Back to Life on the Road

I am currently packing up all my gear and getting ready to set back out on my trip. I am leaving Nebraska this afternoon to head back down to Arkansas and pick up where I left off. The doctor said I have a mild hernia, but doesn't think that is my main problem and says it's not big enough to operate on. He believes I hurt a muscle in my stomach that sometimes happens to extreme athletes. He says if I can grin and bear it to keep going, otherwise my next step is to see a sports specialist. I tried riding some yesterday and it hurt, but not unbearably.

I would like to make Florida in early November and that should still be feasible. I am still debating on how far to ride in Florida, but I have a few weeks yet to decide.

I had my bike worked on while I was home and had my rim strips switched out to try and stop the flats. I put less than 30 miles on it and got another flat, but it was the shops fault so they put in a new tube and fixed the problem. I then talked with them a bit about what was happening and one of their guys was a tourer who has done some long tours. He said he averaged a flat about every 200 miles once the tires were worn in. That is still less than half the flats I have been having, but it let me know I can expect a flat every three days on average. But I have been having 1-2 per day. I am looking forward to getting started, but a little anxious as this next stretch I know very few people. I may look into warmshowers.com and see if there are any on my route that will be available. Warmshowers is a website for cyclists much like couchsurfing.com.

Well...time to continue packing.