Day 28 and Day 29

I ended up taking advantage of the decreased wind that accompanies nightfall in the area of Arizona I was in to push onwards as darkness fell. My goal became to reach Flagstaff, AZ sometime in the morning of Day 29, where I could then take it easy.

The plan started out well, with the wind beginning to drop off as evening fell, and my zipping along at a decent pace. As darkness set in, I saw yet another great shooting star, and with so little light pollution, I could easily make out the Milky Way in the sky. They desert also smelled wonderful as traffic dropped to nothing - a flowery, dry sandy smell I can't easily describe.

The first sign of trouble hit when I stopped at one of the sparse gas stations to refuel my body - just as I was pulling in, my controls started to feel funny. Sure enough, it looked like what amounted to a staple had broken through my back tire and I was sinking to a flat. As I've noted before, I'm not that good with switching flats, so I grimly got ready for the task, first getting a large fountain drink and an egg roll from the gas station to nibble on as I worked. About the time I managed to make some decent progress getting to old tire tube out, I hear a snuffling and look up to see another of the strayish "Res-dogs" as a guy I'd met called them looking at me.

Then I noticed that my yet "untouched" egg roll seemed to be missing. Grrrrr. The dog sure stayed friendly for the next half hour or so though while I fixed up the bicycle, bought a second egg roll which I immediately ate, and reloaded the bike. The dog eventually wandered off as no more food became readily available. Humph!

Sure enough, with my bicycle luck, I made it about 3 miles down the road before something tore (I know I need to work on careful seating, and have been improving with time, but it's a slowish learning curve with me, I guess..) A patch held up for a few miles before giving way, then another patch, and so on and so forth, putting me behind my hoped for schedule.

That led to my most exciting time, at about 1 in the morning. Every time I have a flat, I have to unload the bicycle, get out the gear, remove the tire, etc. etc. Needless to say, it's a fairly involved process. So there I was, close to the Grand Canyon area with almost nothing around and few vehicles passing by, and I start to get barks, yaps and howls first from one side, then another. I know that most animals will leave humans alone, but "most of the time" is not something I like to bet on, and I was feeling pretty vulnerable with my bicycle in pieces and with a lot of excited yipping an barking going on. Finally, when that patch gave way almost immediately, I walked the bicycle, flat and all a ways down the road to a roadside stall. I have no idea if it is normally used for anything during the day anymore, or is just abandoned, but it had walls and a decent roof that looked strong. Working in there made me feel more comfortable and safer, knowing that if I ended up with an angry pack of wild dogs outside by chance, I could climb onto the roof until I could wave down a car.

Sunlight finally came, but with no sleep, it was like moving through a surreal world. At the same time, I finally managed to get a patched tube to hold up well. At this point, I was about 50 miles from Flagstaff (the nearest bicycle shops) and had already decided that if nothing else worked, I'd take the time to walk the bicycle, flat and all, into town so I could still do the entire trip on my own power. Fortunately, I didn't come to that, and I managed to pull off the loooong climb into Flagstaff on my last bit of energy, coming in at around 2:00 local time - a bit late for a real recovery day, but not bad for covering 190 miles since I last slept. I"ve napped since then, getting set up in a hotel for the night and washing off the grit of the road (Arizona has a lot of blowing dust that sticks to your sunscreen and promptly layers you in dirt). Now it's off for dinner.

Tomorrow, I'll hit one of the many local bicycle shops to get checked out and re-up my spares (as well as discussing my tire changing issues), get a good breakfast, then head onwards to the last few days of the trip. As for night riding, I'll try to avoid it as it tends to turn me into a zombie afterwards, but having seeing all of the local wind generators, I might have to just go for whenever the weather lets me leave!