i woke up in the morning, hoping against hope that my shoulder would have recovered some of its strength. there was no way i wanted to abandon this ride. the rest day, i figured, would do me good, help my shoulder recover, and allow me to continue on to pueblo, colorado.
it only took the simple act of trying to brush my teeth to make me realize this was over. as was the case yesterday with my water bottles, i had the choice of either bending my head down to meet my right arm to brush my teeth or do it left-handed. as would be the case for the rest of the day, i became a lefty.
resigned to the fact that this ride was over, i rescheduled my flights back to new york and worked with the crew to find a bike shop in salt lake city that would pack and ship my bike back to my bike shop here. by the way, for those who haven't been to salt lake city, it's such a clean, quiet little city. not much traffic, no high-rise buildings, not a lot of noise. just the beauty of the snow-capped wasatch mountains surrounding the city. even the mormon temple wasn't that impressive up close.
i stayed with everyone on the ride and had one last dinner together. everyone felt badly for me and wished me well, wishing also that i would have been able to continue to ride with them all. that felt comforting to hear. in the end, i promised to meet them all for breakfast and see them off in the morning before i headed to the airport for my own departure.
it sucked. i felt like crap. but i also was lucky enough to know this could have been much worse. peter, the new england college professor who had also been riding with us and who, like me, was leaving the ride at pueblo [and, with whom i was hitching a ride to the denver airport as he'd already rented a car for the occasion], had to leave the ride in elko, nevada when he got word that his father was being taken to the hospital. on this last night together, we learned that peter's father had passed on.
yup, things could have been much worse.
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