July 5-9
My rest days in D.C. turned out to be a Tour de Sillimanders (Yale classmates who also lived in my residential college, Silliman). Starting in the Richmond Amtrak station, I spied Helen Fessenden, whom I hadn't seen since 1993. She treated me to a drink and cheese in the cafe car, where we caught up on the past 31 years as if no time had passed.
I then dined near Dulles Airport with my beloved roomie Susan and her husband David, just in from celebrating Susan's 50th birthday in the south of France. I had hoped to join Susan for the French festivities, but wind storms, heat waves, flash floods, tornadoes, Leo the Dog (who not only bit me, but also almost certainly planted a few extra climbs in the Appalachians), and plain old fatigue conspired to slow me down so much that I was grateful just to catch her at the airport upon her return home.
Then it was on to Jenny Petrow's palace in D.C., where the legendary Karent Hébert and her cute son were also sojourning. Jenny, her husband Adam, and their fun sons helped put me back together before sending me off to Europe, just as in college Jenny and her Watertown family wrapped me in love during several school breaks.
When I wasn't eating or sleeping, I was cajoling Kaiser to refill prescriptions at local pharmacies. This task took no less than eight hours total and was so exhausting that I simply gave up on getting a referral to investigate some weird heart rate issues I'm having. In case you didn't know this: American healthcare is completely broken, even for the well insured.
Our bicycle mechanics, in contrast, are top notch. Graham at REI gave Louise a new cassette, brake pads, and brake cables before boxing her up for our flight to Portugal.
Three days whizzed by in a flash, and before I knew it, I was heading back to Dulles with a kindly Uber driver named Carl who kept me entertained with a history quiz. He was impressed by my journey, and sent me off with a sweet farewell.
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