Sick!

July 20:   Rogers City

Mile 422 and holding

I feel OK when I wake, even though I am filled with dread about our move to the middle of the Mitt. I scared myself looking at a topographic app of Michigan.  Looking at the digital maps in living color of the road ahead, I remember yesterday’s hard ride of yesterday and fear worse is coming. 

I cannot sleep until I force myself to return to the app and do a comparison of the hills ahead with other hills we have ridden.  I see that the monster hills just outside the Mountain Grill are much bigger and much steeper than those we will face today.  I say to myself, “You have faced worse and made it.  Now go to sleep.”  It takes some hours, but eventually I do. 

Is Wes awake during any of this?  Of course not.  He sleeps like a noisy baby while my anxiety churns.

Even though I can feel my bowels starting to roil, we go to breakfast (?) in the completely inadequate breakfast room. In the 8’ by 10’ room several families here for the big softball tournament are talking about the exploits of teens cutting loose away from home.

One teen boy: “I didn't get to sleep until 2:30.”

A teenage girl at another table: “I was waiting for them to get back from biking when I went to bed at 11:30. They still weren't back by 1!”

I would have loved to listen more, inveterate snoop that I am, but there is no place to sit.  We return to our room to crowd around the low coffee table and eat stale bagels with little plastic containers of cream cheese.

Boom!  Without warning, my body is in revolt.

I am dizzy.  My body is evacuating as much as possible as fast as possible.  It feels like food poisoning…with an emphasis on the poisoning part.  As I make my way to the bathroom, I focus on the pattern of the carpet and it goes all wobbly and weavey.

I guess my fears about going into the middle of the state will not be met today.  I change reservations for today and tomorrow and send Wes off.

I lay in the bed, and sleep without moving—or rest.  When Wes returns two hours later from documenting the murals of the town, I
haven't budged. I still have vertigo and my stomach and bowels are still doing jumping jacks.

But our room has a fantastic view of Lake Huron on this clear blue day.  The temperature is 70°.  After the storms of yesterday, people are out enjoying the Sunrise Side Trail, truly one of Michigan's most beautiful bike rides.  It stretches from Roger City to the 40-mile lighthouse

along the Huron shore. We rode it last time we were here.  It is part of what encouraged us to follow Huron’s shore for this leg of the trip.

We puzzle about what made me sick.  Perhaps it was the leftover sandwich we carried from Grand Lake.  We both ate it on that hard waterless ride from Grand Lake to here.

But Wes, as per usual, has a cast iron stomach. He almost never has digestive trouble despite (maybe because of) eating quite questionable food.  This is not my M.O at all.  My stomach and bowels flip at the slightest suggestion.

But oohh well.

We'll spend the day in this friendly and beautiful working town.