As I mentioned in my last post, I was excited about going to ride the Kokopelli Trail in 3 days. I was also nervous. There were 2 reasons I was nervous. The 2 reasons were I’ve hardly been riding since the Race Across America last year and only a couple rides were mountain bike rides. Unfortunately I ended up with a 3rd reason to be worried about riding 142+ miles in 3 days. If I had been riding normally for the last few months, I would’ve just considered it a nice 3 days of riding.

Actually the 3rd thing was something that I at least had thought could be a problem. The week before Cassidy had been in the hospital for 5 days with a nasty stomach virus. We were pretty sure Danielle had it first but only had a high fever and complained about her stomach. I figured if I was getting to get it I would have already gotten it but there seems to be a bunch of similar stuff going around. With all the time Julie spent at the hospital, she ended up with a bad cough.

Tuesday morning I woke up with a scratchy throat. I started taking large amounts of Vitamin C and Zinc. By the end of the day, I definitely felt I had a bit of a cold but it was more of an annoyance than really sick. Wednesday I felt about the same as I had late on Tuesday. I left work early and we headed to Grand Junction.

We were happy to be headed out of town to somewhere hopefully warm and dry. It was pouring down rain and only 37 degrees on the north end of town. On Monument Hill it was snowing hard enough for the trees to be white. Around the Eisenhower Tunnel the road was slushy. The east side of Vail pass had enough slush to require careful driving. Once we got past Vail, the roads were dry and the clouds were clearing.

As I was driving, I started getting chills and aches. We got to my aunt and uncle’s in Grand Junction around midnight and crashed. I figured I’d see how I felt in the morning and hopefully be able to ride.

In the morning the chills and aches were pretty much gone but my arms felt weak carrying the bags out to the car. A gland in my neck was swollen and painful. Normally I would have decided it wasn’t good to ride but I really wanted to ride the Kokopelli Trail all the way from Fruita to Moab. I figured I’d at least start riding since there were a few spots to bail.