May 31, 2014. Our Last Day in Door County - For a While.

May 31, 2014.  Our Last Day in Door County - For a While.  No trip to Door County would be complete without a trip to the Door County Bakery.  There, the bakers bake the famous Corsica Loaf, a bread with olive oil baked into the crust.  The pastries are goodness, laden with zero calories.  How can that be, you wonder?   Simple, my friend.  Calories don't count on a road trip.  And, there, we began our Saturday. 

We finished Saturday back in the small campground where we began this trip, Weborg Point.  This site is near the gate of the park and we can see the harbor of Fish Creek from here.  Sandwiched between beginning and finish was another bike ride, a harrowing accident, a near mortal injury and a completely unsympathetic Annie Farkley. 

I can see that you are uninterested in pictures, poetry and lectures culled from Wikipedia.  You want the gory details of my near-death experience, don't you?  Alright, dial it back you bloodthirsty mob, I'll  tell you.  As we were on the return leg of the bike ride, I noticed an interpretative marker off the shoulder of the road.  I wheeled into the grass and had the bike slowed to 2-3 MPH.  Suddenly the back wheel hit an object hidden in the grass and locked.  The sudden stoppage jarred me forward from my seat and I put my left foot on the ground to break my fall.  The fall was inevitable.  My weight was off center and I started down.  As I went down, the heel of my right foot scraped a sharp metal part of the bike, likely the pedal. 

I was up in an instant, less Annie become hysterical with concern for my well-being.  I need not have worried.  She was laughing.  The heartless woman was laughing at my misfortune.  "Arte Johnson," she said. 

Arte Johnson was a comedian who appeared on the Laugh-In comedy television show in the 1960s.  One of his skits involved riding a child's tricycle in a yellow raincoat, pedaling  furiously, stopping suddenly and falling over sideways with his feet still on the pedals.  Sure, that passed for comedy back in the 1960s but that was then and this is now.  That was Arte Johnson and I am Annie Farkley's faithful husband. 

"You looked just like Arte Johnson," she gasped between convulsions of laughter.  "You looked like you just stopped and fell in slow motion, just like Arte."

Indignant now, after showing so much concern for her bruised toe, was I.  I pointed to the gaping, bleeding gouge in my right ankle, and said, "How can you laugh when I am severely injured and will probably get lockjaw?" 

"Oh, now, Arte, come with me and I'll patch you up good as new."  And so, we came to the campsite and the tacky first aid job you see above is what I got.  No sympathy, no pampering, none of the excellent patient care I extended to her when she sustained a bruised toe.

Oh, I'll live.  But this sure has been a lesson to me.  Next time I am injured, I'll be sure to be alone so as not to be ridiculed by some heartless observer.

So, tomorrow, we will begin our trip home.  After a stop in St. Louis, we should be home Monday evening.  It has been a short road trip, but a good one.  Depending on the events of tomorrow, I may or may not write again this trip.  If not, Malachi will again put pen to paper when next the Farkleys temp fate in another of their death-defying adventures.  Until then, be safe.  If you do get injured, don't do it in front of Annie Farkley.