Sunday, April 1, 2012

A Day of Rest


I am at Live Oak Springs today taking a day off from riding. The ride so far has been very entertaining for me. Before I began this ride I was not sure if I would be able to maintain a long ride because I have so many physical problems with my lack of walking mobility and my high chronic pain problems. So far, two weeks into the ride I have been dealing fairly well with my tired old body. I did run out of gas the last couple of days which is why I took a rest day.

Along the road I see lots of roadkill and litter. There have been thousands of bottles full of urine along the route. They look like some sort of lemon flavored drink that people threw out because they didn't like the taste. I found one plastic goldfish on the side of the road which I rescued. I mounted it on my handlebars for a while and it got a chuckle from some people. Made me think of Paul Newman and Plastic Jesus.

I have also encountered lots of frogs croaking. It is springtime and this is their mating season so all species are going at it. I have heard Pacific Chorus frogs, Bullfrogs, Leopard Frogs, and several that I could not identify which may have been red or yellow legged frogs or something like that. I enjoy listening to them. At my campsite a couple of nights ago I was talking with the chorus frogs. I used to raise them and can mimic their call enough to get them going back and forth. One camper listening thought it was pretty weird that I could talk with the frogs.

It rained again last night but I slept through most of it except for when the wind was howling strongly at one point. My tent held up well and nothing got wet. I watched the NCAA games here at the campground yesterday. Lazy quiet days is what I am looking for.

WI did some stretching and found that my legs are really tight. That might be one reason I have been having leg cramps the last two days. I am going to try harder to stretch more before I ride, as I ride and after I ride. This is still a learning curve for me. At least my knees have held out so far. If I started to have trouble with them it might end the ride and I don't want that to happen.

More later when I get a good wifi.