Living Well With Diabetes

First day on the road and already there’s a casualty in my equipment. Well, possibly a casualty. I’ll have to keep an eye on it. More on that later.

Today’s ride was 65 miles or so from home to the KOA in Perry, Utah (about 3 miles south of Brigham City). From here, I’m heading generally northwest, paralleling I-84 towards Boise, Idaho. From there I’m cutting across Oregon. My target there is Wilsonville, about 30 minutes south of Portland, where my friends Jane and Dick run a company called iSense. Here’s a map of my route to Wilsonville:

(Click on the map to see a larger version.)

I’ll be dropping in at iSense to say hi and park my bike, even if just for a minute, in the bike rack they installed outside their facility. If it were just your average everyday bike rack, I wouldn’t bother. But, this isn’t just any old bike rack. Above the rack there’s a plaque that reads “Reserved for Peter Hoogenboom.” Who wouldn’t want to ride to Wilsonville and park in it? You can read more about this bike rack and why it has my name attached to it my my posting Visiting Friends in Portland, Oregon.

So, now, about that casualty. It’s my Dexcom continuous glucose monitor. It requires that I calibrate it at least once every 12 hours with a standard glucose test meter. I had inserted a new sensor just before leaving Salt Lake City this morning. Two hours later, it asked for it’s initial two glucose readings (it always asks for two readings on the initial calibration after a new sensor insertion). No problem. Around lunchtime today, I tested again and provided it with another calibration reading (I find it gives me better readings the more often I calibrate). This time, the Dexcom couldn’t retrieve a reading from the test meter. They both seem to recognize each other’s presense, but the Dexcom can’t retrieve the meter’s readings. It sits there draining the battery trying to get something and eventually gives up with an alert. I’ve found, however, that if I insert the plug into the Dexcom gently, it will work. I think I’ll keep that in mind, but I suspect I’m looking at an intermittent failure that is probably only going to get worse. If it does, I’ll be shipping the Dexcom and all its peripheral equipment (charger, extra sensors, test meter) home.

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In eleven hours, I’ll be on the road towards Alaska. After nearly half a year of thinking, pondering, and planning this thing, it’s finally time to lace up the shoes, clip in and go.

But first, there’s a ton of last-minute things to do tonight in preparation for departure tomorrow. First on my agenda was to locate my pocket knife. It’s a nice, basic Swiss Army knife I’ve had for years. I had it out on dresser a week ago or so and now it’s disappeared. I’ve been looking for it for the last three days and I am really stumped as to where it is.

I was whining about all of this to my neighbor Paul the other day and and also when I saw him at the coffee shop this morning. Well, I was just about to hop in the car this evening to go buy myself a replacement pocket knife when Paul knocks on the front door. In his hand is a brand-new Swiss Army knife almost identical to the one I lost. What a great guy and what a great send-off gift! Actually, it had a few tools on it that my missing knife didn’t have — scissors, tweezers, a package hook (whatever that is) not to mention knife blades that are much, much sharper than the ones I’m used to. I’m going to have be be careful.

Also on my agenda tonight is to pack all my gear up. Actually, I packed last night to make sure everything fit. It did and it actually came in about 48 pounds. I unpacked again tonight so I could post a photo here of all the gear I’m taking. Laid out like it is in the photo, it’s hard to believe it all fits into my four panniers (approx. 5300 cubic inches). But, there it is.

And these are the panniers it all has to fit into.

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When I submitted my post, One Week and counting, I had intended to start writing daily entries. I thought it might be interesting to have a countdown of the last days — the planning, the training — before my departure.

Well, clearly, I was not able to fulfill that goal. What prevented me from achieving that goal was also my single most time-consuming activity in the past few months: a creative writing class. Last October, before I ever had the idea of riding my bicycle to Alaska this summer, I signed up for an independent study creative writing class. It has been finishing that class that has taken up nearly all of my spare time since early March.

Since the class was offered as an independent study course through the Continuing Education department at the University of Utah, I was able to work through this class at my own pace. I had no classes to attend, but I had quite a bit of reading and writing to do over the past eight months. I would do the assigned readings, prepare the written homeworks, and then hand them in at the Continuing Education office. A week to two weeks later, my graded homework would show up in my mailbox. I never met the instructor or the grader for this course. My college days are a distant, fading memory for me, but I do believe I worked harder at this course than any other course in all my years of undergraduate and graduate studies.

So, I handed in my final project yesterday! Just in the nick of time, I finished it. Pat will have to mail me the graded final project when it arrives from the grader.

Last night, since I didn’t have any writing to do for my class, I was able to spend the entire evening getting together all of the gear I’ll be taking with me on the bike tour. It’s all laid out in a spare bedroom in the basement. It doesn’t look like a lot, but I know from the three-day tour I took a couple weeks ago that I’ll have some difficulty fitting it all into the four panniers. I have about 5300 cubic inches of storage in the panniers themselves, plus the top of the rear rack which is where I’ll strap on my sleeping bag and tent. Tonight’s goal is to experiment with packing it all up in such a way as to provide a balanced load, front-to-back and side-to-side.

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One week from today, I’ll be climbing on my bike and headed for Alaska.

Much has happened since I started planning this trip back in February and this trip is not what I had envisioned when I first wrote about it back on March 31. Still, I’m looking forward to getting started and a lot of work has gone into getting ready for this two month long adventure.

Willie Weir, a life-long bicycling tourist, and now a columnist for Adventure Cyclist Magazine, writes in his article Liftoff (you can read it online) that the space shuttle burns 90% of its fuel in the first eight and a half minutes of flight. His point was that it takes a huge amount of energy to overcome the pull of gravity. He goes on to talk about how this is true in bicycle touring too — it’s very difficult to overcome the pull of home.

I completely agree with Willie. I remember how much work it took to get Pat and myself on the road for our 48-state Dream Tour back in 2006. I also remember a huge sigh of relief once we got on the road because it meant all the work and planning was done and was successful. All I had left to do was ride my bike 10,000 miles and that seemed simple and straightforward compared to all the planning.

Much of the same kind of work and planning has gone into this tour. It has been made simpler in that no house and pet sitter is needed for this tour. Much to my disappointment, Pat has decided to sit this one out. She’ll be tending to things at home and will not be joining me in Bellingham, Washington like I originally planned.

But, the planning for this tour has also been more difficult because this is a self-supported tour. In the Dream Tour, I had a support van and the weight of gear such as a laptop or cooler or tent wasn’t a big concern. On this tour, all gear choices come with serious consideration of its weight. I spent an entire afternoon debating whether to bring a large tube of toothpaste (4.2 ounces) which is enough for the entire trip or to bring a travel-size tube (about 1 ounce, but much more expensive) and then have to purchase more along the way. (The travel-size won.)

Last week, I took a three-day bicycle tour to Brigham City, Utah for the Utah Tour de Cure fundraising bicycle ride. It was an excellent opportunity for me to try out riding with all my gear for three days. For the trip to Brigham City, I had 48 pounds of gear, but I think when I leave next week, I’ll have something closer to 52 pounds of gear. So, you can see why I take the weight of things very seriously.

Another difference in the planning for the Dream Tour and the planning for this tour is my job. For the Dream Tour, I took almost the entire year as a leave of absence. I had nearly two months prior to departure when I dedicated my time to planning (and training) for the upcoming tour. This tour, on the other hand, I’m working full-time right up until the day before I leave. That has made for a very busy spring.

There is one more detail about the trip that is different than I had originally planned. Instead of going only to Juneau, I’ll be spending a few days in Juneau and then going to Sitka, Alaska for three days. My good friend Dave Nevins lives there and he’s organizing a event in the evening of August 2 for one of the local diabetes support groups. I’ve been invited to come and speak at that event. I’ll be able to say a few words about The Dream Tour and I’m sure I’ll have a few pictures to show and stories to tell from my journey to get there.

For the next couple months, I’m going to try to make regular postings on this web site. How well I succeed at that depends mostly on how often I have internet access. I’m bringing a small laptop with me (2.2 pounds!), but I will be relying on hotels, campgrounds, coffee shops, public libraries, etc. for my internet access.

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