Today was awesome!
Actually, let me clarify: in almost every physical/logistical way, today sucked. Riding up US-95 in Idaho is kind of a hellscape for cyclists: it’s a two-lane country road with no shoulder and the speed limit hits 65 in spots, used by semis, one of which came within 18 inches of my head. It was under construction for a good bit of its length, making the road surface incredibly choppy and even turning into a one-lane road at one stretch. To make matters more interesting, my rear tire has gone flat in a way that I can’t fix; it’s bald down to the red tread, and can only hold about 85% of the air it should hold. So every mile or so I had to pull over and use my frame pump to top it back up. I’m going to have to detour next morning 12 miles each way on that bald tire to hit a bike shop. And the new sleeping bag I bought won’t stay on the bag, so I can’t stand up on the pedals or hammer too hard without worrying about it falling off right onto the road. Last night I ended up camping without a shower because I got into New Meadows so late I couldn’t find a room. And for no particularly good reason, I was just grumpy all day. Today is the first day on the whole trip when I can genuinely say I was *annoyed*. I’ve had days where I felt tired, lonely, sad even, but today I just felt irritated, like this was a stupid chore and I couldn’t really remember why I was doing it. I wanted to pull over and hop in my car so bad. Maybe it was the 122 miles yesterday, or all the problems I had today, but I just wanted to kick things.
But, you know what? I’m still smiling. It used to be that, when I was in a bad mood, like I was today, I would search for reasons. Immediately I would try to “fix” it. Why am I in a bad mood? I would ask. Should I not have come cycling? Should I stop and quit? Was this a stupid idea? Am I doomed to be in a bad mood forever? Does nothing ever change? Now, what I realized is - I’m just in a bad mood. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn’t really *mean* anything. And it will most likely pass (which it did). The sun is shining, I met a really cool guy named Stu in the park who worked as a chef in Alberta and had never left Canada before in his life, the bike will get fixed, I’ll try to get a shower tonight - everything is fine in the most perfect of all possible universes. Really. Things could be so, so much worse.
By the way, I have come to a momentous decision about my trip, dear reader - but we’ll leave that for tomorrow.
