May 30, 2025 to June 1, 2025
Settling in
Friday
I chopped the previous post a little short, with us still on our way to pick up our rental car. The plan was that we'd pick it up around 6:30 and then drive to our Airbnb to meet our host at around 7. In fact, we didn't arrive and get settled into our room until nearly 9. It's a good thing we weren't any later, or I'd have struggled with driving into the glare of the headlights.
So where did those two hours go? Here, roughly:
- Our flight arrived 15 minutes behind schedule.
- We stood around for about 15 minutes waiting for the folks with one of our suitcases to arrive so we could swap them.
- It's quite a long and complicated walk to the car rental center. It goes slowly when you're pulling two fifty pound suitcases behind you and pushing a cart with all the other luggage, especially when one of the team can't walk too good. I should have taken a photo, but it was too much work.
- Once we got assigned our vehicle, it's another round of pulling oursuitcases the long distance to the spot where our vehicle was to be picked up. When we finally reached that spot though, it was empty. So we had to walk back to the nearest service desk for them to figure out what went wrong and assign us to another vehicle.
- The drive to our Airbnb went more slowly and was more difficult than expected. Let's just hold that thought for the moment and come back to it.
- Once we arrived though and met our host, were delighted with our unit. It's a beautiful apartment - spacious, clean, modern, and looks like a very comfortable place to spend the next five weeks, after which we'll relocate to an apartment in that building across the street from our storage unit for the next two months.
- After our host showed us our room and turned over the keys he gave us a tour of the building - showed us the trash room, the community center, the workout room, and then left us to it.
- When we returned to the room though, neither of us could open the door because the keys didn't fit the lock even after a half dozen tries. Not another lock problem! Fortunately we discovered that the door had been left unlocked, so we could at least haul all of our stuff inside and finally get to the bathroom. We then called our host who came back and showed Rachael that the key actually does fit if you're very careful, shove firmly, and jiggle it just right. It's really more like a lock you'd find on an old European hotel than in a decade-old modern high rise in the Pearl. Embarrassing, and almost the exact scenario from six weeks ago when we biked into Bisceglie after dark and couldn't open the door to our room. Pretty slow learners, those Andersons!
About the car
Several things made the drive more difficult than expected. For one thing, I've got to learn a new car - how to operate it, how it handles, where its boundaries are (especially difficult for me on the right side), and so on. And of course I haven't driven at all for nearly two months, so there's that. And when time comes to drive the car into the building and our assigned parking lot, it's horrible. Worst parking spot access ever, even worse than Elizabeth's. The worst part is driving up the ramp to the upper tier where our spot is because there are concrete posts in the center of the ramp, a quite narrow one way lane on either side, and tight bends at the top and bottom that make it hard to line the car up to make it past the posts. I especially don't want to scrape the car because I didn't elect to purchase the add-on collision/damage insurance.
About the insurance. When I pick up the vehicle they ask who my insurance with I smoothly say State Farm. But inwardly I blanch because it suddenly occurs to me that I might be uninsured. We cancelled our car insurance after giving it to Shawn to drive back to Minnesota two months ago, and it didn't occur to me at the time that I must need some sort of replacement policy to cover me as a driver. For now though there's nothing to do but drive carefully and limit my driving until our State Farm agent opens his office Monday morning. I'm a careful driver though, and I've got a copilot. How much trouble can a one-eyed driver in an unfamiliar car on a freeway get into, after all? Fortunately it's late enough that rush hour is over and there's no problem with traffic and lane changing on the Banfield driving back to town.
About the vision thing
But none of that really rates as more than an annoyance. The real problem is the vision thing, because there's evidence that my disease (GCA, giant cell arteritis) apparently isn't dead - it's been dormant but not defeated, and suddenly looks like it's slouching back toward Bethlehem to be reborn, its Second Coming.
The evidence for this comes immediately after I start driving, but in fact I've been wondering for the last few days - basically, starting soon after that ride through the Bourne Gorge I was so encouraged by. The day after that was when I dropped my prednisone dose to 12.5 mg/day, and maybe I've crossed a threshold and may not be destined to just keep tapering off as hoped, and maybe I'll need to stay on a fairly high dose indefinitely?
In any case, the symptom is that vision in my good eye has suddenly turned blurry. It's bad enough that I can't read the exit signs far enough ahead to plan movements and lane changes, and I don't really feel quite safe driving. Even with a full familiarity with this route it would have been challenging without Rachael to help navigate and validate that lanes are clear when I move into them.
I have a lot of dark thoughts about this situation over the course of a restless night, but I take what seems like the best option I have: I up my dose back to 40 mg again, and plan to go in to Kaiser tomorrow for a blood test.
Saturday
We both just crashed last night, so Rachael's day starts with a trip to Safeway to start provisioning us for our stay. She returns later lugging a mountain of essentials: bread, cheese, milk, PB, raisins, stir fry ingredients, coffee, the works.
I take the car, with several errands in mind: breakfast at Lovejoy Bakery.a trip to Kaiser for my blood tests and knee X-rays, and then a stop at our storage unit to pick up our in-town baggage and the Rodriguez. I've got the idea that I'll pump the tires on the Rodriguez and get out for a ride somewhere - maybe out to the Columbia Slough or down to the Sellwood Bridge and back - and then head over to the Lucky Lab for a slice and an NA IPA, my first since we left Portland two months ago.
Before leaving though, there's news to report: the blurriness in my good eye is gone! This is the same experience I had back in Vasto six weeks ago when I panicked about my vision and increased my dosage - raising it seemed to have a significant effect within just ten hours or so. So there's a reason for hope. It also leaves both of us feeling glad we've elected to come home early for this reason too.
I have an easier time getting out of the garage than I did getting in, but it's still no picnic. It's like trying to fit a folded bike into a tiny elevator - it's enough of a disincentive that I suspect I'll avoid taking the car whenever possible. I make a mental plan to take the bike whenever possible, including when I meet up with Bruce for coffee on Tuesday.
When I park the car close to Lovejoy Bakery I stop to take a photo of it, partly for the memory and partly so I'll know the license number. You never know when I'll find myself on a street with two identical cars to choose from.
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Sometime later I drive over to our storage unit and load all of the stuff we stashed away two months ago into the back of the car. It's clear that the Rodriguez won't fit in too though, so that'll be a second trip. First, I drive back to our new home, manage to make it up to our new parking spot unscarred, and then transport my load up to our sixth floor apartment using a cart left by the door to the elevator. It takes three trips - two with the cart, because it's too small for the whole load; and one to go back down to return the cart. It all ends up as a lot of walking and lifting, and I'm sorry that Rachael's not back from her walk yet to lend a hand. As luck would have it, she walks in the front door just as I'm about to head back up for the last time.
So as long as we're here and there's too many words and not much color in the post, let's have a look at this terrific apartment we'll be in for the next five weeks. We've got stuff lying everywhere still - stuff that came home on the flight with us and stuff I just brought back from the storage unit; and we just got here so we're just beginning sorting and organizing, but it should be easy enough because there's so much space to work with.
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By this time it's early afternoon - too late to go back for the bike and take a ride, and late enough that it's the jet lag hour. Rachael stays up longer than me working on sorting and organizing her share of the pile, but I'm not really inspired to do much of anything. I'm pretty dejected about the vision thing though, and keep checking the mail for test results. The first one (ESR, erithrocyte sedimentation rate) eventually comes in, and as I suspected it's spiked significantly and flagged as abnormal. I wait a couple of more hours for the second one to arrive, but when it's not in by nine I just crash for the night, experiencing a restless sleep with visions of a visionless future dancing in my head.
Sunday
I wake up three different times in the night, checking first for the mail to see if the results are in and then turning to the latest news. When you're down already, you might as well pile on yourself by catching up on the latest political horror. On the third time though (around 5 AM), I see the second result (CRP: C-reactive protein) is in and it too is flagged as abnormal. That's what I've been waiting for, so I fire off messages to both the rheumatologist and ophthalmologist to let them know I've reset myself back to 40 mg and ask what should happen next.
After that I amuse myself for the next hour until Rachael steps out from the bedroom so I can get to work. Over the next two hours I half-reassemble the bikes, stash them on the deck, stash the suitcases in the closet, and then turn to a task that's needed doing for such a long time: scavenging one of the old panniers for its stiffener to replace the one that's been cracked ever since early on our nine month tour last spring.
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While I'm knocking one item off our return task list, Rachael takes care of a second one when she calls the bank to finally report the credit card that was lost early on the tour back in Puglia. Rather than reporting it at the time we just had the card locked so that nothing new could be charged against it but kept it alive in case we needed to reactivate it for our own use for some reason.
And after that I drove back down to Lovejoy Bakery since I need the car out for the trip to the storage unit anyway. I'm a little concerned by this second visit though because so far I haven't seen any evidence of the Ukrainian crowd. I hope they show up, but I wonder if they decided they need to be less visible so they don't risk getting shackled or exported.
And then I go back to the storage unit, pull out the Rodriguez, and am immediately reminded of where I left off with my best bike. Both tubes are completely flat and at least one of the tires needs replacing. Since I'll need to go to a bike store for the tire anyway, I might as well let them take care of the whole mess. When the Trek store opens at noon I drive over, leave the bike with them, and then cross the street to the nearest coffee shop to sip on my vanilla steamer and catch up on the blog while I wait.
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It takes about an hour, which works well. It still leaves me a few hours in the afternoon to test out the bike and refamiliarize myself with it. I wheel it back a few blocks to where I've parked the car, drive back to our building and manage to squeeze it between Scylla and Charybdis and get parked without scraping it.
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My plan for the afternoon is to ride along the waterfront looking for birds for a couple of hours and end up at Lucky Lab at around opening time. Birding is a bust - I see one cormorant, one gull, and a smattering of sparrows and crows - but bridges are cool too. And it's good to be back on the bike and be reminded that I'm comfortable riding it now that I've lowered its seat. The next outing will be longer, and soon. We've got a great spell of weather ahead.
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1 week ago
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While I've been out, Rachael has filled her day in the usual way, with a twelve mile out and back walk up into Washington Park past the rose garden and on up to Pittock Mansion. It's a vigorous walk, one that leaves her complaining about shin splints when she's back. It's such a color riot now though! We're almost never in Portland at this time of year and we'll have to make the most of it. I'll need to make it up through the park on the bike soon, but I'm feeling hopeful that by this time next year maybe I could walk it myself.
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Once we're both back and settled in we discuss what to do with the rest of the day. We talk a big game and make plans to watch the first episode of a new miniseries, as soon as I get the iPad recharged enough to watch on it. That takes a half hour or more though, and by that time we both realize that just crashing for the night is really the best plan. Maybe tomorrow.
Today's ride: 9 miles (14 km)
Total: 947 miles (1,524 km)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 10 |
1 week ago
Welcome back to Portland! A great time to be here.
1 week ago
Regarding the insurance, had you not cancelled your State Farm policy, you'd be covered for almost every eventuality, regardless of what the rental agent tries to tell you. I learned that last year when I met with my agent for the first time in the 55-years I've been with State Farm.
That reminds me of the "Jackass" movie in which the pranksters rented a car, bought the extra insurance that assures you can walk away from any accident with no financial responsibility. Hilariously, they promptly entered the car into a Demolition Derby. The scene where they returned it to the rental agency is priceless.
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