Friday, June 09, 2000

With all the problems we had last night, we did not get to bed until the ripe old hour of 10:30 PM. After 8 ½ hours of sleep I was still tired when we got up just after 7:00 AM. We looked outside and it looked as if the weather would be a repeat of the previous day. After breakfast, the first thing that we did was call all the places that sold bicycles in St Maries and Kellogg and Performance Bicycle to see if they had a replacement tire for the front wheel. No one had a replacement tire.

I then moved the rear light from under the backpack to the back of the backpack. I had to borrow a wrench before I was successful in making the change. We packed the painters and got ready to leave when I noticed that it was just past 10:00 AM so I called Anglelake in Seattle. I told them my problem and they promised to have a tire delivered to the motel in Wallace on Saturday. Tire problem solved for now. Just as we were ready to leave, the cell phone rang. It was my boss asking how to find some information that I had supplied to him. I did my best to guide him to the information.

We loaded the bicycle and started our journey to Wallace ID. The first three blocks were up a small hill. My legs were so tired that it seemed that we were going up a mountain. We made it to the top but by then I knew that every climb was going to be agony. We are very much overdue for a rest day. I hope we can make it to Wallace. The first 8 miles was along the St. Joe River and was very flat. We traveled at 16 to 18 miles per hour. Then we hit the first hill. We climbed about 800 feet in two miles. The next several miles were one roller after another. You went down a hill at 25 to 30 miles per hour and went back up a hill immediately at 4 to 8 miles per hour. The problem was that both my legs and Mary Kay’s legs were so tired that hills we should have gone up at 10 miles per hour we had to go up in the granny gear at 4 miles per hour.

We were also having a hard time getting into the granny gear. Remember that I am an excellent shouter and Mary Kay does the shifting. Need I say more? Well, on one of these hills when the bike just would not go into the granny, a lady (named Betty Hawk) passed us in her van and turned into a driveway about 50 yards up the hill. She invited us into her house. She let us rest and made Mary Kay tea. After about 15 minutes we left and proceeded up to the top of the hill. After several more rollers and at least two more failures to get into the granny gear, we stopped and I adjusted the granny shifter so that it would go about another 1/8 inch farther. We never had a problem getting into the granny the rest of the day.

We made did not stop for lunch but kept on trucking all day. We stopped and had an orange or some cheese several times but we did not really eat enough to keep us going. We crossed instate 90 and turned right up canyon road. It was the old highway and had very little traffic. It did go up and down more than the interstate and seemed to be a little longer so at Catalo we got on the interstate. Finally we arrived at Wallace, found the motel, and registered. I had been wearing only a long sleeved shirt and even then I had sweated enough to keep it wet almost all day. While I waited for Mary Kay to register, I got cold. When we began taking the bike to the room, we had a problem because the halls were narrow and it was a challenge getting around corners and into the room. We showered, ate supper, went to the “6th Street Melodrama”, where we listened to old jokes, and songs and relaxed before bedtime.