Miles 4 Melanoma

I got about two hours of sleep the night before my flight, after working on three different schemes for packing all of my gear. Check-in and the flight itself was uneventful, and we landed in Seattle right on schedule at 11:30. My friend Phil was already waiting to pick me up at the baggage claim area. I had a few moments of panic when only one of my bags showed up. About fifteen minutes after the carousel had shut down and most of the other passengers had cleared out, my other bag, plus the bike box, appeared nearby in the odd-size baggage area.

The weather in Seattle was beautiful–clear, sunny, and warm. The view of Mt. Rainier to the south was spectacular, as well as that of Mt. Baker to the north, and the Olympic range to the west. My family and I were in Washington state on a family trip back in 1992, an we enjoyed hiking around the lower part of Mt. Rainier. One month before my father’s death, when we first learned that the melanoma had spread to his liver, one of the first things he said was that he had hoped to visit Mt. Rainier again some day. I have decided that one of my next adventures is going to be to climb to the summit.

After I got settled in at Phil’s house, I decided to join him in his usual Wednesday afternoon workout at the local health club. We did 30 minutes on the Stairmasters, then some lifting.

That evening, we were joined at Phil and Tracy’s house for dinner by a few more of their friends. We followed dinner with a viewing of “Kill Bill Vol I” on DVD. Amazingly, I stayed awake through all of this until turning in for bed around 3:30am.

Filed under: Coast to Coast 2004 |