We had another late night in Raton, Talking to the surgeon in Australia again about Zima.
Zima had been in for her x-rays that morning, and had to be sedated and spend the day there at the hospital etc
Turns out she has a degerative joint dis-order that causes the cartilage in the knee to degrade. It's very common apparently and they have no idea what causes it.
The short of it is, she needs to have surgery on her knee.
It's stable at the moment as we caught it early, but it could blow out at any time which would require immediate surgery. The recovery time is 6 weeks of rest and supervision, (they actually cut the leg bone in half and reattach it) and we just can't ask our house sitter (who has been amazing) to take on that kind of responsibility.
so...we have to cut our trip short.
We had planned to finish in 4 weeks time, but by doing longer days, and by cutting 800km off the end, we can finish 2 weeks early. We're not going to get to do and see everything we wanted to, but such is life, and we will still have ridden across the continent and then some.
We had planned to call in and see my friend Peter who lives over here in Detroit, stay at Martha's Vineyard, go Bowfishing in Louisiana, and a truck load of other stuff, but - some things are more important...
The rode from Raton to Amarillo was more agricultural riding through new Mexico and Texas. It started off really nice, but pretty soon the wind picked up on the plains and made the riding tiresome, as you get blown around all over the road, so you have to activley ride the bike all the time, and your head gets bounced around a lot, giving you a sore neck after a while. At one stage I was riding with my left hand holding my helmet still.
After 380km, we arrived at Amarillo, and the first thing I did was put all of my clothes into a washing machine and set it to HOT. There is no way I'm taking ANY hitch hikers on this trip! Hopefully this will be the end of the bedbug encounter. I have not seen any on my clothes, or riding gear after a thorough inspection, and the first thing we did when we arrived was rip the beds apart looking for signs of them in the seams of the mattresses.
We are now ultra-paranoid, examining every tiny piece of black lint seen on any object! and scour every hotel review for any mention of a bed bug.
Currently outside our window Police are scouring a nearby small lake for a young autistic girl who has gone missing. Helicopters, mounted police, a boat and even a cop in an Argo have been looking in the water and the bank for the girl. I hope it ends well.
Currently waiting for Flight Centre to ring me back to see how hard I'm going to get fucked for changing our flight dates at such short notice. Good news is there are seats available, so we should be able to make it back on the dates we want. Next problem is cancelling all of the hotels we booked in Newfoundland, and trying to change our reservation at the Hilton in San-Fran for our 3 rest days before we fly home. Hopefully the planets will align and it will all work out. HA!
First of the 'big day' rides tomorrow to a place in Texas called 'McKinney' 570km - longest day yet. Should be pretty bike fit now and be able to do it easily. We're still going to try and get on the road at 7am though.
Zima had been in for her x-rays that morning, and had to be sedated and spend the day there at the hospital etc
Turns out she has a degerative joint dis-order that causes the cartilage in the knee to degrade. It's very common apparently and they have no idea what causes it.
The short of it is, she needs to have surgery on her knee.
It's stable at the moment as we caught it early, but it could blow out at any time which would require immediate surgery. The recovery time is 6 weeks of rest and supervision, (they actually cut the leg bone in half and reattach it) and we just can't ask our house sitter (who has been amazing) to take on that kind of responsibility.
so...we have to cut our trip short.
We had planned to finish in 4 weeks time, but by doing longer days, and by cutting 800km off the end, we can finish 2 weeks early. We're not going to get to do and see everything we wanted to, but such is life, and we will still have ridden across the continent and then some.
We had planned to call in and see my friend Peter who lives over here in Detroit, stay at Martha's Vineyard, go Bowfishing in Louisiana, and a truck load of other stuff, but - some things are more important...
The rode from Raton to Amarillo was more agricultural riding through new Mexico and Texas. It started off really nice, but pretty soon the wind picked up on the plains and made the riding tiresome, as you get blown around all over the road, so you have to activley ride the bike all the time, and your head gets bounced around a lot, giving you a sore neck after a while. At one stage I was riding with my left hand holding my helmet still.
After 380km, we arrived at Amarillo, and the first thing I did was put all of my clothes into a washing machine and set it to HOT. There is no way I'm taking ANY hitch hikers on this trip! Hopefully this will be the end of the bedbug encounter. I have not seen any on my clothes, or riding gear after a thorough inspection, and the first thing we did when we arrived was rip the beds apart looking for signs of them in the seams of the mattresses.
We are now ultra-paranoid, examining every tiny piece of black lint seen on any object! and scour every hotel review for any mention of a bed bug.
Currently outside our window Police are scouring a nearby small lake for a young autistic girl who has gone missing. Helicopters, mounted police, a boat and even a cop in an Argo have been looking in the water and the bank for the girl. I hope it ends well.
Currently waiting for Flight Centre to ring me back to see how hard I'm going to get fucked for changing our flight dates at such short notice. Good news is there are seats available, so we should be able to make it back on the dates we want. Next problem is cancelling all of the hotels we booked in Newfoundland, and trying to change our reservation at the Hilton in San-Fran for our 3 rest days before we fly home. Hopefully the planets will align and it will all work out. HA!
First of the 'big day' rides tomorrow to a place in Texas called 'McKinney' 570km - longest day yet. Should be pretty bike fit now and be able to do it easily. We're still going to try and get on the road at 7am though.
 |
| big sky... big fields |
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| 5th wheeler with another trailer on the back |
 |
| Riding into Amarillo - via the industrial estate, always great to think your hotel will be in the middle of shitsville |
Nice Simpsons cloud pic. Mid america is a bit flat/boring. but simpsons clouds riding in texas are better than no clouds riding in the simpson desert.
ReplyDeleteI must admit the clouds were pretty awesome....
DeleteThats bad news about besty! hope she is okay. let me know when your eta is back into syd, and i will have canyonero waiting for you at home! i could see all of us in one of those fifth wheeler thingos with all the toys on the back!
ReplyDeleteAHHH YES.....
Delete