Day six
also dawned foggy and cold. My hands were still bothering me a lot, and the
cold really didn’t help. Day six was also the day that my swollen lower lip finally
broke out in blisters. Later, doctors decided that the lip blisters were due to
a combination of the enormous amount of sun I was exposed to, my skin tone, my
history of cold sores, and – maybe you guessed it – the immunosuppressant
medications I use to control my RA. So I suppose it was really no surprise that
the blisters occurred the day after my methotrexate dose. I did my best to keep
my lip covered in Carmex, but it didn’t seem to be helping and it only got
worse as the day wore on.
The first 34 miles
of the ride on day six were like farmland purgatory. At first it was sort of
nice – the road was flat and it was fun trying to identify the crops as we went
by. Some of them – like strawberries, peppers, celery, and dill – you could
identify not only by sight but also by smell. But as we kept riding through
fields in a gray fog, zig zagging our way across the valley, it began to feel
like we weren’t making any progress. The roads were also extremely bumpy,
likely torn up from farm equipment driving over them, which was really
difficult on my hands.
So I
was really grateful when we finally made it into the hills, even though that required
some climbing. The roads were better and the vineyards were beautiful. But I
was still feeling pretty sore overall and exhausted from the methotrexate (not
to mention five previous days of bike riding!). I began to run out of steam as
we neared the climb that the other riders were calling “The Wall.”
Apparently, however, I hadn’t yet run out of stubbornness, so
I forced myself slowly up The Wall literally cursing the entire way. I cursed
the vineyards and I cursed bikes in general. I cursed whoever first decided it
was a good idea to ride a bike uphill and I cursed whoever thought it was a
good idea to do this bike ride (meaning I totally cursed myself.) My lip was
painful and bleeding and I was really struggling, but the cursing and APL
helped me laugh and keep moving forward. Eventually, I made it up The Wall.
I was
rewarded on the other side with a long downhill through some beautiful countryside
(though that road was quite a bit bumpier than my sore hands would have
preferred). We went past a ranch that had some buffalo and got to see a baby
buffalo who had just been born that morning, and that cheered me up
considerably. And, after 70 miles and 3,200 feet of climbing, we even made it
to camp on time for happy hour and got to taste some local whiskey and beer. And
I was upright enough to participate!
To be continued…
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