Spring 1997 - Cincinnati to Yukon
Journals - 27 May 1997
Day 57 - Towner, ND
27 May 1997 (sunny; good winds breaking up, but still decent! mileage =
60.8) We woke up to more nice sunshine in Church's Ferry. I used Art and
Nora's restroom and talked to them a bit. They're quite active for being
over 80. Very friendly and interesting. We then rode to the post office to
send back some jetsam. On the way, April noticed a flat rear tire. I found
a piece of glass in the tire and set about patching it. When I started to
inflate the tube, I saw major cracks in the tire sidewall. This was a very
bad sign. I only dared to put 40 psi in it. Even with 40 psi, though, it
was VERY unstable and was very hard for April to control. My rear sidewall
already had a small hernia and I was very worried about one of them giving
out completely. We stopped in Leeds and ate oatmeal, watched kids on the
playground, played on the playground, etc. Then on to Rugby. Just before
Rugby, we stopped at a rest area (and I am continually amazed by the
pervasiveness of perverts -- "gay sex call" and the hole drilled at urinal
level in the john). In Rugby we stopped at the Pamida store. It turned out
(as we had hoped) to be a mini K-mart. Just big enough to sell bikes and
tires! So I bought 2 cheapie tires and put a big knobby one on A's back
wheel. Horrible rolling resistance, but it didn't leave us stranded
anywhere. I also did a good job cleaning the wheel and hub. So now April's
wheel is just slow, not failure-prone and dangerous. In Rugby, there is a
marker claiming to be the geographic center of N. America. There was a
tourist info place there and we got many excellent maps of Canada. I also
found out that they used a physical cut-out of N. America to find this
balancing point (the centroid, I believe). How crude. So by this time it
was getting late and we headed for small town hospitality which tonight is
Towner. We had dinner at their park and watched dozens of kids come out to
play in the park. There are a bunch of H.S. kids playing b-ball and we are
wondering if we might be able to find a more tranquil spot. We may ride on,
although it is late, or we may just wait till sundown and do a night drill.
The sun is up so long now that it would be hard to not be asleep all night.
The mosquitoes are out, but not too terrible. The temperature is very
pleasant and cool and the wind is almost nil. Very rare here, I suspect.
A - I'm pretty pleased with the pannier reorganization. There are some
things I wish were different, but really tough to implement. Our plastic
wash basin is tricky because you want to be able to access it, but you
don't want to store it empty. We had food in it, but that's a drag to empty
and refill when bathing. I'm back to having food in the Jandd duffel and my
red tote. Not ideal, but seemingly the most useable. Chris' panniers seem
empty now, which makes them easy to access good. Mine are pretty logical,
also. I have all our clothes and cooking and food supplies. He has all the
tent supplies and we each have our own rain gear. Hopefully, this will work
out and I can stop trying to rearrange in my mind. Then when we stop, I can
read or write letters, etc.
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