In early spring of 2007 I decided to quit my job, sell my house along with nearly everything else that I owned, and to live out of my car while traveling the country. These are my stories (and pictures) of life on the road.
A week after getting my MRI I was finally able to get ahold of the doctor today to get the results. Between being out of the country for a few days and constantly going in and out of cell service I've been a tough guy to get ahold of. The results show nothing serious that requires immediate action but there are some issues that will need to be watched.
#1 is a partial tear of the ACL. It's still intact and functional but there is a partial tear in it. It sounds like repairing the ACL (replacing actually) is a pretty big deal.
#2 is a small tear in the Medial Meniscus. Again, it's still intact put there is a tear in it. This and the ACL problem could cause the knee to be unstable.
#3 A diffuse tear in the rear MCL which should heal on its own.
#4 A diffuse tear on some big complicated word that I didn't write down in time that should also heal on its own.
He said none of these things need to be taken care of right now and that they might not need to have anything done at all.
My knee has been making big improvements as far as mobility goes the last 4 or 5 days and is feeling much better. I'm walking normally and have been getting out on easy hikes once or twice I day. I even went kayaking yesterday without too much trouble getting in or out of the kayak. My knee does feel like it wants to go out again at times when I try to pivot on my left foot but I don't know if it's just the tenderness from the injury or if it really does want to pop out again.
This is what the doctor is somewhat concerned about and what he said the symptoms would be if there were to be continuing issues with the knee as a result of these injuries. He recommended taking it a little easy and leaving it be for the rest of the summer to let the knee heal some more from the injury. Then we'll better be able to tell if anything I'm feeling now is just soreness from the injury or a sign of problems that will need to be fixed.
That sounds good to me but I have some tentative plans for this fall/winter that would require a stable knee and I might be someplace that I really don't want it to give me any problems (more about that another time if it comes through). He said in that case he'd recommend repairing the Medial Meniscus, which doesn't sound like too serious of an operation or recovery, and then bracing the knee for the ACL to give it a little more support and to actually replace the ACL at a later date.
I've got a lot to think about now. It's complicated even more by the fact that I got a letter from my insurance company saying they weren't going to cover my knee injury. This after they received the first bill from the hospital in Baker City, Oregon where I first hurt my knee. I'm assuming that means they're going to deny the claims for seeing a joint specialist and getting an MRI too. They said I have 180 days to send in a written appeal to try and get it covered so I put my grandmother on the case since she's really good at stuff like that. If anyone can get it covered she can.
I'm an active guy and I don't like the thought of my knee just giving out on me again in the mountains so chances are I'll be getting some surgery sometime in the not too distant future. At least I can do it on my own time when it works out best for me. I need to get it straightened out with the insurance company first though because I don't really want to pay for it out of pocket.
Wish me luck on both counts!
Today I splurged. It's hot out here so I headed to Port Angeles to chill out in the library and beat the heat until later in the day. They didn't open until noon and I was getting hungry so I drove downtown looking for food. I've been in the PNW for a few weeks now and I haven't gone out for seafood yet, though I have eaten some excellent home cooked seafood. I decided to treat myself today so I stopped into a restaurant and on the recommendation of the waitress ordered a crab sandwich and fries.
The fries could have been a little crisper but it was a good meal and quite enjoyable. I'm not used to spending $18 on a sandwich (after tax and tip) but it was worth it. It was nice to sit in a restaurant and be served instead of cooking over my little camp stove and eating in the front seat of my car. Still, I think that's more then I've spent on food in the whole last week.
For anyone not familiar with using Flickr here's a quick rundown-
Flickr is a photo storage/sharing site and it's where I upload my photos that I use on my blog. I also have many shots there that aren't used in my blog posted there that you may be interested in checking out.
This link will take you to my main Flickr page where you see all the photos I've uploaded listed one page at a time. On the right hand side you'll see my "collections". They let me group large sets of pictures together. For example you'll see one collection is called "My Big Trip" and inside that collection are smaller "sets" that contain pictures from specific portions of my current trip. It's all pretty self explanatory and I don't think you'll have a problem navigating it.
Directly under my name on the main page you'll also see links that let you view all my sets, some of which aren't in any collections. These are much easier ways to view my photos rather then just going through one at a time.
There are also multiple ways to view the pictures. When you open up a set you'll see it laid out like this with one larger picture and clickable thumbnails. If you click the "details" link towards the top of the page you'll get this view; which lets you view them a little larger without opening individual pictures (note that there might me too many images to show on just one page in this view). You can also choose to view all the pictures in a set as a slide show.
Once you open an individual picture by clicking on it you still have many options, all listed directly above the picture itself. The most used will probably be "all sizes" which allows you to see smaller or larger versions of the same picture (who would have guessed!).
The easiest way to learn to use Flickr is to just start messing around with it. It's a fantastic site and is very user friendly while still being very powerful. I'd recommend Flickr to anyone that wants to share some of their photos online.
Saturday was to be my last full day in Canada and to fill it we hopped a Ferry out to Vancouver Island to go see the Butchart Gardens. The island is quite large so most people ferry over their vehicles so the ferries are huge and carry hundreds of vehicles on each trip. It took about 1 1/2 hours to cross to the island and loading and unloading the vehicles went extremely smooth.
We all took a leisurely stroll through the gardens and it was very relaxing; the weather was perfect for a stroll. Steve and Lyn had to take off early to fly back to Florida so we wrapped up our walk and piled back in the cars to go south to the one large town on the island, Victoria.We were all getting real hungry so we decided we'd just stop at a fast food joint to tide us over until we got back home. The first joint happened to be a McDonald's, which I hadn't been to about 4 years or so. It didn't take long to remember why I don't eat their anymore. Although it was nearly empty a couple of the tables right by the door were covered with trash from people that hadn't thrown any of their stuff away and it was falling all over the ground. They screwed up my order by giving me the wrong sandwich, the bread was stale, and the tomatoes were small, wrinkled, and tasteless. Ahh, another typical McDonald's visit. At least the fries were good and I wasn't hungry anymore!
We only had about an hour in Victoria because we had to get back in time to catch the last ferry to the main land. We walked along the waterfront and checked out the parliament buildings for a while. It was a fun area and there were plenty of vendors setup selling food and trinkets along the side walks. We stopped to watch a juggler do some performances for a while before heading back to the ferry. It was another late night by the time we all got to bed but it was a fun day.
The next morning everyone started preparing for departure and I got out of town about 3pm. As I was heading for the border I realized that I still had about $5 of Canadian money in my cup holder that I hadn't spent yet. It's been there for about 2 years from when I drove to Maine and back. I was close to the border and figured I'd stop at the Duty Free Shop to spend my money, I'd never been to one before.
I was trying to think of what I'd buy and couldn't think of anything I really wanted for $5. Then it hit me, deodorant! I'd been out for about a week and I kept forgetting to buy more. The only time I remembered was when I was out hiking or something and caught a wiff of myself. By the time I got back to civilization I'd forget all about it. I was super excited to finally get some but once I walked in the door my hopes of finding any deodorant dwindled. There were big fancy 
displays for expensive perfumes, booze, and maple syrup. You know, stuff you'd normally just smuggle across the border anyway. Nowhere did I find any normal stuff like deodorant. I looked and looked and was finally able to find something to spend my $5 on. I felt kind of out of place standing in the checkout line full of people with bags of booze. But I got something I wanted and I got rid of my Canadian $. Thankfully the next morning I found a Safeway, remembered my dilemma, and bought a stick of deodorant.
Monday I drove to Olympic National Park and I plan to spend most of the week here. My knee is improving day by day and while I was at Albin's in Washington I took some small hikes to test it out, which went fine. Last night after I got to Olympic I found a nice flat trail following a river and took a 6 mile hike. It felt great to do something other then sit on my ass and shove my face full of food like I'd been doing the last couple weeks (though that was really fun too!) This morning I got up and took a quick 3 mile hike and now I'm sitting in a public library in Forks to rest for the rest of the day. My knee did good on the hikes but it still hurts and I should rest it. My feet aren't used to be up and walking around and they started to get some blisters; so they'll appreciate having the rest of the day off.
The forests around here are amazing! They're amazingly green, lush, and huge! I was surprised at the size of many of the trees, and everything is covered in moss. As I reached the turn around point on my hike I stopped to rest on a large section of tree trunk that had been cut off a dead fall. I started counting the growth rings and found it was over 300 years old; and as I was sitting on that piece I was staring at an even larger tree straight ahead of me that was even larger. It was a pretty awe inspiring experience, thinking about how much had happened sine that tree first sprouted. I felt very small in that forest.
Follow the links if you want to see a few more pictures from the Vancouver area or from Olympic National Park. More to follow
If you're wondering who these "we" people are I keep referring to you'll find out in a couple days when I finally get around to summarizing the 4th of July festivities.
Yesterday we met up with Steve's sister and her husband who have a 50ft. yacht in Vancouver, BC for a day out on the water. The sun was shining, the wind was calm, and the temperature was warm; a perfect day to be out on the 
water. We boated around some inlets that made you feel like you were in the middle of nowhere and we also boated right down to the waterfront in Vancouver where we anchored to eat a nice dinner before pulling up anchor and motoring 
back to the boat house into a beautiful sunset.
The shoreline around the city is gorgeous and even the high rise apartment buildings look particularly nice along the waterfront. We saw our fill of lighthouses and even got to see some seals out swimming around in the water. All in all it was just a perfect day and I couldn't have been happier out there. I don't ever want to have a real job again, I'm having too much fun doing this!
Many thanks to Trace and Leslie for giving me one of the best experiences I've had since I left on my trip.
I edited some of the pictures from the day real quick and you can see them in this Flickr set
Last night was the last night spent at Albin's place. I figured I'd drive in to Leavenworth to check out the fireworks that evening but after doing some checking around I found that no towns in the area set off fireworks for fear of forest fires. What a bunch of weinies! And they call themselves Americans!?! Instead I ran through the sprinklers (it was real hot) and shot everyone with a squirt gun to make up for not having fireworks. It cooled off nicely after the sun went down and we spent one more night hanging around the fire before going to bed. After getting everything packed up this morning I headed for my MRI appointment in Bellevue; planning to meet up with some of the guys later in the day at Harvey's house in Canada to see some of the sites and to go on a Yacht ride tomorrow.
I got to Bellevue just fine for my knee appointment and I should find out the results on Monday. I got pretty comfy just sitting there for 40 minutes during the MRI and was a little dozy when I left. I headed north from there on my way up I-5 and got about 40 miles outside Bellevue when I had to stop and take a nap. I slept for about 45 minutes, waking refreshed and ready to take on the 
Canadian border gaurds. Things were going along just fine until I neared the border. Traffic was backed up for over 1/2 mile and I waited in line for a little over an hour before actually reaching the border. At least it was nice weather outside with a view of the ocean. Once I reached the border I was asked a few questions and told to “park to the left, go inside, and give them your ID”. Apparently having a car converted to an apartment and not really knowing where your 'friend' in Canada lives raises a couple red flags. So I got to go into the nice little immigration office to try and convince them that I wasn't attempting to defect to Canada. I guess my story was good enough because after a couple background checks, answering the same questions 3 times, and showing them the printed directions to Harv's house they let me through. I had no intention of defecting to Canada but after being accused of it the degenerate in my wants to just for spite. If there's one thing I'm good at it's doing things for spite. I'll save those stories for another time though.
Anyway, I'm now firmly entrenched in Canada for the next few days and I don't really know what it will hold in store for me. I know we get to go out on a big boat tomorrow but I'm not sure where at. I'm sure I'll have a great time and can't wait to finally spend the $6 in Canadian money that's been in my ash tray for the last 2 years. Pat and Harvey cooked us a great meal tonight and we spent the evening just sitting on the porch and chatting. I've been getting pretty spoiled on my trip so far and I don't know if I'll ever be able to get a real job again.
You've reached the end of the page but that's not the end of the stories. If you want to read more (and who wouldn't!?) then click on the archive links to the right hand side of the page. They're listed by month; the adventure starts in May.
The February archives aren't actually from this trip but are previous adventures I've had, which are worth reading as well.
