Some interesting things happened since I returned home. The day after I arrived I couldn’t hear anything and my sinuses were stuffed. I thought it was from sitting close to the engine on three flights. And maybe jet lag was playing a role. After a day of this, I decided to take a Covid test. Positive. I took another. Positive again. Dang. I called my doctor and we did a remote consult. He put me on Paxlovid. Within 36 hours I was back to normal. I coughed a lot but that was part of the process of my sinuses clearing.
Another annoying thing happened. My pants kept falling off. I had to tighten my belt to absurd lengths to keep them on. My beltless bike shorts (they go over my bike tights) were snug when I left home in May. Now I put them on and they’d fall straight to my ankles. To keep them on, I resorted to rolling the waist band,
After I recovered from Covid, The Mule arrived home. (It was packed flawlessly by West End Bikes of Portland.) So there I am in my bike pants trying to unbox and re-assemble The Mule. I had the frame out of the box. Every tube was wrapped in either heavy cardboard or styrofoam tubing. The styrofoam was affixed to the bike using zip ties. I pulled out my trusty Swiss army knife. It was super sharp because I have only used it a couple of times since I bought it in May. As I went to cut a tie, my hand slipped and I put a deep gash into my left thumb.
There was blood everywhere. I tried to continue with the bike but it was pointless. So I put my thumb in my mouth and walked around the house to go inside and bandage it. Except my pants kept falling down. There I am sucking my thumb, bleeding from one hand and holding my pants up with the other. Thankfully my kids and wife weren’t around to laugh their asses off at me.
The thumb is healing slowly, and The Mule is back on the road.
Today I went to my doctor for my first physical in three years. The doctor’s assistant weighed me. 198 pounds. I am below the Mendoza line for the first time in four years (when I came back from the 2018 tour.) This means that, when I came back from Portland two weeks ago, I probably weighed around 195 because I have been eating more and biking less. I must have weighed north of 215 pounds at the start of the tour. No wonder my pants are falling down.
As readers may recall, while riding down the highway along the Lochsa River in Idaho, Mark was given a traffic citation for failing to ride as far to the right as is safe. That’s what Idaho law calls for. A driver had passed Mark on a blind curve and nearly hit an oncoming vehicle,. which happened to be a Sheriff’s car. The car was driven by a chubby cheeked deputy who looked all of 22 years old. The deputy pulled a uey and gave chase. He pulled over the offending driver. The driver explained that he had no choice but to pass Mark because he came on Mark so suddenly. And that Mark was in his way. The deputy let the driver go and gave Mark a ticket. The next day we rode to the county magistrate’s office in Grangeville, the county seat. Mark arranged for a hearing via Zoom to contest the ticket. Today, Mark had his hearing. Barney didn’t appear. The ticket was dismissed. Justice was served.
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 
Yay for delayed justice – to an extent, as the driver apparently still thinks bikes are just an impediment and the justice system did not disagree.
Glad to hear you are on the mend. Sounds like Mark endured another case of American Blind Justice. The question going forward is does he have to sit on the Group W bench if he ever goes to court again?
Nope because Arlo had to pay a fine and pick up the garbage
Sorry to hear about your thumb. Glad to hear about Mark prevailing over Barney Fife. Barney sounds like the kind of guy who would complain about a cyclist scratching his paint job as he drove over him. I lost only 9 lbs on my 4 week trip but it’s slowly creeping back. I try to push “cycling across country” as a weight loss technique to my friends but they are not onboard.
My base weight is a lot more than yours and I rode nearly 3,500 miles. Your 9 pounds isn’t all that different from my 20 when put in that context. What we need to tell you friends is that you can eat ANYTHING and still lose weight. I started to get into vanilla shakes near the end. Mark was partial to chocolate milk. Corey likes IPAs. All that said, after riding 30 or 40 miles in the morning I didn’t have a big appetite. Maybe those jumbo pancakes had something to do with it.
There is a couple who we met in Kooskia that are still riding. They are in eastern Kansas. The woman’s blog is pretty good. Check it out. It’s Super Biker Woman’s Bike Touring.
Sorry about the thumb, not sorry about the pants. Unless you want them to fit still. Good on ya for getting that bikers waist.
The updated ticket fiasco was victorious after all!
Yeah but now I find that my cholesterol and blood sugar are very high. I’m playing health whack-a-mole
Oh man, all that fast food might have caught up? 😂
I hope it’s just an anomaly. It turns out my insurance will pay 100% of the cost of generic statins. I met ask my doctor for a low dose and see what happens. Also, my days of drinking OJ at breakfast may be over