our tent with all the balloons so Wolf Bird would wake up and be surprised by his birthday decorations. Since we were in town, though, me, Wolf Bird, and Tofu each got our own bunk in a giant bunkroom. I figured decorating this area was a good replacement for decorating the tent. The problem was that I was waiting for Wolf Bird to fall into a deep sleep all night, but it seemed to never happen! He would start to snore for a minute and just when I was going to get out of bed to go get the balloons I had prepped and blown up ahead of time, he would stir and wake himself up. I found myself waiting and waiting and having trouble staying awake listening to his breathing to see if he was asleep. Eventually he got up to go to the bathroom, which was a long walk down a couple floors in the giant cabin. I debated trying to speedily set everything up while he was gone, but couldn’t even peel the duct tape quickly so decided against it. I eventually gave up around 2AM and figured it wasn’t worth getting no sleep, so I let myself go to bed.
When I awoke in the morning, Wolf Bird was already up and out of the room. Dammit! I decided to just throw the balloons all around his bunk area where his stuff was and then texted him to come up to the bunkroom. He came up in a minute and laughed upon finding all the balloons sitting sadly on his empty bed. Oh well, I tried! He appreciated my effort and made me lay amongst the balloons for a photo.
We planned to head out today around midafternoon. Wolf Bird, Tofu, and I walked the half mile into town to grab a birthday breakfast! Overnight, smoke had settled into the area and we could no longer see the mountains that surrounded us on either side–they were completely shrouded in smoke. My leg was really hurting me and I had to hobble/walk quite slowly into town. We went to a restaurant at the hotel in town and had an unsatisfactory meal, but enjoyed each other’s company. After breakfast, the three of us headed to a coffee shop to work on our blog and use their wifi. We did this for a couple hours and then had to stop and get more food at Aadvark Food Truck. We ate some tasty curry bowls (and enjoyed a free beer each!) and then picked up our resupply packages, which were inside a non-functioning freezer at the local Chevron. We literally just walked into the gas station and walked into the freezer and looked through the hundred or so packages until we found ours, and then just took them… not the most secure system.
After all of these town chores, we set out for the cabin again to get our stuff together and get ready to head back to trail. My leg was still hurting me quite a bit on this super short and easy walk back to the cabin. I was growing worried about being able to hike out and what I could do–I really didn’t want to take multiple days off, which I think would be the only real solution to get my leg feeling better. Back at the cabin, Tofu was efficient as usual and set out. We told her we’d be heading out right after her and we all planned to camp at a lake about 5 miles up the trail.
After she left though, Wolf Bird and I discussed what to do with my leg feeling how it was. We were literally putting on our socks and shoes when I made the tough decision that it would probably be smartest to rest my leg and ice it some more and just head out tomorrow morning. I was really torn about it, but was hoping that 12 more hours of rest would do some good.
This meant today was an unplanned zero day. It seemed like a good day to do so–Wolf Bird could really relax on his birthday! I showed him a video I made for him that was a compilation of happy birthday videos from his thoughtful friends across the country. We then got pizza for dinner and pigged out together before then relaxing in the comfortable living room area. I read a book of climbing accidents which was super terrifying but I like reading about that stuff for some reason. Wolf Bird then watched a couple of episodes of Master of None.
Eventually a group of four or so more hikers arrived at the cabin–we had pretty much the entire place to ourselves until they arrived. We all went to bed pretty early and planned to get up early to do a full day’s hike tomorrow. Not necessarily the most exciting birthday for Wolf Bird, and not what we planned, but I was glad we got to spend the day together.
Wow, I was in a lot of pain from that! I got stung on my thigh and it started swelling up and turning red–one of the most painful bee stings I’ve ever had. It eventually started feeling better and I waited for Wolf Bird and Tofu at mile 2345.67 so we could take a photo of this milestone. However, the area around the sting would remain inflamed and discolored for over a week.
