The Plan! I have reserved a rental vehicle for a 1-way trip from Tulsa, OK to Bar Harbor, ME.  Due to the recent dog attack and recovery, we will be departing 9 days later than we had originally intended.   That time difference has to be made up by taking fewer rest days and/or riding some longer days.  We still have 12 weeks available for the ride not including travel time to/from, so it is certainly a realistic plan.  On Monday May 3rd I will leave Tulsa at mid-day, drive to Little Rock, AR and pick up Doc, and we will get a few hours down the road before nightfall.  Tuesday May 4 we will hopefully have a very long day and eat up much of the distance to Bar Harbor.  Wednesday May 5 will be another long day, and we should arrive in Bar Harbor by late afternoon or early night.  The rental vehicle has to be turned in by 9:30am Thursday morning, and we plan to commence on the ride that day.  Initially we will ride only 40 - 45 mile days as we adjust to the rigors of fully-loaded touring.

The Canadian border is currently closed, so as of now we will have to stick with the U.S. route options.  It's possible that the border may re-open (next evaluation is due May 21st), so we are keeping our options open to ride north of Lake Erie.   But there's a lot of hills and mountain passes to negotiate before we ever reach that decision point, and I'm not taking it for granted that we will even make it that far - lots can go wrong on a bicycle tour.  

Assuming we actually make it to the finish, we only have a general notion that we will fly home instead of a rental vehicle - driving back from the west coast would take 1 long day more than the trip out to the east coast.  I suppose driving back in a 1-way rental might still be an option, but we are likely going to be pressed hard for time on the finish - so how we get back is still a bit of an unknown. 

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Health Update.  I missed riding for a week after the dog attack.  It's good that we decided to stay here while I complete the rabies series, it lets me recover and heal in a familiar environment.  I have had 3 short rides now, and although my muscles are sore from the animal ravages, the leg is functioning okay.  I'll try and get in a middle-long ride before we leave (45-50 miles), but I'm confident regardless.  The wounds are still crusted over, but it will be 8 days before we actually commence on the tour so they may be cleared up by then.  My daughter will remove the stitches this weekend, and I will get the final rabies shot on Monday morning immediately prior to picking up the rental vehicle. 

Honestly, the whole dog attack/rabies shots thing is a minor distraction to me as I struggle with my real health concern about the Big C.  My local treating physician has advised me that I should now commence a drug therapy (a hormone-based chemotherapy) to attack the cancer while it is still at a low bio-chemical concentration.  However, the Medical Oncologist at MD Anderson that I have on board as a consultant disagrees.  The gap between the 2 is quite large - the MD Anderson doc thinks that I likely won't need any treatment for another 3 years, while my local doc thinks that the cancer will metastasize within 3 years if left untreated.   There are side affects with the drug recommended by my local doc, but they are minimal as compared to the future hormone therapy that I will eventually need.    I spoke with another local doc (a semi-retired friend who worked in oncology), and it seems that there is no real consensus regarding when to commence treatment.    So this has caused me a lot of anxiety recently as I struggled with the best course of action.   Long distance cycling, especially a fully-loaded tour over several months, requires good mental focus; if your head isn't in the game you don't have a chance.   My thoughts have been diverted from the tour as I struggle with my health concerns - so I need to make a decision and then forget about it until I complete this tour.  It would be easy if I was blindly following the advice of 1 doctor; both of these doctors have very impressive credentials and experience, but only 1 of them can be correct!  So I have tried to educate myself a bit, and as of this moment I am leaning towards not taking the drug now, at least not while on tour.    With the 2 doctors being in such extreme disagreement, it's hard to imagine that a 3-month delay in commencing the drug (if I even do so in 3 months) will be critical.  But I'm not a doctor...