Recovery

My parents and my brother Daniel were in town for Thanksgiving and we spent several days feasting and making merry. I dare not even imagine how many calories I consumed.

On Saturday, it had been a few days since I'd last coughed and though my busted finger was still weak, it wasn't hurting all the time any more. Things were looking up. My dad brought his bike with him from Dallas, though he might have been a little hesitant to ride. He'd crashed on either the day of or the day before my last crash and fractured his hand. It was about as well healed as my finger.

Something had to be done though. That turkey wasn't going to work itself off, and those stiff joints aren't going to get better sitting around either.

We arrived at Blankets Creek around 3PM. Almost immediately I ran into Dave Greenwell, followed almost immediately by Tim Winters. They both seemed to be doing well, but also seemed ready to get going so we didn't talk for long. I was jealous. They both looked fit. I remember being as fit as they looked. Maybe next month.

The padre and I got going as quickly as we could.

The trail was really nice. It was the first ride I'd done since the leaves fell and the scattered abundance was still novel. Nobody had yet been out there with the leaf blower and that little pine-needly, leaf crubmly layer still lay on the trail.

Down by the lake, someone had recently added a flag pole and the flag was bumping around a little. I guess it was added recently. I don't remember ever seeing it before, but for all I know it's been there a while and I just never noticed it. I noticed it on Saturday though.

The lake itself was low. Really low. Like you could probably walk out into the middle of it without getting your knees wet low. The old creekbeds were prominent and the creeks were low in them. I wondered what the fishing was like when it's low like that. The fish would have to be concentrated into 1/20th of the water. Is that good? The weather's been nice, maybe I'll go find out.

We spun a lap around Mosquito Flats and Mosquito Bite, then up Shultz's Chute and back down the abandoned return, then a lap around Dwelling. My finger was a non-issue. I worried that it would be weak but I didn't notice at all. My Dad's hand was another story though. His thumb was going numb.

We spun another lap around the front.

It appeared that someone had been out there with the leaf blower in between our first and second laps.

By the time we'd finished the front section, most of his hand was numb. Probably still some swelling in there. We decided that it would be better not to push that and called it a day.

So, not a lot of miles, but no crashing, my finger was good enough if not well, and I didn't start coming down with cold symptoms that night. It's been a few days and I still feel fine. I don't want to jinx it, but I might finally getting better. It might be time to start feeling like a cyclist again. Maybe. I'll see if I can get some miles in on the road this week and see how that goes.