Drove back to Hurricane yesterday, hung out @ OTE, and then drove out to JEM TH for the night.

I hung  @ OTE yesterday, what a hoot. Talked w/ Slower than Snot Dave. Learned that last year he raced the Leadville 100 on a fixie! The first rider ever and since. he said that he got a 5 min conversation w/ Lance b4 the start. Let’s understand what Dave did: He raced 100 miles on a bike that pedals like a tricycle: his pedals go around w/ the rear wheel, no coasting. He finished in 12 hours 6 mins. This is to be admired for the difficulty of his ride. On the other hand, gears exist, as do full suspensions. His choice, my choice.

Word from ct scan was the hematoma is getting smaller, that was it. I called the urologist and asked for more info. Said results might take 2 days to become available. Scanned images on a network. Today I called and insisted on a reading of the entire scan. Played phone tag and then learned from a nurse the radiologists exam: Lots of good stuff still working inside me. My kidney is healing and I am released for increased activity w/ full use in 3 weeks. Still no definition on why my rib in front still hurts. No definition of what increase is supposed to look like. My definition. Tonight I sleep in my bed. I pumped up the tires on the road bike. Tomorrow I plan a short road ride to get conditioning started. I did hike the JEM trail for almost 60 mins while buzzed on pain pills. I pedaled the Spot out the lane to the hwy & back. Felt good, need more. 5.5 inches of PUSH suspension soaks up a lot of bumps.

Yesterday i bought Grisham’s The Summonds and read it almost non stop yesterday & finished it today. Stopped @ Walgrens for another pain pill prescription supply & picked up The Associate. Quick reading, engrossing in the story, hard to put down, escapist reading w/ no real redeeming justification, just escape. Tonight I will be propped up in bed, between the sheets under covers and will read until I fall asleep.

Pistachios are locally grown w/ the claim that the environment here is similar to their native land of the middle east: Iran & Iraq. Taste the difference conditions make.

Another hospital admittance. Been having this pain in my lower rib cage from the fall back in Spokane. Decided it needed to be addressed. Went to insta check but after the doc read my file they threw me over to the ER. I was admitted again. This time this doc wanted to see mire of my insides so i was given about a quart of contrast solution to drink in  an hour. The comment is nobody asks for seconds, me included. Same tech who scanned me that Sat night was on duty again. He remembered me as I him. results came back that hematoma is shrinking but not gone. No explanation for continuing pain. I am to follow up w/ urologist . My BP is to me very high. I have names of 2 docs for internal medicine to deal w/ bp. Some speculate it is because of not being on pain meds and body is in pain producing high readings.

Doc prescribed my hydrocodone. I have enough for a stocking stuffers. Prescribing pain and to me not getting at cause of pain.

Hospital drink cleaned me out like a prep for a colonoscopy.

Watched GU MSU game. Zags were ahead most of game but lost it in last 2 mins. Almost had it against number 2 ranked team.

Sleeping on the streets of ST George.

Took time leaving Mesquite, NV for Lake Mead area. No real place to go or thing to do and all day to get there. Stopped in Overton Lost Town Museum, but it is more of a lost funds place as the state has shortened the days opened because of budget cuts.

Drove S of town looking for big flat spot where people camp. Found it. RVs scattered about, some by themselves (like me) or gathered in clumps. Don’t know if there is a sense of community here among these travelers. I know I am not ready to embrace this type of living. I am waiting for my injury to heal so I can get back among the active living. I think I could better wait out my healing and have a better sense of life being back in Brevard, NC than hiding in desert in the open.

I sat outside in the nice sun for several hours finishing up Wendell Berry’s That Distant Land .  I am sentimental and long for the old days. His writings are of an older day that I did not know. If I would have been raised on a farm and a life he wrote about, I probably would have left it for the bright lights of the city, OK maybe on the outskirts but left the farm non the less. Previously I finished another of his books, Jaber Crow. They were very good reads and full of wisdom of by gone days clashing w/ new ways of living where people have left the land for city jobs that are disjointed and dysfunctional. Arguments can be made for both lifestyles. I choose the non Wal Mart life.

I was introduced to Wendell Berry in Dalton, GA the night before the Snake Creek Gap Challenge race siting around a campfire by a woman. The Pinhoti trail is now an IMBA epic.

That Distant Land is a collection of common thread chronologically order stories of people from early settlers to modern times. Burley Coulter’ s life is started & finished as an old man dying of old age. His family decides to “do something” and admits him to a hospital where “they” best know how to take care of him. He is dying of old age but the medical community sucks the dignity out of him to prolong his life that is no longer his. His family watches him plugged into machines to keep him alive. His son makes the decision to “kidnap” him and take him home to die. The state assigns a detective to bring the guilty to bear. Charge: he left w/o officially signing out. A contest of wills between the old family he lived in and modern medicine.

The sun goes down and the temp drops.

I am thinking about going back to ST George, UT to recover among trees and maybe some bike riders. I might seek a volunteer position to do something. I am having a difficult time just sitting.

I will work on another photo album tonight. Verizon has great wireless coverage.

I am still sleeping on the floor. I can’t sleep on my stomach because of pain from my fall back in Spokane hurt something in my chest. As a result I am not sleeping very well.