Way too long since an update. Partly, it's because I've been working on this hiking thing I'm putting together. Doesn't look like much, but I've been busy and any spare time I've had I've put into it and not this. Hiking journal. I don't know exactly where it will fit into the grand scheme of this site, seeing as how the whole thing pretty much needs an overhaul anyway. I think the topic of "hiking" really fits in the Stranger section but that's only devoted to Korea things at the moment. In the future I will expand it to include more than Korea, but since I'm still technically living there, it will stay that way until I've moved back permanently. Ahh. Well. So, I guess for now the hiking thing will occupy its own directory, accessible only via links provided here. There.

By the way, I still need to add some more photos to it. So, you know, bear with me.

Tom always keeps a hiking journal. I've been thinking this was a cool thing for years, watching him pull out his little pad, crouching over it, recording who-knows-what about the day. I decided to do it now too. I transcribed mine word for word. What I discovered is that when writing in the wild on a tiny notepad, on a hard seat like a log, with bugs harrassing me and unpredictable lighting, my writing gets at the very least choppy, if not incomprehensible at times. (Of course, if you can't tell the difference between other examples of my writing and that of the hiking journal, well, then I guess it's a pretty bold statement about my writing in general.) So yeah, I transcribed it, deciding to leave it exactly as I wrote it except for a few things I added in brackets so the sentences make sense. Got it? I don't know if I do. I'm pretty tired sitting here just now.

Been busy since the hike. Let me just recap:

Thursday was summer camp, which was tough. Camp counselor jotted down my family of origins info, asking at the end: Helen, how did you turn out so well? Afterward I caught the bus to Wayne and Mary's to pick up my bike. Rode it down to the ferry. On the other side of the Sound, I stuffed it into the back of the Millenium Falcon; man, that car just keeps finding more ways to impress me.

Friday I found out my G-ma was put into the hospital for... something. The docs still don't know what is wrong with her. Tonight I stopped in for over two hours. I brought a deck of cards and we played rummy until well after visiting hours were over. She's got a roommate who passed her life smoking heavily. She's paying for it now, and so is everyone else who has to spend any time in the same room with her. She's got that gutteral tissue-ripping-free-from-the-lungs cough. It's like nails on a chalkboard.

Other things on Friday involved mostly running errands, one of which was dragging my sleeping bag down to a laundromat for a good washing. I don't think I've ever washed that thing. (You don't want to know how old it is.) It was high time. What a weird cultural experience heading down to a public laundering facility. Liked the detergent dispensers.

Bike ride Saturday. Thirty-five miles from Seabeck to Belfair. Some long uphill grades, but otherwise not too bad. Around mile 25 my right knee started to hurt really bad. I thought I might have to stop, but after a mile or so the pain settled into a nice dull throb.