Poison Ivy continues; Kenosha Pass
Aug. 24th, 2010 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grrgoylThe good news is my poison ivy rash I couldn't stop scratching is gone. The bad news is I'm left with angry-looking excoriated scabs everywhere that I can't stop scratching. One looked so nasty I actually went to a doctor; after all my years nagging Tery about paying for insurance she never uses, she insisted. "Call me if you have to get amputations and need a ride home," she offered. She takes such good care of me.
My doctor looked a little like character actor Bob Balaban. I explained my situation and he examined my leg through a tiny telescopic instrument. "I like your diagnosis," he concluded. I like that he doesn't mind a patient diagnosing themselves.
Poison something...ivy, oak, sumac. He warned that it could be on my pets and I should probably bathe them, just in case. "Well, they're cats," I told him. "I might end up looking worse than I do now." He laughed! A doctor with a sense of humor! Maybe he'll be my GP.
Despite how awful it looked, he didn't think it was infected. He prescribed me a cortisone cream and some pills to help with itching. I walked back out to the front office and experienced the pleasure of not having to pay a penny, enjoyed by insured patients for decades. Nice.
I was a tad disappointed though. This is my first visit to a doctor with a weight and an active lifestyle I'm proud of, and he didn't say a word. We only hear about it when we're doing something wrong, I guess.
~*~
Lair o' the Bear didn't happen. I canceled on Gerry because, given the appearance of my skin, I didn't think getting all dirty and sweaty was such a wise idea. Then he went on his own to scout it out for me, and decided I was too delicate a flower to risk it.
I tried tempting him with some suggestions from my book, "Bike with a View," a collection of easy and moderate trails written by what sounds like a middle-aged priest on a respirator. I guess he wasn't impressed, because I never heard back.
I thought he wanted to do something this past weekend, but it came and went without a word. So instead I went back to my Audubon Loop; it was supposed to be one of the hottest days of the season, and the leafy cool of the trail sounded preferable to sitting around in a puddle of sweat.
I'll admit, I had another ulterior motive -- I continued to be haunted by that damn skewer tool I left there nearly a month ago. The odds were microscopic that I would find it, but I didn't know how else to stop the damn dreams.
You see, Mr. Man at Adventure Cycling, despite seeming to know what he was doing, and despite my use of phrases like "highly specialized" and "special five-sided," ended up ordering me a plain old hex wrench, just like the dozens I already have at home. I also emailed the company directly, actually receiving a response promising to send me one, but they never did -- which is ruder than just ignoring me completely, if you ask me.
So my options are to either buy a whole new set of skewers with a tool, or go back to Audubon, which I was going to do eventually anyway.
Back on the trail. I rode directly to the spot as if I did it every day. It wasn't hard to find thanks to that great honking root that caused all the trouble. I searched determinedly for about fifteen minutes (using a stick to poke around, I'm not an idiot), but to no avail. Well, it was worth a shot. Hopefully now I can stop obsessing about it.
The trail was as enjoyable as ever (I didn't fall this time), but sadly now I'm starting to recognize landmarks and learn my way around it. I liked it better when every turn promised a fresh new adventure, aimless and lacking any plan or goal, sort of how I live my life. Still, it was cool and breezy and much nicer than sitting on the couch.
There weren't many people at all, surprising for a Sunday afternoon. I think the trail is a well-kept secret, and I'd like it to stay that way. However, I did pass one couple, a guy trying to coax his wife/girlfriend, who looked like a "Jersey Shore" reject, to catch up with him, while she whined in protest that there were "a million bees" between her and him. It was like watching an episode of "Wife Swap," when the wife is shipped hundreds of miles from home and forced to engage in activities diametrically opposed to what she'd rather be doing.
~*~
Then on Monday I decided to go alone to one of the spots from my book, Kenosha Pass, which is actually just a small portion of the ginormously long Colorado Trail (no animal names).
Just a taste
The first problem with Kenosha Pass is it's so damn far away. The book promised 1.25 hours from Denver, and it wasn't wrong. What begins as a thrilling adventure as you're packing up the car turns into the mindless drudgery of driving pretty quickly beyond the city limits.
I eventually reached it. The second problem with Kenosha Pass is, unlike every other trail I've visited so far, this one had no facilities whatsoever at the trailhead. Why would they expect someone driving for almost two hours to have to pee? (There was a ton of construction to get through.) So I did my thing in the woods. That'll show 'em.
Just a word about sunscreen -- mine has alcohol in it, and there's only a tiny 1-inch patch of undamaged skin on my left wrist that doesn't feel like it's being set on fire when I apply it.
Just as I was entering the trail, I met a hippy-like rider returning to the lot. I said hi. He looked at me with this goofy grin and said dreamily, "Beauuuuutiful ride!" I'm glad, brother. Do I have to get stoned too to enjoy it as much?
The third problem was that it was scenic enough, but the first part is a pretty steady uphill that I ended up walking, in between brief spurts of trying to ride followed by stopping and gasping for long, thoroughly unpleasant minutes. Well, at least my chest wall was getting a good workout with all the rapid rising and falling.
But then you come out onto a break in the trees, and all of South Park Valley is spread out before you. Truly breathtaking (the good kind). From there it's suddenly all downhill, mostly through trees, but occasionally crossing some meadows. It was great fun, but would have been far more so if I could forget the fact that I was going to have to climb back up it on my way back.
South Park Valley (haha, Cartman looks like he's saying, "You guys? How the fuck did we get here?")
I was so taken with the one stand of aspens I saw at Golden Gate. Kenosha Pass has nothing but
Oh, come now, Kenosha -- what's the point of having a rock pit if you put a nice smooth path alongside it?
If the whole trail looked like this, I would come every day...
...but up here my enemy were these roots everywhere. Stupid trees and your stupid life-giving root system
I kept going, driven by the thought that I had come so damn far to see this trail, I'd better make it worth my while.
But it was the steady downhill which ultimately determined my turnaround spot -- I could have kept going, I had plenty of water, which is usually the overriding factor, but the thought of trudging back up practically the whole mountain proved too daunting and I turned back after probably ten miles (oh, who am I kidding? I have no idea how far I went. I'm terrible with estimating that stuff).
I was right -- going back up was a bitch. Again I would try to ride for short stretches, but all it took was slowing down for a rock pit or something and I'd lose all my momentum, and resign myself to walking. I felt a little better when I noticed a guy way down the hill behind me, who appeared to really know what he was doing, but occasionally stopping and walking as well. He never did catch up with me. He was probably a city slicker too.
This hill was a hell of a lot more fun on the way down
I reached the smooth tree-lined section that I recognized to be more or less the home stretch. Except Rojo was making strange noises I'd never heard before, and they didn't sound encouraging. I stopped two or three times to check various points, but everything looked okay.
After about fifteen minutes, I looked down and noticed my front tire's quick release lever loose and swinging in the breeze -- the only thing keeping the tire on the bike was my weight. I must have hit a rock just right (or wrong, I suppose) and knocked it into the open position. Damn good thing I realized that, someone could have really gotten hurt (in all likelihood, me). Tightening that up made the rest of the ride much quieter and more enjoyable.
My trusty steed
The other heroes of my journeys are my Adidas shoes. I've had these for well on ten years now. I have to super glue the soles back on every month or so, but they're still going strong. While you're down there, give a shout-out to my itchy gams. They've been treated abominably and they also never complain (Tery said this pic looked like a cadaver's legs after a bear mauling)
What I liked about this trail is the final stretch before the parking lot is really lovely, so your final impressions are fond ones instead of remembering all the climbing you just did.
Back to the car, and back to town. By the time I hit civilization I was desperately hungry. I hit the McDonald's drive-thru with the thought of getting a grilled chicken sandwich, surely that wouldn't kill me. But it's been so long since I've eaten there they now have three different varieties of chicken sandwiches. The conversation with the girl on the speaker deteriorated rapidly before I caught on to this fact. We worked it out, and wow, that sandwich tasted incredible. Not going to make a habit of it, though. It's only okay after I've just finished climbing a mountain.
My doctor looked a little like character actor Bob Balaban. I explained my situation and he examined my leg through a tiny telescopic instrument. "I like your diagnosis," he concluded. I like that he doesn't mind a patient diagnosing themselves.
Poison something...ivy, oak, sumac. He warned that it could be on my pets and I should probably bathe them, just in case. "Well, they're cats," I told him. "I might end up looking worse than I do now." He laughed! A doctor with a sense of humor! Maybe he'll be my GP.
Despite how awful it looked, he didn't think it was infected. He prescribed me a cortisone cream and some pills to help with itching. I walked back out to the front office and experienced the pleasure of not having to pay a penny, enjoyed by insured patients for decades. Nice.
I was a tad disappointed though. This is my first visit to a doctor with a weight and an active lifestyle I'm proud of, and he didn't say a word. We only hear about it when we're doing something wrong, I guess.
~*~
Lair o' the Bear didn't happen. I canceled on Gerry because, given the appearance of my skin, I didn't think getting all dirty and sweaty was such a wise idea. Then he went on his own to scout it out for me, and decided I was too delicate a flower to risk it.
I tried tempting him with some suggestions from my book, "Bike with a View," a collection of easy and moderate trails written by what sounds like a middle-aged priest on a respirator. I guess he wasn't impressed, because I never heard back.
I thought he wanted to do something this past weekend, but it came and went without a word. So instead I went back to my Audubon Loop; it was supposed to be one of the hottest days of the season, and the leafy cool of the trail sounded preferable to sitting around in a puddle of sweat.
I'll admit, I had another ulterior motive -- I continued to be haunted by that damn skewer tool I left there nearly a month ago. The odds were microscopic that I would find it, but I didn't know how else to stop the damn dreams.
You see, Mr. Man at Adventure Cycling, despite seeming to know what he was doing, and despite my use of phrases like "highly specialized" and "special five-sided," ended up ordering me a plain old hex wrench, just like the dozens I already have at home. I also emailed the company directly, actually receiving a response promising to send me one, but they never did -- which is ruder than just ignoring me completely, if you ask me.
So my options are to either buy a whole new set of skewers with a tool, or go back to Audubon, which I was going to do eventually anyway.
Back on the trail. I rode directly to the spot as if I did it every day. It wasn't hard to find thanks to that great honking root that caused all the trouble. I searched determinedly for about fifteen minutes (using a stick to poke around, I'm not an idiot), but to no avail. Well, it was worth a shot. Hopefully now I can stop obsessing about it.
The trail was as enjoyable as ever (I didn't fall this time), but sadly now I'm starting to recognize landmarks and learn my way around it. I liked it better when every turn promised a fresh new adventure, aimless and lacking any plan or goal, sort of how I live my life. Still, it was cool and breezy and much nicer than sitting on the couch.
There weren't many people at all, surprising for a Sunday afternoon. I think the trail is a well-kept secret, and I'd like it to stay that way. However, I did pass one couple, a guy trying to coax his wife/girlfriend, who looked like a "Jersey Shore" reject, to catch up with him, while she whined in protest that there were "a million bees" between her and him. It was like watching an episode of "Wife Swap," when the wife is shipped hundreds of miles from home and forced to engage in activities diametrically opposed to what she'd rather be doing.
~*~
Then on Monday I decided to go alone to one of the spots from my book, Kenosha Pass, which is actually just a small portion of the ginormously long Colorado Trail (no animal names).
Just a taste
The first problem with Kenosha Pass is it's so damn far away. The book promised 1.25 hours from Denver, and it wasn't wrong. What begins as a thrilling adventure as you're packing up the car turns into the mindless drudgery of driving pretty quickly beyond the city limits.
I eventually reached it. The second problem with Kenosha Pass is, unlike every other trail I've visited so far, this one had no facilities whatsoever at the trailhead. Why would they expect someone driving for almost two hours to have to pee? (There was a ton of construction to get through.) So I did my thing in the woods. That'll show 'em.
Just a word about sunscreen -- mine has alcohol in it, and there's only a tiny 1-inch patch of undamaged skin on my left wrist that doesn't feel like it's being set on fire when I apply it.
Just as I was entering the trail, I met a hippy-like rider returning to the lot. I said hi. He looked at me with this goofy grin and said dreamily, "Beauuuuutiful ride!" I'm glad, brother. Do I have to get stoned too to enjoy it as much?
The third problem was that it was scenic enough, but the first part is a pretty steady uphill that I ended up walking, in between brief spurts of trying to ride followed by stopping and gasping for long, thoroughly unpleasant minutes. Well, at least my chest wall was getting a good workout with all the rapid rising and falling.
But then you come out onto a break in the trees, and all of South Park Valley is spread out before you. Truly breathtaking (the good kind). From there it's suddenly all downhill, mostly through trees, but occasionally crossing some meadows. It was great fun, but would have been far more so if I could forget the fact that I was going to have to climb back up it on my way back.
South Park Valley (haha, Cartman looks like he's saying, "You guys? How the fuck did we get here?")
I was so taken with the one stand of aspens I saw at Golden Gate. Kenosha Pass has nothing but
Oh, come now, Kenosha -- what's the point of having a rock pit if you put a nice smooth path alongside it?
If the whole trail looked like this, I would come every day...
...but up here my enemy were these roots everywhere. Stupid trees and your stupid life-giving root system
I kept going, driven by the thought that I had come so damn far to see this trail, I'd better make it worth my while.
But it was the steady downhill which ultimately determined my turnaround spot -- I could have kept going, I had plenty of water, which is usually the overriding factor, but the thought of trudging back up practically the whole mountain proved too daunting and I turned back after probably ten miles (oh, who am I kidding? I have no idea how far I went. I'm terrible with estimating that stuff).
I was right -- going back up was a bitch. Again I would try to ride for short stretches, but all it took was slowing down for a rock pit or something and I'd lose all my momentum, and resign myself to walking. I felt a little better when I noticed a guy way down the hill behind me, who appeared to really know what he was doing, but occasionally stopping and walking as well. He never did catch up with me. He was probably a city slicker too.
This hill was a hell of a lot more fun on the way down
I reached the smooth tree-lined section that I recognized to be more or less the home stretch. Except Rojo was making strange noises I'd never heard before, and they didn't sound encouraging. I stopped two or three times to check various points, but everything looked okay.
After about fifteen minutes, I looked down and noticed my front tire's quick release lever loose and swinging in the breeze -- the only thing keeping the tire on the bike was my weight. I must have hit a rock just right (or wrong, I suppose) and knocked it into the open position. Damn good thing I realized that, someone could have really gotten hurt (in all likelihood, me). Tightening that up made the rest of the ride much quieter and more enjoyable.
My trusty steed
The other heroes of my journeys are my Adidas shoes. I've had these for well on ten years now. I have to super glue the soles back on every month or so, but they're still going strong. While you're down there, give a shout-out to my itchy gams. They've been treated abominably and they also never complain (Tery said this pic looked like a cadaver's legs after a bear mauling)
What I liked about this trail is the final stretch before the parking lot is really lovely, so your final impressions are fond ones instead of remembering all the climbing you just did.
Back to the car, and back to town. By the time I hit civilization I was desperately hungry. I hit the McDonald's drive-thru with the thought of getting a grilled chicken sandwich, surely that wouldn't kill me. But it's been so long since I've eaten there they now have three different varieties of chicken sandwiches. The conversation with the girl on the speaker deteriorated rapidly before I caught on to this fact. We worked it out, and wow, that sandwich tasted incredible. Not going to make a habit of it, though. It's only okay after I've just finished climbing a mountain.