R + R

For the past year and a half of my life, I haven't stopped. Not even for a second. I've secretly feared that if I slowed down for even one moment, that I would lose momentum and life would leave me behind. Sometimes, over the past year and some change, I've tried wishing some of my load away, always cognizant of the fact that I'd be disappointed without the rush of constant chaos. Occasionally, out of necessity, I would take breaks from everything and sleep for a good 20 hours, because I tend towards insanity without sleep. Never, though, have I considered giving up everything to just "chill," sleep is for when you're dead.

However, for the past week and a half I've been getting a taste of the other side. The ankle injury I've incurred has turned out to be a little more serious than a 'break for 48 hours and bike tough again' sort of injury. My instinct tells me it's tendinitis, and it's not just in one ankle, it's in both (although the left one is worse than the right).

(Just to catch you up) After day five of rest in New Paltz, once we had sufficiently over-stayed our welcome, we hopped on our bikes and started riding towards Mohonk Mountain. Mountains, I hear, are not always the best warm-up for a cycling injury. For the first eight miles or so, I had myself convinced that I had never felt better, but by the tenth, once we were about half-way up the mountain, I began doubting the fairy tale I had been repeating to myself.

We pulled off in a parking lot for a trail head so that I could readjust my ankle bandages. About midway between peeling the bandage off my left ankle and rewrapping it, I began to shudder and tears welled up in my eyes to slide down my cheeks. Mariah waited patiently a couple of minutes before asking what I was thinking, to which I replied "I don't think I can continue right now." Immediately, we devised a plan to grab a bus out of New Paltz, to Columbus, OH to stay with Mariah's parents while my ankles healed.

While we were considering our options to get back to New Paltz, an older hippy-looking gentleman with a thick New York accent strolled up to us (sitting in the middle of the parking lot) and asked what was wrong. He offered us a ride back to New Paltz, if we wanted to see some waterfalls first. While we rode and hiked with him, he told us about the area's history and culture and was careful to walk slowly for me, the crippled one. At the end of our hike, a political discussion and a long soak in an ice cold stream near the base of a water fall, our new friend drove us to a bike shop in New Paltz (so we could get bike boxes) after stopping at an eatery to buy us lunch.

We packaged our bikes in boxes and started walking the 4 blocks to the bus stop. We hadn't even gotten to the sidewalk before someone offered us a free ride in his taxi. The taxi driver dropped us off a half block from the station and I hobbled to the ticket booth as quickly as possible with an akward 90 pound bike box, and injured ankles. We purchased our tickets and caught our bus just as the sun began to meander towards the horizon.

Our first stop was in New York City and my cycling partner had to run between baggage claim and the ticket vender (which was upstairs and across the station) several times, once with bikes in tow, while I was commanded to rest and guard our gear and our position in line. An hour and a half into the process, there was no sign of my cycling partner and our bus began boarding. While I scrambled to grab all of our gear (4 panniers, 1 grocery bag, 4 wheels, 1 backpack and 1 handlebar bag) only to discover I couldn't board until my cycling partner returned, people, like a hungry herd of cattle, began to scramble towards me, essentially running me over. Between the injury, the fear that we were about to miss our bus and the inhumanity of my fellow passengers, I lost it. "Where's your humanity?!" I screamed at them, before noticing that my cycling partner had just filed behind the long baggage claim line. Dejectedly, I shoved our gear to the wall and collapsed on the floor.

Thankfully the bus was overbooked, and we waited only an hour for a spare bus to arrive. After much needed sleep we arrived in OH 15 hours later where my cycling partner's dad and brother picked us up, before taking us out to a vegetarian restaurant.

We have been in OH now for almost a week. My cycling partner's family has been wonderful, we've been well cared for since we've arrived, but we're becoming antsy. There's only so much crafting, vegan cooking/baking, writing and reading I can do to distract myself from the bike trip my heart longs to be on. On Wed (today is Mon) I'm going to check out a free clinic to see if a doctor has any recommendations or warnings before we ride. My ankles still feel a bit tender, but definitely better and our goal is to leave Thurs. morning.