Couple of Flat Tires!

Well, I made it to St. Francis. It was a hard ride. I left Anton at around 7:30 a.m., after packing my tent and gear. Didn't have anything for breakfast. The good news: No more hills! The bad news: weather is still hot and windy. One of the harvesters in Anton told me I only had one more steep hill before the town of Cope. I never really found one that i considered particularly steep, but the wind made up for it. At first I was riding into a quartering headwind, coming from my right. Up ahead you could see the road turning about 45 degrees to the right and when i made that turn i was riding straight into the wind. This lasted a couple of miles and then there was a turn to the left. The trend of turning into the wind and then a mitigating turn repeated a couple of times until I finally got into Cope. Cope is only 22 miles from Anton, and despite the wind, it went pretty fast. Probably because it was still cool all morning.

Cope is a pretty little town with a great grocery store. The store has an impressive selection of fruits including mango's and kiwis, something unexpected out here in the middle of nowhere.
It also head a table with coffee and donuts. Four guys were sitting there talking about the latest news: one of their friends tried to swim across a pond the other day and drowned. They were signing a sympathy card. He left behind his wife and two kids. He was drunk.

The other topic was the wheat harvest. One guy was complaining about how his harvest was a little damp, and the silo operator made him wait for three hours until they had dry wheat to mix it with. But, he admitted, he thought it was a little damped when he harvested it. He gambled and lost. Sort of like the swimmer.

By the time I left the grocery store, it was about 95 degrees out and the wind was still blowing hard. Only nine miles to the next town, Joes (there is no apostrophe in Joes). But by the time I got there I was drier than a load of wheat.

Joes is (is that grammatically correct?) much smaller than Cope. There are a couple of houses, a church, and a liquor store. The liquor store doesn't open until 3:00 p.m.; just in case you're planning to visit. The guys I talked with back in Cope had emphasised that. I suppose liquor helps counteract the boredom.

I rested in a tree's shade on the church lawn, driving a neighbors' dog crazy. He hadn't a leash and I tried to coax him up to me. But he wasn't buying what I was selling.

After ten minutes or so, he stopped barking and lay down. I decided to do the same, and shut my eyes. Twenty minutes later, my alarm clock, the flies, woke me. I decided to fill up my water bottles and push on to the next town, Idalia, 22 miles away. There is nothing but wheat fields between the towns. I found a hydrant behind the church, filled up, and pushed off.

The temperature kept climbing. Harvesters probably liked it, but it was brutal for bicyclists. No real shade.

I was cooking in the sun. I'm sure it was over 100 degrees, probably 105 or so. You can't imagine what it's like to ride a loaded bike in that heat. It's a big mental game, I'll tell you that. I just kept telling myself it wasn't too bad. But my body, like the dog in Joes, didn't buy it.

After a few miles I saw some trees ahead, and pulled over for a break. After ten minutes the flies drove me off. Six or seven miles later, I was begging God for shade, but there wasn't any. Finally, I saw a small silo. I pulled over, wadded through the grass and weeds, put my back against the warm metal, and lowered myself into a meager wisp of shade. I had to pull my legs up to get them out of the sun. But I was thankful. Beggars can't be choosers. Again when the flies came I started out.

Just like yesterday, the wind blew constantly, and not in my favor. It wasn't a straight headwind, and when the road changed direction, it wasn't too bad at all. Unfortunately, the road seldom changed direction! But up ahead I saw a long sweeping turn to the left, so I eagerly pedaled toward it. The respite was brief, only four miles or so, but when the road swung to the right, and into the wind, at least I could make out the speck of a town ahead. A town meant shade, water, and maybe ice cream.

But not so fast! I was just dead on my ass. I'd say dead on my feet, but I was riding. And there simply wasn't any shade. So I pulled off onto a field access road and sat in the sun. Sometimes you have no choice. As I sat there, I found a pretty pebble, and added it to my collection.

The town was Idalia. It has a post office, general store, a couple of restaurants, and some small businesses. One restaurant closed at 1:00 p.m., the other didn't open until 5:00 p.m. I went back to the general store. A girl sat behind the counter, playing a video game. I was disturbing her and she let me know it by ignoring me as much as she could. It was a dark, tiny, cramped place.

"Got any ice cream?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"There."

"Thanks. Mind if I eat it inside here?"

"You're not supposed to. Don't sit down anywhere."

So I stood there and scarfed my Nutty Buddy ice cream cone down. I decided to go to the post office. Maybe the reception there would be warmer. Terry, the Post Master, greeted me. She asked if she could help me, and I told her about my ride. Terry is friendly, offering me water and a chair. We talked for a while, and she told me all about the pros and cons of being a Post Master of a small town's post office. As we talked, a plan grew in my mind: I'd wait until closer to sundown before starting for St.Francis. I remembered how the wind had died down after sunset yesterday.

Terry told me I was welcome to stay until closing; 5:00 p.m. She called a motel in St. Francis for me and I made a reservation for that evening. I showed her my blog, and we talked about her horses. Rattlesnakes had bitten three of them. The two that were bit on the nose survived, the one bitten on the leg died. She guessed the poison went straight to that one's heart.

I invited her to dinner and she said she'd have a drink with me; maybe a burger too.

Terry liked the restaurant, she seemed proud of it. I stayed until a little after seven and we said our good byes. It was still windy, but soon the road turned due north giving me a nice tailwind. I speed along at 20 mph. Up ahead I could see dust clouds from Harvesters' tractors. The jaunt north was short; just three miles and then the road turned east. While making the turn, I noticed the bike didn't feel quite right. I got off and felt the rear tire. It was almost flat. By now the sun was setting, if I wanted to fix the flat in any kind of light, I had to work fast.

Tearing the panniers and camp gear off, and flipping the bike upside down, I pulled the wheel off. The sun was just an orange glow below the horizon. Pulling the tire off the rim and ripping the inner tube out took only a moment. Feeling inside and outside the tire for the punctures' cause proved futile. I searched again. Still nothing. I tried a third time: Nada.

Now if you don't figure out, and correct, what caused the first flat you're doomed for a second, so I pumped up the inner tube, found the hole, and looked in the corresponding spot inside the tire. Zippo.

Deciding that it must have been a piece of glass, I installed a spare tube in the tire and began mounting the wheel on the bike.

About then another cyclist rounded the corner; a large RV was following him. That's how I met Bruce. Bruce is a minister riding coast to coast raising money to build a hospital in Africa. Bruce was slick. He had a printed color brochure about his ride and had several Christian organizations sponsoring him. They had paid for his flight out, and for his wife too. They'd paid for his son, Isaac, to drive the RV from Maine to California, and were paying for him driving back. As I said, Bruce was slick. Several Christan Radio stations were plugging him. He blew more money just on gas than what I raised for the Davis Phinney Foundation. I'm envious. He isn't lugging any gear either; it's all in the RV. He averages 16 mph, about 5 mph faster than me.

We ride together for 5 miles......by now it was getting dark. I've really got to strain to keep up with Bruce. The RV drives ahead to find a camping spot in St. Francis. Just after it pulls away, I get another flat! It's dark. I tell Bruce to go ahead; I don't want to slow him down. He says "nothing doing"; he won't leave me in the dark with a flat. The Parkinsons is making me shake like a dog pooping bricks. After finding the flats cause, a piece of wire, Bruce helps fix the flat with another spare tube I have. I have one last spare tube.

We ride and talk together in the cool night air. Bruce wants to know if I'm a Christian. "No." "Why not?" He wants to convert me. I don't believe just as strongly as he does believe. He backs off, and tells me I can let Christ into my life at any time.

We move on to other subjects. At one point I ask him "How's your ass feeling? Any blisters from riding? My ass is killing me!" He seems a little uncomfortable about the topic; I don't think anyone has ever asked him about his ass before. He replies that he washes it every night, and he hasn't had any problems. I grin in the dark.

We get to St. Francis around 11:00 p.m. and he rides off, looking for the RV. I check into my motel and never see him again.