Bitten by a Bolt

For years Bill and I have taken a nightly walk during the spring, summer, and early fall evenings. We love this time together. It's like a mini date each night! Sigh...
On Thursday night we decided to take our "walk along the canal" route. Nothing too strenuous, you get to see the sunset, dogs bark at you from way down below since the canal bank is situated high above the homes below. Easy route, good company, nice conversation, solving the world's problems... you get the drift. Well, as we commenced under the broken chain link fence, and proceeded up Federal Way (It's a road with an incline on our way home), we didn't have a care in the world! Cars whizzing by us at 45 miles per hour don't scare us since we have a nice section of bike path that we traverse on the way home. However, sadly, the bike path ends when we have to turn down the final road that heads home.

Amity Road, scary Amity Road.
No sidewalk.
Cement guardrail on one side of the road and metal guard rail on the other side.
Cars approaching at 40 to 45 miles per hour.
And did I mention that there is no sidewalk to walk on?

I usually walk on the side of the guardrail that puts me out of direct impact with approaching traffic. I feel safe, Bill is protecting me on the opposite side of the rail, and the dogs who bark at us from their safe back yards are still far below us.

EXCEPT---The metal guard rails are fastened to their wooden posts with something that is
extremely sturdy and makes the guard rail stick to the wood. Huge metal bolts with sharp teeth and long fangs. Well, maybe not fangs, but sharp teeth!
I, however, didn't notice the particular bolt sticking out 5 inches ready to make contact with my thigh until it was too late and I felt like I had been bitten by a metal bolt - the kind Frankenstein has sticking out of his neck, Folks!

Notice the blue aura around the gash...ouch.

This photo just makes my leg look fat(ter)...

Yeah, this nasty bolt managed to rip a huge hole in and ruin my favorite shorts and gave me a terrible looking gash on my thigh. The worst part about this injury is that the bruise surrounding the gash is so sore! I can hardly walk without throbbing heartbeat pain in my thigh! I know it will get better, but you can bet I'm going to walk next to the traffic in all upcoming walks!