First thing I had to do was lose some weight, about fifty pounds of it to even think of doing the Wildflower. Did that and a little bit more to boot. With some miles under me and my ass toughened for hours in the saddle, I felt ready for the seventy-five mile bicycle ride we signed up for. Still not sure though if I could do the ride due to Wally's condition, I opted for the insurance to get some money back in case I couldn't go.
All the time leading up to the ride we had an unusual mild winter and wouldn't you know the day of the ride the predictions were for cold, wind and rain. Still I went.
The weather predictions were spot on. A cold, thick clouded sky greeted us with rain on the morning of the ride. It wasn't much rain but enough to make the cold--colder. And it never warmed up. Once the clouds dissipated, the wind came, getting stronger throughout the day. Through all of this was the pastoral view of horse and wine country. Mixed in, here and there, the wildflowers bloomed as best they could. Hard to see though with your head tucked in fighting unrelenting gusts of chilled air.
But the hardest of all forces to deal with came not from the elements but the roads. Once out of the hills we came to a long valley with rutted roads hardly left with pavement of any kind. Deteriorated to the point that avoiding a pot hole only meant hitting another. It was last second decisions to decide which pothole, tortoise-back section, to ride over would be the best. It wore on you, made every joint in your body ache with pain from the constant jolts sent up the seat of your bike. By the time I hit the lunch stop there wasn't a bone in my body that didn't hurt. Then the roads got worse if you can imagine that. After a long grueling hill climb with a fast descent that herald the the end of the ride came potholes that could throw a bike rider over the handlebars. You had to be very careful and some of the worse lay hidden in the shade of the occasional tree.
So when we came to the end, to our car parked by the side of the road in line with all the other cars for the event, I grabbed my cane and walked to the cowboy bar in Creston. It is a real cowboy bar where patrons ride up on a horse and hitch to a post outside for a cold one inside. And the beer is cold but on that day the draft beer didn't flow, only bottle beer was being served. And served they did, I had the first two without tasting or swallowing, it sort of flowed from the bottle right to my gut in about three seconds. My bones said, "Thank you Jesus." My brain said the same and as fast as the barkeep could open the bottles, I drank them down. The Juanster sat amazed how fast the medicine worked. Soon I had a smile and as bad jokes poured from my mouth, I put the beer back in with more sordid jokes to follow.
The first customers to leave where the ones immediately around us. But the beer caused my voice to carry to the far reaches of the room and soon others joined those outside until the last paying customer left. I love pain killers, like beer and margaritas, trouble is they cause a side effect like the medicines advertized on TV. No anal leakage, at least so far, no nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, fainting spells or sudden death. The only side effect noticed is bad jokes. I'll take bad jokes over anal leakage any day.
We left a good size tip, not to insure prompt service but to keep the barkeep from throwing glass on the road for driving all her customers out. We found the car and went to back to our motel. Motel 6 is the American equivalent of Russian design. Just the bare necessities. WiFi is extra, charged by the day, depressing to stay for very long in especially after spending the night before the ride watching a TV channel dedicated to prisons and their occupants. Our luck was to have on the channel that night, Atascadero State Mental Hospital which means, no way out, hopelessly trapped, to watch. The prison is a stone throw away from where we slept. I'm not sure if the town was named because of the State's mental institution for the criminally insane, most of which are made up of violent sexual predators, or the area but either everybody you meet works at the prison(the inmates are referred to as patients, yet all of them got there from going through the justice system) or they know of someone that does. The institution houses and employs a lot of people. Most of the patients are there for the rest of their lives. And after viewing the television program I can see why.
We made friends at another bar close to the motel, of course buying a few rounds of drinks helps and they told us of a great little place to eat. We had ate there before when it was a run-of-the-mill Mexican restaurant but now had live entertainment and good food. After a night of drinking, (I'm surprised that in the morning I had no hangover) the pain of the day dissipated along with my fear of violent sexual rape being so close at hand, and in the morning we were well on our way back home. I think I can only deal with a Motel 6 once a year or off to the looney bin I would go.
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