By: Bethany Cates
What a long, tough day. I didn’t even bike today, actually, so I’m pretty sure everyone else found it even longer and tougher than I did. Which is to say, pretty darn long and tough. But we are in Roosevelt National Forest, just north of Rocky Mountain National Park, so I don’t think any of us are complaining too much.
I woke up this morning feeling really awful – sore throat, throbbing headache, congestion – for the second day in a row, and I’d also been having some weird back/chest pain whenever I tried to take a deep breath, so I figured it was time to see a doctor before we left civilization for another week. Delia was driving the van for the day, and An and Lisa were also battling respective ailments, so we worked out a fancy schedule of shuttling, since our van fits about 2.5 people once it’s loaded with all of our food and gear.
After some waiting (and, thankfully, a bit more sleep), Delia returned from dropping Lisa off at our first lunch stop, and came back to our host’s house to grab me and An. She dropped me off at an urgent care center a couple of miles away, and they went to get coffee while I awaited my fate. The verdict: a viral sinus infection that was aggravating my asthma (hence the chest/back pain). Grateful to know the pain wasn’t from anything more serious, I headed to Walgreens to pick up a couple of prescriptions: steroids for the sinus infection, and an inhaler for the asthma (which I really should have picked up at the start of this trip, but I haven’t died going up any hills yet so!!)
Delia, An and I headed to the first lunch spot, a bar & grill where the rest of the team had taken a break from biking to watch the World Cup Final. We arrived just as the game ended, and the bikers set off. A couple more rounds of shuttling - and a million beautiful mountain vistas - later, Delia, An and I arrived at our planned campsite, where it had begun to rain lightly. We hurried to get the tents set up before too much water leaked in, but Mother Nature had other plans.
In a rush to get the tent up, I attempted to put the poles in alone, and ended up getting a hard-packed dirt/sand mixture stuck in the end caps, which I subsequently could not get out – and hence, could not connect the poles to the tent. And then the sky opened up, leaving me, Delia, An, the tents, our tarps, and several personal bags exposed to the heaviest rain I’ve ever been caught in. Our campsite started to flood, and every article of clothing we were wearing got drenched through. We tried to pack up the tents in a hurry, but the rain and wind made it a really miserable job, and we were in too much of a rush to get it done right. Without thinking, we put the drenching, barely-folded tent and tarps in the only space open in the trunk: on top of everyone’s personal items. We realized our mistake almost as soon as we’d done it, but the damage was done. Defeated, wet, cold, and tired, we drove back to try and find our bikers, praying they’d found somewhere to take shelter along the cell-service-less road through the forest.
We drove all the way back to where we’d left Lisa, who by this point had been standing out in the rain for around 3 hours. She was a trooper about it though, and kept herself entertained by doing some dope freestyle dancing in the mountains. We left her in the rain again, and turned around to see where we missed the bikers. About 2 miles up the road, an enthusiastic Matt wearing my bright green rain jacket was doing a summoning dance. The team had managed to find shelter on the enclosed porch of an old convenience store, so I hopped out, grabbed some dry sleeping bags and jackets, and joined the rest. Delia and An went back to get Lisa, and to figure out where we’d sleep for the night. The nearest town with a motel was 50 miles in the wrong direction, but our campsite was rained out. Uh oh?
For such a rough day, the team was in remarkably good spirits. We huddled in the cold and played many rounds of many games, including a really abysmal round of charades (hi Kate!) and several rounds of 20 questions before Matt got mad at me and Annie for being too vague.
After another couple hours, Delia returned, and said we would indeed be camping at our original spot up the road – the rain had cleared and our site was pretty much completely dry already. We set up the soaking wet tents to air them out, laid everyone’s clothes out to dry (big mistake – the next morning they were wetter than they’d been when we set them out), and got dinner going. I whipped up a pot of highly under-sauced spaghetti, and Matt and Delia put together a joint effort to fry up some bacon that’d been hanging around in the cooler. There are always some weird surprises hanging around in the cooler.
I don’t know what happened during the rest of the evening, because I still felt extremely sick (I’m sure standing outside in the freezing rain was really good for the sinus infection) and went to bed immediately after downing about three spoonfuls of spaghetti. I’m pretty bummed that I’m missing out on biking what is probably the most beautiful part of the country, but my lungs can barely handle walking around right now. I’m hoping to be back on the bike soon and finish out these last couple weeks strong - it’s almost starting to feel like the final stretch. As always, thanks for keeping up with us, and I hope you continue to follow along as we near the end of this crazy journey!