Medical Day Off

Well a couple days ago I said I had a seizure and there was some pain going on afterward. So this morning I got up and I was pretty sore so I decided not to ride. I went into the office at the campground to tell them I was spending another night and we started to talk about why. The next thing I knew there were two paramedics standing there checking me out and they insisted that I had to go to the hospital for my problem which they told me looked like DVT or deep vein thrombosis which is a fancy word for a blood clot in my lower leg. So after a lot of grumbling on my part I was whisked off by ambulance to the hospital. They stuck me and poked me and asked me a million questions and tortured me to see where it hurts. Then they told me that I needed to be transported by ambulance again to another bigger hospital 75 miles away because my problem was so urgent. So I was whisked off again 75 miles away to the main hospital down on the coast. There they repeated everything the first hospital did and then did their own tests like an ultrasound of my leg. I was able to talk them out of the cat scan and further tests to verify my seizure cause. They eventually released me with official looking papers saying just what I said in my blog the other day about my problems. So I wasted the day and the insurance bill will probably be $15,000 or so. I regret going in the first place. Screw the medical establishment. Tomorrow I will ride again...

Ride Day 51

I left Blackwater State Park at first light. As I pulled out of the camping loop road there was an armadillo in the road. I tried to get my camera out and ready to take a pic but he was too quick for me and I missed the pic. Then about a hundred yards up the road I saw a fox squirrel and again I was too slow on the draw to get a pic. I rode on slowly and was looking around a lot and I saw some deer then some quail and a few turtles. It was a good day of seeing wildlife so far. I did not see any snakes or gators or even any turkeys today though. I enjoyed the slow pace of my ride. The miles still piled up quicker than I expected. I stopped for breakfast at a cafe and ate my usual egg, cheese and sausage sandwich with coffee. The woman working was quizzing me about my ride so far. She asked a ton of questions all of which I have heard repeatedly but I answered her questions. I took almost no pics today. I was preoccupied with my health problems and the road was mostly just a country road with long leaf pines lining the sides of the road. I finally stopped in the early afternoon at an RV resort called Sunset King Lake Resort. There is a pool and a lake with lots of campers around. I am still just resting at this moment, sitting in the office doing this computer stuff. I will get up and eat again pretty soon because I have only had three meals so far today. Then maybe a swim might be in order. I feel a bit better than I did last night at this time but I am still hurting. I hope it is better soon....More later

Ride Day 50

Tough day for me in Florida today. I left Big Lagoon early in the morning and the plan was to ride slow and easy across flat Florida. First of all the maps from ACA seem to love hills and mountains of any sort. It seems if there is a mountain they will find a way to get it on the route. So my plan of slow and easy turned into lots of hill climbing today. It was hard for me because I can't put any pressure on my left leg because of the pain so I had to use low gears and spin my legs a lot. It went ok for a while but then a woman in a black caddy, talking on her phone, cut me off and slowed down to turn right about ten feet in front of me. I was going about 30 mph downhill at the time. I slammed on my back brakes and my front brakes and my Fred Flintstone brakes as I was skidding and fishtailing right at her car. At the last second I had slowed enough to turn left into the traffic lane to avoid hitting her but I let out a very profane string of thoughts about her driving skills at the top of my voice as I barely missed hitting her. If I had hit her I would have been thrown out into the heavy traffic lanes and most likely would have been run over. I kept screaming as I came to a stop and she stopped her car up the road and got out like, "why the hell are you screaming at me." A guy walking on the street came up and asked if I was ok and then when I said yes just upset he warned me that right or wrong if I kept yelling I would get arrested for disturbing the peace. I calmed down and thanked him before I got back on my bike and rode off. I had to stop again a couple blocks up the road to pull myself together again because I was shaking too much. I recovered and kept riding but told myself to keep my speed below 20mpn after this. I did not take many pics because I was too preoccupied with my pain issues. There also was not much to take pics of because there were too many trees along the route blocking the views. I stopped at Bob's Canoes to ask about any local camping spots when I got tired. They told me Blackwater State Park was the closest so I went there for the night. There were fox squirrels at the park which I had never seen before. I looked for them in the late afternoon for a couple of hours but saw none till the next morning as I was leaving. They are about two feet long with a face that looks like a fox. When I arrived at camp I set up my tent and talked to my neighbor for a bit. Then I ate a bunch of food and took a shower. My neighbor brought over a plate of food, bbqed chicken, beans, rice and bread with a can of iced tea with lemonade to drink. I was surprised by this and thanked him profusely as I gobbled down my second meal in an hour. I love that I can eat so much on this ride. I just wish I could afford to eat more than I do but food is already my highest expense. The people that offer food and cold drinks are some of the most thoughtful people I have come across on my ride. It has happened a lot too. There are rally a lot of very nice generous people around in this country. I had trouble sleeping because of the pain. I tried to stretch before I went to sleep and again in the morning, but I am too sore to do that. I stayed in the shower a long time just letting the hot water massage me. The big bruise I had in the morning behind my knee was almost gone tonight but it still hurts a lot. I will limp along on day 51 because I just hurt more when I stop and rest. I just can't push down hard with my left leg. I will just take it easy again. MOre later...

Day off

I woke up too sore to ride this morning. My leg is black and blue behind my left knee and I can't put any pressure on the pedal with it so I may not be riding for a few days. I will take it a day at a time. I think I tore something when I had my seizure yesterday or maybe when I fell off the bike I hit my knee with the bike. I don't know for sure. At least Big Lagoon State Park is a beautiful place to be. There are tons of birds around the park and the fishing seems good too as I see all the anglers are catching stuff. I saw porpoises and a whale shark in the estuary this morning. The whale shark surprised me. Some people saw a manatee yesterday but I have been unable to find it. I will try again tomorrow morning to see if I am able to ride. I will do a short ride if I am able to. I made it this far across the country and I WILL make it the rest of the way. I will post pics of the park later...

Ride Day 49

I spent yesterday afternoon and night at Dauphin Island Alabama. I enjoyed the little island. It was nice to be back near and on a hot tropical beach. I set up my tent at the campground near the ferry terminal and then rode my bike around the island for a few hours ending with a few beers at a pub. There were lots of people fishing along the coast and they were catching quite a few fish. I saw spanish mackerel, drum, speckled trout and some others that I don't know the names of being caught. I wanted to get out there myself but the license was too expensive for just one day. The pub was entertaining. It was all locals but me and they were talking politics which basically means they were trashing Obama. They were trying to decide what color dress he would look best in now that he announced that he was gay. What? That was quite a jump of logic but I just ignored it and listened to them chat. After my few beers I went back to camp and cooked and ate some food then sat around talking to some other campers for about an hour before the mosquitoes drove me back into my tent. The night in the tent did not go so well. I brought my water battle full of gatoraide into the tent so the coons didn't steal it. Big mistake because the top was not tight and that sticky crap got all over everything. I spent a few hours cleaning up the mess. At dawn I packed up and went over to catch the ferry back to shore at Fort Morgan. The ferry was my second problem after the sticky mess. The vibrations on the ferry set off my seizure problems. I did not actually have a seizure on the ferry but my nerves started to twitch so bad that the pain was climbing rapidly. I managed to hold on without a seizure on the ferry so I jumped on my bike and headed to Florida. As I rode the nerves and muscles started to twitch and cramp and jerk around on me. Both of my legs were involved in it. I rode on anyway because there was really nothing I could do about it. But finally near Gulf Beach just before I entered Florida my body decided to go into a seizure. I dropped down from riding my bike in sort of a controlled fall and sprawled out on the side of the road having a seizure. I think I was aware the entire time I was having the seizure but I never really know for sure unless there is someone there to watch and tell me what happened. I remember two cars going by but neither stopped. I was off the road but I was surprised that they did not notice my problem and stop to offer help. It stopped in a couple of minutes but then the pain started to rapidly climb again. I jumped on my bike and tried to find a place to put up for the night. The closest place was seven miles up the road. In agonizing pain I managed to make it to the Big Lagoon State Park where I set up camp and immediately rested for a couple of hours and ate and drank as much as I had with me. After the rest I felt better so I rode over across the street to the library to write this and do my other computer stuff. As soon as I finish I am off to bed and I hope by morning I am well enough to continue my ride and if not then I will stay here another night. I am only about 350 miles from my destination of St Augustine Florida. I don't want my body to crap out on me this close to my goal. If I have to I will ride the rest of the way on drugs. I am going to finish this ride one way or another. I took very few pics again today. More later...

Ride Day 48

After a few days rest waiting for storms to clear out I finally hit the road early this morning. It felt good. I left Vancleave unsure if I was on the right roads. Mississippi finds road signs are not important so they just do not put any up. That is fine if you live in the area but otherwise it is a royal pain in the ass. I had to guess which road to take and it was irritating. I was lucky and chose wisely but it was just blind luck. After about fifteen miles of wondering if I was on the wrong road I found out by way of an address on a church that yes I was on the correct road. The road wound through a gigantic swamp on both sides of the road. I saw lots of turtles and along the road were lots of roadkill snakes, rattlers, cottonmouths and several other less dangerous types. There were lots of birds wading in the swamps and some of the trees were beautiful huge oaks, cyprus, pines and others. One of the oaks was one of the largest that I have ever seen. The riding was easy after the rest. Even my butt felt fine all day. I rode about 85 miles from Vancleave Mississippi to Dauphin Island Alabama. There frequently was no room on the heavily traveled road for a bike but all the drivers were fine and gave me a wide berth today despite the narrow roads. I took a few pics but not many. Ten miles of the ride was on a bridge. When I arrived at the island I set up camp then toured around the island all afternoon, even snuck in a few beers. I wanted to swim in the warm gulf saltwater and it was very nice. There were lots of people fishing and they were catching spanish macks and drum and I saw one speckled trout caught. I wanted to fish myself but could not afford the out of state rip off cost so I just watched today. The bar was called Pelican Pub and there were no Obama supporters in it. We talked about politics and the usual world problem solving things. I was the only non local in the place but we had a good time. Tomorrow I take a ferry over to the other side of the bay and will be in Florida in about an hour. Then it is about 400 miles to the East coast and the end of my cross country ride. I almost wish it was further so I could just keep riding...more later

Large Thundershower Delay

The weather forecast is for three or four days of heavy thundershowers over the entire south eastern states. I can't ride in that kind of weather so I am going to hunker down right here in Vancleave Mississippi until this big system blows over. I can camp here cheaply and I enjoy the company of the other campers and staff here so it will be ok. My body can clearly use the rest as well. After the day off a couple days ago I was very sore when I got back on my bike. I think I need a longer rest to let my body heal better. One day of rest does not heal the body. I also have to apologize to my readers for the lack of paragraphs in my posts. Google just reformatted the Blogspot software and ever since I can not put in paragraphs. I did complain to them but they ignore complaints. I do not understand the way all the software companies constantly "improve" their software because from my point of view and from many if not most people that I talk to about this, the improvements are anything but an improvement. Why fix something that is not broken? Just leave a good thing alone. I am looking in to other blog software now like wordpress to see if I will move my blog. I most likely will move it once I learn how to do it. Screw google and their improvements. I am almost all the way across the country now. I have ridden over 3200 miles. I was not sure that this disabled old man would be able to make it across the country but now it looks like I will. That both surprises me and pleases me. I lost about thirty pounds doing it despite eating constantly. It is a good thing that I lost some weight and I hope it stays off. I have much more energy being a bit lighter in weight. When I get to St Augustine and rest up for a month I will find out just how much weight will stay off or go back on. I am off to the beach now to sit around and soak up some more cancer rays I mean sunshine. I hope there are no more water moccasins around today. Enjoy life while you still are able to...more later