Take A Hike Day

Today was "Take A Hike" day in the never-ending Seaweed quest to exercise compulsively every single day of my life or I'll get fat and flabby and die an early death.  Sometimes on Take A Walk day I don't take a walk, like if I'm dead or have had both legs amputated or undergone a serious operation involving major organ systems.  It has been great being back in The Old City during the spring when the weather is so perfect.  There's a wonderful hike in the woods that I have been devouring since I've been back.  I got up early today and left for the trail, eager to walk before the predicted rain began to fall in the afternoon.


Those goofy weathermen.  As I got close it began to rain lightly, but not hard enough to keep me from hiking.  As I pulled into the park it began to rain with purpose.  I decided to wait for a minute or two so that the heavy rain could increase to a torrential downpour.  What to do?  My mind was firmly set on the hike.  It was, after all, Take A Hike day.  


The rain continued to thunder down, drumming loudly on the roof of my car.  I didn't have a rain coat or umbrella, or waterproof hiking shoes.  I didn't have a change of clothes if I got wet.  I didn't have shit except an iron hold on an irreversible decision to take a hike.


I decided to drive to a local department store to buy a cheap umbrella.  The rain did not abate as I returned to the park; it seemed to gain strength, to become malevolent or superhuman.  I was locked and loaded on the hike at this point.  Fire would have had to begin falling from the sky, spat at me by shrieking demons, and I would have taken that fucking hike.  It was stupid.  I knew it was stupid.  "You are so stupid," I said to no one in particular.


I waited a bit longer.  The rain fell.  I capitulated.  I got out of the car and inflated my laughably small umbrella.  The initial section of the trail is normally a dusty track that runs uphill for a mile or so.  Water was sluicing freely down the path and I had to leap over small streams and rivulets and squish through little ponds.  I was already wet so figured that I might as well get in my exercise, as if there was any doubt of that happening.


Eventually the trail narrowed considerably and entered a heavily wooded section.  The rain-saturated bushes were bent over the trail, forcing me to hop spastically over pools of standing water while using my umbrella as sort of a lance or battering ram to force the bushes out of my way.  As you can imagine, this didn't work that well.  I was forced to choose between exposing myself to the pouring rain so that I could ramrod the bushes with my cudgel or to walk through the dripping foliage while protecting my head.


I was now cold and wet.


As I was plowing ahead I lost my footing on a muddy incline and feel heavily to my right.  I managed to break my fall with my  right hand -- which was good -- but it was holding the umbrella which crumpled on impact.  I now had half of a laughably small umbrella.  The broken half hung down, blocking my view of the path like a demonic veil.  If I swung the drooping side to the rear, rain water sluiced down my back and into the crack of my ass.


I pushed ahead grimly, drenched, a survivor on a kind of Bataan death march.  I slogged along, trudged with purpose.  I half expected to face a firing squad when I arrived.  It would have been a fitting end to what I was doing.


The fall had caused me to slow down.  I didn't wish to compound my idiotic decision to walk in a monsoon with no rain gear by breaking my ankle alone in the woods.  Nevertheless, I tripped again, this time on an exposed tree root, and pitched forward into the mud, crumpling half of the remaining usable umbrella.  Math wasn't my strong suit but I believe that left me with about 25% of a 4 dollar umbrella, or 1 dollar of rain protection.  I don't know why I continued to hold it over my head.  It couldn't have been doing anything at that point.


I honestly couldn't remember being more physically miserable in a long, long time.


Eventually I did make it back to the car alive.  The only dry clothes that I had with me were a swimming suit and a leather jacket.  I was so wet it was not reasonable to go anywhere in the clothes I was wearing, as if "reasonable" applied to any decision I had made so far that day.  So I stripped naked, in my car, in a public parking lot, and put on the dry items.  I turned the heat on full blast and took turns holding my underwear, socks, and pants up to the dashboard vents, a technique that worked surprisingly well.  I guess I was due a small break at that point.


I imagined what I would say to the cop looking at me through the driver's side window: a middle aged man, barefoot, in a Speedo bathing suit and leather jacket, holding wet underwear in his hands.  I have a lot of experience lying to the cops with a straight face about ridiculous things but I don't think I could have pulled this one off.


I am so glad I got my fucking hike in.