Day Twenty Seven: five patches, parking area, ken

This morning, just as I was about to load all of the gear on my bike, I noticed my rear tire was flat. I thought it was odd that it took this long to go flat; it was fine last night when I was riding around to do laundry.

I took the tube off, filled the bathroom sink with water, and baptized my tire. When it was underwater, I saw that it was indeed holy... or rather holey. There were FOUR leaks in it. FOUR places where a stream of tiny bubbles floated to the surface.

I marked them with a pen and went back to the tire. There, I found another piece of wire in the tube.

Then another, then two more. I used tweezers to pull each one out. Some were on the inside of the tire, some were on the outside. They were very tiny, but apparently large enough to puncture my tire.

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

By the time I patched the last hole I had used every single one of my patches. If I have a hole in one of my tubes I won't be able to fix it. That's a scary thought to a biker.

When I put the tube underwater to see if there were any leaks, I realized I was holding my breath.... fortunately, there were no bubbles.

Then, VERY CAREFULLY AND THOROUGHLY, inch by inch, I checked the tire for any more pieces of metal. Looking back, this is something I should've done yesterday when I was fixing the flat instead of just assuming that piece of metal was the only one. It was just so NICE outside, and I was feeling pretty lazy.

I didn't find anything, but not having a patch for a tire will give you a very uneasy feeling. "For want of a nail..." as the saying goes.

I ate a hearty breakfast (juevos rancheros) at the Mexican food cafe, then started looking for a patch kit. I really didn't want to leave town without one.

After a couple of stops I found a very old one, the kind that are very thick, at ALCO.

There are no towns between Sonora and my stop for the night, Junction, so I went to the grocery store to pick up some lunch.

I bought a loaf of bread, some peanut butter, some honey, and a couple of cookies for dessert. I also strapped a can of Arizona tea to my bike.

There was a headwind from the outset. Twenty five miles later I stopped for lunch at a "parking stop." It wasn't a rest stop - there were no picnic tables, no coverings, no restrooms - nothing but a place for the truckers to pull off the road to park for a while. And no place to get out of the wind. No place at all to hide from the incessant wind.

I found one of the few scrub oak trees in the area and sat down on the ground to eat lunch and rest, the wind blowing loneliness all around me.

After I finished, I checked my tires and found the rear one was low. Not flat, but low. I pumped it up and took off for Junction.

Here are some pictures taken from my bike as I pedaled today.

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

You can see the grade of the road because of the layers of rock.

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

I took a picture of a tree today.

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

A picture of a TREE?? On the side of the road?? Later, after I took a picture of it, I realized that my interest stemmed not only from my love of trees, but also from the fact that I haven't actually seen a tree of any significant size since I left San Diego.

For the last week or so I've been seeing trucks carrying propellers for the giant wind turbines I've been seeing. They don't look very big from a distance but they're HUGE when you see them up close. It takes a long time for them to pass, and not simply because of my blinding speed.

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

From Mark on a Bike 08 2

When I arrived in Junction, I stopped at the first convenience store I saw and bought a couple of cans of tea. Then I called the three motels in town. They were all the same price, so I went to the one with the nicest-sounding person, Geneva at the Rodeway Inn.

After I pedaled to the hotel and registered, Geneva and I talked a while about my bike trip. A couple of times during our conversation someone came in to register.

One guy, a trucker in his mid-sixties, saw my bike and asked where I started. He looked me squarely in the face and said, "You are REALLY stupid." Geneva, always polite, was a little embarrassed, and said, "I was thinking 'brave.'"

I looked back at him, smiled, and said, "Stupid? Guilty as charged."

Thus began a four-hour conversation and a new friendship.

The guy's name is Ken. He owns his own 18-wheeler truck and although he'd like to retire, the bottom dropped out of the truck market so he couldn't sell it for half of what it's worth. Still, he doesn't mind too much... he gets to travel all over the country and has been doing it for years.

He bought his first semi in 1971 without even knowing how to drive one. He just decided he wanted to drive a truck, so he went to the dealer and paid for it. Then he asked the salesman if he could show him how to drive it. The guy's jaw dropped. "You don't know how to drive a truck?!?!" "Nope." The salesman took him around town a few times showing him as much as he could in the brief time he had. When they were done, he begged, "Please don't tell anyone I sold you this truck. I could get in some trouble."

Ken has been driving ever since.

When Ken was a small boy his parents separated. His stepfather was a mean drunk. He beat Ken and his mother on a regular basis. After one terrible drunken bout in which he was about to hit his mother, Ken, without really thinking, beat his stepfather up pretty badly.

It was at that point, in his early teens, that Ken decided it was time to leave home so, with ten dollars in his pocket, he hitchhiked to Las Vegas, then caught a train to Kansas.

In Kansas he stayed at the hobo camp for a couple of nights. They told him to catch the fourth track over to go north, but "the engine was on the wrong end," and he ended up in Wichita Falls, Texas.

He had just a few coins left, so he spent them on one last meal. As he was paying, he asked the cashier in a voice loud enough so that everyone in the place could hear, "Is there any work around here?" One of the guys in the cafe overheard him asked what he could do. He replied, "I'm teachable."

So, in August, in Wichita Falls - which is the location of the "Hotter'n Hell 100" bike ride (appropriately named) - Ken got a job building a nine-mile fence. The man offered to let him sleep in the barn, but Ken preferred to sleep outside under the stars because it was cooler.

Although Ken currently lives in a small town thirty miles from Olympia, Washington, he knows every good eating place in the country. He recommended Cooper's Barbecue, and he even offered to drive us there.

I thought he had another, smaller car, but we walked over to his big rig and climbed inside. There, I found he had all the amenities of home: a bed, a refrigerator, a TV/VCR/DVD player... everything but a shower. (hence the night at the hotel) His ~250 horsepower engine gets 5.75 miles to the gallon, and has the same pulling power as his previous ~559 horsepower engine.

When we got to Cooper's, which was less than half a mile away (but too far to walk with arthritic knees), I couldn't believe the sign: "You can't beat our meat."

I asked Ken about it and, once he realized the double entendre, let out a big guffaw. "Wow. I never realized it." Sometimes, I really shouldn't be let outside to play.

Ken thinks truckers, in general, are "dumber than a box of rocks." Yet, he was able to intelligently converse about finances and politics. Could be he meant OTHER truckers.

He even offered a reason why there are fences on every piece of hardscrabble in America: “It's those gol-damn lawyers.” He thinks that unless you put up a fence, some dumbass is going to wander onto your land and die of dehydration and exposure. Or worse, ALMOST die and therefore not help cull the gene pool. Then they or their relatives hire a lawyer to force the owner to cough up a large chunk of money.

“I think,” was his response when I asked him how he manages to stay awake while he's driving. “I balance my checkbook in my head, then I do it again. I solve math problems, things like that. People get sleepy because they're bored."

I pulled out my camera and asked him if I could take his picture and he almost started running away. He REALLY didn't want his picture taken, so I'll describe him. He's about 5' 8" with gray hair and a gray beard. He has a round, pleasant face and wears gold-rimmed glasses. He has a stocky build, and images of ice fishing popped into my head when I first saw him. His profile gives you the distinct impression he truly knows where all of the good eating places are.

One of the final things I learned about the guy who said, "You are REALLY stupid," is that many years ago he took his 10-year-old son on an 11-day bicycle trip through Yosemite and the surrounding area.

Well, I guess us bikers are about as smart as a box of rocks.

59.10 miles (felt like a 70-mile day because of the headwind)
11.2 average
29.1 max
5:14:19 time
1325.7 total