Photo: A mountain of grain in the Great Plains.
We were up at 5:00 a.m. this morning, but Tom had a flat again. He pumped it up again, only to have the tire lose air again win just 4 more miles. We visited a local gas station, and used a pail of water to find and fix holes in all three of Tom’s tubes, and then after about 45 minutes, we were on our way again.
We found a British couple, John and Jan Bell, just a few years older than us resting on the road about an hour away from the gas station. John had been a navigator in the British Air Force, and had served as a military attaché in Quito, Ecuador for three years. He was a very interesting guy, and Jan was very nice. John had cycled across Canada, and had taken a 4 month trip the entire length of Africa. This was Jan’s first long bike trip, from West to East on the Adventure Cycling Trans America route. John said the Canada trip was easier due to the lower mountains in Canada.
After we parted, I realized that they probably had a copy of the Adventure Cycling Trans American route map 8, which we had lost, somehow. We caught up with them, so we caught up with them, and ate lunch with them while Tom copied the map set at a local supermarket.
We rose the next day at 5:00 a.m., in the dark, a bit too early, maybe. We biked to Ness City, where we camped in the City Park, where there were two teens who were playing firecracker toss with one another. This was kind of like a hot potato toss that could blow a finger off! We later ran into a British camper who had also stayed here, and an seven year old girl told him he had to leave the park because he was a hippy. When he refused, she started throwing sticks at him. Rather than stop the little girl, she started throwing sticks at him.
Today’s pedaling was perfect except for the persistent, but less severe head wind.
Total miles 85 today.
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