Foghorn Hike

Day 10: In the immortal words of Monty Python, "And now for something completely different." Pursuit of a few earthcaches (containerless geocaches with a geologic theme) took me to Seattle's Discovery Park rather late in the day and under gathering fog. I parked where the cache owner had suggested, and my GPSr indicated that the straight-line, as-the-crow-flies estimate to the location was 0.79 miles. I made mental allowance for a winding trail and figured it was a mile one way. I had an hour before dark. Yeah, piece of cake. The trail went along flat for a bothersome distance and then began descending over a series of wooden stairs. Stairs are never welcome in my book; the interval is always too long, too short, too high or too shallow to match my normal stride. These were shallow and frequent, i.e., more footfalls required to cover less distance, due to be even more annoying on the ascent. Watching the arrow on the GPS, I noticed that I'd gone past the cache, "past" referring to a two-dimensional concept in a three-dimensional world. It was still at least a hundred feet below me. This is par for the course, nothing abnormal here. But then I came to a paved road and a two-car parking spot. What? You mean I could have driven here, as pressed for time as I am? On a busy day, those spots would be the first to fill, but in these conditions, they were both vacant. When I finally reached the beach, I became aware of two things: one, the cache was now 0.3 mi. away and two, the tide was in (but going out). The fog was getting thicker, and as much as I'd have liked to sit and listen to the foghorns sounding in the distance, the dimming of the light was becoming more apparent. Too late to turn back, I went on to the earthcache, recorded the data I needed to log it, and then began a wind-sprint back up the stairs. It wasn't quite "pitch-black night" when I got back to the car, but close enough that I was having trouble seeing where I was going if I passed through a grove of trees. I'd had quite all the exercise I needed for one day, thank you, and the next stop on my evening schedule was Morris dance practice.