Memorable Stuff I Read This Week (yeah, i’m still going to read on biketour…)

This is the power of anxiety. It distorts the mind and disables the body. We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are. And when the mind is fixed with fear and the brain is infused with adrenaline, the world becomes endowed with danger. The outcome is absolutely destructive and has the potential to derail everything we attempt to do.

— Jennifer Heisz / Move The Body, Heal The Mind: Overcome Anxiety, Depression, and Dementia and Improve Focus, Creativity, and Sleep

When the Moon fell, he fell from heaven
from heaven on the porch.
When the Moon fell, he fell from heaven, mand no one saw him fall.

— Unkown Hattian-Hittite poet / “The Moon that fell from heaven”

We worry about so many things in life, and in most cases, there is no reason for it. If something we’re dealing with is worrisome, better to transfer that worry into action and confront or prepare for the circumstance. If it is out of our control entirely, then we can’t influence the outcome anyway, no matter how much we let it consume us-so we shouldn’t let it occupy our minds.

Alex Messenger / The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving a Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra

You wouldn’t know fancywork

if it hit you with a French

whip. Deadeye. Seacock.

Limber hole. Kedge it

& the capstan you came in on.

You’ll never come about. You’ll

never make way with me. I’m not

your waypoint, not

your following sea.

— Elizabeth Bradfield / “A Mouth Like a Sailor”

In the earliest days of drafting, I’m often working in fragments of language and disconnected images, partial scenes and half conversations and unordered events. 

Why indulge in such chaos? Because what I’m trying to do in the first draft is to discover the book I’m writing by writing the book.

— Matt Bell / Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts

. . . why there are empty villages surrounded
by bloodish-red water. where the girls are taken to after abduction. do they return whole when they’re released.
how many families i’ve lost to the crisis. how deep has

the trauma clawed into my body . . .

— Abu Bakir Sadiq / “The BBC Explains the Country’s Challenges to the Cyborg in Sixty Seconds”

The health of your body has a direct impact on the health of your brain. In fact, there are only three degrees of separation between sitting too much and dementia. You sit for long periods of time. Your body goes into hibernation mode, depressing your metabolism and increasing your blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight.

— Jennifer Heisz / Move The Body, Heal The Mind: Overcome Anxiety, Depression, and Dementia and Improve Focus, Creativity, and Sleep

What I’m Listening To:

Did you read the news?
I’m a bit confused
The gun fever is back, the guns fever
Rudeness and gun is the talk of this town
The gun fever is back, the guns fever

— The Valentines / “Guns Fever (Blam Blam Fever)”

but wait, there’s more!

I try to stay as positive as I can . . .  but today was miserable. I think of days like these as the wonky pieces in the transcendent jigsaw puzzle this ride will be. We need the wonky washout days to insure the water sources are flowing — an old Appalachian Trail adage, here’s another more apt one — No Rain, No Pain, No Maine!

And this is perfectly normal on a cross country bike tour. Normal. And it should be expected. There is no getting around it, so embrace it and love it for what it is — the necessary miserable wonkiness that works in bas relief — it makes those cool blue sky days, when you only have tail winds, and you’re pedaling strong all the more transcendent.

Again, any day on a bike is better than any day without a bike ride.

This was my second worst day on a bike ride. The worst was the day that drove me off the trail in Connecticut last year,happened when my group leader decided to bike during a historic Nor’easter that nearly got a couple of us killed. We both left the tour the next day.

Today was mostly in the 50’s maybe hit 60; wind gusts (terrible headwinds round every other turn) and it did not stop raining. Sometimes drizzle, but more often torrents. I packed a wet tent in the rain, the  clothes I was wearing were soaked through within an hour, and I was cold and wet all day. Nothing near as bad as that day last year in Connecticut. But it wasn’t peachy-keen, either.

I planned a casual 40 mile day to Brunswick Beaches Campground in NC, but by midday after lunch I was shivering so intensely, and so friggin’ cold-drenched to the bone, that the first moment I saw a Holiday Inn Express I nabbed it. Lost the $29 reservation at the campground, but gained back body heat and out of the hypothermia zone. 

I did warm up (barely) for that hour when I stopped for lunch at:

A hot coffee and Monte Christo sandwich did yeoman’s duty warming me up.

But I immediately started shivering once again outside. In the vernacular: today sucked! but it makes us stronger to get to Maine!

I didn’t want to “hotel” it, but my wife, Pattie, was insisting since this morning that I book one, so I didn’t feel guilty when I caved. Had I not booked the campground through Hipcamp, the campground would have offered a refund. They did call me, I think maybe to warn me about camping conditions. 

I pulled into the HI-Express breezeway to switch routes near the NC border for a direct route to the campground, which is a couple of miles off route, and I started shivering so badly again that I didn’t feel sheepish following Pattie’s advice and booked the room from the breezeway.

At this point, in this warmth, and with my panniers exploded and everything drying all around me, I don’t feel bad about it in the least.

I’ll be in NC tomorrow, one day deferred — in all fairness, all I cut out today was 5 miles of riding (2 of them off route to the campground) — and the rain is forecast to stop tonight. I had the legs to keep going, but my body core required a 20-minute scalding shower and a room thermostat set at 77. I’ve been here 2 hours now and I’m finally getting warm.

Sunny and warmer for the next four days — isn’t that always the way?

I packed a soaked tent that I was going to have to set up wet, probably in a muddy field — this last minute respite allows me to dry everything out, maybe resolve my Wahoo nav issues (although I got an email from Wahoo saying they’re having a system wide issue — maybe that’s my navigation problem?). 

I’ll start less shell shocked tomorrow. We need the water sources to flow, so I appreciate the rain.

(even my waterproof gloves soaked through)

I unpacked my tent and spread it all about the floor. I’m leaving here bone dry and warm tomorrow, and know I’ll encounter a few more days like this on our ride. I thank the IHG Corp. for having the foresight to set this Holiday Inn Express in Little River, SC so I could avail myself of it copious hot water and heat.

Day2

Start: Myrtle Beach, SC
Finish: Little River, SC
Miles: 36.9

Four days of sunshine and 60 to 70 degree weather coming up … did I mention that? Of course I did.