Past Postings

Since I started this blog on a site that doesn't allow for people to comment, I'm going to paste my past entries here so that if you care about the trip from the very beginning (lots of training rides!), you can read all the postings. Your comments will be our way of keeping in touch during the trip.

April 7, 2006

4/7/06
By mholder
Well, here goes. I think I need to do this to understand how it works. The two biggest things going on in my life right now are planning for our bike trip this summer and taking care of my mom, who's been sick since November. She has Post-Herpetic Neuralgia from shingles and she's been staying with us since early January. It seems as if everyone I know is dealing with parents' problems, either physical or with memory loss. At least my mom's problems aren't something like terminal cancer; she is just dealing with a lot of pain that is taking a long time to go away. The improvement is so gradual that I don't think she notices it. She tries to stay positive, but sometimes it's hard; I feel bad for her because she usuallly is such an upbeat person. My husband and I will be on an extended bicycle trip this summer with our tandem bike. In 2004 we started our "Cross-country by Installments" trip. We shipped our bike and flew out to the west coast. After spending a couple of days in Seattle, we took a bus to Astoria, OR where we met our bike at a bike shop. We took about three weeks to pedal to Missoula, MT. This summer, we will fly out to Missoula, and ride from there to Pueblo, CO. We'll pass through Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and Rocky Mountain National Park. I think we will end up crossing the Continental Divide something like 12 times. I've been in touch with our friend Charlie, who did the whole in 2004. He says this will be the prettiest part of our whole multi-year ride. To prepare for this, we strap a 50-pound bag of salt into our BOB trailer and ride around the hills of Pittsburgh, Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio. We were well-prepared last time, but this time our route is longer and includes higher altitudes. Our problem now is how to carve out enough time for some longer rides, as well as open our camping trailer for the season, keep our school duties under control and take care of my mom. I tend to let the training rides fall by the wayside to make sure she has some company when we get home from school, and the weather hasn't been very cooperative. Life is a juggling act!


April 10, 2006

4/10/06
By mholder
All those lines intersect today. My sister had my mom to two doctor appointments, one with her PCP and one with her cardiologist. By late afternoon, they were really on one another's last nerves. There is a lot of stress for everyone involved here. Sometimes we just have to all take deep breaths and try to keep everything in perspective. Not easy. We managed to get in a training ride after school today; only about 15 miles, but including Mansion Street in Hazelwood and Commercial Street in Swisshelm Park. Since Mom was with my sister for dinner, we stopped on our way through the Water Front and ate at Quizno's. Tonight we're going to try to nail down our airline tickets. I'm getting worried that we may end up paying more if we fall within 60 days of departure. It's hard to believe that the trip is that close. Bob has installed a drum brake on the back wheel to help us stop on the long, steep downhills of the Rockies. He has it cabled and there is a shifter that will engage it from the front handlebars, and on Thursday he'll head over to Kraynick's bike shop in Garfield to put the finishing touches on it. That dovetails nicely with my mom's dr. appointment right in Bloomfield that day. (See how everything intersects!) Packing for the trip this time will be much less of a problem for a few reasons: we bought new rear panniers that will be much easier to pack and other than a few very minor things, we really have acquired almost everything we need because of the last trip. All of our cold weather and rain gear is up to date. It will be exciting to see the Adventure Cycling people in Missoula again, especially since it's their 30th anniversary. Maybe this time we'll get our picture in the back of the magazine. In the meantime, I'll keep trying to work out the details of how my mom will manage while we're gone. Juggle, juggle!
Posted


April 18, 2006

4/18/06
By mholder
Back to school today after four days of "spring break." It's almost a relief, considering how busy the weekend was. My mom changed one of her medications last week, in the hope that the new one will do a better job of managing the nerve pain. I don't know when she goes back for an evaluation. Marianne says that it will take 5-7 days for it to take effect and in the interim, she is feeling pains that she didn't before. The knee that she hurt when she fell in January is very sore. When we took her to the chiropractor for treament on the knee, he said that he has a laser treatment machine that sometimes helps with the PHN. She's had two treatments, and started strengthening therapy at the Water Front to help with her walking and balance. Unfortunately, that seemed to aggravate her knee pain, so she is rethinking the order of things. We will continue with the treaments at the chiropractor until the knee heals and then do the strengthening. What alarms me more than anything is that the chronic pain and depression are beginning to really affect her personality. It's just sometimes difficult to cut through all the negative thinking; I don't blame her, but it's hard to get used to her being that way. On the bright side, the four-day break was enough to allow us to ride every day and yesterday to do a just-under-50-mile ride. We did the South Park to Bentleyville ride and still managed to relax some later in the day. After we packed up the bike and were at the intersection of Corrigan and the hill to the Wave Pool, we saw Randy riding home. That was nice; I need to update him on what is going on here and to find out about his racing. I never did establish whether he went to the Washington Boulevard Velodrome last Wednesday. So, in the midst of everything else, we are getting ready for our second jaunt to NY this weekend. Looking forward to it, but sorry to lose the riding time. Our drum brake worked really well on the hills, by the way.
Posted on: Tue, Apr 18 2006 6:54 PM

April 26, 2006

4/26/06
By mholder
Well, the laser treatments seem to be helping somewhat, but progress is still slow. We've suspended the strengthening work for the moment, since it seemed to really aggravate the pain in the knee. We're waiting for the knee to heal and then therapy will begin again. In the meantime, we are still in the holding pattern of Mom in the basement! Bob and I were in New York over the weekend with a bus of adults. We had a great time; I bought my flamenco shoes and a skirt, we saw a flamenco performance on Saturday night, and went to the International Auto Show on Sunday, mainly to avoid the rain. Because of the trip, we haven't taken a bike ride since last week. We're working on that. Maybe tomorrow after school. I've taken a personal day on Friday so that Marianne and I can work on getting Mom's house ready for the transition.

May 2, 2006

5/2/06
By mholder
Well, Mom hangs in there. She didn't have a great day today, but by the evening she was starting to feel a bit better. We've gotten her hooked on Desperate Housewives and we watched our tape from Sunday. It's almost as much fun watching her react to the show as it is to watch the show itself. Saturday, she had such a day: in the morning she seemed great and we went for our bike ride thinking that she was going to have a good day. By the time we returned two hours later, she was under seven blankets, teeth chattering and throwing up with the flu! She had a fever and was uncomfortable most of the day. At about 4:00 she fell asleep and actually slept until midnight. I told Debbie not to come because I didn't want her catching anything and I stayed on the gameroom couch so that if she woke up disoriented she wouldn't have a mishap. She hadn't taken any medicine, pain or regular. She woke about midnight, took her pain pills and went back to sleep until morning. After breakfast, we went out for a longer ride since she seemed a lot better. Debbie stopped over and they had a nice long visit. Both of them enjoyed the company. Marianne picked her up for dinner and so we ate out on our way home. Friday had been the day to buy the single bed and fix her house for the transition. The bed is in the tv room, the couch is in the dining room, the drapes are hung and it will be ready for her "transition" while we're away on our trip. I'm thinking that by the end of May we'll try her out there. I think she's getting to like staying here if only for having company. I've told her that if she decides that's what she wants, we have a plan. Our trip plans are progressing. We have our tickets, and we've talked to the Bike Doctor in Missoula. This afternoon, Bob stopped at Big Bang Bicycles on 885 to find out about packing the bike for shipping. They said it shouldn't be a problem and it doesn't sound as if they'll charge much. We're going to talk tomorrow to Mike Koerper, Irene's son-in-law, who works for Pitt Ohio Express to find out about shipping it through them, since Fed Ex is expensive and it was rather difficult last time. Bob's Dad and Irene are home from Florida as of yesterday. That adds another dimension to the mix; Irene said she doesn't think it will be possible for them to spend as much time in Florida from here on because it's too difficult to deal with Dad. I feel bad for both of them, but especially for Irene as it is very exhausting to deal with someone having the problems he's having. She is usually so positive, but apparently she hurt her hip while packing and will now have to deal with that as well. We'll try to help them out this summer, but it will have to wait until we're home from Colorado. Always a puzzle!

May 8, 2006

5/8/06
By mholder
Whew! Another eighth grade trip under our belts. This past weekend was the eighth grade NY extravaganza. It is really amazing how much harder that is to do as we get older. It's funny to me how I can do the cycling pretty much better than I did in my twenties, but some things just aren't the same. It's really the lack of sleep that is the main thing; by Saturday night, after riding the bus all night and hitting the town all day, I was really so tired I could have cried. Sunday was better, since we really were able to get about seven hours of sleep on Saturday, and I actually did get two hours of deep sleep on the bus Sunday night. So today wasn't that bad. We will get to sleep early, since Bob didn't fare quite as well. My mom had a good weekend. Sunday was not a great pain day; apparently, she had some bad pains, but she saw Jessie a lot and that always seems to help. She and Marianne were on the fast-doctor-track today, keeping several appointments and getting a blood test. She seems in good spirits tonight and she is going to the dentist later in the week. This is turning out to be a busy week; somehow we were super-scheduled while our backs were turned. This weekend will be devoted to parents. Bob will take his dad on Saturday afternoon to a movie and lunch so that Irene can go to her granddaughter's wedding shower. I am going to make Mother's Day dinner; Mom requested Shrimp Etoufee and Jambalaya. On Saturday night we're going with Gary to an art opening he's having at a restaurant somewhere to the east of the city. So it will be a full, but hopefully pleasant weekend. We're also slowly working out the details of shipping the bike to Montana. It's funny that I don't even think much about the packing. We've honed it to a science and finally pretty much have the right gear and clothing that it's a no-brainer. The big hurdle now is to finish the school year!

Pedalling Pittsburgh

Well, things are rolling along (no pun intended!) with plans on all sides. We are making strides getting ready for the trip. Going to REI twice this weekend hurt the wallet, but we are pretty much "geared up" now. I bought a bear deterrent spray and a non-stick frying pan and Bob got a rain hat. Bob stopped today at Big Bang Bikes to ask about packing and shipping. We now have dimensions for the box to pass on to Garry who will help us on the shipping end. We are going to try using a freight company instead of FedEx as we did last time. We'll be moving Mom back to her house on a limited basis at the end of the week. We're getting things set up so that she can stay on the first floor while we're gone. The porch furniture is out and her bed is set up. Once we get the porta-potty "up and running," she'll be set. I think that she is finally beginning to realize the advantages to staying with us on a permanent basis, so it's possible that by the end of the summer we may be making those arrangements. I don't want her to make such a major decision until she's feeling better, though. I'm getting pretty good at biding my time instead of trying to get things settled at the expense of thinking them through thoroughly. We ran into our friends Burt and Kim at the Venture Outdoors festival over the weekend. Kim has an aunt who lives in Lolo, MT and wants us to stop by. We're trying to figure out if we'll be able to just go straight there the first day and maybe camp in her yard. That way we won't lose a whole traveling day right off the bat. We're studied the first map and have looked at the distances. There is one stretch of about 70 miles that has no services, so we'll have to arrange to do that in one day. We need to check on the other maps to see if there are any other restrictions like that one which would dictate our timing. The closer it gets, the more excited we are. We rode Pedal Pittsburgh for the first time ever on Sunday. The 45-degree rain kept most of the amateurs at home, but there was a decent crowd. We attracted lots of questions with our 50-pound bag of salt strapped in the trailer. We rode the 35-mile route, but also rode there and back so we got in 53 miles. It felt pretty good. There was some climbing, especially in Highland Park. It was interesting to see parts of the city from a slightly different perspective, since we covered some of the routes we normally ride but varied others. We hope to get in some more miles this weekend, since the weather promises to be better than it's been lately.