Day 57

Between fields
The storm last night was insane. My tent would light up, then booming thunder. It kept waking me up. It was especially exciting when the flash and the boom would happen almost simultaneously. It's too bad my rain fly isn't see through, I'm sure I would have enjoyed seeing the lightning so close. Early in the morning, I heard what sounded like a cannon being fired 4 times- I'm not sure if it was thunder, but I'm not really sure what else it could have been.
I was able to pack up in the morning and get on the road without being noticed. There was much more traffic now. I had to go through another big town. There was a bike shop. I've been wanting a thorn resistant tube for a while now. I called, and they didn't have any, just like the last few bike shops. I seriously find that to be the weirdest thing. Maybe they are afraid that if they sell those, no one will ever need to buy any more tubes. Ugg. I will just have to keep calling other shops. Right after this city, I was supposed to go on a bike trail, but this one was made of dirt. Not normal dirt- it must have been special hard packed stuff made especially for bikes. It was okay, but still not as good as pavement. I decided I take the slightly longer way that was pavement. Eventually I had no choice but to take the dirt trail. I kept looking at the highway it paralleled with envy. It had shoulders, but it was starting to rain again, and it was nice to not have to worry about other cars or deal with the noise. Soon I got to another big town and I had to spend the rest of the day dealing with riding in the roads and only getting short breaks of riding on actual bike paths. The rain really started pouring, so I found shelter under an overpass. I tried to figure out what I needed to do. There weren't any warmshowers hosts where I wanted to end up today. I could have quit early, but I also hated giving people such late notice, unless their profile said specifically not to worry about it. So I decided to just keep on going- I'd figure it out when I had less time until sunset. Bad idea. Leaving the underpass, I mean. It started to rain hard again a short while later. I was fully prepared, with rain jacket and rain pants (thanks mom!) but it sucks when it comes down like that and you have to ride near cars. I found another roof to hide under. I tried to memorize where I needed I go next. You'd think I'd be great at that by now, but I'm not. I finally left and made my way through many streets. It was around 5 by now when I made it to a stoplight. Holy crap. Living in Alaska meant that I never really learned what traffic was. Even when there was a green light, the cars had to wait because the cars in front of them were so backed up. I waited for about 5 minutes until I could cross. Later, I was supposd to go under a road, but it was flooded. To get around, I had to go like a half mile. Finally sunset was only 45 minutes away, so I had less that an hour and a half to find a place to camp. I was right by a big forest area. I wanted to cover more miles, but I wasn't positive that I could find as good of a spot to camp. I decided to head into the woods on the bike trail. I found a side that looked like it had a lot of shrubbery, then walked my bike in. I was instantly attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes. I was so glad I decided to put my rain jacket on earlier. There was a small creek- I decided to stay away from that. I'm sure it will be bigger tomorrow. The mosquitoes were trying to eat me alive, so I didn't have time to find the best spot. I just had to hope that my tent wasn't visible from the trail. It was still light out. The extra time was nice- I could catch up on this blog, and figure out what I'm doing tomorrow. I sure hope the next warmshowers hosts are available! This forest sounds different- the birds are soooo loud!