Day 63

Tractors
I kept hearing what sounded like something jumping into the water last night. When I first got out of my tent in the morning, a crane flew off from the canal. Just as I was putting the first bag on my bike, my fears were confirmed- a saw two tractors coming down the road. I was seeing them through the trees, so they couldn't see me. But if they went left, I'd be hard not to see. I held my breath. Luckily, they both turned right. I packed a little more quickly than normal. Soon I was walking my bike to the road. I had to go up a bit of an incline, which is part of what hid me from the tractors. I could still hear them. I slowly creeped up, looking. The tractors must have been on the other side of the trees- I couldn't even see them. I pedalled up the road and sighed relief. The next few hours, the road was interesting- lots of curves, some hills and dips. It was quite the contrast from yesterday. I finally found a turtle on the road! I was hoping I'd find one. I didn't want him to get ran over, so I put him in my basket for a bit. I soon found a pond that was outside someone's house. I set the turtle in the grass and waited for him to move. Once I realized it was gonna be a while, I rode away. A bit later, I noticed that my front tire was running a bit low. I pumped it up again once or twice but it was a losing battle. Here would be the test of those smaller tubes. I picked a bad spot- there was one of those giant lawnmowers on the other side of the road, and the traffic seemed to picked up. One person stopped and asked if I needed a ride. I felt really nervous about how much I had to blow up the tube to make it fit, but I had to try it. Once I got back on the road, there was a huge difference. The handling was a bit off. There was a distinct "bump" every revolution- I read about that online. My basket shook every time. It was so annoying. I knew I'd have to stop by another bike shop as soon as possible. About a quarter mile after that, I heard a big pop and hiss. Awesome, I just popped that front tire. So it doesn't work. Oh well, I prepared for this, I got a spare regular tube. I looked at the box and it turned out, it's the same size as the thorn resistant ones. It probably wouldn't even last being pumped up. Now I was really screwed. I was really really angry at the guy who sold me the tubes- he assured me they would work and they barley lasted a quarter mile. I wanted to call him up and tell him it was his fault that I was currently standed. After having a whole day to think about it though, I realized that would be a bit harsh. It was my fault for not checking the regular tube- I apparently wasn't clear about what size I wanted. The first ones he gave me didn't have boxes- the second one did. That should have been a clear sign that they were different. So I think it comes down to two possibilities. Either the guy was really trying to screw me over (which I can't imagine- he said he was the manager. The store is definitely getting a bad review for this), or he got mixed up with the numbers. It wasn't his first mess up that day. Regardless, I was still screwed. I tried to get on my phone to find the nearest bike shop, but I only had 1x... Basically no internet. I had just passed a sign that said the next city, Beardstown, was only a mile away. I decided to put the other thorn resistant tube in and just not pump it up as much. This ended up being pointless- the bike was unridable. I then proceeded to walk it. Getting accross the bridge seemed to take forever. I saw Golden Arches up ahead- if the town is big enough to have a McDonalds, it must be big enough to have a bike shop. The sign stated the population as 5800- about the size of Nikiski, and we don't have a bike shop. I stopped by a Subway and asked if she knew about bike shops or a Walmart or something. She said none were in town, they'd be about 30 miles away. I left and tried to figure out how I was going to get 30 miles. That's when I remembered I had a path kit. Usually it's too much of a hassle to find the hole and patch it, so I don't bother. I can't submerge it in water to see where the bubbles come out. But if I could find it on the tube that was originally flat, I could repair it at least enough to go to the next town. The hole was more of a tear- I pulled a small piece of scrap metal from it. I only had one big patch. Hopefully that's the only spot. By this point I noticed the black clouds. Big bolts of lightning flashed in the distance. I could only feel the occasionally raindrop. Patching was pretty straightforward and only took about 10 minutes. It was the moment of truth- I started pumping. And pumping. And pumping. I was pretty heartbroken. The tire was getting harder, but not quite as fast as I thought it should. I kept pumping anyways, not knowing what else to do. The true test would be putting weight on it. After loading everything back up, I went to the hardware store. Maybe they'd randomly have tubes. Either way it's good to ask more than one person. The lady there said there was a Walmart only 2 miles away. She explained how to get there, but my brain isn't that great so I somehow got my phone to work, even with the poor service. The Walmart was only a tad out of my way- worth it if I could get a good tube. 30 minutes of riding through the rain later, I was looking at the wide array of tubes they had. They even had thorn resistant one- but they weren't the right size. It took me a while, but I finally found the two tubes they had that were my size. One was for smaller widths, one for bigger. Both were the wrong valve. I pedaled all the way here for nothing. I decided to look up if valves were interchangeable. Turns out both valves will work in my wheels. It's best if I have an adapter, which supposidly the tubes come with. I was planning on getting three spares but I settled on one- if I needed it and it worked, great, if not, at least I wasn't caring around three useless tubes. My phone finally refused to give me directions, so I tried to base it off memory and the roads on a preloaded Google map. I had to backtrack. Finally I got back to Beardstown and was soon making progress again. My patched tube was still working great. All things considered, that went pretty well. I didn't have to get a ride from anyone, I wasn't stranded for long, and I didn't have to walk far. I can't even imagine what I would have done if this happened on a day where I was in a more remote place. After sunset, I started to see street lights up ahead- oops, too far. I went back just a bit and found a great place. It was about 30 feet above the road, with tree cover. It was an easy incline from the side. It was weird though because it seemed like a bike had already been up here- a thin line through the grass was visible. Once I got to the top I realized it was most likely some sort of animal that made the trail. There were larger spots on the ground that looked like something was curled up there. This actually happens a lot- turns out a nice place to sleep is pretty much universal. I did have to avoid some thorn bushes though.