I'm my own cautionary tale, patches, dumber than a box of rocks

October 18, 2008

Day Twenty Seven

"It might seem to you, Peter, that a truck driver, one step above an ape in your view, can't remember. But truck drivers have brains, too."
- Isaac Asimov, from The Bicentennial Man -

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This morning, just as I was about to load all of the gear onto my bike, I noticed my rear tire was flat. I thought it was odd that it took this long to go flat. It was fine last night when I was riding around to do laundry.

I removed the tube then, after filling the bathroom sink, lowered it into the water. Once immersed, there were so many bubbles floating up it looked like a torpedoed submarine. In that small section there were at least four leaks... four places where a stream of bubbles was gushing towards to the surface, and that was only one section.

I marked them with a pen and went back to the tire. There, I found another piece of wire embedded in the rubber.

Then another, then two more. I used tweezers to pull each one out. Some were on the inside of the tire, some were on the outside. They were very tiny, but clearly large enough to puncture my tire.

My tire had more holes than a Dan Brown novel and every time I tested it under the water, I found another leak. I went back and forth from the sink to patching until I had used every single one of my patches. I realized that at that point if there were any more holes I wouldn't be able to repair them.... I'd be stuck here unless I could walk someplace to find a patch kit. That's a scary thought when you're in the middle of nowhere.

Realizing I was out of patches, I lurched back to the sink. When I put the tube underwater to see if there were any more leaks, I realized I was holding my breath.... fortunately, no bubbles.

Then, VERY CAREFULLY AND VERY THOROUGHLY, inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter, I checked the tire for any more pieces of metal.

Looking back, I knew this is something I should've done yesterday when I was fixing the flat instead of just assuming that that piece of metal was the only one. But it was just sooo nice outside, and I was feeling lazy.

Clearly, I’m my own cautionary tale. Always take the tire off and examine the entire inside and outside.... even if it’s gorgeous outside and you’re feeling lazy!

My tires were full, but not having a patch will give you a very uneasy feeling.

I ate a hearty breakfast, huevos rancheros, at the Mexican food cafe, then rode around town looking for a patch kit. No luck at the first couple of places, but at the third store I found a dust-covered antique, the kind of patch with very thick green rubber, at a place called Alco. Regardless of how old or what it looked like, it felt like a security blanket.

While purchasing the patch kit, I learned from the cashier that Dan Blocker, the actor who played Hoss on Bonanza, taught high school here before being cast in the TV series. Every town, however small, is famous for something.

There are no towns between Sonora and Junction, my stop for the night, so I went to the grocery store to pick up some lunch. There, I bought a loaf of bread, some peanut butter, some honey, and a couple of cookies for dessert. I also strapped a can of Arizona tea to my bike.

The wind was strong this morning, straight into my face. Twenty five miles into the ride I stopped for lunch at a "parking stop." It wasn't a rest stop - there were no picnic tables, no coverings, no restrooms - nothing but a place for the truckers to pull off the road for a minute. Worst of all, there was no place to get out of the wind. This region has small shrubs with very few trees, and no place at all to hide from the incessant wind.

I found one of the few scrub oak trees in the area and sat down on the ground to eat lunch and rest. Thirty minutes later I got up to leave and checked my tire pressure before climbing on. The rear tire was a bit low. Not flat, but low. I pumped it up and took off for Junction.

although it looks very green and lush, those are actually fairly small shrubs

in this picture and several of the following ones you can see how steep the road is from the layers of sediment in the rock

I took a picture of a tree today. A tree?? Why??

Later, when I was looking through the pictures I’d taken that day, I realized that my interest in the tree stems not only from my love of trees, but also from the fact that I hadn't actually seen a tree of any significant size since I left San Diego. Other than small shrub oaks, it was literally the first tree I'd seen in over a thousand miles.

For the last week or so I've been seeing trucks carrying propellers for the giant wind turbines. They don't look very big from a distance but they're MASSIVE when you see them up close. It takes a long time for them to pass.

When I arrived in Junction (pop 2,574), I stopped at the first convenience store I saw and bought a couple of cans of tea. Then I called the three motels in town. They were all the same price, so I went to the one with the nicest-sounding person, Geneva, at the Rodeway Inn.

Geneva and I talked a while about my bike trip. A couple of times someone came in to register.

One guy, a trucker in his mid-sixties, saw my bike and asked where I started. He squinted, then said in a stentorian voice,

"You are really stupid."

Geneva was instantly horrified and tried to salvage a situation that could easily escalate. She added,

"Uhhhh, I was thinking….ummm… 'brave.'"

I returned his gaze, grinned, and said, "Stupid? Guilty as charged."

Thus began a four-hour conversation and a new friendship.

The guy's name is Ken. He owns his own truck and, although ready to retire, the bottom dropped out of the market and he couldn't sell it for half of what it was worth. Still, he didn't mind too much... he travels all over the country and has been doing it for years.

He bought his first semi in 1971 without even knowing how to drive anything larger than a pickup truck. Out of the blue he decided he wanted to drive a truck, so he went to the dealer and paid for it. Then he asked the guy if he could show him how to drive it. The salesman's jaw dropped.

"You don't know how to drive a truck?!?!"

"Nope."

The salesman took him around town a few times showing him as much as he could in the brief time he had. When they were done, he begged,

"Please don't tell anyone I sold you this truck. I could get in some trouble."

Thirty seven years later, he's still driving.

When Ken was a small boy his parents separated. His stepfather was a mean drunk who beat Ken and his mother on a regular basis. This continued into his teens until, after one epic drunken bout in which he was about to hit his mother, Ken, without really thinking, beat up his stepfather pretty badly.

It was at that point that Ken decided it was time to leave so, with ten dollars in his pocket, he hitchhiked to Las Vegas, then caught a train to Kansas.

In Kansas he stayed at the hobo camp for a couple of nights. They told him to catch the fourth track over to go north, but "the engine was on the wrong end," and he ended up in Wichita Falls, Texas.

He had just enough money for one last meal, so when he went to the cashier he asked her in a voice loud enough so that everyone in the place could hear,

"Is there any work around here?"

One of the guys in the cafe asked him what he could do and he replied,

"I'm teachable."

So, in August, in Wichita Falls - which is when and where the very appropriately named "Hotter'n Hell 100" bike ride is - Ken got a job building a nine-mile fence. Having lived in that area for a decade, I can say with absolute certainty that August is hotter than hell itself. The man offered to let him sleep in the barn, but Ken preferred to sleep outside because it was cooler.

Although he lives in a small town thirty miles from Olympia, Washington, he said he knows every good eating place in the country. He recommended Cooper's Barbecue, and he even offered to drive.

I thought he had another, smaller car, but we walked over to his big rig and climbed inside. The interior had all the amenities of home: a refrigerator, a bed, a TV/VCR/DVD player... everything but a shower (hence the night at the hotel). The seats were plush and comfortable. His ~250 horsepower engine gets 5.75 miles to the gallon, and has the same pulling power as his previous ~559 horsepower engine.

When we got to Cooper's, which was less than half a mile away (but “too far to walk with arthritic knees”), I couldn't believe the sign: "You can't beat our meat."

I asked Ken about it and, after realizing the double entendre, he started laughing. "Wow. I never noticed it." I didn’t think it was that subtle, but then I love a good play on words even more than I love barbecue.

Ken thinks truckers, in general, are "dumber than a box of rocks." Yet, he had a lot to say about finances and saving money. Perhaps he meant other truckers.

He even offered an answer to Klaus' question about why there are fences on every piece of hardscrabble in America:

“It's those gol-damn lawyers.”

He thinks that unless you put up a fence, some dumbass is going to wander onto your land and die of dehydration or exposure, "or get snake-bit." Or worse, almost die and therefore not help improve the gene pool. Then they or their relatives hire a lawyer to force the owner to cough up a large chunk of money.

His response when I asked him how he manages to stay awake while he's driving was, “I think.”

He continued, “I balance my checkbook in my head, then I do it again. I solve math problems, things like that. People get sleepy because they're bored."

I pulled out my camera and asked him if I could take his picture and he almost started running away. He really didn't want his picture taken, so I respected his wishes and will describe him.

He's about 5' 8" with a full head of gray hair parted on the side and a short gray beard. He has a round, pleasant face and wears gold-rimmed glasses. He has a stocky build, and images of ice fishing popped into my head when I first saw him. His profile gives you the distinct impression he really does know where all of the good eating places are.

One of the final things I learned about the guy who said, "You are really stupid," is that he took his 10-year-old son on an 11-day bicycle trip through Yosemite and the surrounding area.

Well, us bikers are dumber than a box of rocks.

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distance: 59.1 miles
average speed: 11.1 mph
maximum speed: 29.1 mph
riding time: 5:14:19
cumulative miles: 1319.7 miles

Today's ride: 59 miles (95 km)
Total: 1,319 miles (2,123 km)

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