Bloody Elbow and right butt cheek in 2020 Vision

Happy Easter, y’all. For me, it’s pretty much just another day. All of my family is in Wisconsin; they got snow today! My mom got 7 inches, and my dad says they got over 10”. What a freak time in the world this is. Everything is still pretty much closed here in Washington, including trails. I heard that some national parks in some states are still open, and I’m super jealous! One of my unpopular opinions is that they didn’t need to close down ALLLLLL trails. Our state parks here never get super busy except for Memorial day weekend, 4th of July, and Labor Day weekend. They could have at least kept them open to foot traffic, if not vehicle traffic. Plenty of room to sprawl out in the state parks here. And you could still keep the restrooms closed! Our 2 nearby national parks (Olympic National Park and Mt Rainier National Park) would be trickier to access by foot. Most of the trails in those parks take some serious driving up serious elevation before you get to the trails/scenic views. And then there are allllllllllllll the trails that aren’t located in either of those categories and are closed. I get that some trails get busy, and its hard to stay 6 feet away from the nearest person when it comes to someone coming up/going down and you are heading the towards them/opposite direction. And I get that they don’t want to have to deal with rescue efforts. Like, I do GET IT. But by telling people that they aren’t allowed in so many OUTDOOR places, is making the indoor places that ARE open super congested. Like Walmart right now is insanely bust. Its either rot inside your home or go out and find a few places that have agreed to stay open to at least foot traffic (or rot in Walmart).

So, I’ve been doing a lot of rollerblading and running. I have found a few spots that remain open to at least foot traffic. I have a list of 3 places where I can safely run and walk while maintaining social distancing. Those 3 places have been my saving grace.

I went rollerblading today and got a bit overconfident. There’s this hill I’ve done plenty of times, but there’s this rough patch in this one spot in the pavement, and its easily avoidable if you see it coming in time and remember its there, but I forgot it was there and by the time I saw it, I also saw that there was an old man walking with a walker on the smooth surface side, so it was either take the old man out with possible unintended murder or take myself out (BECAUSE GOD FORBID I GO HIKING!) Insert immature foot stomping here (but not hard stomping, my butt has me moving slowly).

I flew! The rough patch slowed down the momentum of my wheels but my upper body was still moving at full speed. I need a Go Pro. My right butt cheek looks worse than this, but I can’t post a picture of that to “prove it”. You’ll have to take my word for it. It’s the whole cheek. I was wearing a hoodie and had the sleeve down my arm, but there are no holes in my sleeve, yet....this somehow happened without getting a hole? I do have holes in my leggings though. Of course I did this in front of 3 people and a dog. But I did not take out the old man with a walker. And I didn’t break anything or obtain any serious injury. My first thought (after the “WTF JUST HAPPENED?” was “PLEASE DON’T TELL ME ANYTHING IS BROKEN, BODY. ESPECIALLY NOT MY TAILBONE!” and then my body calmed down, and I realized I only obtained unfortunate scrapes.

Other pictures:

Do you see Mt Rainier in the background?

And a panoramic shot:

This is one of my 3 spots where it is perfectly legal for me to be via foot but not vehicle. So I’ve been coming here on weekends a lot.

I’m just trying to stay mentally and physically healthy.

Last updated April 12, 2020