We all had agreed to get up around 6:30 and have breakfast downstairs together. Chip and I were first down to allow Sassy her morning colon cleansing time. Bunny followed shortly after me, but I was already on my 3rd cup of coffee, so not that closely behind. Finally, Bear showed up sans Sassy. Somewhere along the line, someone had performed the equivalent of slipping Sassy a mickey; i.e. she had a bite of bread.
When Sassy says she’s gluten intolerant, she is for real. She found out accidentally that gluten was responsible for her joint pain a little over a year ago. Since then, she has shied away from it almost entirely. I’m reminded of a term I first heard while I was working for the Department of Energy in the nuclear weapons program. There had been an accident in a lab when someone had turned on a tank agitator in a vat of plutonium solution. There was enough plutonium present that it was able to achieve criticality when passing through the proper geometry (a long winded way of saying it released a lot of radiation but didn’t go “boom”). Everyone ran out of the lab when they saw the flash. One thoughtful technician calmly went back in to turn off the agitator causing the plutonium to go critical once again. He proceeded out of the lab and immediately experienced “explosive diarrhea” on the spot. This phrase applies amazingly well to Sassy’s exposure to gluten.
She had lost a lot of fluids throughout the night and this morning (thankfully hitting the bowl and not the bed or path to the bathroom). She was feeling like crap according to Bear. He tried to take some food up to her to see if she could eat. GCN, Bunny, and I decided while they were upstairs that we would take a zero today to let her recover. It was already raining and there are worse places to stay a day that don’t have hot tubs or microbreweries on site.
We talked to the receptionist when she came in to make sure we could keep the room. I spent the day drying out our gear, repacking, soaking in the hot tub, and occasionally trying out one of the beers on tap. Oh, and a few naps along the way. We only had two keys to the room. At one point, Bunny and I found ourselves locked out of the room without a key. I went to try the door and it was locked. I considered knocking until I put my ear to the door and heard snoring in three distinct pitches.
Bunny and I soldiered on and returned to the lobby for another beer. We did text everyone to please let us know when they were awake and could let us back into the room. We never heard back from anyone. Eventually, they all showed up in the restaurant around 6. We didn’t mention being locked out.
We sat and ordered. Sassy didn’t really want to eat, but she tried to eat a little. While we were waiting for our food to arrive, Chip received a text. It was actually the one from us from 3 hours ago. They were wondering why we had never come back in the room. Today was Handy’s day off which showed in our food portions.
Sassy thanked everyone and apologized for making us take another zero. Honestly, no one minded at all. It’s pretty doubtful that we’ll even have another chance for the remainder of the trip. We all went up stairs to get packed and ready for the morning. Tomorrow is the beginning of the end.
EFG