Date: 2018-10-20
From: Dingboche 

To: Dingboche 
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

Frodo: I am sick. I have a bad head cold; you know, the kind where you feel like your face is melting. I have saturated three bandanas with snot in the past 24 hours. My eyes are runny and my throat is raw. Absolutely no fun. Hard to sleep, partly because I keep waking up and having to snort down mucus from my sinuses, which leaves me gasping in the thin air (and THAT's TMI). So tonight I'll take some NyQuil. When the packing list that WT provided included all kinds of OTC medications, especially meds for colds, I earnestly hoped I wouldn't need any. Alas...I did get to take a shower today, that was rather interesting. It involved a small room with a cement floor and a drain, some nails to hang up clothes and my pack towel, and a bucket of nice warm water with a 2-cup scoop,  Luckily the small room had two opaque plastic Windows that let in some warmth from the sunshine. I always find it a challenge to get dried and dressed in the same space I've showered in. But it was especially nice getting my hair clean after three days. We're told that the next couple lodges will have shared toilets and maybe no showers.And on a high note (pun intended), I was at just over 15,000 feet today, which is a record for me. I should break that tomorrow!Scout: There has to be a note. Frodo wouldn¢t leave without a note, Frodo would not do that, would she? Mingma and I looked for her for five minutes. There was no obvious place for a note. We were on a morning acclimatization hike. Are you tired yet of me saying This is the highest I¢ve ever been? Frodo had climbed this steep hill behind Dingboche reaching over 15,000 feet, after a 1,000 foot gain, It was her highest ever. She was huffing and puffing, but we reached her goal, a tower of prayer flags and I said I wanted to climb on a ways further. Three hundred more foot gain. When Mingma and I get back a half hour later. No Frodo. Had she gone behind a bush. They were few and far between. Finally I spotted what looked like folded toiled paper under a rock. It was a crumpled tissue and said she¢d grown too chilled and had headed down. We¢d missed her by ten minutes. I was greatly relieved. A photo of the note is with the journal photos.I guess that I finally must own up and tell you, and tell myself, that the Khumbu cough I¢ve had for six days is really also a deep chest cold.The thick mucus plugs in my bandana multiple times a day can¢t be denied. It makes what is already dang hard, even harder. On some of these sustained stair-step steep uphills I have been using all my long-trail mental tricks. This morning I was running through as many of the songs from the musical the Music Man that I could remember.The princesses have been heard from. Here¢s he email from their dad:Trail Journal Parenting Lesson #3: It is best not to let a 9 year old search on the internet for four syllable words for "poop". Ah, the parenting lessons we have learned through trailjournals!  On another note, you appear to have officially set the high altitude record for a rubber duck! There are no internet references to any guiness world record or other record list for rubber ducks at altitude, or for rubber duckie first ascents! (Scout: There is a world record for the largest rubber duckie. Get this, the largest is taller than a six-story building, 61 feet tall and 68 feet wide. The subject of nightmares.)Jessica is still working on the sentence of all four syllable words (not an easy challenge!). We may have to help her a bit with the poop challenge. The best that father of the princesses could do is "defecation" which may or may not describe the actual product in question (is it the act or the product of said act?). My wife exited the conversation when I asked her if it is a noun or a verb. Perhaps your trial crew can make an official ruling? We will see if Princess Jessica comes up with something tomorrow! She did get some good words for poop, but a few syllables short. Not sure where they learn this stuff!!!Thanks, DanScout: Our trail crew was ruthless. They will not allow ¢defecation.¢ But they did come up with another word that is four syllables that is for a subset of poop. Hint: It also begins with a ¢d.¢