Update, in Which I Give You Something I Promised You’d Get Yesterday

Hi, guys!

In my last entry, I told you I’d update you on the status of my knee. Before I promised that, though, I told you in about six words that Nikki and I went to the zoo. I have a few pictures from that trip that I’d like to share, because they contain wild animals, and I’d be doing an injustice not to share pictures of wild animals.

We saw a bunch of penguins, some of whom were audacious enough to splash us inside the penguin house. Yes, you guys, the St. Louis Zoo has a PENGUIN HOUSE. With only penguins inside. These are some of the friends of the guy that kept splashing us as he swam past. Cutest little jerks I’ve ever seen.

This penguin was content to view his reflection in the glass, and didn’t seem at all afraid of us.

Outside of the penguin house, there was a guy sitting at a cart with a penguin…pelt (is the skin of a penguin a pelt?) and a fake penguin egg, and a penguin wing. He taught us a bunch of really interesting things about penguins. For one, penguins don’t swim, they fly. It’s just that water, not air, is their medium. For two, penguin eggs are shaped with a more conical end than, say, a chicken egg, because that way if the daddy penguin kicks the egg while trying to keep it warm, it won’t roll away, it’ll just roll around in a circle and come back. Given how cold it is in some penguins’ homes, the egg could freeze within seconds if it rolled away, so the eggs evolved to roll right on back! Cool!

Also, penguin feathers (fur?) is coated in oil to keep the penguins safe and dry. Their bellies are downy to protect their internal organs, and learning all of this information was pretty awesome, especially considering the fact that it came from a volunteer, not any sort of penguin specialist.

Then we saw this nasty tarantula. Yuck.

But hey, if the tarantula wasn’t gross enough, put out your hand. My hand is on the smaller side, as hands come–so if you’re a guy, this measurement will be off.

This beetle in the next picture, from butt to… nasty looking horn tip, is as long as the distance from the tip of my pinky to the heel of my hand. That’s probably a good six inches. If I had any idea how to type the disgusted shivering noise I made when I saw this thing, I would.  But I don’t, so just trust that this bug is gross.

This bug isn’t gross, though. it’s a butterfly. There was also a butterfly room, with butterflies everywhere. When you went in, you were cautioned to walk slowly, because butterflies don’t know to look out for wayward feet. When you left, there were full-length mirrors on both walls of the hallway, and a sign that asked patrons to please check for hitchhikers. Apparently butterflies don’t know to stay in their home, either. Neither Nikki nor I had any butterflies in our hair or clothes.

We saw a wombat,

a rhino,

a bunch of hippopotamuses, or hippopotami… hippos. They swam so gracefully!

Some elephants, complete with a baby,

and my favorite of all, the Somali Wild Ass.

 

Needless to say, the zoo was a success. I was definitely not feeling the best after all that walking, but I think it was a good idea to get out of the house and not look at my sad bike all day.

We ran a few errands, and then stayed up way too late. Then Nikki and I woke up at 4:45am and drove our tired selves to the Amtrak station, where I had a heck of a time getting my suitcase and my backpack (okay, it was actually a front pannier that I was wearing like a backpack (yeah, it works. I designed those things better than I thought!)) and my bike around the station and to the train. But the lady at the counter took pity on me and had my suitcase brought down to the train, and then the various conductors and even the rail supervisor looked out for me once I was on the train! So, at 6:40am, I bid St. Louis adieu yet again.

My bike was safe, and I had a spacious seat all to myself, and my leg was moderately comfortable. Angie had been nice enough to lend me her knee brace for immobilization purposes, and although it didn’t make my leg hurt less, it helped with the pain I was experiencing bending my knee.

Goodbye, St. Louis. You’re beautiful at dawn.

After six hours on the train, I had made friends with a few folks who hadn’t seen their families in way too long, and were headed back to Chicago! Rio and Jay were really nice, and we had a good time swapping stories.

The rail supervisor had told me to wait until people had de-trained (I think that’s a good word, considering we say de-planed), so he could help me get everything moved to my next train. So once he found me, he took me into the guts of Union Station in Chicago. The men there were really helpful, and once I had taken apart my bike a little bit for them, they were able to box it up, and off it went. They were even nice enough to check my suitcase for me, so I wouldn’t have to wander around trying to find the baggage counter.

So by 2:15, I had found my next train. I went to the very front of a car, where I immediately made buddies with Nicholae, a four year old traveling with his dad all the way from Florida to  Oregon. You guys, that’s almost a week on the train. What a brave family! I tried to keep him entertained with my stuff, and he liked my helmet and my iPhone best.

His dad, Brett, even got to wear the helmet a few times at Nicholae’s request.

Some of the highlights from the trip were getting fresh air with Christina, who sat behind Brett and Nicholae, and taking a nap only to wake up with Nicholae fast asleep against my side, drooling on me. Within the first hour of the trip, he had relocated to the seat next to me. I guess I was more interesting than his dad, or maybe it was just that I was a fresh face.

After slightly too long on the train for my taste, I got off in Minneapolis! Home! My mom was waiting for me at the station, and we were packed up in the car and driving within a matter of minutes. When I got home, I was faced with all the stuff I had packed up from my old apartment, and all the stuff I had sent home over the last three months.

A lot of my time has been spent sorting through things, and trying to come to terms with how much stuff I have. It has been really interesting to return from biking, living with only four panniers, and needing nothing more–and to be faced with all of these things.

There are trinkets that can’t come on a bike, and papers that can’t come on a bike, and clothes that aren’t necessary on a bike, but I’m finding that I’m a lot less attached to the clothes and things that don’t have central meaning to my life, that it’s a lot easier to say, “No. I really don’t need this, and it’ll be much better off in someone else’s hands.” That said, I’ve been to the goodwill maybe one too many times–the guys unloading the boxes have started recognizing me.

The weather has been cold here, but it’s nice to have a home base, and I’ve got my jeep (thanks, Arthur, for taking such good care of it!), so I’m staying plenty warm.

And I’m still getting used to wearing clothes that don’t have a padded butt or extra pockets. Bike clothes are just.. more comfortable.

I’ve had a lot of meals with my family, including my goofy little sister Caiti,

and I went in to the doctor first thing Monday morning. Dr. Johanson had an x-ray taken of my knee, and seeing nothing wrong with the bone, said that I could either start a physical therapy regimen, or get an MRI.

Check out my nice knee bones!

My mom and I discussed these two options for a bit, and given that I’m going to be traveling during the holidays (I’ve got Christmas plans in Philadelphia, so I’ll be on the East Coast even though I didn’t bike there!), we decided that it would be good to rule out or discover any connective tissue damage BEFORE I went out of town. And so my people called the MRI’s people, and I went in the very next morning.

The MRI machine was very fascinating. MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and so it uses different strengths of magnetic forces to create an image. I’m going to have to google that one again, because although my technician explained it to me, I don’t think any of the information stuck. Anyway, it sounded like some kind of dubstep remix, because there were a lot of long tones and a lot of wompa-wompa-wompa-wompa noises, and a little air pump that sounded like a hi-hat. Tss-tss-tss-tss-wompa-wompa-tss-wompa-tss-whirrrrrrrr… I was thinking about calling Skrillex (look him up) to see if he wanted to sample my machine.

Then I was sent home, and the tech told me they’d call me in the next few days. So I made myself useful for the next few days, and helped my little sister make a homework action plan, and enjoyed many good cups of coffee, and made more trips to the goodwill. This is the action plan during its construction. I discovered from this activity that although I love making lists, my little sister does not enjoy them, nor does she find satisfaction in checking items off of lists. Interesting.

On Friday morning, I got a call from the medical center, where they told me that they hadn’t found any connective tissue damage, and that I should start doing physical therapy.

Based on the tidbits of information Dr. Johanson gave me, and the magic of the internet, I’ve drawn the conclusion that what I have been experiencing is a bad case of runner’s knee.

If you aren’t a runner, I’ll tell you a little bit about what is going on. The kneecap is a little device that protects the knee joint, and also assists the muscles in the legs. When the quads (those are the big beefy muscles I’ve been working on in the fronts of my thighs) help the knee bend or unbend, the kneecap slides along a little groove in the end of the femur. The quads–named so because they are a group of four muscles–help keep the kneecap in line, and runner’s knee happens when the kneecap ISN’T in line.

So, it seems to me like a vicious cycle, because runner’s knee happens when some of the muscles in the quad group are stronger than others, and so they pull the knee in one direction, slightly off course from center. But in doing that, I think the weakening of the already weaker muscles is perpetuated.

Anyway, my next step will be to try and figure out what caused this imbalance in the first place (Is one leg longer than the other? Is my foot funny shaped? Are my shoes too old? Do I need special insoles?), and also to work on strengthening my quads in an even way.

I have found several exercises that I can do at home to help me work on strengthening my knee, and I’d like to start going to the gym so that I can use the fancy machines they have there. I am still experiencing mild pain that becomes moderate when climbing stairs, but it is better than it was when I got off the bike, and I have a feeling it will continue to improve as I continue to pay attention to my legs.

 

After the outpouring of support I received in the comments on my last entry, I feel so immensely grateful for the support network I’ve built over the last three months. Your comments mean the world to me, and it is really great to have an army (okay, a squadron or perhaps just a crowd) of people standing behind me, reminding me that I’ve been doing something pretty awesome over the last quarter of a year, and that I’m not wrong for pausing to take a breather.

It has been a really strange process in the last week and a half to return to the “real” world, and I’ve managed to catch the obligatory nasty cold–every cycle tourist I met along the way who has since finished their trip has caught some kind of bug or cold or flu within weeks of returning–that comes with returning to a world full of doorknobs and people and hugs and coughs. I’ve had a blast seeing friends, and I’m excited for my family’s annual Christmas party. I’m excited to go to Philadelphia, and I’m excited to keep exercising so that I’ll be in top-notch shape in the spring.

Thank you all for being genuinely nice people. Thank you to all of the donors who have been such big motivators. It’s wintertime, and it feels so warm and cozy to know that people support each other. Enjoy the snow, if you’re not reading from warmer climates.

 

Waterloo to Outside a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, In Which I Meet my Temporary Demise

Miles today: 7.39

Total Miles: 2,606.56

 

Well, folks, it’s been quite a while since last I wrote. A lot has happened, and I’ve been holding off on making this entry. This is partly because I’ve been busy with things, but mostly because I’ve been, well… embarrassed, or ashamed, or just plain bummed.

When I woke up in Waterloo, I planned to have a very early start. The sun was just yawning and stretching its rays over the horizon when I was stuffing the last things into my bag and making a phone call to the police department for a ride back toward my bike. A very nice officer showed up after a while, and we chatted about my plans for the trip, and how in the world I was going to keep riding with knee pain. I had a good answer for his first curious probe–my plan was to start having earlier mornings, riding into the evening if need be, and to try and hit Virginia a week before Christmas. His second question, however, I had more trouble answering.

The honest truth is that I didn’t know how I would keep riding with knee pain. The honest truth is that I wanted to just suck it up and ride on. And so with that determination and perhaps a bit of bullheadedness, I thanked the police officers at the station and rolled my bike out of the garage where it had spent the night. And onto my bike I got, wincing at the pain that glanced across my kneecap when I made that first push on the left.

As we drove back toward my bike, the officer had told me he was concerned about the traffic at that time of the morning–southbound traffic on highway 3 wasn’t as bad as the northbound, but the folks headed south would be driving into the sun, as would I, and he was concerned about the small shoulder on the road. This all made sense, but the window of daylight riding hours has been getting smaller and smaller as we plunge into winter darkness, and I had to ride during rush hour if I was going to get anywhere. So off I went, squeezing the handlebars to pump warmth into my hands, watching traffic in my rearview mirror, trying to distract myself from the pain that was coursing outward from my left kneecap.

This was the first 45 minutes or so of my ride. I warmed up, my hands got comfortable, and the traffic wasn’t all that bad. That left only the knee to think about, it seemed. As the other bothersome factors in my morning faded away in the morning light, my focus became sort of a mantra. “ow. ow. ow. ow. ow. keep riding. it’s not that bad. ow. keep riding. it’s really not that bad. ow. ouch. you can do this. it’s going to be fine.”

But as stiffness started to set in, and it was becoming physically difficult to bend and un-bend my knee, my mantra left my head, and started coming out of my mouth. “come on. come on. come on. you’ve got to be kidding me.” I’ll leave out the other words, because on the off-chance that my grandma (Hi, gramma Alice!) ever reads this… on second thought, I think she’d understand.

And so, less than 8 miles down the road, halfway between Waterloo and Red Bud, IL, I found myself sitting on a bench, swearing, outside the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses–no address, no city, no idea what to do. Dejected. Frustrated. The sun made the pavement sparkle, the beautiful day begging me to ride. I wanted to, and it added insult to injury that the weather seemed to be mocking me.

And so I did the only thing I could think to do. I called my mom. I cried. My family had just left two days before–had I known my knee would hurt so much, I would’ve had a free ride to Minneapolis. But as things stood, I was alone, between small towns, in Illinois. I was faced immediately with the feeling of unraveling. There was no way I could be at all productive if a measly seven miles was all I could squeeze out of a day. My brain wanted to get back on the bike, and I knew what a beautiful riding day it would be. My energy levels were amazing, and my body was yearning to just pedal, and crank the tunes, and get the most out of a crisp, sunny day. But my body refused. And so the next call I made, one of the most difficult and decisive calls I have ever had to make, was to Nikki. It was 8am, and she was still asleep. And she got out of bed as soon as we got off the phone, and she quickly got dressed, and she drove the 30-some miles from her house to a picnic table in the middle of nowhere.

When she pulled into the parking lot where I was sitting, the only thing I could think of to say was, “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry for making you get up so early, I’m sorry you had to drive out here, I’m sorry I seem like a quitter. And then, “thank you.” Thank you so much for supporting me, thank you so much for dropping everything, thank you so much for being present for me, and understanding me, and not judging me. And then we began disassembling. We took the front wheel off the bike, we took the panniers off the bike, and we stuffed it all in the trunk and the backseat. And then we drove back to St. Louis.

 

The rest of the day was painful. My knee hurt, my pride hurt. The decision to stop riding took less than two hours. I had expected it would be a slow landing–as the miles ticked down, as I approached Virginia, I would begin the detachment process. Instead, I spent a day at Nikki’s house looking at this.

I packed things up, and put things in flat rate boxes, and cried many more times before the day ended. Another call I had made was to Amtrak, where a wonderful woman named Mimi helped me get a ticket to Minneapolis for Friday morning. Knowing I’d be traveling on a hurt knee with a bike and my stuff, I wanted to send the heavy things home in advance. This included a lot of my tools, and two of my panniers. Packing those up and sending them home was so difficult. It felt like handing your car keys to somebody, or putting your left shoe in the mail to send it home ahead of you. These things don’t make any sense, and getting rid of some of the few things I had relied on for three months didn’t make sense. In the last three months, I’ve realized that I could live with a lot less, but I also realized that the things I chose to have were pretty important.

And so I spent a day in St. Louis again, and went to the zoo, and operated in as best an auto-pilot mode as I could muster. Nikki showed, yet again, that she is a friend I will never lose.

The night before I got on a train home, we went out for dinner at Hacienda, a Mexican restaurant near Angie’s house. It felt good to sit and shoot the breeze with Nikki, but it felt strange to not be riding, to still be in St. Louis. We planned to get to bed early, since my train left at 6:40am, but of course I couldn’t fall asleep with the amount of thoughts tumbling through my head. Was I all packed? What would happen when I got home? Was I really in that much pain?–Yes, I was all packed. I didn’t know what would happen. And no, self, I am not a coward, and I am not a wuss, and I am not a quitter. Regardless of my self-reassurances, I didn’t get to sleep until 1am.

 

There is more to this story, and I have more to update, and I appreciate the concern I’ve received from subscribers and blogulars (that’s my new word for blog-regulars)–I promise I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow. This was tough to write, but I know that waiting to write it doesn’t make it any easier. Know that I haven’t abandoned the blog, and I promise good news in the next entry. And, of course–I’m sorry, and thank you.

 

But listen. The “thank you” comes out so much louder than the “I’m sorry.” The 2,600 miles ridden have just recently begun to outshine the 920 as-of-yet-un-ridden. The fact that at the end of this year, Avenues will receive around $6,000 as a result of this fundraiser… is kicking in. I believe–very firmly–that I WILL finish this trip in the spring. I just gotta figure out what’s going on with this knee, and fix it so that I can ride again. It’s not over yet.

Stay tuned, you guys. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your understanding. Thank you.