While I was gluing the Oakleys, a young lady from England was sitting at the other end of the picnic table. We talked. She told me she was serving as a nurse at a nearby children's camp for the summer.
Last night, I decided to stay up late attending to my e-mail
and getting the website up to date. Well, I stayed up too late; around 1:00
AM. So, I slept in a bit. I went across the street from the Waterfront Motel
to the Waterfront Restaurant (related business) for their breakfast buffet.
While I was there, the sky fell--it started pouring rain and the wind turned
into a gale. There was lightening and thunder and winds of about 35-40 mph.
I went back to the room, made sure everything was bagged securely and decided
to wait out the worst of the storm. I almost decided to take a day off in
Bemidji, but instead, went back to website programming. I didn't get out
of the Waterfront Motel (checkout time 11:00) until after 12:30. About a
mile south of the motel, I realized that I'd run out of food choices and
hadn't yet eaten lunch, so I turned around and rode back toward town. I
opted for the closest choice-- snack food (cheese sticks, candy bar) at
a convenience store (bad decision), actually departing Bemidji at around
1:00. Part way along, I changed from my blue Oakley sunglass lenses to my
yellow ones because of the dark sky.
The headwinds were horrible--25-40 mph--but I just hunkered down and pushed
into them. My problem was that I wasn't feeling well. In retrospect, it
is clear that I didn't eat enough, but at the time I wondered if something
I ate for breakfast bothered me (who knows?) but I was a bit nauseated and
dizzy by the time I arrived at the first town, Cass Lake. Cass Lake is a
small town on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. I got a particularly nervous
about bicycle security when I noticed bars on the windows and doors of local
businesses and saw local folks close their car windows and lock their cars
as they went into Dairy Queen. The only bars I'd seen between Fairbanks
and here were in museum collections or at Poplar, Montana (a crime capitol).
I can't imagine anybody locking their car at the Dairy Queen near my house
in Williamston, Michigan or any of the other DQ's I've been to on this trip.
It is an interesting study in anthropology; seeing local paranoia, the visitor
becomes distrustful of the Indian residents and racial polarization occurs.
That's really too bad.
Seeing no better choice, I locked my bike to a picnic table (but the panniers
are totally vulnerable) and went into Dairy Queen. Eating seemed to help
my queasy feeling.
As I removed my Oakley sunglasses going into DQ, something felt
wrong. I looked carefully at the glasses and realized that I'd broken another
Oakley frame (the second on this trip). At $135 each, I really hate to break
Oakleys, but they come with a lifetime warranty and I need only to send
the 2 broken frames in for replacement. In the meantime, however, I need
to wear them. Oakleys aren't just for protection from the sun; they're serious
safety glasses also. When a truck shot a rock at my chest one day in the
Yukon, I realized just how important it is to protect my eyes. So, on departing
DQ, I attempted to repair the Oakley frame temporarily (until I could purchase
a replacement frame -- probably in Duluth). I glued the frame pieces together
and taped the blue lens (it was brighter by now and that is the lens I use
most often) in the frame to help it structurally. It looked a bit "geeky",
but the glasses worked.
While I was gluing the Oakleys, a young lady from England was sitting at
the other end of the picnic table. We talked. She told me she was serving
as a nurse at a nearby children's camp for the summer.
As I started to roll my bike away from the picnic table I'd parked
it against, I realized something was terribly wrong. My rear tire was flat!
I had my first flat tire in over 3,500 miles of riding (actually I hadn't
had a flat in more than a year) and it was in the worst location, the rear.
I removed my panniers and put the bike upside down on the picnic table.
I removed the tire and looked at it and the inner-tube for the leak, but
couldn't find any. I decided that the air must have leaked out through the
stem or perhaps some kid let it out while I was in DQ. I refilled the tire
with air and everything seemed perfectly normal.
Incidentally, while I was working on the bike, an Indian couple stopped
by to talk. They were very nice. Back in the 70's, I had applied for a job
as Supervising Attorney for the free legal aid program at the Leech Lake
Indian Reservation, but applied for a job with Alaska Legal Services in
Fairbanks also and took that instead. We discussed the legal services program
on the reservation. Talking with them helped to allay any of those unfounded
fears that had grown from the oversecurity exhibited in the community. As
always, a very small minority of bad folks ends up hurting everybody. I'm
sure the vast majority of Cass Lake folks are just ordinary nice folks.
I put everything back together and started back on my ride to the east.
After only about 2 miles, I started feeling the rear tire flattening out
once again. I stopped and pumped some air into the tire and managed to push
the bike (about a mile) into the resort store at the Norway Beach National
Forest Recreation Area where I bought some Gatorade and arranged to use
a picnic table there to repeat the repair process. Once again, I removed
everything from the bike. Once again I couldn't find anything wrong, but
decided there must be a pinhole-sized leak in the tube, so I replaced it.
Before doing so, however, I carefully scrutinized the tire itself for the
source of the leak. Yesterday, as I performed a daily check of my bike,
I had found a piece of wire protruding from the tread of the rear tire and
pulled it out. I felt the entire surface of the tire--inside and out--trying
to find something--perhaps another piece of the wire I found yesterday.
I found nothing. I refilled the leaky tube with air, but it wouldn't leak.
I was stumped.
In my frustration, I screwed up in replacing the tube. I pulled the stem
through the rim without noticing or removing the nut that holds the stem
in place on the outside of the rim; thus leaving it inside and shortening
the stem. As I started to fill the tube and not enough stem was protruding
from the rim, I realized my stupidity and broke it all down once again,
removed the nut and finished the job correctly.
The replacement tube worked fine, but by then it was 6:36 PM, I'd only ridden
about 21 miles (only 2 hours of actual riding) and I still had about 50
miles to go to Grand Rapids, MN, my destination. Realizing there was little
or nothing in the way of services between Norway Beach and Deer River, about
45 miles away, I opted to backtrack. The folks at the resort suggested I
camp at Stony Point, about 1-1/2 miles back, where there was a marina and
restaurant.
I checked into the campground at Stony Point, one of those RV parks with
hookups, showers, a laundromat and hundreds of motorhomes.
All the tent sites were occupied, but they had one motorhome
site that was too small for a motorhome. They rented me that site for the
night: $13.50. I took a shower, did a load of laundry and ate a very nice
dinner in the restaurant (1/2 broasted chicken, salad bar, baked potato),
then waited about an hour to use the pay phone to call home.
I made no progress today. I took only two pictures.
24 miles.
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997