06/16 - 7:00 pm [day 18] After eating lunch at Subway, Amanda gets a pinch-flat on her rear tire... we stop in the parking lot of a car-wash to replace the tube.
7:45 Three miles outside of Florence Amanda gets a second pinch-flat on her rear tire… we very carefully replace the tube again and keep our finger’s crossed...
8:15 Several miles later Amanda’s second tube is leaking air – out of desperation we begin to pump air into the tube and ride and fast as possible until it goes too flat... we do this several times.
We are now in the middle of nowhere, 40 miles south of North Bend & Coos Bay – the closest bike shop – the sun has gone down, we are forced to start walking the bikes...
9:15 After an hour of walking/ attempting to flag someone down, Kevin [
who is driving a giant diesel truck with a 30-some foot trailer behind it] pulls over and saves the day... we explain our situation – and he offers to throw our bikes onto his trailer and give us a ride to North Bend... if you're reading this Kevin, thank you very much for helping us out.
10:30 We’ve been in North Bend for about 10 minutes, the bike shop is on our left and a park with bathrooms & two pavilions – both with three walls, one with a working fire place – things are starting to look up for us... just then a couple pulls up in a Bronco and asks if we mind them joining us while they eat, they tell us they were married in this same spot two years & six months ago... before we can really say anything or offer to move our stuff and give them some privacy, they flick on the pavilion lights and a cop pulls into the parking lot... our cover is blown and our night goes back to being shitty as usual...
1:30 am After sitting around in the shadows for an eternity we decided it was safe to crash in the park after all... we both have the best night’s sleep of the trip so far...
06/17 – 9:30 am [day 19] We walk across the street in the rain to the bike shop, we are hoping that Amanda’s flats are due to a slight wobble, we get the spokes trued and –
just to be safe – the bike mechanic puts in a new tube... he says nothing looked wrong with the tire besides the very, very slight wobble.
Which makes this the second time we’ve gone to a bike shop only to be told “nothing seems wrong...”
11:30 We decide to get out of the steady rain and eat at ‘King’s Buffet’ [
the same buffet I stopped at for lunch in Coos Bay four years ago during my first trip]...
11:35 It stops raining outside, the sun starts to poke through the clouds...
11:39 It’s pouring rain again...
1:00 pm We are finally on the road with a very, very late start – it’s pouring rain heavier than it was when we first went into the buffet, we head out of town on the ‘101’ for Bandon [
20 miles south] with hopes of the rain letting up eventually...
1:45 The rain has shifted from “heavy” to “torrential downpour” – we stop on the side of the road for a second to double wrap my GL2 with two garbage bags on top of the two zip locks its already slipped into...
An extremely nice female state-trooper pulls up and asks us if we are okay or needed any help...
2:00 we are slowly making our way up a 500’ish foot hill with a river of rain water pouring back down along the curb. My shoes way ten times their normal weight. Every car/ truck/ RV that speeds past us with out a care or an ounce of consideration covers us a mist of mud and water...
3:00 “torrential downpour” times 2...
3:15 Going up yet another hill – Amanda’s back tire goes flat, we pull over in the pouring rain to try and pump some air into, hoping to make it the last 5 miles into town. While running across the road I realize for the first time I have no feeling what-so-ever in my feet...
The tube doesn’t come close to holding any air. We begin walking our bikes.
4:30 It’s been four miles on foot in the pouring rain – out of the hundreds of people who have passed us on the side not a single one bothered to even ask us if we were okay or if needed to use their cell phone for help...
We come across a state-park and wander around until we find the bathrooms – we very, very, very carefully replace the tire-tube and decide to haul-ass the last mile into town.
5:00 We arrive in Bandon and coast into the shopping center looking for a phone book & a laundry mat. We find two bikers outside the laundry mat – the same two bikers we passed days before outside of Hebo...
We small-talk for a minute before Amanda & I run over to the grocery store to slip out of our water-soaked cloths and into something dry.
They wander down to the deli to eat...
8:30 Our cloths are finally done – Amanda and I feel warm for the first time in what seems like forever, the two bikers come back to say hello & goodbye - they have to get to Eureka, CA by the 19th and they are very behind schedule, so they are hoping to hitch a ride south. They tell us their names are Sky and Carla and I give them a link to the website so they can let us know if they made it to Eureka or not... we say our goodbyes.
9:00 They both come back into the laundry mat and Sky starts talking to a guy about letting them crash on his hotel-room floor - Amanda, Carla and I talk for a half-an-hour.
[I need to finish this post up, there are people waiting for computers...]
Long story short, Sky and Carla were amazing – the four of us sat on the side walk outside the laundry mat and ate pizza and talked until 10:30 – I wish we could have hung out more, I’m sure by now they are half-way to Eureka... where I hope it’s not half as rainy out as it is here [
and from the weather it looks like it’s not going to let up for at least a week].
I’ll more about Sky and Carla later I’m sure – we took a few pic’s of them and I more to say but I just don’t have the time. Wish us luck, we’ll need it just to get out of this town with out blowing a tire-tube.
Labels: Pre-Production
