Down Out of the Black Hills and into Wyoming

I have been riding in beautiful country the last few days. If you have never driven across the United States, I recommend that once in your life you do so. It’s the only way to truly appreciate the diverse beauty and grandeur of this great nation. 

And I’d advise including the Black Hills of South Dakota on your itinerary. 

The Badlands of South Dakota.

Mount Rushmore, in the Black Hills.

Traffic in South Dakota is, shall we say, "light?"

It’s a little different story on a bicycle. So, keep in mind, it’s a steep climb up from Rapid City to see Mount Rushmore. But I always like to see the mountain carvings. I admire those four presidents greatly, and I like the idea that an immigrant, who appreciated what this country represents, did the carving. It did surprise me a little, however, to visit the gift shop. I saw a nice carved stone egg ... maybe a piece of South Dakota ... and picked it up, to discover it was made in Pakistan. How about that alabaster buffalo? Made in Peru! That coffee mug with all the American flags?

Oh, come on! China??? The key chain? The glasses? The next ten items I looked at: ALL CHINA.

Finally, I headed for the t-shirt counter. There are stacks of Sturgis related gear, since this is

the big week of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which brings half a million riders to the Black Hills area. And those t-shirts? All made in HONDURAS.

Oh well, the four presidents were made in America.

If you haven’t heard of the Sturgis rally, it has been going on for 71 years, or so. It was small at first, 3,000 bikers in 1952. And it could get wild and rowdy, with fights and drinking, and, in the 60s, drugs. Some of the big gangs attended and from what I was told, still do, but today most of the riders are typical Americans, who like to ride, many of them I think trying to recapture their youth. A lot of these guys are bald and fat and I don’t think they could get off their bikes fast enough anymore to start a good brawl, even if they wanted to. Younger people, generally, aren’t turned on by the idea of riding a motorcycle, so the average age of the attendees is probably 50+.

Still, it has to be an interesting time. One man I talked to at breakfast said Sturgis was tamer now, but still like “Halloween on steroids.” Every place you go in the Black Hills this week you see bikers. I did a little people watching on the sly. In a random sampling I noted that 2/3rd’s of riders don’t wear helmets. Not macho, I guess. I saw one biker chick who was anorexic. Didn’t expect that. At Mount Rushmore I noticed a biker wearing a Hell’s Angels jacket and an oxygen tube up his nose.

Really didn’t expect that!

Generally, the riders struck me as a conservative but friendly lot. One rider wore a t-shirt that said: END THE FED on the back and carried the DON’T TREAD ON ME flag on the front. African American riders were as rare as African American hockey players; and I saw one trailer with this slogan painted on the rear: 

OBAMA KISS MY WHITE AMERICAN ASS.

YOU STUPID F*CK.

I was wondering: Did the driver of the trailer want to be discreet, putting that star there where the letter was missing?

If anything, the real dilemma in the Black Hills is deciding what to see and what you must reluctantly skip. If you go south, you can enter Custer State Park and see the herd of 1,500 free-roaming buffalo (I skipped that). You can ride the 1880 train from Keystone to Hill City (I pedaled up over the mountains instead). You can swim in beautiful Horsetail Lake (which I did) and you can use the Mickelson Trail if you’re on a bicycle. So, I did.

The Mickelson Trail is named after a South Dakota governor who died in a plane crash; an old railway turned to modern, two-wheeled use, it allows for a gorgeous ride through the mountains, amid peaks rising to six or seven thousand feet. I was on it most of one day (it runs more than 100 miles), riding beside cold, rushing mountain streams, through beautiful meadows, with vast walls of stone lining the way in places and several old tunnels to pass through.

At one point I came across two young cross-country riders, taking a snack break. Forest Almasi, 23, and Nic Brodine, 22, are recent graduates from Western Washington State, and started pedaling in Seattle headed for New York. Forest is a philosophy major but might like to build bicycles for a living when he settles down, or write, or possibly teach.

Nic was carrying a guitar, and says he can play the bass, drums and piano and sing. He might like to make a career in music; but he also expressed an interest in teaching. I told them both it was a great job, if you really wanted to work hard. “If you want to loaf, though, don’t become a teacher because you won't be any good.”

I think, from their demeanor, and after talking to them both about their trip, they’d probably be good if they gave it a shot.

I’m still camping pretty much wherever I can find secluded spots; and I’m having a good time. I camped just one mile from Rushmore and saw the mountain the next day, sneaking back an old forest road and bedding down amid tall pine trees. A doe watched me set up camp that evening and four fawn watched me rise again the next day. (I “showered” in the cold mountain waters of Horsetail Lake a few hours later.) I spent another night in a field of high grass along the Mickelson Trail; and when I started off again in the morning, I came zooming around a bend and surprised a coyote or large fox that had just brought down and killed a fawn. I’ve seen wild turkeys and eagles and during one snack break had a stare down with a chipmunk, who finally ran away. At another point a red squirrel kept pace as I pedaled along the trail, racing along the top rail of a fence that bordered the old right of way.

Eventually, I passed a local man, out picking wild strawberries and he shared a few. Even better, he advised me to get off the trail around Cheyenne Crossing and be sure to head down Spearfish Canyon. I took his advice and stopped for breakfast at Cheyenne Crossing. With thousands of bikers flooding the area, all the restaurants were full. So, at breakfast, the hostess asked everyone, “Do you mind sharing tables with someone you don’t know?” I said I’d be fine with that and ended up with two older gentlemen, one a Vietnam vet. I asked him about his experiences, but he laughed and said all he did in 1966-67 was drive a truck. “They issued me 100 rounds of ammunition when I got there,” he explained, “and when I left a year later I turned in the same 100 rounds.”

I wish I could offer you pictures of Spearfish Canyon, but my Droid was out of battery power, and you’ll just have to see it someday for yourself. A beautiful creek runs down the middle, cold, rushing water even this late in the year (someone says South Dakota had twice as much snow as normal this winter) and I “showered” again in Spearfish Creek. Luckily, I was heading down the canyon, which meant coasting for more than twenty miles, and I could look around and appreciate the towering rock walls and thick green forests.

So, trust me. It’s a beautiful ride. 

Right now, I’m waiting out a passing storm in the library at Moorcroft, Wyoming. It’s a cool day, and I’m heading for Gillette next, 28 miles further west.

If you would like to donate to help find a cure for type-1 diabetes please click HERE!

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The Badlands

Three days ago, if you had asked me, I would have told you bicycling across the USA is nuts.

To be specific, the weather was breaking my spirit. My first day, crossing the Big Sioux River into South Dakota, it was 98 degrees with a heat index of 118. The next day I ran into a direct headwind, at least twenty miles per hour and constant.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I gave thought to quitting. "Maybe I could rent a car and drive a few hundred miles and say I biked all the way," I pondered.  "Who'd ever know?"  I passed an old 1970s Oldsmobile for sale. It was primer gray mostly but looked like it might run. Or that used tractor.  It might get me back to Ohio.  I was feeling desperate. I could commandeer a harvester.  I could knock that old lady off her riding mower. I could harness up those cows to my bike.

Anything to end this pedaling!!

But I couldn't see quitting. So I kept going and the weather began to break my way. August 3 was much cooler and I easily did 99 miles. Then the next day I got a nice tailwind and did 80, including about 20 riding along I-90 which is legal in South Dakota.

This is wide-open country, if you don't know.  South Dakota is nearly twice the size of Ohio but with a population somewhere around 700,000, there are only 9 people per square mile.  The state has a "state fish" (the Walleye) and also a "state animal," the coyote.

I'm a little surprised they selected such a sneaky creature.  But I think it would be cool if politicians got together someday, somewhere, and named the weasel as "state animal" or poison ivy as the "state plant."

That would boost tourism.

Anyway, the riding has been good the last three days. I've had grasshoppers ricocheting off my helmet and one hitched a ride on my saddle bag and kept me company for ten miles, but he wasn't much of a conversationalist.  It's still better than my experience back in Illinois where, in one bug-infested state park, I had a mosquito fly up my nose.

Today I pedaled my way through the Badlands and at bicycle speed I was truly able to appreciate the grand beauty of that harsh land. Tomorrow, it's on to the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore.

Tonight I am happily ensconced at Welsh's Motel in Wall, South Dakota.

I think I'm already at least 20 pounds lighter.

Lexi, Eric and Gala Woitte gave me the royal treatment
when I spent the night at their house in Tea. South Dakota.

South Dakota Homestead Museum.
The structure was originally a sod house.



Humiliating even for a dummy:
Posed in the outhouse at the
South Dakota Homestead Museum.

 

Tourist kids dressed up as pioneer children.
Inside the sod house.

  

Western South Dakota is a land of hay and livestock.



Storm over the Badlands.

Riding for JDRF does get you to some cool places.
The Badlands.

Climbing a ridge in the Badlands.
It was nice to be on foot for a change.

The Badlands.

At Mt. Rushmore:
and definitely thinner than when I started.

Mt. Rushmore.
It's a real climb up from Rapid City, South Dakota to get here.




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Iowa in the Rearview Mirror: Hello South Dakota and the Woitte family



I pedaled across the Big Sioux River into South Dakota today - after taking a swim.

THE HEAT INDEX WAS 118.

I kept wondering why it seemed so hard to pedal today.

I PEDALED across the bridge over the Big Sioux River this afternoon, so now I’m in Tea, South Dakota, enjoying the hospitality of the Woitte family. I’ll tell you more about them in a moment; but trust me, it’s still hot. 

As far as Iowa goes, a newspaperman told me the other day that the state has the third oldest population, with Florida naturally first.

The main problem, of course, is that so many young people leave in search of work. All I can say is the people who remain seem universally nice.

First, a sad note. I don’t follow the news much, pedaling across the states, but saw a copy of People magazine while doing my laundry a few days back. It was sad to see that Trouble, Leona Helmsley’s old pet bit the Big Dog Biscuit and passed on to a better place at age 12.

His place on earth wasn’t too bad either.

You may recall that Helmsley took over her husband's hotel chain when he died and employees promptly tagged the old witch with the nickname “The Queen of Mean.” So, you figure she didn’t have many friends and when she died, she left most of her fortune to Trouble, $12 million.

A judge later knocked it down to $2 million, but Trouble took his defeat with equanimity and never uttered a “woof” in complaint. He ate well in his final years, enjoyed $8,000 worth of grooming annually to take care of his fluffy white locks and was guarded 24-hours-a-day by a security detail, at an annual cost of $100,000.

I was a little behind schedule getting into South Dakota because I felt beat the last two days and decided to quit early both nights. Two days ago, I almost ran into problems when I overstayed at dinner after sitting down with a great group of people at a bar and grill in Bancroft, Iowa (population 700). I kept talking and listening and procrastinating until finally I had to pedal like Hades the last two hours before dark to find a place to camp.

I blame Tony Berte, who started it all, inviting me to join the group after he heard about my ride. He even bought me a drink (Mountain Dew). 

I try never to pedal and imbibe.

The group included his wife Sue, a nurse, Rick and Bertie Hagedorn, she’s another nurse, and some other very nice individuals who I’ve gotten a little mixed up. Sue and Bertie told me conditions in the nursing profession have improved since they started. I do have that straight, at least.

Wayne Amy, I think, was the truck driver and a jovial soul. There was a red-bearded fellow across the table, but I could never hear what he said and a nice woman sitting directly to my right who used to do some farming. She said land is now selling in Iowa for $8,900 per acre; but farmers are getting high prices and the weather this year has been good. Most farmers are smiling.

At one point, they asked me if I didn’t get cooked in the heat, while riding, and I said, yes, but it was probably hotter doing farm work. Rick soon set me straight. He said a farmer could get $7 per bushel for corn these days and the yield per acre can be 200 bushels. He’s not a farmer but drives a machine that lays down fertilizer in the fields. And it’s air-conditioned and has auto-drive that will steer you straight each time you crisscross the field. 

Air-conditioned! Of course. 

As I keep saying, you learn the nuances of life in this country, when you get out and go for a ride.

The problem is: how anyone new could ever afford enough land or the equipment, when Rick says, “You can’t buy a new tractor for less than six figures.” Farms are either passed down in the family or big corporations take over and consolidate.

I apologize for mixing names: but Julie Amy, if you’re checking this blog like you said you would, it’s legit. Your kind donation of $30 will go straight to JDRF.

So, “Pedal on!” Isn’t that the line from Wayne’s World?

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church - Bancroft, Iowa.

(I should have checked it out; but I was in a hurry.)

POSTSCRIPT: Right before I got to Bancroft, I met another distance rider, a fellow named Phil Hinrichs, a retired EPA specialist from Dayton, Ohio. Phil has made seventeen cross-country trips and estimates he’s done 260,000 miles since 1976.

Earlier this evening Eric and Gala Woitte picked me up on the side of the road and took me to their home for dinner. Gala helps run a JDRF organization in this area and the Woitte’s middle child, Lexi, is a type-1 diabetic herself. (They also have two sons, Kenny, the oldest, and Mason, 14.)

Lexi is a pleasant young lady with a ready laugh – and really the whole family is nice. But since this is a blog about diabetics, we’ll focus on the girl. She’s going to be a junior at Teddy Roosevelt High in Sioux Falls this coming year. It’s a big consolidated school, with plenty of class options, and she’s already thinking very seriously about going into nursing someday. She hasn’t always been the “perfect diabetic.” There was a time when she let her A1C count get up to 11; but it’s good now and she’s working very hard in school. She says she remembers spending hours on homework last year and wondering “when is it ever going to end.”

But she still did it. She works as a volunteer at a nearby hospital, runs track (100 meters and 200 meters) and won a beauty pageant last year, Miss South Dakota Junior Sweetheart. She’s unassuming and didn’t tell me about her win. I just happened to see a picture her parents have hanging in the kitchen. She’s only sixteen but she has long experience with diabetes, having been diagnosed when she was eighteen months old. She also remembers getting in trouble when she was little because she kept eating glucose tablets when she didn’t need them because they were so good.

She strikes me as a cheerful person, and when I ask her if she thinks she is she says yes, and her dad readily agrees. She “reads a lot,” vampire romances among others, and loves the Harry Potter movies, but hasn’t read the books. She tells me she goes to Christian Youth Group every Wednesday and adds, “I just love it.” She does admit, however, that on one occasion on her way there she turned her car in front of an oncoming truck and both vehicles were totaled.

Yet almost no harm done to the occupants.

Lexi and dad, Eric Woitte. The name is pronounced "White."

Gala herself is off at class tonight (she’s studying for her nursing license) and Eric has been helping me with a variety of computer problems. He has to talk to me like I’m an overgrown kindergartner, because when it comes to computers, I’m pathetic. But he keeps smiling. Mason tells me he is doing roofing part time this summer, a good job for one his age, and he and I talk about the Marine Corps, which he thinks he may join. Kenny and his girlfriend are going to a movie and I am relaxing, out of the heat.

Phil is a serious rider. And I mean: serious!

Trip #17.

POSTSCRIPT: Right before I got to Bancroft, I met another distance rider, a fellow named Phil Hinrichs, a retired EPA specialist from Dayton, Ohio. Phil has made seventeen cross-country trips and estimates he’s done 260,000 miles since 1976.

Western Iowa - pool party for cows.

Eat big and stay slim - pedal 2,000 miles!

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Assorted Pictures

After taking a spill and landing on my camera, here are a few undamaged pictures.

Bonnie and Phil provided breakfast when I camped at Starved Rock State Park on the Illinois River.










Below:  Phil feeds the wild turkey.



Illinois wind farms:  the cash crop is electricty.



Near Boxley, Indiana:
I mistake the Dog Patch Hotel for a HOTEL.
It's a dog kennel and the owner let me sleep in the air-conditioned office.

Crop duster.  Cool!

Ronald Reagan slept here (as a baby).
Tampico, Illinois, where he was born in an apartment.

Still selling?

Look, Illinois is flat just like Ohio and Indiana.

Farm run-off (fertilizer) is clogging almost every lake, pond and stream I pass
with algae growth.

When you cross the Mississippi it's a huge psychological lift.
Yep:  bicyclers need to get "psyched," too.

If it looks like I'm hot, it's because, damn it, I am!
Preparing to cross the Mississippi.



Bicycle trail along the Illinois River.
An old canal tow path.



Pedaling on a ridge in Iowa.
Notice the trim new figure.

Laundry day.

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Adopted by a Bike Racer

Joe Ossman rode with me two days ago.
Eastern Iowa (very hilly).

It was a good day to ride today:  fairly cool (only about 88 in the afternoon), not too humid, mostly good Iowa roads.

And the people are nice.  Today, I ate breakfast in Allison, Iowa, and was invited to sit with three beautiful women, Donna Kruse, Gladys Henders and Mary Hewitt.  Allison is the county seat of Butler County, but my breakfast companions told me their county is the only one in Iowa without a single stoplight.  In fact, the only cafe in town recently closed--a curse of many small towns in middle America--and so breakfast was being served by some other kind and beautiful women from the Amvets Auxiliary in the Amvets Hall.  All three of the women I sat with have lived their entire lives in Iowa; but they admit that most young people are leaving because there aren't enough jobs.

Again, they called the local paper and I am now apparently going to have my picture on AllisonIowa.com (or maybe AllisonIa.com).

If this keeps up, I'm going to expect a statue to be erected in my name soon.

Most of the rest of the day was uneventful, although as the afternoon wore on my rear tire seemed to be losing air; so I pumped it up, and it deflated slowly again, but not as slowly as before.  I'm stubborn, so I kept pumping it back up.  But each time I got less and less distance on a full supply of air.

Dave Delperdang.

Meanwhile, I happened to meet a local racing rider, Dave Delperdang, who changed course just so he could ride with me for a few miles.  Dave watched me pump up my tire several times, then led me to a local bicycle shop when we got closer to his home.  His son Jeff, 21,  is presently biking from Iowa to Washington, D. C. in a ride to raise awareness about climate change.  So Dave thought of his son, and decided to adopt me.  Soon I was watching Russell Rayburn, a true mechanic in the style of Wilbur and Orville Wright, work on my machine...and in no time he had it fixed and operating better than ever.  Russell has a sign on his counter that says a lot about his shop:  "In the summer I will refuse certain jobs.  I refuse to sacrifice quality for quantity."

Dave lives with his son and his wife Judy in Clear Lake, Iowa, a really beautiful resort town.  So they invited me to go to dinner on the lake and we had a great pizza and took another back to Russell, who is still working late as I type at around 11 p.m.  Judy works for one of the newspapers in the area and Dave works for the Lutheran Church and you couldn't find a nicer pair.  They even gave me a tour of the town, although Russell had joked earlier that "Iowa resort town" was an oxymoron.  (I'd estimate that Clear Lake is about ten square miles in surface area.)

Dave and Judy.

So, yes, the trip is going well and no one has thrown beer bottles at me, even though today I was wearing my Ohio State bicycle jersey.

I know Dave and I were talking about climate change and how many Americans don't believe it's a problem; but I'm not so sure.  Dubuque had 14 inches of rain in one night recently; and Chicago had almost 7 inches in two hours; and one of the warning signs scientists have been predicting would be freakish weather events.  I also saw a tiny article recently, noting that a whale from the Pacific had crossed over through the Arctic into the Atlantic, something scientists say hasn't happened for 200,000 years.

It's also interesting to me that almost every lake, pond and stream I've passed in the last ten days is clogged with thick green algae, the result of farm fertilizer run-off.  This same run-off into the Mississippi causes a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico every year, where algae is so thick oxygen in the water is depleted and fish can no longer live.

This year the dead zone was the largest ever, 8,500 square miles (I think), bigger than New Jersey.

I taught World History, and I know many societies in the past collapsed when they collapsed their own environments.

So call me "worried."

Caesar started as a dishwasher in his
cousin's restaurant twenty years ago.

Finally, let me stay on my soapbox a moment longer, and say that in Clinton, Iowa I had the best meal of my trip at a Mexican restaurant called La Feria (I think that's spelled right).  The owner is named Caesar Lopez, and he came to the United States with his family when he was a young boy.  The meal his place put down in front of me was so huge, and so good, I felt almost guilty paying such a minimal price--and even thought of ordering a beer just to improve the tab.  I asked the waiter if the owner was around, and Caesar came out to see me.  He's probably only 35, but already has three places, and says, "I love what I'm doing, I don't see myself ever doing anything else."  He just loves to make the customers "feel good," "to put the best food possible" on the table.

I asked him what a "bad" day was in his place.  He said when they served 500.  "What's a good day?" I asked in astonish-ment.

"We serve 2,000."

Caesar is a lot like Russell.  A man committed to his job, to doing it right.

So, yep:  I believe America still gains by immigration.


Russell in his shop.  The guy is good.

 If you would like to donate to help find a cure for type-1 diabetes please click HERE!

(This single click takes you to my fund-raising page. There, click again on "donate to this event." Then click "Biking and Painting for Diabetes."

Rain Again? Seriously?

PEDALING ACROSS AMERICA, you have plenty of time to think, and you can learn something new every day. Today I learned that you cannot break a fall by landing on a camera.

This morning, I have the ugly bruise and malfunctioning camera to prove it. 

Me in red, Joe Ossmann in blue.

 

My “domestique.”

Other than taking a hard spill, however, yesterday was one of my best days yet as I was joined by a gentleman named Joe Ossmann. I met Joe last summer when my brother (Tim) and I planned to ride with Joe, Chuck Boehme and Rich Fowler from San Francisco to Yellowstone. That ride ended for my brother after three days when he took a fall (we brothers fall a lot on bikes) and since I didn’t know the others and he did, I decided to pull out and ride this summer for JDRF.

At that time, the idea that my two youngest daughters might want to go along this summer was also a major factor.

Joe and Rich went from coast to coast themselves, so they’re serious riders (and so is Chuck who did “only” 1,300 miles); and since Joe was going to be visiting friends in Iowa, he said he’d have his wife drop him off one day and he’d ride with me. Joe did more than just ride “with me,” he led the way almost the entire way, 86 miles, cutting through the air and making my job much easier. It’s the same idea as the Tour de France where team riders shield their leader and help him conserve strength. In fact, Joe kept referring to himself as my “domestique,” as they call support riders on the tour. And with a good tailwind we did make great headway, from Bellevue, Iowa on the Mississippi River to Strawberry Point, 86 miles away. Joe’s wife, Kathy, joined us at the end of the day for a good supper (and showed me scrapbooks of Chuck, Joe and Rich’s ride, which she and Rich’s wife Cindy and Chuck’s wife Janice supported).

And then the Ossmanns also paid the dinner bill!

The good news today is that it’s fairly cool here in Iowa. The bad news is it’s cool because it has been pouring rain again. Dubuque, over on the river, got fourteen inches last night, I’m assuming an unheard-of record for the city. Strawberry Point got about four; but I was lucky to be in a motel undercover. When I got up this morning, it was sunny outside and prospects looked good. Then I noticed I had a flat rear tire, the third flat in the last three days. I spent half an hour patching all three tubes and trying to find any hidden bit of metal or piece of wire that might be puncturing all the new tubes. Couldn’t find a problem. Had another huge breakfast.

And we’re off!

One mile out of town I notice a huge wall of black clouds ahead. I consider stopping. No, the rider must go on.

Three miles out the cloud begins rumbling and flashing and the wind roars and the cloud breaks open and it feels like I’m getting hit with hail. The rider realizes that discretion is the better part of valor and takes cover under some trees.

“She fought like a tiger.” 

So here I am, waiting out a little precipitation in Oelwein, Iowa, which means I’ve been rained on 15 days on this trip already. But I can’t complain. The people I’m meeting are universally kind, whether it’s Joe and Kathy or the host couple at Starved Rock State Park a few days back, in Illinois. Bonnie and Phil Lyerla let me set up my tent on their lot and didn’t charge when they heard I was riding to raise money for JDRF. The next morning Bonnie served me an omelet and toast, and I got to watch Phil feed the wild turkey that visits him mornings.

Later that day I stopped for a drink and some pastry at a little shop in LaSalle, Illinois. I had a brief talk with a gentleman at the next table, and he loaned me the front section of the day’s newspaper. 

The question came up, where was I going. California, I said, riding for JDRF.

We talked for a while and he told me about family hiking trips he, his wife, and two kids had done and talked about a vacation they took to Denali. Then he called the local paper, and they sent a reporter over to take my photo. 

I hope the photo didn’t make me look fat.

Finally, my kind friend rose to pay his bill, stopped by my table to wish me a safe trip, and handed me a check made out to “Juvenile Diabetes” for $100. His name was Doug Gift – and his check says he’s an attorney at law.

Later that same day I took a wrong turn trying to find the library in Peru, Illinois and ended up staring at my road map in front of Mike Frizoel’s house. He called out and came over to help. Then he noticed my JDRF shirt and got excited. His wife Kathy is a type-1 diabetic, and he said she’d love to meet me, but said she was at her doctor’s appointment. I said I could stick around. Kathy has been type-1 for forty-eight years, since age eight, and has all kinds of medical problems, some related to diabetes and some not.

Mike and Kathy.

 

What Kathy DOESN’T have is the quitter’s mentality. She’s a deeply religious individual and believes God uses her for His purposes. When she was battling breast cancer a few years back, for example, her experiences helped her convince others to get check-ups, including one good friend who caught a serious condition just in time. Kathy has also had eye surgery on both sides and recently got a kidney transplant, and she has titanium rods in both legs from a serious car accident. Mike interrupted at one point and said they sometimes meet little old ladies, who hear about his wife’s problems, and go, “Oh, sweetie...” 

Like THEY feel sorry for her.

Mike’s a funny guy, who knows all the neighborhood kids, and says he gets along with them all because he “hasn’t ever grown up.” Then he tells me how he and Kathy first met. Mike was out bicycling, and Kathy was sitting out in front of her apartment high-rise. “I felt like a teenager,” he told me, and said, “I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.” (Kathy later admits that she liked Mike from the start, too, with his gentlemanly manners and remembers thinking, “Wow, he likes me and he has just gorgeous eyes.”) Mike says he sat down in front of her and asked, “Would I be totally out of line if I asked you if you have a boyfriend?”

The answer was no, and they’ve been together since, four years.

I asked Kathy about her diabetes. When she was a kid, her blood sugar level hit 890, and she went into a diabetic coma and didn’t come out for ten days. She kept thrashing about and pulling at various tubes and wires, and when she finally recovered, her doctor told her mother “she fought like a tiger” and that nickname stuck.

Mike shows me his tattoo of a tiger on his back in honor of his wife – but I don’t think to ask him why he has a picture of Jerry Garcia.

Jerry and the tiger.

The Frizoels are on a fixed income, so they aren’t rich, and all her medical problems have left Kathy in a wheelchair at this point. So she doesn’t take anything for granted. But she says the same prayer every morning, “Use me today, Lord, for whatever you need.” I ask them what they both want out of life in the next ten years. 

“Mostly enjoy life,” Mike replies.

“Take a cruise,” Kathy says.

Eventually, I pedaled away, happy to have had the chance to talk to them both, and I rode another fifty miles.

 

 

Raygan doesn’t always have people she can talk to.

In the afternoon, I ran into Pam Cromwell, a single mother with a type-1 daughter, Raygan, age 10, a left-handed young lady who swims and plays soccer, baseball and volleyball. Pam remembers thinking “my life was over” when Raygan was diagnosed. But care is steadily improving, compared to when Kathy first showed symptoms. She remembers boiling syringes and needles to keep them clean. Now Raygan can wear a pump and still engage in sports.

Mom says Raygan works hard in school, but doesn’t know any other diabetic kids, because they live out in the country and Raygan’s entire school only has a hundred students. (There’s not even a school nurse.) Pam tried to get her into a camp for diabetics this summer, but all the openings were filled. So, Raygan doesn’t always have people she can talk to who understand what she deals with in daily life.

If anyone reading this blog might like to say “hi” to Raygan, here’s mom’s e-mail address: 

PamelaCromwell4@yahoo.com