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Published: November 4th 2006
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Shawne and Jo say...
Day 28
Mileage Today: 49.1
Total Mileage: 1085.3
Flats Today: 3
Total Flats: 33
Tubes Used Today: 1
Total Tubes Used: 6
We woke up early today thinking that we were going to do our first 100+ mile day. We had a lot of ground to cover so we ate a quick breakfast of leftover spaghetti and thanked Tony for everything he'd done. It was a great experience for Shawne...getting to know some of his family from whom he'd drifted apart. We spotted a Target store yesterday while on the city bus, and headed that direction. Shawne needed another riding shirt in high visibility yellow. The last one he purchased was at Target in Carson City, and every store we have tried so far on the trip has only had dark colors like blue and black. We also needed to find some more dehydrated meals for our emergency stash. They are actually quite tasty, so we used our last meals when we didn't feel like riding into town for dinner.
We struck out at Target; no meals, no shirts. We kept riding and found a Big 5 Sporting Goods store. They had the meals, but no
shirts. Shawne spotted a headlamp that straps to your noggin for $25.00. Jo has one that he used a few times and found quite handy. We purchased it and had the store clerk open the package to figure out what size batteries to buy. (It wasn't marked on the package.) while trying to open the battery cover, the light broke into a few parts in the employee's hands.
"Okay, we don't want that one!" Shawne said. Of course, it was the last one in stock. We were very lucky that it broke at the store and not at camp tonight. We received a refund and went on our way.
One of the largest Harley-Davidson dealers in the U.S. is in El Paso. Jo had never been to Barnett's H-D and it just so happened that it was right down the road! We figured that we should stop in and get some Dip Dots for Jo's collection. (For those that don't know, Dip Dots are small metal tokens with an adhesive backing. Almost every dealership has their own, with the dealer's name printed on them. People collect them like stamps or pins.) Every picture we've seen of Barnett's shows an aerial
view of a huge building with row after row of hundreds of motorcycles for sale in the parking lot. When we arrived, we circled the building, eager to see the huge selection of motorcycles. We didn't find any. Once inside, we found a large stock of motorcycles on the sales floor...many more than Carson City H-D and Reno H-D put together. We also found a nice inventory of motorclothes and accessories. We drooled over a raffle bike with an American Flag paint scheme. A $5.00 ticket secured our chance of winning the beautiful machine. Jo bought her Dip Dots and we took off.
With all the shopping we did today, our hopes of a 100+ mile day were gone. We had a quick lunch at Taco Bell and headed East. A few hours later, as we pedalled down the highway at a brisk pace, a voice startled us from behind.
"HI!" a man yelled. Shawne checked his mirror, then turned around to see another cyclist next to Jo.
"I have a flat! I need to stop!" he explained.
We all pulled off the road to talk. Zeke had been trying to catch up to us for a few minutes when
his front tire went flat. Not wanting to lose us, he had been pushing fiercely against the crippled tire before finally getting our attention. Zeke was low on patches and was kicking himself for not buying any in El Paso. We had more than enough and gave him a patch kit we picked up in Arizona.
We all decided it would be a good idea to camp at the next site and visit for a while. A quick stop at a gas station for dinner fixin's and a few more miles brought us to a dirt road. It was 1.5 miles off route to Hidden Lakes. Our road bikes don't travel well across loose gravel and sand; the narrow tires sink and lose traction easily. It was mosquito feeding hour as the sun began to set. We could feel them biting our legs and backs. Shawne says he just let them feed since he couldn't get a free hand to swoosh them away. He was too concerned about losing control in the soft sand. Through a chainlink fence, we saw large ponds of stagnant water.
"It's a mosquito breeding farm!" Shawne proclaimed. Pulling through the gate, we were met with
Mosquito breeding farm
Jo and Zeke unload in a hurry a huge sign stating that everything was $7.00...
"Fishing $7.00 per hook. $7.00 per vehicle. Camping $7.00. Electric hookup $7.00 extra. Picnic $7.00 ($1.00 per person if 7 or more). No swimming, no guns, no fireworks, no refunds."
A woman emerged from a mobile home with a receipt book and greeted us. She told us that the far bathrooms were closed, but the ones up front were open. Jo asked if there were showers.
The woman said, "Nope. No showers. Water is scarce 'round these parts."
The three of us fell silent as we looked at the thousands of gallons of water lying in the fishing ponds.
"Now," she continued, "camping hours are normally from 6pm to 9am. So, you're too early, but sometimes we make exceptions for cyclists."
Again, we silently looked around the area to see one vehicle at the far end of the property. Two men had fishing poles dipped in a pond, waiting to hook a hatchery catfish. Since it was 5:30 and they didn't seem to be at capacity for maximum occupancy, we didn't understand the comment. The mosquitos were in a feeding frenzy as we each had to fill out a separate receipt and
Heavy armor
Jo pulls out the defense netting wait for our carbon copy. We claimed the first campsite nearest the gate and hurried to unload our gear, and dress in long pants and shirts. Jo even donned her stylish mosquito net headgear for protection, which seemed to attract more of the insects. They landed all over the netting, trying to get to her face.
We quickly set up camp and talked with Zeke over dinner and beer. He recently graduated from college and made time to do the trip, on his way to New Orleans to volunteer in the cleanup efforts. Then, he plans to travel overseas and bicycle a tour of Asia (which sounded delightful to us!).
A small pickup truck came through the gate, it's headlights penetrating the darkness. It pulled up to our site and a voice came from the cab. "Hi! My name's Billy. I'm gonna lock the gate. If you need anything, I'm in the house with the porch light on." We looked and saw three mobile homes, all with porch lights blazing.
"That one?" Shawne asked, pointing at the house on the right.
"No, that one," Billy said. The cab was dark, so we couldn't see if he was pointing.
"That one?"
Zeke
Our company for the night Shawne asked again, pointing at the middle house.
"No, no, the one with the light on."
We just said , "Okay," and he went away.
We said goodnight and retreated to our tents. Shawne started playing with the camera and it's two-second exposure setting again. He pushed the shutter and swirled the flashlight over his head, which gave an unexpected result. The more we played with it, the more interesting the photos became. Eventually, we took some pretty scary pictures that, to us, look like a movie poster for some horror film. The shots were looking professionally manipulated with photosoftware that overlayed fire and morphed our faces. The final picture made Shawne look like a werewolf attacking a ten-year-old-Jo. We started getting creeped our by how well the pictures turned out and decided to stop taking them. We turned off the flashlight and laughed ourselves to sleep.
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Tracy
non-member comment
SOOOOOO?????
Did you get to meet Sherman while you were at Barnetts? Cuz I think he forgot to send me a check on one of his peachy customers... HAHAHAHA~~~~~