Home Soon

[Yes, it's sarcasm]

After endless screwing around with being sick first in Grande Prairie and now in Edmonton, I am reluctantly throwing in the towel.

I have been taking antibiotics for six days now and am at last able to eat normal food again. At least I hope so. I had real food for breakfast - lox and a bagel - and I am now waiting to see if my innards can handle it. The lox was greasy so I am uneasy about what will happen during the next few hours. It is remarkable how quickly and how much one comes to miss food. Oatmeal and soda crackers are technically food, but only technically.

I was willing to start bicycling again subject to the deconditioning of not having exercised regularly for two weeks. But I was not willing to start subject to both the deconditioning and the considerable debilitation from being sick. My sister Gail pointed out to me that I also faced the risk of a relapse and possibly getting sicker than before. And of being on the road when it happened. Which I hadn't thought of. It gave me pause.

The bicycle trip was becoming more a medical enterprise than a touristic one. This was supposed to be fun and it has stopped being so.

Even if I set out, there is nothing south of here but endless vistas of prairie for hundreds of kilometers south to Calgary and then more of the same into Montana. There is much to be said for prairie vistas but once that has been said, there is no more to say about them. I am too far east of the Rockies and it is too late in the season to do much of anything toward going home.

No, that isn't true. If I were fit and inclined, I could bull my way across Alberta, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and California in a month. The fact is that I am tired, sick, and discouraged. There is no point in pretending that I am forced out. The fact is that I am quitting because I don't want to do this anymore. I have been on the road since June 20, for just over two months now. It is just over.

So I have said the magic words, "the hell with it" and booked a flight home. I feel really crappy about it ending with a whimper but I would have felt a lot worse if it had ended with a bang.