Sign O' the Times

Day 39

Eads, CO

Distance: zero miles (non-cycling day)

Sum spent in pharmacy/drug store: high score… ding, ding, ding

Food Quality: my parents told me if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all (unless it’s really funny)

Some days are just hard. This was one of those down days that you get whether you’re living “normal life” (for want of a better term), or you’re on a bike tour across the US.

Is it because I cycled over 100 miles yesterday and my body is tired? Is it because I ate crap food last night at "Café Rancid"? Is it because I’ve got a gash between my big toe and foot solely through vanity, plus bites all over me, bruises on my legs, and a streak of sunburn down my right arm where I “missed a bit” and that looks like an inverse of the Starsky & Hutch car? Is it because I’ve crossed the half-way point? Is it because I miss my loved ones? Is it the terrain driving me bonkers, or is it just BECAUSE?

Searching for the reason can sometimes be a futile task, and energy can be better spent just living through it and waiting for the next day to be better.

I was tearful soon after waking this morning, and things took a while to improve. I had a nice FaceTime with my Mum and Dad, which cheered me up (thanks guys) and then wandered through the dusty, deserted streets and into the town centre. Where I saw this sign, and had my first proper wry chuckle for the day.

Which ironically, you can't read too well because I screwed up the lighting. 

And then I fell into the local Drug Store, a tiny treasure trove with an amazingly fine selection of items, and had a bonanza time stocking up with a few essentials, and, let’s face it, several non-essentials, such as new insoles for the foxy feet (which I don’t really need yet but wanted to grasp and not let go having found the same ones again); a book (which I opened and of which I read two pages before getting back on the internet); a lime mint moisturizer for my feet (I’m over-compensating now because of the pedicure injury); and a new Burt’s Bees lip balm (I haven’t finished the last one yet, but this one has a girly shimmer in it).

I didn’t find a single café or restaurant open in town, and so I came back to Café Rancid for lunch. I shuddered again as I noticed the sign on the wall saying “We don’t call 911” with the rifle hanging beneath it, and thought better of pointing out that my lemonade tasted like leftover Gatorade that had been festering in my bike bottles for two days. I surreptitiously held my nose as I ate my BLT.

After frittering away the afternoon on nothing in particular -bit of rest-day laundry, natch - I headed out this evening with an evangelical belief in the urban myth there was a better restaurant open in town, but that it was only open Thurs- Sat nights. After walking over a mile along the main road, and running in my flip flops through a section with no shoulder, I finally reached it and found that it does only pizza and sandwiches, no pasta, no side salads, no beer. I got it to take away and flip-flopped back, taking a safer route through the stormy back streets, and hoping to make it to the hotel before the heavens opened.

Now eating said pizza, which actually tastes pretty good, even if it does weigh more than any pizza should reasonably weigh, and drinking a mini-bottle of Sutter Home Pinot Noir from the hotel bar...

and counting my blessings. 

Because I know in my heart of hearts that it is all about enjoying the journey, in life and in cycle touring, whatever the challenges. We can kid ourselves that we will be happy when we... get that job, find that person, lose that weight, get that eye-lift, buy that pair of shoes. But once we get these things, there will always be something else. We will never get "there" because, once we are "there", "there" will be somewhere else. Although I do find the shoes help...

And so I will choose to focus on this sign too, which I snapped on the wall of a restroom in a grocery store in Breckenridge – true!!

Another century ride tomorrow.

Me x