Monday, July 18, 2011

day 18, Mississippi *Goddam* (I mean every word of it)

We continued our slog up the river today, leaving Stoddard, where we had such a relaxing evening dipping biscotti in red wine and hot tubbing, at 6:41 a.m. and not arriving at our motel (yes, it's still too dang hot to camp) until 8:03 p.m. Sure, there were breaks, but that's a long biking day. We got 86 miles out of it, which is good overall, but was a terrible average mileagewise. And why was that? Well, the highest "feels like" temperature I saw on my phone was 113, but who knows if it crept up another few degrees when I wasn't looking.

We slogged it out because we're due in Minneapolis tomorrow evening. Aaron was far more gung ho about riding today than I was. He tends to do better in the heat than I do, or at least initially. He'll behave as normal, then say something like, "Is it weird that I have chills on a day like this?" or, "Whoa, my heart is racing!" I, on the other hand, am slowed down from the get go by crazy heat and am pretty much a textbook case of how too much heat and sun can lead to irritability. I was also just plain worried about us today, since they were warning people not to go outside, nevermind bike a big bunch of miles.

As I peddled along, careful not to push too hard as a way to compensate for all the work my body was doing to cool itself, I had the following image in mind: a cartoon version of myself, biking away, sweat dripping, then a close up and cross section of my brain, each lobe lit up a different color. First, they start to flicker, then one by one, they blow out. Only the hippocampus would remain.

All this talk of brain failure makes me realize how desperate I am for some sleep. Now's the time.
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2 comments:

  1. I can hardly believe you remained conscious from 8:03-11:58 pm after the taxing day you had. Is it critical to be in Minneapolis on schedule? Sounds like you maybe should have used one of your reserved bad weather days yesterday...113 degrees? I'm a lightning wimp, but that kind of heat sounds just as scary!

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  2. Ummm Aaron, if you feel chills in extreme heat that's a sign of possible hypothermia. I'm so glad Jamie-Lee is doing this with you, because at least one sane person needs to keep an eye on you. I hope you both are wearing lots of sun block. 86 miles is totally more than enough for one day in a heatwave. I had a 5 hour deposition yesterday in an elderly plaintiff's house who did not have air conditioning and I felt like I had sat inside a sauna for 5 hours. I can not imagine how I would have felt if I had been biking for that amount of time.

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