On Sunday, I was so excited when my friend Tara invited Jake & I to join her, her 9 & 4 year old boys, her friend, and her 4 year-old boys on a hike in Issaquah!
We met up at a playground (at the northern parking spot in the map below) and the boys played for a bit while we figured out our route. Pretty soon, we embarked on our adventure.
We started out heading south from the playground, and walked along the east side of the pond. Once we crossed the field to the trail, we found it was wide, clean, and well groomed. The boys took off like 5 noisy rockets, running, laughing, and playing some kind of game involving wall blocks.
Past the pond, we entered the woods, where the trail was still in great shape, but it was narrower and bendier, so it was harder to maintain sight of boys who ran too far out. For a little bit I tried running with Jake, since he loves running in the woods. However, there were so many mountain bikers (who were supposed to yield to pedestrians) who shot down the trail with no regard for folks in their way. We decided to reign in the running & keep folks close.
When we encountered this stream below, the boys were pretty excited. Jake loves throwing rocks in river, so while some of the guys were checking it out, I let him throw some rocks, as long as he was the farthest downstream.
We continued on our way, and the boys kept making up other games involving zombies, sticks, and some Plants vs. Zombies game with a chomper plant.
At some point we turned around & headed back the same way we came. When we encountered the stream again, we stopped so the boys could play. Jake went downstream & started throwing rocks. I crossed the little footbridge & watched him from the other side as I chatted with my friends.
At some point, one of the other boys got downstream from Jake. Neither boy was really paying attention to the other, and when Jake threw one particularly large rock, it came within a foot or so of the other kid. No one got hurt, but I quickly wanted to get between Jake & the other boy as Jake already had another rock in hand. The tream is only a couple of feet wide and maybe a couple of inches deep, so rather than waste time in hopping up to the footbridge & back down, I went directly for Jake. As I tried to get to Jake quickly & wanted to prevent him from throwing another rock until the other kid was out of the way, I called out, "SAFETY FIRST!" just as my foot slipped, and I bit it in the stream. It was a total YouTube moment.
Unfortunately, when I fell, my thumbnail bent backwards, it scooped up sand, rocks, and stream sludge, and then popped back into place. The nail had some tears and some rocks underneath poked through, but quite a bit of stuff was trapped. It hurt. We gathered up the boys & headed back to the car. I stuck my thumb in my water bottled & swished it around for the rest of the hike, trying to clean what I could.
By the time we were in the car, I realized I would need to go to Urgent Care to get it taken care of. Since I have Chron's and receive immune-suppressing Remicade blood infusions every 8 weeks, the smallest infection can be pretty dangerous for me. Plus, because of Chron's I'm highly susceptible to Clostridium difficile, or C-Diff, which is a horrible opportunistic bacteria that can take over when my normal good bacteria are suppressed, so I can't take anti-biotics unless I'm dealing with something worse than c-diff.
It was so embarrassing going into Urgent Care for slipping in a 2 inch deep stream, but it was the only smart option. I'm glad I went because the pros were unable to clean the stuff under my shredded nail, so the doc decided to do a little surgical procedure to remove half of my nail since it didn't tear evenly. He gave me two injections in my thumb, which made it really swell up, but at least I could only feel pressure, but not pain. The nurse then had to pick out all of the embedded stuff. She said it was like she was building a little tiny zen garden with all of the sand she extracted.
After the nurse got me all bandaged up, I asked her if she'd take a picture of me giving a thumbs up. I said I didn't want to take a picture of the injury but wanted to remember the moment. The first picture she took I thought my thumb was up, but it was numb and apparently I hadn't actually lifted it. This was our 2nd take:
Issaquah's Central Park and Grand Ridge Park Trail:
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