Day Forty-Two
Yesterday's monster miles meant fewer miles today to get me to today's objective: a visit with Ranell and Cherish Franklin in Mobile, Alabama. I'm here now as I write this, next to Ranell's pool, sitting in the backyard cabana, while Ranell grills dinner. The Southern way: charcoal, not propane.
The day started great at the Waffle House and a big breakfast. Waffle Houses all look the same from the outside, but every one I've visited has a different personality inside. The staff is chatty and collaborative, and everyone who walks in the door is treated like a person. Refreshing.
Fed and on the road, I had my first flat at about mile 8, my second flat by mile 9 and my third flat also at mile 9. All due to user error. The first one was caused by a small stone inside the tire I had carelessly introduced during a previous tire change. It finally wore a hole in the tube. I patched it and got back on the road, but my rear tire had that droopy diaper feel within a mile. This threw me into a funk. Flat one was my fault. Flat two was probably due to a bad repair of flat one (in fact, it was). AKA, my fault. It was time to slow down, be more careful and get my attitude back on track. It was still early, and I was able to roll into the shade on the west side of a McDonalds. Here I could do with work out of the sun, get a cup of coffee, use a clean bathroom, and breathe a little.
I couldn't feel the tube leak on my lips. I needed to put the tube in water and look for bubbles. The sink didn't have stopper, but toilets do! I flushed it a couple times to get the bowl as clean as possible and plunged the partially filled tube into the toilet water. Sure enough, bubbles were coming out of the edge of the patch I had just installed.
I installed a patch partially over the previous patch. A patch on a patch can be bad because it creates a high spot on the tire that you can feel as the tire rolls. This stacked-patch tube would become my backup. I reached for my spare tube, still fresh in its box. But it wasn't so fresh. On some previous day, I had pulled this tube off the wheel and put it in the box, to repair later, then forgot about it. My fault. This "fresh" tube not only had three patches already on it, it had an unrepaired hole. I patched this hole, installed this tube into the tire, repacked as was back on the road. I knew I had handled each of these issues thoroughly and properly, so my confidence was restored.
Riding through southeast Mississippi into Alabama was one of the most pleasant stretches of cycling I've had since April 1. Good road, thoughtful drivers, not too hot, a nice side breeze, mature forests with intermittent family farms.
I texted Ranell with my ETA and as I rolled towards his house, he was out front watching for me. As an 18-year-old, Ranell lived with my family while he was summer intern for the community forestry organization I directed in the 1990s, TREEmendous Seattle. Today, Ranell is an operations manager for the Army Corps of Engineers. He and his wife Cherish live northwest of Mobile, Alabama. We've stayed in touch all these years and it's a real treat to visit Ranell and Cherish in their home.
The rest of the day was enjoying each other's company over Ranell's grilled dinner and oil cans of Foster's beer. Before bed, I took a look ahead at tomorrow's weather. Uh-oh. Storms rolling my way. I'll have to keep an eye on it.
I’d love to hear from you. Donate to the ride and send along your words of encouragement and tell me why getting kids outside matters to you.
