Woke up this morning feeling ok, but like the previous days not great so decided to take a rest day here in Love and try to hydrate all day and get some food in me. Stephen and Rob were going to hit the road about 6, but it was pouring down rain, so I think it was about 8 when they rolled out this morning. I’ve been up moving around all day and at the risk of jinxing myself, I’m feeling pretty good. By about 1pm I had been grazing on a large bag of beef jerky and some dehydrated Mac and cheese I bought at the camping store before leaving home and carrying for emergency food—both were tasting good and going down well. I ate the turkey, cheese, and tomato sandwich I bought yesterday and it tasted good—did keep it in the cabin refrigerator overnight :-). Been drinking loads of water mixed with Gatorade and when the camp store opened around 11am I bought a couple bottles of orange juice—drank both of those and tasted good—and a can of creamy roasted vegetable soup that I plan to have tonight. Things seem to be improving—this is all food that would have made me sick just thinking about over the past couple of days, and they are tasting really good now. Hopefully I can get up in the morning and get some good miles under my belt and feel good.
It’s about 5:30pm now and I have eaten more and am drinking really well…drank four 12 oz bottles of orange juice today along with a lot of water and Gatorade. Hope to be able to hit the road tomorrow feeling like myself again.
The Bear Story:
I was sleeping on the sofa last night in the front room by the front door to the cabin—Rob and Steven were in back rooms. About 12:30 last night I woke up to a loud banging and rattling sound on the front door. It was pitch black so I couldn’t see anything. I was just laying there trying to compose my thoughts and thinking is this someone trying to break into the cabin—surely they see our bikes on the front porch and know people are hear. But then part of me realized it wasn’t like someone intentionally banging on the door or trying to fiddle with the lock—it was more like pushing and rattling, but really hard. They were not concerned about being heard. This continued for about 30 seconds until I composed my thoughts enough to reach up and flip on the room light. When I did that it immediately stopped and I heard something rush away from the front porch—its a wood porch and it wasn’t like a person running…it was more like a swoosh sound. I immediately thought, it’s a bear trying to get in the cabin. Well, I was tired and out of it and still wasn’t feeling great, so I just laid back down and went to sleep.
Steven, Rob and I talked about it this morning and Rob was out and didn’t hear anything—Stephen heard it and thought I had fallen out of the bed or something and was rumbling around. We had a discussion about whether it was a dog or a bear because this morning there was an old fat dog come up to the front door looking for food most likely. But this wasn’t a dog—it was some serious pounding and pressure being placed on the door and up around knob—I remember thinking something was biting or hammering the door knob it was so loud.
So, this morning when I went to the store I asked the owner of the camp ground if they have bears coming in here and he said yes, then have been coming in every night and scavenging around the trash cans. I told him what happened and he said there were people in this cabin for the Memorial Day weekend and they had just checked out the morning we arrived. He said they were cooking/grilling a lot and he thinks they may have left food around outside. His concern was that it was a bear as well, but this is the first time someone has reported them trying to push in the door—that concerned him, but he said he really didn’t know what he could do about it other than just keep the trash cans empty.
The irony here is that I have a can of bear spray strapped to my bike frame and my bike—and bear spray—was locked to the railing of the front porch. So, I’m on the inside of the door, the bear is on the outside of the door, and my bike (and bear spray) are behind the bear 🙂 Glad they only have black bear around here!
End of Bear story 🙂
Just came back from the store for another turkey sandwich, and when I left the owner gave me some good advice for tonight. He said the worst of the mountains were behind me—said they built those roads before there were standards. And said “Don’t let the bears get to you. If they come around again, just holler at them and make some noise. They don’t want confrontation and will usually just run away.” Well, that made me feel good—all except for the word “usually” 🙂
Still don’t have a signal to upload photos—will check in tomorrow.