Saturday, August 3, 2013

Home at last, Sick again

Last night when I arrived home, I noticed the Omerga3 fish oil capsules were soft and sticky, so I threw them in the frig to firm up. Took one in the morning with breakfast, two hours later was violently vomiting. After the fourth vomit episode, wife called 911. They checked my vitals, all were fine, even good. Said I just had to get it out of my system. Not much a hospital could do, except wait it out.

By the end of the day, had vomited eight times and constant diarrhea. Lost three pounds of body weight. Boy am I glad this happened at home instead of on the road somewhere. Now I realize what had made me sick in Oregon, was not the Chinese food, but the fermented omega3 pill I had taken that morning.

From the beginning, I had been carrying the omega3 and peanut butter in the top case on the back of the sidecar. In the hot sun, the temperatures easily exceeded 120 degrees in that case. Cooking, or in this case fermenting, whatever was in there.

My beautiful, patient wife of forty years / nursemaid took great care of me. Hope to be back to normal food soon.

Enough of that. Not food poisoning after all, but stupid rider error!!!!!

Well, this particular great adventure is over. Now for the writing and publishing.

 

When we left Texas back on May 19th there were 3188 kms on Da'mit. As we pulled into the driveway back home on July 31rst, Da'mit registered 24,464 kms. Da'mit and I rode together for 21,276 kms, or 13,220 miles over two and a half months. We saw some fantastic sights, visited 20 states and three Canadian provinces, met some wonderful friendly people, had an adventure or two, rode the Alaska Maritime Highway, saw some parts of the United States that were more beautiful than anticipated, took over 2000 photos, visited the southern most, the northern most and the western most points of the continental United States, posted 68 times to the blog and experienced what many only dream of doing.

Oh, we made Ural history and checked off yet another item from the ole bucket list

There will be time to review what worked well, what was okay and what will be deleted from future rides. Some things need to be upgraded and others were excess baggage, better left at home.

Thank you for following along with our travels and stories. Your comments and compliments were what kept the blog going when we just wanted to sleep at the end of an exhausting day.

Da'mit is waiting for a good cleaning and bath. She deserves it after serving me so well on this trek.

This is not the end. There will be other adventures with Da'mit. You can rest assured of that.

Nite Da'mit,

Nite all.

 

8 comments:

  1. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on the 2014 Ural having Fuel Injection!

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  2. I can't wait to get my hands on a FI Ural

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  3. well, it's good to know the root cause of the illness...heck of a way to find out though.

    any feedback from URAL or the Boise dealer re the engine failure?

    dom

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  4. "was not the Chinese food.."

    Did you get sick at the rally?

    I was also wondering if you had heard anything from Ural....

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    1. Sunday morning leaving the rally, got sick, vomiting, etc., Took an Omerga3 capsule that day, but did not connect the two until I took another capsule when I got home.

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  5. Not heard the cause of the engine failure yet. Will pass on when I hear something.

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  6. How is life Jon? Recovered from those fish oil pills and planning the next epic journey?

    dom

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  7. Greeting Dom,

    The next work day after returning, I covered a project so a manager could take his vacation. Ended up being three weeks working there. Was okay, air conditioned.

    Next journey is to Europe in a month, not on three wheels though. Beautiful bride and I are celebrating our 40th anniversary in Spain. She likes to travel too, just not roughing it in a tent.

    The next BIG riding adventure will be to return to South America and finish the ride along the Andes in Chile / Argentina I started in 2012. Since their summer is fast approaching, will have to wait another year, Have too many family commitments this winter. So that would mean a December 2014 start at the earliest.

    Hmmm, need an interim ride to fill the gap.

    Have read the GDR ride report with great interest.
    http://www.sovietsteeds.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29561

    Was thinking if one starts on the Mexican border in early summer and ride to Banff in Canada, following the Continental Divide as much as possible, how early could you go to avoid extreme heat and still get through the snow passes? Since the ride is only a week to ten days from border start to border end, the snow passes being open is a bigger obstacle than the heat.....

    Because of terrain and obstacles one encounters, that ride would be best suited for a small group of URAL riders. 3 or 4. In my opinion, risks are too great for a retired solo Ural rider. Even just winching ones rig out of soft sand, deep ruts or getting back on the trail can be overwhelming.

    My response to a question about the camo rig and florescent vest was, I know motorcycling has inherent risks, but I don't have a death wish. At the end of the ride, I want to be safely back home.

    Have a friend who tried that ride solo on a BMW F800GS. A good rider and a good bike too. At one point he spent two days getting his bike back on the trail after sliding off wet rocks into the under brush. Had to go deeper down before getting back up. By mid-Colorado he was whooped, came home with his tail between his legs.

    The other interesting adventure ride is the Trans-Labrador Trail. A challenge similar to the Haul Road. Hundreds of miles of gravel, several ferry's, in one giant loop. My contact up east says Canada are going to start paving that road in 2014, and build bridges. Then it will be just a long paved ride.

    So many roads to ride, so little time.

    Tomorrow, Labor Day, some Texas Ural riders are gathering for a forest spin and picnic. Should be fun.

    Then in September am making a slide show presentation to the Houston BMW club about Da'mit's adventure to Alaska.

    What about you, Dom? What rides are you considering? Are your showing your great photos anywhere? Working on a book?

    CCjon





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