Yesterday I started a road trip through the Pacific Northwest to bring my daughter back to Victoria, British Columbia where she goes to school. High on my list of IMPORTANT things to consider while planning was finding places (and times) to swim. Yesterday I swam at the bulb before I left so that took care of that. Last night we arrived in Eugene, Oregon, and finding a place and time to swim wasn’t easy. I reached out to an open water swimming group on Facebook and got some helpful suggestions for where to swim, but no one could swim with me during the week and the places were pretty far from Eugene. Or so they seemed from the perspective of two people who had been sitting in the car all day and are facing another long day behind the wheel. 

So imagine my relief when I pulled into the La Quinta hotel to see the pool (open 24 hours!). I woke up early and headed down to this tiny pool in a dimly lit room. No one else was there so I played around with my GoPro. 

The water was warm and there was a strange sort of peace swimming back and forth alone in that dark room. The pool was so small that I started to get dizzy—five strokes and it was time to turn around. My Garmin swim watch thought I was amazing though. I didn’t change the setting to whatever diminutive pool I was swimming in and so every time I turned my watch registered it as 25m. Thus, my watch thinks I achieved a personal best of a 15 minute 1,000. lol.  

After my swim, I went for a walk along a deserted river path. It was strange and beautiful and I eyed the water, wondering if it was swimmable. But then, out of nowhere, classical music started blaring and I felt like I might have stumbled into the plot of a horror movie and was about to be murdered so I skedaddled without giving the river water any more thought. 

Today I am grateful for the La Quinta Inn and its tiny dark pool.