I don’t even know where to start today’s blog other than to say the Grinch’s heart may have grown by 10 times its size but today my balls shrunk by 10 times their size.
After my rest in the hotel, I started the day off thinking that I was recovered from yesterday’s health problems. I felt good in the morning and my balls were still as big as ever. Then I jumped on my bike and hit the road. After a couple hours of riding where I was making very good time and distance, I stopped at a small roadside café for breakfast. They had the best coffee I have had yet in Mexico. The food was also perfect. It was from an almost unmarked café in the middle of nowhere. After breakfast and two cups of the great coffee I hit the road again. This time traffic was picking up and the road was getting a bit tougher with bigger hills, more hills and the roadway was getting smaller with no shoulder for me to ride on.
I dealt with the narrow road quite well by just jumping off the road when there was traffic coming from both directions. That has worked well for me so far in Mexico. But then as the day wore on traffic got heavier and heavier. I was pulling off the road often to let traffic pass and it was slowing me down. I came to the top of a grade and there was an accident at the crest. It looked like a bus and a tractor trailer had side swiped with the bus off the road on one side still upright and the truck on the other side tipped over and pretty much totaled. There were lots of people stopped and sitting or standing around watching. The road was closed so that they could clear the damage and get the injured people to help. I was able to weave my bike through it all and keep going.
It was nice having the road to myself since it was closed behind me, there were no vehicles coming up from behind. I made good time and distance for a couple more hours. Then again near the top of a long grade a car was being passed by a crazy driver in a full sized pick-up. The pick-up was heading right at me and the driver was looking at the car he was passing. He was only lucky that there was not a big truck in my place or he would have been dead. I panicked and jumped off my bike to the left trying to pull my bike over with me as the truck sped past. I did a couple of summersaults and then rolled and hopped to my feet. I was uninjured. After checking my bike over carefully and fixing a few items on it I just climbed back on and rode off. My balls were starting to shrink.
The road block must have been cleared because a long string of trucks, buses and cars came streaming past and I had to wait about 15 minutes on the side of the road while they went by. When I started riding again the shoulder completely disappeared and traffic got heavier. I was having a hard time making progress and my balls continued to shrink. Then I was near Tepic so I knew I had ridden 100 miles already and I came to a section of road that had a guard rail right up to the lane. On the other side was a hillside like a cliff. Two narrow lanes and heavy traffic. I was afraid to try to get past the guard rail. My balls shrunk a little more. I waited and waited then I got a break in traffic and I pedaled as hard and fast as I could to get past the narrow death trap. I made it and kept going.
I came to Tepic and the road was two then three lanes sometimes with a shoulder and sometimes without. Then I came to another guard rail area. I could not see how far it went because it curved. No shoulder for me to ride on no place to jump free if there was a problem and heavy traffic was present. It looked like a sure death trap to me. My balls shrunk a little more.
I looked for a way around it but there was not one. SO I waited until there was a big break in traffic and I went for it. I made it but a big tractor trailer went past me just inches away. All those weeks of playing a game of trying to stay riding on the white line in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas paid off for me here. In the game I played, I pretended to die if I went off the white line but here if I went off the white line I really would die. I made it past but my spirit was waning. My balls shrunk some more.
Past Tepic on Mexico 200 going toward Puerto Vallarta I was planning on stopping to camp just outside of town. I had ridden about 120 miles already. I was dead from stress and my balls were shrinking rapidly. I tried to get out of town but near the edge of town the road became impossible to ride. Constant streams of heavy traffic in both directions and no room for a bike. I stopped to think over my options. My balls were almost gone and I was tired and sweaty. I saw a bus stop and decided to just jump a bus to Puerto Vallarta. It took stopping three buses to find one that had room for me and my bike but that is how I got to PV. I jumped out of the bus about 15 miles from PV and went looking for a place to camp. I was lucky and found a very nice campsite in an RV park full of snowbirds. I setup camp, ate and went to sleep after the best shower I have had in years. I could not find my balls when I tried to wash down there but such is life maybe they will return by morning.
Oh I could not even think about taking pics today after the first few miles, I was just too stressed trying to stay alive. The bird I tried to catch a pic of but failed miserably at is a black throated magpie jay.
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