After lunch and another stretch of blogging at City Beach Organics, it was time to point the Hemi west again. Spokane was only about a 70-minute drive away. I was meeting my new friends Andy and Brianna for dinner that evening, and Andy had sent me the address of the restaurant. I pulled up the location and then looked for the closest of the three Planet Fitness locations in Spokane. The plan was simple. Get to Planet Fitness. Work out. Take a shower. Meet Andy and Brianna for dinner. Dinner wasn’t until 6:30, and the gym was only about five minutes from the restaurant, so I had plenty of time. I loaded the destination into the GPS and headed west.
A Workout That Went Very Wrong
I arrived at Planet Fitness at approximately 4:30. I had a full two hours before dinner. https://www.planetfitness.com/gyms/spokane-w-nw-blvd-wa?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=extnet
Perfect. I had a fantastic workout. Ninety minutes of hard exercise left me dripping with sweat, but I felt great. After days of driving, camping, hiking, sightseeing, and living out of the Hemi, it felt good to really work out. Then came the shower. I finished showering, stepped onto the black mat that connected the shower area to the bathroom floor, and dried myself off. Or at least I thought I had.
I took one step onto the bathroom tile. And my feet went flying out from underneath me.
Suddenly, I was horizontal. My head was rapidly approaching the tile floor. Instinct took over. I threw my left wrist toward the floor, and it absorbed most of my weight. My body came down hard. My head barely bumped the floor as my wrist took the brunt of the fall.
And then there was my right foot. The same right foot I had injured earlier in the trip at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. As I went down, that foot slammed into the floor, and my big toe hit hard as it helped absorb the fall. The pain was immediate. I was in shock.
And then I yelled out a four-letter word. Loudly. My toiletry bag went flying across the bathroom.
I gathered myself, picked up my bag and towel, and made my way into the dressing area. The first thing I did was assess the damage. It was immediately obvious that I had really hurt my wrist. I didn’t have time to mess around. I cleaned myself up, got dressed, and stopped at the front desk on my way out. The staff was shocked when I told them what had happened. They explained that I was supposed to dry off on the black mat. My response was essentially: “Hello! Do you think I got out of the shower dripping wet?”
I explained that I had dried myself thoroughly, stepped onto the tile, and immediately went flying. They completed an injury report. At that point, I wasn’t looking to make a big issue out of it. I simply hoped they would consider putting up a sign that said: SLIPPERY WHEN WET. And perhaps adding some larger floor mats. That seemed like a pretty reasonable idea to me.
Dinner With Andy and Brianna
The fall had cost me some time, so I texted Andy and told him I was going to be about 15 minutes late. We were meeting at Vieux Carré, a New Orleans-style restaurant. The choice of restaurant couldn’t have been more appropriate. Andy and Brianna were people I had met during Mardi Gras in New Orleans earlier in the year. Now, several months later and thousands of miles away, we were meeting again in Spokane at a restaurant named after the French Quarter. It felt like the trip had come full circle for a moment. https://vieuxcarrespokane.com/
The three of us sat down and ordered an amazing dinner, followed by dessert.
Andy and Brianna were understandably concerned when they saw what had happened to my wrist. By the time dinner was over, it was noticeably swollen. The adrenaline from the fall was wearing off, and the reality of the injury was becoming harder to ignore. I needed to take care of it.
A Hotel, Ice, and the Fever
It was time to find a place to spend the night. I found a lovely hotel at a reasonable price: The Montvale Hotel. Once I got settled into the room, I filled the ice bucket and essentially buried my wrist in it. I needed to get the swelling down. I also took some Tylenol and settled in for the night. Then I turned on the television and watched one of my favorite WNBA teams, the Indiana Fever, win another game. https://montvalespokane.com/ https://fever.wnba.com/
It was a strange way to end the day. Just a few hours earlier, I had been finishing a great workout and looking forward to dinner with friends. Now I was lying in a hotel room with an increasingly swollen wrist, trying to figure out what the next day was going to look like.
I began planning. Laundry first. Then breakfast in the morning. Then find an orthopedic clinic. Get an X-ray. Find out exactly what I had done. And then figure out how I was going to continue the trip.
The Diagnosis
I spent more time icing the wrist that night. I iced it again in the morning. I finished my laundry and somehow managed to fold everything with one hand. After breakfast, I headed to Northwest Orthopaedic Specialists, where I was able to get in for an evaluation and X-rays. By the time I arrived, my wrist was significantly swollen, slightly discolored, and very painful. The X-rays provided the answer. https://www.nworthopaedicspecialists.com/?utm_medium=NWOrthopaedicExpress&PhysicalTherapy-SouthHill
The doctor told me that I had fractured my wrist and also had a sprain with ligament injury in the palm area. Ten days earlier, I had put a boot on my right foot. Now I had a splint on my left wrist. I couldn’t help but think: This trip is getting interesting. Fortunately, there was at least one small bit of good news. The topical treatment I had already been using for my injured right foot was the same treatment they recommended applying to the injured area of my wrist. So I didn’t need to add another completely unfamiliar medication or treatment to the growing list. But the injury changed things. I had originally planned to continue exploring Spokane and then head deeper into the Northwest. Now I needed to balance the adventure with the reality that I was traveling with a fractured wrist and an injured foot.
Back to the Wilderness
There was no question about the next destination. Mount Hood. The drive would take approximately five and a half hours. After spending a couple of days dealing with the city, I was ready to get back into the wilderness. And Mount Hood was going to provide plenty of it. I climbed back into the Hemi, carefully packed my gear, secured everything as best I could with one good hand, and pointed the truck toward Oregon.
The road trip had just taken an unexpected turn. But that was becoming one of the defining characteristics of this journey. I could plan where I was going. I could make campground reservations. I could map out scenic roads and national forests. But I couldn’t plan for the unexpected. And somewhere along the way, I had learned to accept that.
Mount Hood was next. A natural bridge. I arrived there carrying both the physical consequences of the road and the determination to keep going.
https://traveloregon.com/things-to-do/destinations/mountains/mt-hood/