Boob Sweat Killed the Radio Star

During my spring break, we decided that we wanted to get one more trip in before hubby's first round of radiation. The choice was to either go to Hawaii or go see his mother and sister in Washington. One of us chose Hawaii. One of us (arguably, the more adult one) chose Washington.

Guess who lost?

Yeah, just guess.

I am in Puyallup, WA. Try to not be too jealous.

I did not take this picture of downtown Puyallup because, really, why would I?

I did get to workout a bit including a trail run in a gorgeous state park in Tacoma, WA.


Point Defiance Trail Run: planned - 4 miles. Actual - 6 miles (uh, yeah... I will get to that)

The day before we had driven through this park and I had spied some very pretty redwood lined trails. I told hubby I wanted to run there the next day. I picked up a trail map and planned out a route (*eerie, foreshadowing music plays*).

Of course it was raining like hell the day I wanted to run, but I stood firm and told hubby I was running anyway and I would meet him back at the car in about 45 minutes then headed out during a break in the rain.

About half mile in. That is the Puget Sound behind me.

Beautiful, spongy redwood trails. Absolutely glorious!

I had chosen to run along the outer perimeter trail to see as much of the Sound as possible and hoping it would work out to about a 3.5 to 4 mile run. It offered stunning views like this one of the Narrow's bridge

The Narrow's bridge over the sound.

but, at one point it put me back along the road and the scenery was not as pretty. Then I saw this:

This is the pretty little trail that lured me off the main trail. Innocuous looking, isn't it?

Almost from the moment I turned onto this trail I was utterly lost. The signage in the park is piss poor at best. According to them there are three trails: the perimeter trail, the interior perimeter trail, and the spine trail. The label these by a square, a triangle, and a circle. Here is an uber helpful sign I came across while trying to figure out where the fuck I was

Thanks MetroParks. Good thing I am not 80 and need insulin, since this sign gives me NO indication how to get back to the park entrance.

"Well, why didn't you bring a map, genius?" You may be asking me through your computer at this very moment. Well, Mr/Ms Judgey, I DID bring their trail map. It had one fatal flaw the markings and names on the map have NO correlation to ANY FUCKING actual signage you will find in the park. I would arrive at a picnic ground that has a pretty little name on the map, but NOT ONE FUCKING SIGN at the picnic site, so even though I found some signs of civilization I STILL had no idea where I was.

Losing the love for Point Defiance Park and its sadistic cartographer.

I finally find and follow the Spine trail, or the "circle" since we can not have consistent marking on map and trail in Washington. At that point I had to chose a direction to head and I had a 50/50 shot of ending up where I needed to be or at the farthest point of the park, but at least I knew when I hit the end of the trail I would know where I was.

You guessed it

My finger is where I was. The pine cone is where I was supposed to be 20 minutes prior.

Lots of unkind words for MetroParks and Washington in general. I head back onto the Spine trail and toward my husband, who has hopefully not released a team of search dogs. I finally arrive, over 30 minutes late, having run 2 extra miles and not happy.

Then I go to retrieve my iPod from my running bra (I have not had time to get a case! Don't judge me!) I had wrapped it in a ziploc bag to "protect it", but since I could not close it it filled with sweat and became a little pool for my iPod.

Hmm... iPods do not like to be bathed in sweat. They should really put that on the box.

I tried to turn it off, no love. I tried to change songs, or playlists, or do anything, no love.

I killed my iPod with boob sweat. Terrific.

I KNEW we should have gone to Hawaii.