Living Well With Diabetes

In between Pendleton and La Grande sits Cabbage Mountain. It starts just outside of Pendleton and rises from about 1000 feet in elevation to about 4200 feet. I elected not to take the Interstate, instead opting for County Road 937 and later something called the “Scenic Frontage Road.” It wasn’t as steep, but it was about 10 miles longer than taking the interstate.

But either way I went, it was hot. High temperatures today in Pendleton were 102. By the time I reached the summit, I was running short of water … and energy. I picked up water at the campground at the summit. I would have stayed if I had had groceries for dinner. I didn’t so my only option was to continue on to the Hilgard Junction State Park twenty miles further. Except there was no store there either. The camp host there offered me a can of beans, but after a long day of riding, I was looking for a bit more in the way of dinner. I ended up in La Grande where, once again, I could not find a campground. There were a couple of RV Parks, neither of which had any facilities for tenters. So, I stayed at the “Mr. Sandman” Motel near the center of town. I wasn’t that disappointed about not being able to camp — it was very hot outside.

I should mention that my plan for many days leading up to Pendleton was to turn south there on Highway 395, rejoining in two days time the route I took on the way up to Alaska. Well, to make a long story short, I realized I could save two days of riding and see some new terrain by following I-84 the rest of the way into Idaho. Oregon has a wonderful state map made specifically for bicyclists that helped me make this decision. It showed a green (low traffic volume) road paralleling I-84 most of the rest of the way to Idaho. Plus, except for today’s sufferfest on Cabbage Mountain, it looks to be relatively flat.

I’m afraid I don’t have many photos to show from today’s ride. The heat has made the riding difficult for me. When I climb on the bike at 6 AM, my focus is entirely on getting to my destination as quickly as possible so as to avoid the ugliness of riding in the afternoon heat. Still, here are a couple of my favorites from today’s ride:

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Today, I left Washington behind me. I crossed the Columbia River mid-morning at Umatilla, Oregon which is the same place I crossed back in 2006 during the Dream Tour. Who knew I would ever come back and ride that same road again?

Washington had some of the best — and worst — of the riding during the tour. At least so far. Highway 2 through the Cascades is a low point, despite the beauty of the mountains.

Washington had some things I really liked about it too. For example, when I had an opportunity to read a newspaper or watch some news on television, I heard about Washington’s new “Hands-free” cell phone usage law. Basicallly, it makes using a cell phone while driving illegal unless you’re using some sort of hands-free device (I assume that means a speakerphone arrangement of some kind).

Another example of a great thing about Washington, Seattle actually, was discussion of a 20 cent charge for a plastic bag in a grocery store. Walk or bike ride a couple miles along any road in this country and make note of how many of those plastic bags you see discarded along the shoulder. It’s not just plastic bags though; there’s all kind of junk, and lots of it, littering our roadways in this country. Believe me, I know because I’ve been riding past it all at about 10 miles an hour for the past six weeks. If a 20 cent charge on plastic bags helps clean it up, I say “Bravo, Seattle!”

Half of today’s ride was spent on very busy roads and the other half was on the Old Pendleton River Road which was a delightfully lonely 30 miles along the Umatilla River. But, it was a difficult ride too, because of the heat. The high temperature in Pendleton today was 96 and tomorrow, they’re expected to beat that by six degrees. I’ll be headed south on Highway 395 into the Blue Mountains. Hopefully, the elevation and the forest will provide some relief from the heat.

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It was 53 miles from Othello to Kennewick. It should have been an easy ride, given it was mostly gently rolling farmlands, but it sure felt difficult.

My only explanation for it feeling so difficult is my own tireness from riding six days in a row now and also it’s warming up in this area. There’s a high pressure cell building over eastern Washington and Oregon (and Idaho and Utah too, I’m told). The high temperature today in Kennewick was 91 degrees and tomorrow is supposed to be the first of four days in a row of 100+ degree high temperatures.

I think my days of enjoying a cup of coffee in the morning are over for a while. I’ll do better if I can do more riding in cooler temperatures and the only time I’ll get that is by riding earlier in the day. I’ve been clipping in to the pedals at between 7 and 8 AM, so I could get a couple hours of cool riding in if I start at 6 AM. I’ll try to get started that early.

When I checked in to the motel today, a package was waiting for me. It was a replacement PDM and two extra insulin pods. Yay! After dinner, I’ll go through the process of transferring all my settings from my current PDM unit to the new one. Actually, “transfer” is probably too fancy a word. “Re-enter” is more correct. I had long, fancy names for all my basal programs. Re-entering all these settings a pain and very time-consuming because the PDM doesn’t have a keyboard.

Here are a few photos from my ride today:

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I’m in Othello, Washington tonight and last night I was in a small town named Quincy.

My ride yesterday started off in the foothills of the Cascades. At the city of Wenatchee, I stopped at a pharmacy for a new supply of insulin and test strips. Then I crossed the Columbia River and left the Cascades behind me. I followed the Columbia for quite a while, with large cliffs on each side of me. As I approached Quincy, I began a long, hot climb out of the valley and onto a plateau, a plateau where major agricultural activity takes place. Yesterday and today, I passed mile after mile of fields of corn, wheat, apples, walnuts, and who knows what else. Many of the fields had signs on the fenceline indicating what the field contains otherwise I almost certainly would have little idea what the fields contained.

I’ve been having more troubles with my insulin pump. The PDM (the handheld unit I use to program and get information from the pump) has a black and white LCD display. In Leavenworth, I noticed four entire rows of pixels had gone blank. They didn’t interfere with the operation of it, but I was afraid it might get worse.

Last night, it wasn’t the PDM giving me troubles. I had two insulin pods fail. The first was an occlusion and that forced me to switch to a new pod. The new pod failed too though: I couldn’t get it to respond to any commands. Luckily, the next pod was fine, but now I’m running short of pods. I have enough to get home, but I have no spares.

This morning, I noticed that now seven entire rows of pixels were blank. I decided it was time to call the support line. I told them about the pod failures at the same time. After some discussion, they’re sending two new pods and a new PDM to me. I had to make a reservation at a motel in Kennewick, Washington tomorrow night so they had a place to send them.

I don’t have any photos for today because for some unknown reason, I can’t upload photos. If I get it figured out, I’ll add them later.

Last night, I was woken up by an alarm from my OmniPod: another occlusion. I got up and set about attaching a new pod. This one was dead, however. It didn’t respond to any of the commands from the handheld management unit. So, I cracked open yet another pod. Luckily, that one worked OK.

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“Death Highway.” That’s what the old man called Highway 2 through the Cascade Mountain Range. He was a friendly guy who had simply walked up to me and started a conversation while I was resting at a store in Skykomish. He was referring to the narrow shoulders and the high volume of traffic, especially big RVs and pickups towing all manner of recreational contraptions. I could certainly relate to what he was saying: this was my second day of riding on Highway 2 and it has to be some of the most unpleasant riding I’ve experienced anywhere in the country.

I had stopped at a store that seemed forgotten next to the gas station where there was a line to fill a car, truck, RV, boat, motorcycle, or ATV or whatever you might be hauling up or down the canyon.

The forgotten store had absolutely no vehicles in front of it and a sign read “Deli / Liquor Store” so that’s where I went. I was going to go in and get a cup of coffee to warm me up after having just spent a rainy night in an “unofficial” campsite just outside the town of Index, Washington. It was a great camping area along side the Skykomish River. Being a free campground, it was crowded, but I found myself a small slice of grass closer to the road. Later that night I would realize I had chosen well. All the bears were roaming closer to the river. Several times throughout the night, I heard people yelling and screaming and occasionally “go away.” I was never visited by a bear (as far as I know), so I’m only guessing at what the yelling was all about. What else could it be though?

Later in the night, I had an all too realistic dream about a bear trying to get into my tent. I was unable to yell or move because I was so sleepy. The dream ended when I finally managed to yell out “Go away!” and I woke myself up.

The friendly old man said he was from near Skykomish. He went on to tell me about the bike touring he did in Europe shortly after World War II. He bought a bike in Germany — a “Steiger”, I think he said — and took it to Switzerland, France, England, and Ireland.

I never got inside to get coffee. I realized I had absolutely no cash with me. I would have to use the next twenty miles of climbing to get me warmed up. It worked. The summit of Stevens Pass is at 4061 feet and I had my conversation with the old man at about 750 feet of elevation. The last six miles is a steady 5-7% grade. Even with the tailwind and temperatures hovering around 50 degrees, I was working up a very good sweat and all I was wearing was shorts, jersey, and arm warmers.

All was going according to plan on the climb until I was about a mile from the summit. I started feeling a sharp poke in my side right where my OmniPod was located. I didn’t think much of it, but I checked on it at about a quarter mile from the summit. Yep, my OmniPod, located near my front and just above my waist, had worked its way loose after three days of pedaling.

On any other day ride, this might have been a disaster because the Stevens Pass summit is 35 miles from where I started. Today though, I had everything I needed to remedy the problem. Placing a new OmniPod unit seemed out of the question: not only was I on a busy highway with no shelter around, it was hovering around 50 degrees with a brisk wind.

So, instead, I elected to take a small injection of insulin to cover my needs until I arrived in Leavenworth, today’s destination.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the last two days of riding:

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