Flat Tire

I left Gordy and Debby at about 6:30 in the morning.  Gordy told me that I should avoid the heat by leaving early. He was getting up to leave for Cheyenne that early anyway.  I biked to Gillette, ninety-seven miles away.   The ride was the scenic Wyoming that I’m getting used to—open spaces with buttes and little hills, canyons, and cattle.  I didn’t plan on going that far, but I felt good and didn’t have much else to do.  Gillette was too big for my liking, though, at about 40,000 people.  Also, its coal mines supply fifty-three percent of the nation’s power.  I biked past a surface mine coming into town.  It was smelly and ugly and made me unhappy.  I reached the McDonalds in Gillette and had to wash dirt off of my face and arms.  Usually, I just have to wash salt off of my face and arms.  I chilled in the McD’s for a bit, ate some peanut butter.

Cities usually have lodging that is too expensive for me, so I bounced.  At about 6:30 PM, I came across Rozet, a tiny one-bar town fifteen miles away, and decided it was about time to look for a place to sleep.  I walked into the bar.  (This is not the beginning of a joke.)  Five people were in there, including the bartender.  I asked the bartender about free or inexpensive campgrounds.  She laughed.  “Not much around Rozet but ranches and coal mines.  But,” she said, “I’m sure Bobbi would let you pitch a tent on her lawn.”  Then, she asked Bobbi, who happened to be two stools to my left.  “Oh, my dear,” Bobbi said, “why would you want to do something like that?”  But Bobbi was cool with it.

Bobbi was a spunky elderly lady.  She laughed loudly and had lots of jokes.  She was drinking with her friend Bobbi.  Both Bobbi’s were from California.  The Bobbi’s and the bartender and I chatted.  Eventually, it was arranged that I would sleep in the guest bedroom.

Walt, Bobbi’s husband, walked in and sat down. He and I were introduced.  We chatted away.  I found out that Walt and Bobbi were on their weekly date, so I sat at the bar and tried not to disturb the love birds while they had dinner.  They moved to a table to look at a menu.  I stayed at the bar to chat with my new friend, Bill, on the stool to my left.  He retired to Wyoming after his stint in the navy.  He was from Wisconsin.  He spent much of the conversation trying to give me advice about highways and places.  We drank Coors, and he told me that Manitowoc, Wisconsin didn’t exist.  “Ain’t no such ferry from Manitowoc to anywhere.  Milwaukee, maybe,” he said.  “You better check Milwaukee.”  I didn’t listen much to what he said about the roads.  I figured he just wanted to give advice, drop some knowledge on me.

The bartender took Bobbi and Walt’s order, and Bobbi said, “Rob, you must be damn hungry.  Let us buy you dinner.  You’re not a vegan, are you?”  I said, “No, just tried elk for the first time a few days ago.”  She said, “Good.  That’s good meat.  Order a hamburger.”  So I did.  

 We ate, and I loaded my bike into the back of her huge ass truck, and we headed down the road.  Bobbi may not have been the most politically conservative person that I’ve ever met, but she was the most outspoken.  “I’m an American,” she said. “I’m a capitalist.  I think the government should keep the hell away from our rights.  Let businesses do business.  Obama’s all gung-ho for wind power.  The coal industry out here provides jobs and a strong economy.  Treehuggers out there will tell you how bad the coal is for the earth, but, frankly, it’s damn beautiful where I live, and we provide half the power in the country.  You graduated from one of the liberal colleges didn’t you?  No?  Hallelujah, thank God there are still conservative colleges out there.  Now, Obama doesn’t know shit about Wyoming.  He’s never been here, save for Yellowstone.  The black smoke you see in the air.  That’s mostly steam.  And the surface mines?  The mining company puts the soil back in place and ninety-eight percent of the land is restored.”

She let me take a shower, then she gave me some milk and homemade everything cookies and told me to relax.  I turned on the television and sat on the couch to watch the NBA finals.  She sat in a leather Lazy Boy, and talked at me about how she thinks white people are giving up their rights for political correctness and equality.  I said, “Man, I wish Dirk Nowitzki would cut his hair.”  And she said, “Hell yes.”

She had fried eggs, sausage, and biscuits waiting for me in the morning.  We watched Fox News.  I left shortly after breakfast.

Devil’s Tower National Monument was about sixty miles away.  That seemed like an easy day.  I planned to camp there.  I biked fifteen miles into Moorcroft and chilled at a gas station, trying to relax after all that Fox News and white supremacy with Bobbi.

At 2:30 PM, I left for the tower.  Thirty miles in, I got a flat tire.  I took it pretty easy, sitting down to eat some Mini Spooners before I changed the tire.  I unpacked the back of my bike, flipped my bike over, took the wheel off, took out the tube, checked the tire for foreign objects, got my fresh tube, put it on, and pumped it up.  Two-thirds of the way into pumping, the fresh tire started to leak air.  Damn.  That was my only spare.

Assessing my situation: I was thirty miles from the nearest town; it was about 5:30 PM; and I didn’t have any muffins.  I thought, “What would MacGiver do?”  So I pulled out my electrical tape and my tube of toothpaste and tried to patch the tube.  I smeared an ample amount of paste over the leak, and applied an intricate taping job.  I taped it like it had turf toe.  I pumped up the tube, attached it to my bike, repacked my equipment, and started out.  I didn’t hear any air leaking.  “The years of having abnormally large, clumsy toes are paying off,” I thought.

I went half a mile, and my tire was flat again.  Damn.  I walked to the nearest home to ask for assistance.  A man was outside, taking apart some wooden pallets.  He was elderly.  His name was Otis.  His glasses magnified his eyes by at least fifty percent.  I apologized for disturbing him so late in the evening, but he said that it happens all the time.  Apparently, people, about two or three a year, often asked for assistance at his house.  He was a mechanic.  We looked at the tube and looked at the tire.  He told me to give the tire a good look in the sunlight for anything stuck in there.  I found a piece of metal that I had missed on my first inspection.  That was the second time in this trip that I’ve felt stupid.  The first time was when I had put my head through a car window.  Bike tubes are less costly than car windows.  So things seem to be improving.

Otis looked for his patch kit but couldn’t find it.  He called his son.  His son didn’t have one.  He figured he’d have his granddaughters pick up a new tube at Wal-Mart.  They were in Gillette for youth group.  They wouldn’t be back until around 10 PM.  He invited me inside to wait.  I met his wife, Linda, and two of his granddaughters.  One granddaughter, Brittany, the oldest of the granddaughters, had finished her first year of college.  For her summer job, she drove a coal truck in the mine, one of those coal trucks with tires that are taller than a person, hauls 400 tons.  The younger granddaughter, whose name I can’t remember, which is sad because she was the flyest one, seemed to be in late elementary school.

Linda and Otis invited me to stay with them for the night.  I accepted.  We chilled, watched Fox News.  Linda gave me a dish of Hamburger Helper type of casserole, only homemade, with venison in it.  So good.  Otis took me for a drive to see his property and look for wildlife.  We didn’t see any wildlife, but I learned that he was the third generation in his family to live on that land.  

The granddaughters, Madison and Jordon, arrived with bicycle tubes.  They were around high school age.  All of the granddaughters and I sat down to play cards.  It was a good time.  I learned much about small town life in Wyoming, and I learned how to play the card game Hand and Foot.  My grandma plays that.  We’ll play when I get back home.

We had scrambled duck eggs and pancakes for breakfast.  Duck eggs are smokier tasting than hen eggs.  They have more protein, too, I guess.  At breakfast, we chatted about the rest of my journey.  I was told that the town of Hulette was having a rodeo the weekend coming.  I said that I’d stop by.  Linda packed me a lunch, and all of us said good bye, and I departed.

I rode by Devil’s Tower.  It’s a big rock, the one from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  By the time I saw it up close, it was kind of hyped up for me.  I thought about camping there, but I didn’t want to mess with the entrance fee or trying to sneak around the entrance fee.  

I’m tuckered out.  It’s not the bicycling that has me tuckered out.  It’s where I’m spending my nights.  Camping on the side of the road has me tuckered because it’s stressful trying to find a place to stay that’s legal or hidden, then I have to worry about moving out early in the morning as to not look suspicious or to not get caught.  And spending the night in people’s houses has me tuckered because of all the energy I use talking and entertaining the hosts and trying to be a good guest.  

I figured I’d get to Hulett, find a nice campground, and chill for the weekend at the rodeo.  Rest.  So here I am in a tent at a campground in Hulett.  I told Grace the campground lady about the bike trip and that I was on a budget of ten dollars a day.  Grace said that the owner of the campground was very generous, and, when he returned from Portland, she was sure that he’d work something out with me.  

I stayed here last night.  I’ll stay here two more nights.  It’s peaceful, and I’ve been sleeping most of the day.  For lunch, Grace gave me some rice and beans with hamburger and a slice of rhubarb pie.  I ate that, and, now, I think that I might read.

Trust: Boogy Games

Today, a woman looked down my throat and said, "Oh, man. That's atrocious."

That's how I learned I got mono. You get mono from kissing people. Since Robbie isn't around, that narrows the list of suspects to one.

The health-care providers at the Urgent Care clinic, however, do not have my love sponsoring a greater level of forgiveness. I put my trust in them when I go sit in that room where I am afraid to touch anything for fear it has herpes or urine on it. I am vulnerable, admittingly dealing with a problem that is beyond my scope of knowledge (problem=why are adenoids all of a sudden bigger than moose testicles) , asking to be rescued by an expert.  Taking all of this into account, it bothers me when a person where the blue robes of power, or the white coat of knowledge, just probes me with some hopefully sanitary instrument and then walks out the door without giving me any sort of explanation of what the hell is going on.

I did not just take being treated as a petri dish specimen without any sort of retaliation. Most of the time, turning the other cheek involves me farting in the general direction of whoever slapped me. So the nurse just walked out after poking and prodding me, and to make their lives equally unpleasant, I picked up some really clean-looking metalware and played with it. When the nurse returned 5 to 6 minutes later and saw me fondling her recently sanitized inventory, she was frustrated. I relished the fact that she noticed that I had an iphone and a kindle with me, and still I chose to entertain myself with her evil contraptions. Hopefully, in the future, she will tell people where she is going and ask them not to screw with her laboratory while she is gone.

Another class of people who had my trust but no guarantee of forgiveness are cellphone company sales representatives. I walked in the Verizon store yesterday wanting to enter a contract with the company for an iphone and a plan. The conversation should have been simple. Here is what I want. How much does it cost?

But she couldn't just tell me how much it costs. Instead of saying, "That will run you $80 per month," she spent 30 minutes screwing around with a calculator to no avail, and when she came up with a figure, it made me happy. Then, as I was ready to hand over my credit card and sign, she said, "So, with the 13% tax and the other numerous $25 fees, it comes to..."

What the hell. My question from the start was, "How much is this going to cost me?" Why she thought I meant, how much is that going to cost me not including tax and other hidden fees, I don't know. I felt betrayed, having that information thrown at me in the last 2 minutes of our 40 minute interaction. I had been nice to this lady. Her English sucked, and she kept asking us if we would like to reservate our phones. I said nothing.  She had a really annoying booger dangling out of her left nostril. And it didn't just dangle, it was a little magician booger that disappeared every time she inhaled and then dropped back down all excited when she exhaled, like it was playing a baby game with you.

I didn't say anything, but after the last minute price increase, we left without buying the phones.

These stories are allegories. Be conscious of the trust people are putting in you during your various social interactions, and treat it with care.

Wyomininans

I’m at a gas station in Moorcroft, Wyoming, about thirty-five miles from Devil’s Tower National Monument.  I’ll go there today.  Easy rock is playing from a speaker right above my head.  It’s hard on the stomach.  I just ate three chocolate chip muffins.  They’re easy on the stomach.  Outside, men are buying gas and they’re wearing cowboy hats and nobody is making fun of them.

This post explains my time at Ten Sleep to my time in Buffalo.  We’re almost caught up to the present:

The road to Ten Sleep was relaxing.  I take my time each day because I don’t have to do squat for mileage.  Hitchhiking and ridesharing has put me well ahead of schedule.

Ten Sleep was nice, but everything closed early because it was Sunday.  I sat in front of the café/bakery to use their wireless.  Young boys, about nine or ten-years-old, were playing next to the road and making a ruckus each time a car drove by.  I wanted to throw mud at them and yell, “Simmer down, I’m trying to type a blog and your mom’s bakery hasn’t got any damn muffins left.”  But that would have been misdirecting my negative feelings about Sunday in Ten Sleep.

I biked out of town and camped in the canyon.  A sign pointed to the campground.  The sign read, “Wigwam Reserve and Camping Area.”  Free camping, the nicest campground I’ve seen.  It was surrounded by the canyon cliffs and a stream ran through it, straight from a John Wayne movie.  I pitched my tent and relaxed, but I thought, “If I get ambushed by Apaches right now, I’m screwed.”  

The next day, I biked the Big Horn Mountains.  That was the most challenging day of biking that I’ve had, yet.  The pass was 9,666 feet.  Three hours of bicycling uphill to reach the pass.  86 degrees at the base, 59 degrees at the top.  The day was hot.  I was pulling chunks of sweat salt out of my beard. No joke.

… then I was mixing them with my water with a bit of orange juice because I was worried about my salt intake.  Homemade Gatorade.  

… I didn’t really do that, but I was worried about my salt, and the beard salt was real.

I pounded water and sweat it out.  Luckily, near the top of the pass, a lovely elderly couple refilled my water bottles from a thermos that they had.

These Bighorn Mountains weren’t as rewarding as the mountains at Yellowstone.  That’s probably because I didn’t know that I had to bike them.  Biking them felt good in the same way having to do sprints after basketball practice feels good.  I’m feeling like I’m about done with mountains.  Give me South Dakota.

I reached Buffalo and wanted to chill and eat.  So I pulled into the first campground that I saw, talked the guy down to ten dollars for the night, went to the IGA to buy a shit ton of food, collapsed on the picnic table, and shoved a handful of butter toffee peanuts into my mouth.  

I lay on the picnic table and read.  I read Charles Bukowski’s Ham on Rye. That book either inspires individualism on a bike trip or causes cynicism for my privileged ability to take a bike trip.  I lay on the picnic table until late evening, reading and pondering, then I set up my tent and lay in my tent until late morning, sleeping.

The Mango Sentinel needed some tuning in the morning.  I inflated some tires and tightened some bolt things and realized that I broke a spoke and needed new brake pads.  The Buffalo Bike Shop guy was nice.  He showed me how to do both of those things but didn’t charge me labor.  He told me that most people on bike tours wouldn’t have even attempted the repairs.  I don’t believe that, but it was nice of him to say it.

I left the bike shop, crossed the street, and sat on a bench in front of the book store.  I wanted to finish my book.  A lady going into the bookstore chatted me up.  She had a vivid smile and was very interested in the bike trip.  She seemed concerned about my well-being.  At that point, I didn’t know if this concern was a motherly type of concern or a Buffalo Bill type of concern.  Her name was Debra.  When she came out, she invited me to stay at her house for the night.  She explained that she had sons that had taken similar adventures and that people had been kind to them on their adventures.  She wanted to give back.  Also, her husband, Gordy, was into bicycling and she was into reading.  I decided that her concern for my well-being was a motherly type of concern.  I decided to stay with her and Gordy.

I followed her to her house on my bike.  She gave me a towel to shower and showed me the washer and the dryer for my clothes.  The washer and dryer were especially nice.  I’ve washed my clothes a few times since California, but this was the first time I’ve used soap to wash them in while.  She showed me her books and recommended that I read a C.J. Box book that she had.  Box is a local Wyoming writer.  Then Debby went to the grocery store.  I sat in a comfy chair and read Box.

She came back with an amount of groceries that rivals a Guimond grocery shopping outing.  I helped her bring them inside, then she gave me a submarine sandwich and a Gatorade for late lunch.  Yeahaheasss.

Debby and I chatted.  She studied art in college.  Lately, she’s been into doing post card sized paintings of little stories that she hears or encounters.  She works at the elementary school and gets some of her stories from the tall tales that the elementary students tell her.  The paintings have words that tell the story.  One painting showed a dead elk in the back of a truck.  The story went something like this:

Judy, a third grader, and I saw a dead elk in the back of a truck.  I said, “You would never see something like that in Illinois.”  Judy asked, “Why not, Debby?”  I replied, “Well, for one, they don’t have elk in Illinois.”  Judy said, “Those poor people.”

And I read some more, and it was about time to start cooking dinner.  She had bought New York strips, and she asked me to cook them on the grill.  All good things.  

Gordy came home from his job at Child Services, and we dined on steaks, potatoes, rolls, beer, and…   I seem to recall some sort of fruity-vegetable-y substance on the table, too, but the memory of what it was exactly seems to be dominated by the steak and beer.  

After dinner, we went outside.  Gordy pulled out a fiddle, I pulled out my harmonica, and we played some bluegrass.  Gordy was better than me, but he didn’t care.  We sang some verses and took solos and generally got down with our badselves.  I’m pretty confident that some windows around the neighborhood opened and, by the end of the concert, we had a substantial audience.  But we can’t be certain.

Debby brought out cobbler and ice cream for everybody.  Gordy gave me a beer that he brought from Wisconsin, Spotted Cow.  That was a heartfelt gesture because he only brought back six beers.

I slept in the guest bedroom.  The next morning, Gordy gave me a bicycling shirt and a bunch of electrolyte bicycling nutrient things and a book about cycling.  And he made blueberry pancakes.  Debby gave me jar of peanut butter.  An entire jar of crunchy peanut butter.  And she gave me the C.J. Box book that I had been reading.  

I felt welcome in their home.  It wasn’t that they gave me all that noise.  They were just nice to talk to, fun to chill with.  It was relaxing.  At first, I had been thinking that I could attribute all this beautiful hospitality that I had been receiving from various Wyominians to a disposition native to Wyominians, but I don’t think it’s that.  I think I have just been getting damn lucky with the generous and genuine people that I have been meeting.  But the people that I’ve been meeting help the case for Wyoming.  I dig this state.

The YAGCT

I'm at the McDonald's in Gillette.  And the story continues from getting picked up at Yellowstone:

The youth adventure group counselor trainees were a bit strange, but that’s how I like my youth adventure group counselor trainees.  There were ten of these youth adventure group counselor trainees and a youth adventure group counselor trainee trainer.  I rode with four of them and the trainer.  

The trainer drove, I sat shotgun, and some girl they called “Mom” sat between us.  She chewed with her mouth open.  John, Eli, and Horwitz sat in the back.  Eli was straight ginger, and it made me nervous having my back to him.  He ate brown stuff from a plastic bag.  It was a combination of mushed up bananas, peanut butter, craisins, peanuts, and soul.  John talked for some of the trip about this bicycle fiesta tour that rides across Iowa.  I want in.  It’s after Blissfest, though.  (How do you feel about that Stuie?)  Horwitz was real quiet and looked like Moses.  He was the guy who I asked for a ride from.  He said “yes” and offered me a Laffy Taffy.  He was twenty-nine and wise beyond his years.  We were talking about Father’s Day, and he said, “Man, I’m not getting my dad shit for Father’s Day.  They have Sunday once a week, and I never get squat.”

It took us two hours to drive the sixty miles through the pass to get to Cody.  It was nighttime.  It would have been terrifying to bike through that, but it was pretty to see it from a car.  The youth adventure group counselor trainees invited me for pizza.  So we went to Pizza Hut.  Eli doesn’t eat meat and dairy together because he’s Jewish.  He ordered a jalapeño and pineapple pizza.  

We were at Pizza Hut for another two hours.  The youth adventure group counselor trainees invited me to camp with them.  So we went to the KOA.  All the males slept in one, eight person tent.  Horwitz didn’t use a sleeping bag.  He doesn’t ever bother with them.

The youth adventure group counselor trainees left at 6:30 in the morning.  I had to wake up.  They need their tent.  We parted ways and shook hands and licked faces and all that.  They offered to buy me coffee and doughnuts, but I said, “Hell, no.  I don’t fraternize with youth adventure group counselor trainees.”  So they left.

Little did the youth adventure group counselor trainees know that this particular KOA has free pancakes each morning.  This is why they are still trainees.  (I didn’t know either, until I wandered over to the arcade and saw the sign.) I feasted on the pancakes and bought some sausage and chocolate milk to go with them.  I took a shower.  I chilled in the arcade and typed on the computer.  I really took advantage of the KOA experience.  (The Cody KOA is the first KOA to come into existence.)

I asked the clerk at the KOA for direction to my next destination.  He said, “Make sure you turn on the highway towards Burlington.  It’s a good-sized town.  The turn should be marked.”

Burlington is tiny, 300 people, but it’s a good-sized town for Wyoming.  Horwitz told me that more people live in San Francisco than in Wyoming.  I like that, but none of the towns have a Wendy’s.  I’ve been jonesin’ for a Frosty.

It was a short bicycle ride to Basin, Wyoming.  I had the wind at my back and it was downhill.  I sang the whole way because I felt good being out of the cold mountains.  “The hills are alive with the sound of music…” I sang.

 

Upon arriving in Basin, I visited the grocery store.  I wanted to buy some vittles for the night and the next day, then I’d ride out of town and camp.  While I was in the store, though, a man and wife, Josh and Sandra, approached me and asked me about my tour.  They were thinking about taking a tour, too.  They supported the trip and thought it’d be nice to chat with me, so they offered to let me pitch my tent in their backyard. 

They had a cookout that night.  They invited the parents (it was the parent’s house) and the neighbors over, and we all ate elk kebabs and drank beer.

The youth adventure group counselor trainees and Josh and Sandra gave me their contact information.  They told me to let them know how the trip went.  Also, they said that they’d offer assistance if I get into any trouble out west.  Josh’s dad, Lyle, said he’d drive as far as the Black Hills to help me out.  So that’s nice.

I left in the morning.  Josh and Lyle gave me advice on the next few days of the journey.  They gave me a shortcut to Ten Sleep, and they told me not to take the low road around the Big Horn Mountains.  The road was dirt, and it would be flooded from snowmelt.  That meant that I needed to go over the mountains.

Song of the Week: Cheesecake by Louie

Hello All, 

The first song of the week, by request of Robert Allen Guimond, is Cheesecake. We used to sing this song regularly in 4th grade music class. It's a great tune for those who don't remember lyrics well and love creamy, sugary desserts that can carry a supporting cast of fruit topping or chocolate or fudge.  

The ditty at hand has another bonus feature: the melody stays happily within a limited range of notes. It comes in handy if blow at singing. Robbie's grandma always says, "If you can't sing good, sing loud." Cheesecake still sounds nice following that strategy. 

So lets gobble and munch.