I will start on day one eventually, and hopefully, through the course of the next month, manage to get down all 22 days of my ride. Here's hoping. As I try to recall the chain of events, I am continually rerouted by funny anecdotes, or particularly difficult moments, and somehow I lose track of what day it was, or where I was, but please bear with me - someday I will look back on these posts and smile to myself - probably shed a tear or two, as I am as I write this, due to the fact that such a big ride required a huge gathering of emotions and strengths just to get through...
There is one memory that I have an increasingly hard time forgetting, so I thought I may start here..it actually took place on the last night of my ride, about 22 days in, and 70 miles from the Mexican border - my finish line. I want to forget it, but by some strange phenomenon, situations like mine have become frequent social media fodder - just today I received the following...
Moth Man...click to enjoy and apologies for the profanity.
My situation was much like this - except I screamed a whole lot more and an awful lot louder.
I had been riding already for about 17 hours, and 140 miles, and had decided to make a run for the border alongside a fellow racer, Kent MacDonald. It was pitch black out and a monsoon was raging, but we just wanted to get done...we were on a very sandy, deep and washboarded New Mexican roadway, as the rain came at me horizontally with winds ready to pick me up and carry me back to Banff. Through my headlight, off to the right, I saw a moth flying at me, hitting me at the temple, clinging to my harness. I swatted him away, but to no avail; he kept flapping on my cheek. I tried a couple more times, but he had moved to my ear, and wouldn't leave. I stopped the bike, and dropped it; whipped off my helmet, and kept swatting at him, and then I realised he was no longer on my cheek, but had crawled into my ear - he was not small...
Kent had been riding a bit behind me, and he saw my headlight go flying, and sped up to reach me thinking I had gone down in the sand. By the time he got to me, I was screaming bloody murder and silence of the lambs type moaning ensued. The moth was flapping away inside my head, and with every flutter, I screamed louder as I could feel it working its way down towards what I was sure, was my brain. I went fetal and whimpered as Kent tried to figure some way to help. I shone my light in my ear and he could see absolutely nothing - it was too far in. In a leap of faith, and thank you to Leatherman, good fortune, Kent reached into his frame bag, and pulled out a multitool with little pliers - as I screamed "getitoutgetitoutgetitout!!!" he deftly stuck the pliers in my ear, held his breath, said a few hail Mary's, and pulled out a moth the size of Manhattan, I swear it was...and it flew away with nary a thank you...
Kent is a military psychologist...he knew to ride away at this point to let me collect my thoughts, and good thing he did, because I started an all out, top of my lungs, rant at the sky and whomsoever may reside therein whether I believed or not...I had endured so many unbelievable hurdles during this race, and I will get into those later, but why the hell a moth in my ear at the end of my very last day????What kind of a test was this? What kind of a message was I to take from this, and could I not have just received a note, or a vision in a dream instead????? WTF???? (apparently I am still questioning..) I am working on the answer, but until I get it, I am wearing earmuffs...seriously.
and without further adieu....
The Tour Divide 2014: and my take on what went down, day by day, mile by mile...
The Beginning -
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