Day Before Departure:

07/24/06

I got up at a good time this morning. It wasn’t that hard even after getting to bed a bit late. I was up all hours of the night getting gear packed and laundry done for the trip. Work went as fine as it usually does. The only difference is that it was a bit hotter than normal. The work truck has good air conditioning and a small cab so I stayed comfortable. The only hitch I ran into at work was my bank calling me up and telling me my boss forgot to sign my check that I had deposited almost a week before. So I called my boss and left them a message asking them to write me a new check. Of course that was a waste of time when I got back they had to write it while I was waiting. They hadn’t listened to their messages. I think they got a new phone system and don’t know how to use it.
After work I went home and tried to find a place to get a physical for the trip. That went better than expected. After using two phones at a time to maximize my talking to a human and not on hold time, I found a place out in Gresham that said they would do a physical for $35. That sounded a lot better then the $250+ that the emergency room wanted, plus no four-hour wait. I think my wait was twenty or so minutes after the semi-long drive. The drive to the Gresham Urgent Care was hot and nasty. My car tried to over heat. Fortunately it didn’t although I did drive with my heat on for part of the way. All of this was better then the poor dumb lady in her nice new SUV parked with the engine running and heat on trying to figure out why her car wouldn’t cool off. I informed her that when you lose all of your coolant on the road the heater doesn’t help. No water to transfer heat. She turned the car off and my light turned green. The doctor was a no-nonsense Asian guy with a good sense of humor. He answered all my questions about my finger nail that is falling off after a fight with a hammer. I got my physical and drove home. My girl was home and had eaten. I slowly started on packing for the trip.
Packing went well other then having a hard time finding my dive tables and charts. I got to bed after packing and doing laundry all night at about two maybe two thirty A.M. I got up at six forty five A.M.