MAY 12TH 2010 DAY TEN

This is going to be short and painful. For those who do not know yet, the day began like any other, running down a hotel hallway, screaming like a suicide bomber. Yes while packing my ruck, I gently tossed a metal entrenching tool ( small shovel ), onto the bed. I was separating heavy from light before filling up Santa's bag with nice little toys for all the good boys and girls. The e tools first point of contact on the bed, just so happened to be the industrial size and strength bear repellent spray. I now know that it isn't meant to discourage bears, its meant to kill them. So the second it hits, it is absolutely exploding and spraying as high as the ceiling, too bad it was aimed right at me. First thing I do is try and reduce the threat by grabbing it (bad idea), and throwing it in to the bathroom. Now I am actually sucking on this toxic, super big gulp as I blindly sprint for the bathroom tripping over anything and everything that I now cant see. I throw it in the bathroom, fumble for my room key and bolt outside. Realizing Mackenzie's picture and ashes are still in there, i go right back in for a second helping. As I come back out, i see what can only be described, as a scene from some zombie movie mixed with a scene from Gladiator. The zombie movie because everyone is coming out of their rooms, down the hallway, moaning, bent over, and bouncing off the walls. Gladiator because the maids had their carts, pushing them around the hallway so fast, it looked like some Roman chariot race. The manager lady comes up, and goes directly back down, dry heaving sneezing and crying the whole way. Now the elevator is no longer an option, people scrambling for the stairs, others trying to get the windows in the hall open, you know, the ones in hotels that don't open but an inch. Have you ever seen six people per window, stacked on top of each other, all trying to fit their faces in that little one inch gap? Looked like a bunch of junkies at a Amsterdam hash bar at last call. Anyways, I continue to go back for leftovers, while trying to retrieve my crap, which is now strewn across the entire room and I can still hear the hiss coming from the bathroom. I end up pulling the screen off the fourth floor window and take up a good door position (something you do when preparing to jump from a C130 aircraft). While in the window, I notice, what can only be described as some type of formation mustering in the parking lot. I imagine it must of been what a Grateful Dead concert looked like, people with red faces, throwing up and trying to rub the sting off on the concrete surface. I end up pulling the linen off the bed and opening the porthole to hell, aka the bathroom door, and being reintroduced to a bears worst enemy. I grab the towels too, now understand that everything is a rust colored mess that is kicking the living crap out of me. I make my way to the window and throw everything out to the waiting parking lot below. The crowd immediately relocates. So now I have the entire fourth floor to myself, as well as the south parking lot. I spent the next two hours cleaning the room to the best of my ability because it would not have been fair to the employees to have to deal with that. When in the Army, we used to have competitions, to see who could stay in the gas chamber the longest without a mask, so I figured, I got this. I soon remembered that we wore full uniforms and boots, not boxers, a t-shirt and barefoot. So I quickly grabbed a pair of shorts from the bed, yes the same bed that the spray had just shot all over. I threw on the shorts, and as of 11:51 PST, I can still not sit down or think impure thoughts. After going down stairs and checking out of the room, I realized that I wasn't the most popular patron of the hotel. I heard many comments but didn't catch their faces, because I am blind. I can say with all certainty, that it will be a long time before someone has to worry about being attacked by a bear in room 436. My friend Bart showed up for an immediate extraction mission and immediately regretted it. I threw my things into Bart's Jeep and he subsequently began to show the effects of being exposed to a nerve agent. We drove around for a couple of hours trying to find a laundry mat, all the while burning, crying and sneezing. We finally arrived to our destination, a crowded laundry mat. It was amazing, everyone was finished and leaving within minutes of our arrival. We completely cleaned and scoured all clothing and equipment. I visited the bathroom with a tub of baby wipes, word to the wise, NEVER use alcohol based baby wipes on sensitive areas after being doused in riot control gas. We had the whole laundry mat to ourselves, so it took little time to clean and repack. We then drove to where I stopped walking a few days ago and are now waiting for the burn to stop so we can sleep and I can see what tomorrow holds in store for us. Know this, if I have to, I will crawl out of this @#^%@ing place if I have to. Tomorrow will yield big miles but I am sure it will be mixed with some type of freak heatwave or natural disaster. I will do this, with or without a seeing eye dog. Thanks for being part of day ten.
*Mackenzie loved animals, when we were Mammoth walking on the side of the San Joaquin River, a snake shot out on a trail, as I pushed her backward, she immediately pushed me back and chased after the snake wanting to hold it. She had been walking in the river for the previous hour. She was twelve years old.