Living Well With Diabetes

During this two-month long bicycle tour, I have to carry several weeks worth of diabetes management supplies with me. I’ve had a resupply sent to me here in Wilsonville, Oregon and also in Sitka, Alaska. With those two re-supply points, I shouldn’t have to carry more than three weeks worth of supplies with me. Believe me, when you’re climbing through the Cascade Mountain Range near Mount Hood on a hot afternoon, you’d just as soon not be carrying any of it.

One of my big concerns while bike touring is keeping these diabetes management supplies safe and dry. Not that it’s rained on me at all yet, but I suspect, now that I’m in the Pacific Northwest, it probably will rain on me at some point.

I thought about storing it all in some kind of dry bag — the kind you might take on a river trip — but that doesn’t protect the contents from being crushed. I thought about storing it in a hard-shell waterproof case, but they tend to be very heavy and bulky.

The compromise I came up with is a clear plastic “Lock & Lock” brand container. They’re lightweight; they claim to be waterproof. I’m not sure I would feel comfortable submerging one of these containers, but they certainly seem waterproof enough to survive a rainstorm especially when they’ll already be inside my water-resistant bicycle panniers.

Here’s the best part about these containers though: there’s a square one, 680 ml, model number HPL-851 which is about 4 inches on a side and about 3 and a half inches tall. Four OmniPods fit in it perfectly. And when I say perfectly, I mean perfectly. The radius of the corners of the containers is the same as the radius of the corners on the OmniPod packaging and four OmniPods fit inside with no extra space to rattle around. After I remove one of the pods, I stuff some napkins in to fill the empty space.

I use another “Lock & Lock” container, same width, but not as tall, to store test strips.

The ones I’m using I found at a KMart. I’ve also heard Target and Walmart carry the “Lock & Lock” brand.

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I made it to Wilsonville! This is the first of two major milestones during my journey to Juneau, Alaska. The other milestone is Bellingham, Washington on July 25. That’s when and where I’ll be catching the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry to Juneau.

I didn’t take many photos today, unfortunately. I was concentrating on finding a good route through the suburbs south of Portland.

I did, however, go through the lovely community of Boring, Oregon this morning. I took a photo of this sign: “Boring Farmers Market.” I followed the sign and rode by the Boring Farmers Market. Not much was happening, so I didn’t stop. I also saw signs for “Boring Park”, “Boring Library”, “Boring Fire Department” and I didn’t stop at any of those either.

Mid-morning, near the town of Oregon City, four local cyclists out for a Sunday ride caught up with me. I asked them for some assistance with directions. They were a big help in getting me to the bridge I needed to get to in order to cross the Willamette River. It’s a large enough river that there aren’t very many bridges across it and there are even fewer bridges you can cross on bicycle. The bridge I had to cross was so narrow — and uphill too — that I didn’t even get a chance to take a look at the Willamette River. I’ll have to do that another time.

After I crossed the bridge and caught my breath, I headed further uphill to Willamette Boulevard which is what the local cyclists told me was the very best way to get to Wilsonville.

A few miles down the road on Willamette Boulevard, a car pulled up along side me and the woman in the passenger seat yelled out “Are you hungry? Do you want some lunch?” After I recovered from my initial shock over such a blatent display of friendliness, said yes to both. She proceeded to yell directions to me like I was familiar with the area. Her directions sounded easy enough to follow though — basically all I had to do was go straight. She said it would take me about 20 minutes to get to the cafe where they would be waiting. They didn’t tell me its name or its address though. I figured they would flag me down. I went straight for about 30 minutes and never saw them or her. They were in a forest green Subaru, but in Portland, that doesn’t narrow it down much. I’m very sorry that I didn’t show up to accept their generous offer, but I didn’t really have much of a choice — I couldn’t wander around the unfamiliar suburbs and hope to just stumble up them again.

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