Injury and Insult

Yesterday started out well. I explored Valentine city park, which I had mostly ignored the night before in my haste to get set up before dark. It was pretty and had some neat trails. Then, on my way out, I was going too fast down a hill, tried to stop suddenly, hit a patch of gravel at the bottom, fishtailed and fell. It's much easier to do with a trailer I think. I got myself somewhat patched up, and headed to town looking for better bandages.  I asked a couple in a grocery store parking lot where to find bandages, instead of telling me, they revealed their considerable supplies, the woman told me the man was a doctor, and he bandaged me himself. Apparently he had run The 180 in Lincoln. Again, lots of good people out there.

I scratched up my gear shifters slightly in the process of the fall and then adjustment and I felt stupid and terrible. I felt so much worse about a cosmetic injury to my bike than my own injured arm (which should heal just fine I think). I felt so guilty, so ashamed of my accident. As I rushed to get over 60 miles to Merriman,  now started at a very late 1 o'clock, I realized something. I don't want to make it 2000 miles and then say, well I made it here, but I scratched my shifters, lost a spring, etc. I don't want to always be the person dismissing my successes with my failings on the way.  you don't expect a bicycle, or any other piece of equipment, to remain new after miles and miles. Things will get lost, worn, and broken on the way. That's part of the journey. And I matter more than my things.

Though my spirits were spent, the winds were wild, the hills hellish (I rose over 600 feet and I feel that was mostly on a few dreadful hills in the latter half), the shoulder decided to narrow toward nothing at times, and time was short, I got where I needed to go. Because I can do this, no matter how many times I fall. I just get back up again.

And now I would like to end this post with a public service announcement. Don't litter on highways. Seriously, what kind of people do that? They're driving around in spacious interior spaces with plenty of room for a waste receptacle. I tear open my granola bar wrappers with my teeth and put the sticky wrappers wadded up back in my waist pouch to dispose of properly at the first possible chance. If I can avoid littering in my circumstance, anyone in an automotive vehicle sure as hell can. I BIKE on that shoulder. Animals LIVE in that grass off the highway. Littering off the highway is utterly unacceptable.

This post brought to you thanks to Gordon pizza hut WiFi.