Day 57 - 5/28/04
Grande Cache, AB to Grande Prairie, AB
102 miles by bike, hitched ride for 14 miles
Today was definitely not a good day. Iwoke at 6:15 to the sound of workers reroofing the hotel directly above me.
It rained on me for about 6 hours and I had three flats.
The first flat involved the sidewall of my tire going out. I
unsuccessfully tried patching the tire, which led to the second
flat. Then I saw I guy in a pickup coming the other way hit a
deer (the deer was dead within a minute and did not suffer long).
I had the final flat in the rain about 15 miles out of town when it was
already about 8:30 at night, so I gave up for the day and hitched a
ride into town. They were a nice mother and daughter with a pickup. I was caked with mud upon arrival. It's
supposed to rain tomorrow, so I think I'll wait out the weather and see
if I can get another tire. It was a bad day, but I guess I had a
better day than the deer.
Day 58 - 5/29/04
0 miles
Bought a new tire and a couple of new tubes. Grande Prairie has
about 30,000 people and is likely the last place that will have a bike
shop for quite a while. A little interesting thing I notice here
today is that at stoplights the left turn signal blinks; apparently
this is true throughout Canada (no significance, just an odd
observation). It did rain again today, glad I wasn't
riding. I cleaned up the bike and the clothes. I think it's
finally starting to clear, so hopefully I'll make it a day without
being rained on.
