A journey where everything goes as planned and without a hitch is not an adventure. An adventure is when you have a hiccup and when you get rid of that, you have a cough, and when you get rid of that, you have a sunburn, and when you get rid of that, you have an itch. "If life's not beautiful without the pain, I'd rather never even see beauty again." Modest Mouse
After a good night's rest, I hit the road and gave my farewell's to Hanover and that lasted about two seconds. Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds later, I found Hanover Road just after the church which would take me to Old Pueblo Road; however, at this point, I had it under good authority from an outside source that there's a road off Hanover that will take me all the way south to Pueblo, giving me the opportunity to skip Old Pueblo and its uncertainty. So, I headed down Hanover in search for South Meridian with two full bottles of rain water. By the time I made it to South Meridian, I had ran out of water and was sitting just a mile down the road with my head in my right hand, scooping the dust and dirt that the road was comprised of into my left hand. I understood that my source couldn't tell from a map that it was a dirt road, but it was the last thing that I needed at the time. So, here I was again, with two choices: keep on going and risk the depths of the desert or keep on Hanover and try Old Pueblo Highway, which supposedly mirrors the major highway to Pueblo. I sat there, playing with the dirt and sucking it in as if it were a new life source that I might be able to market; I could feel the bones underneath my meat turning into fossils. This is what it would come down to; people would wonder, How did the Tyler become extinct? And the world may never know. . .Without water and food, I gathered what was left of me and turned around, choosing the more sane way seeing that making foolish decisions is what got me out there in the first place. When I left the desert road, I could feel the sands begin to tip over, timing the hours until I would return.
I stopped at the first house I could find, asking the lady for water. She was Hispanic and clearly had no idea how to take me. I don't think death would want me knowing how I might of looked. If you could limp on a bike, that's what I did on down until I was finally headed south, mirroring the major highway. And then it ended, not even thirty minutes from leaving the desert.
Luckily, it ended at an underpass and I found the perfect shady spot to suck in what remaining bits of dry air After about five or so cars and a handful of "What's that melting pile of sweat in the dark tunnel?", a car finally stopped to ask how I was. Remember not too far back when I said something about my pride dwindling? Well, this is where is was obsolete.
"Not so good, sir," I told him through some huffs and dreary turns of my head.
The man got out of his car; he was a stout man with a huge beard and long, tangled hair. "My name's Gimli. . ."
I was drawn to reality at that point and my eyebrows cocked up, my eyes widened, and my mouth hung slightly open. This was the last thing that I needed: proof that I was losing my mind from exhaustion. Now, don't get me wrong, I could have heard the name wrong, but I'm pretty sure I heard the man right. Before I could let the Lord of the Rings character go on, I told him, "I think I just need to eat. I haven't had any food in a day-and-a-half, hardly any water, and I'm just. . .done."
"Should I call an ambulance?" he asked
"I really don't know," I let out.
When he moved his car out of the way, another car stopped and asked if everything was alright. From what I could tell, Gimli gave the gentleman the down-low and the gentleman agreed to stay with me so Gimli could go and fight off some orcs. Gimli wished me well and drove away.
The other man emerged from behind his car with a pair of stethoscopes around his neck. Great, I thought to myself. This guy looks intense. He walked up and started asking me questions about who I was, where I was from, what I was doing, and having me squeeze his fingers as “tight as I can”. I knew he was trying to make sure I wasn’t a complete lost cause to the real world. All the while he was doing this, he was on the phone with someone else, explaining the situation and saying that he was a retired army medic and had served in Vietnam and the such. A dwarf and a doctor. I felt pretty well protected at this point, even though I could also feel myself just slipping away, mumbling food over and over again.
“That was the Fountain fire department. They’re sending a medic up here to make sure you’re going to be alright. From what you’ve told me, you came pretty close to having a heat stroke.”
Excellent.
The ambulance came and halfway carried me into the back, asking me what I wanted to do, giving me options in Fountain, the closest town north of where we were, such as restaurants and hotels I could stay in to re-energize. I agreed on Fountain. One of the firemen offered me a couple of Gatorades, saying they might be out of date, but I was welcome to them. Now, a foolish man might not have taken the offering. A sane man would have. In my case, a delirious man would stick out his hand and take whatever was given to him, even if it was a dead rabbit that he'd found on the road, saying that I might be able to cook it for some food. I'd probably had thought that was Gatorade; either way, I made my way to Fountain in the back of the ambulance.
When we got to the fire station, they directed me to the Super 8, informing me of a truck stop just a couple of blocks down from the motel and a sit-down burger joint where I could stock up on some food. With that, they gave me directions to Pueblo, seeing that I was playing my wondering idiot part very well that day. I took the instructions and looked them over. Now, take this moment to remember where I've been this day. . .I was to take South Meridian all the way down to Pueblo. The whole inside of me just sank to the ground as I stared at the piece of paper as it were my eulogy.
I stayed in Fountain for a couple of days, eating two dinners and two breakfasts at the diner. I took those days to recover physically and prepare mentally, thinking whether or not I wanted to go all the way back to Meridian. I decided it was the only way and I would leave Monday morning for a long haul over the deserts back, laughing in its face with my bottles of water and packs of beef jerky.
*note* None of this stuff is as intense as I am making it out to be. I was aware of my surroundings and well enough to function, just not on a bike. As one of the medics stated, "So there's really nothing wrong with him. He's just exhausted." I just needed to make it sound like a ride in an ambulance was worth it.
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