Farmington, MO – Rest Day
Woke up around 9 am yeaterday. Max and Julia were going to take a rest day, I was a bit undecided. I found a yoga studio in town and decided to go to a class and see how I felt after. Did a quick breakfast of a Cliff bar and a banana and made it to the 945 class. I’ve only done the occasional yoga class for the past two years or so and never anywhere other than Indianapolis. It was interesting contrasting the class in small town Missouri to the classes I went to in Indianapolis.
After yoga I went back to the hostel and made a proper breakfast – scrambled eggs in the microwave, left over steak from the cookout the previous day, and a mix of pico, lettuce, and spinnach & artichoke dip, also left over from the cookout (Max and Julia are vegetarians). While eating breakfast I decided I might as well take a rest day too and use the opportunity to try to get the health care thing figured out. The wifi in the hostel was down and my newer Mac Book Pro doesn’t have an Ethernet port (annoying), so I went out in search of wifi.
There was a coffee shop within walking distance to the hostel, so I went there first. Closed for maintainance. Wandered around with the wifi on my phone on looking for networks until I came across a restaurant that had one (12 West, I think). It was kind of upscale, but they were nice enough to let me just sit at the bar, drink coffee, and use the wifi.
I took care of some things and then started looking into health insurance. It was a mess from the start, because I had submitted an application back in April during the open enroll period – trying to be proactive about it. Unfortunately, I don’t think the system was setup with proactiveness in mind. In fact, when I called to get information during open enrollment the associate on the phone basically told me to just try to enroll when my health care was about to expire to see if I could qualify for an open enrollment period. To me, it seemed that all the information should have been available to answer that question at the time and I submitted an application anyway.
Since I already had an application submitted for Indiana, the system wouldn’t let me edit the existing one or create a new one, so inevitably, I had to call. Wait times weren’t bad and compared to last time I got someone on the other end who was very knowledgable. He put an application together for me and submitted it. Indiana has just expanded their Medicare program, Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP 2.0), and the system was telling the guy helping me that I may qualify for it, so my apication got sent to the state of Indiana for review.
To be as thorough as possible, as soon as the application got sent over I called the Indiana Department of Family and Social Services to see what the next steps were. I got another very nice and knowledgeable associate on the line to help me. Of course they couldn’t see my application yet. I explained my concerns with waiting for all the paper work to process, potentially having a gap in coverage, then if I’m denied and have an injury in the meantime (hit by a car, etc.) it opens me up to possibly being without healthcare in the event of a serious injury. She understood my concern and worked to get me all the info I needed. Another very helpful associate which I found refreshing since so many times when you call government run agencies you can get a person on the other end who doesn’t seem to care much about you or their job.
Basically ended up with the conclusion that I need to wait for my application to be processed by Indiana to see if I qualify for HIP 2.0. I’ll give it till Friday and if there doesn’t seem to be any progress will just sign up for the lowest Obamacare plan which will be around $150-$200 per month. Far less than the $450 I would have to pay to COBRA and keep my current coverage.
With all the ins and outs of this healthcare business I’m glad I carved out an entire day to sort it out. I found that by setting time aside I was far more patient and the interactions with the associates on the phone were much more enjoyable. It’s also no wonder that health care costs are the reason for 1.7m bankruptcies and is the number one reason for filing in the United States. It’s confusing stuff. Here’s a link to a high budget video explaining some of the ins and outs if you’re a curious nerd like me…
After the health care stuff I was thoroughly mentally tapped. I stopped into a guitar store next to the restaurant and played a little. Even before the trip started I hadn’t been playing much, so it felt good to strum some chords again. I feel like I’ve forgotten so much already.
After awhile I headed back to the hostel. Dries had arrived with another guy he met at the F.O.E., Brandon. He’s riding to Seattle for a job and is traveling super light. No panniers, just frame bags and a road bike. He’s able to keep a fast pace and routinely hits 100+ miles per day. The two philosophies remind me of Alpinest vs. Expedition approaches to mountaineering. Not sure there’s a “right” answer with respect to what to carry, just different approaches based on your preference.
Dries, Max, and I threw the frisbee around for awhile then we went to grab some food and do some bowling to pass the time. Stopped at Qudoba on the way to the alley. I didn’t think I was hungry, but ended up crushing a whole burrito, no problem. When we got to the bowling alley it was closed. I have to say I wasn’t too disappointed as I’m not a huge fan of bowling. I decided to go for a quick ride around St. Joe State Park before it got too dark. Awesome paved bike trails. Saw a few deer. It felt good to ride an unloaded bike and push it up hills and stuff.
When I got back to the hostel everyone was just hanging out. We sat at the picnic table outside of the hostel talking and having a couple beers until around midnight.
Today it’s pretty dreary and looks like we may have used up the nice weather on our rest day :/. Oh well.
Here are some pictures I took of the hostel.
Such an awesome spot and welcoming community in Farmington, MO. Glad we got some rest because I hear we have some tough hills and plenty of rain on the agenda today. Here goes nothing!
