TAT Day 19

Today started out with miles and miles of rutted out deep sand 2-track through the desert. Eventually we went up in elevation and the conditions improved a bit. Even so, I had two crashes today. The first was up a silty hill. This one damaged one of my saddle bags and resulted in me losing one of my shoes. The second was way worse. I was going along at about 40 mph and I made a mistake and took my eyes off the trail to look at an approaching storm, and I guess I got got crossed up in the rut I was riding in and was thrown from the bike. I hit the ground head and shoulder first, bounced back up in the air and landed on my back. My pressure suit did it’s job and saved me from getting too busted up on the rocks. I have a bruise on my shoulder, my neck is pretty sore, and I jacked up my middle finger on my right hand. I don’t think it is broken, but it is swollen, won’t bend, and hurts pretty good. The bike took some damage too. When the front end hit the ground a mirror got sheared off, my headlight assembly got bent up and some of the wiring sheared off, the instrument cluster got destroyed, and the fork tubes are twisted up. It was ok to ride down from the mountains though. Ben had a good crash as well, and twisted his knee. Once we got to the small town of McDermitt, the storm was starting and we were hurting a bit, so we decided to stay in a motel instead of continuing on.