Monday 6/26
Biked to Louisville to stay with my cousin Lee for the evening. My back tire had again developed a slow leak, so I stopped in a bike shop on the way out of Boulder to pump up the tire enough to make it to Lee's place. Then I stopped into LaMar's Donuts to pump myself up a little.
Had a fine pizza dinner with Lee and Jeffrey, accompanied by the A&W diet root beer that Lee had in the fridge when I arrived. Very thoughtful!
6/26 - 6/28
Biked up to Jeannot's Patisserie & Bistro to pick up breakfast. Their croissants are quite good! Then, while Lee turned her attention to home repairs, I turned back to bicycle maintainence.
The tire leak turned out to be from the improvised repair done in the Rawlins Library. Normally to cover the rough spot on the inside wall of the tire, I would've used a $1 bill, but the smallest bill I had in Rawlins at the time was a 20, so I used a piece of card stock that Amelia in the Rawlins library had provided. That turned out to have disintegrated, causing a new slow leak.
Took off for dinner with Tamara, the regional coordinator for AFS at the Cherry Cricket , a burger joint in Denver.
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| Dinner with Tamara Jazbec (AFS). |
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| Denver's Cherry Creek Trail - route to/from dinner |
Got to Denver's Union Station around 8:30. Train to Iowa didn't show up until around 10:30, and finally left the station around 11:30 (7:30 was the scheduled departure). I had booked a roomette so I was able to sleep, but kept waking up when the train lurched from side to side.
Finally arrived in Mt. Pleasant Iowa around 3:40 PM. I had arranged to have dinner with friends in Iowa City, a 6 hour bike ride from Mt. Pleasant... so I had to take a cab to get there.
6/29
Had breakfast at
The Encounter, a nice little cafe 2 doors down from my hotel in downtown Iowa City, run by Mennonites. Since rain was forecast for most of the afternoon, I decided that instead of attempting the 80 mile ride to Clinton, I opted for a 30 mile bike ride to the Cedar Rapids airport and rented a car to drive to Clinton.
6/30
After an uneventful 70-mile ride to Oregon, IL, I settled into the PaddleWheel Inn.
7/1
Another long day - riding 65 miles to Janesville. Got rained on intermittently in the afternoon.
7/2
A 70 mile ride that included:
East Troy - Ended up riding down Main Street, which was their 4th of July parade route. Had a great pulled pork sandwich at
LD's Barbeque . The line was long, but it moved fast.
Settled into the Hilton garden Inn downtown, which is a modern hotel in a restored old building.
7/3
Got up at 4AM to catch the 6AM Lake Express ferry to Muskegon.
I'm now on East coast time!
Then rode up to Big Rapids, another 70 mile day. It's laundry day, and Quality Inn has a guest laundry, but the front desk had no quarters and no laundry soap... so I got quarters at the "Party Store" (that's what they call liquor/convenience stores in Michigan), then biked across town to get soap at the Dollar Tree, and dinner at Arby's. Who knew they have a good Reuben sandwich?
7/4
Headed out after the hotel breakfast to find that I had another flat. This one was caused by yet another piece of wire . The lady at the front desk lent me a pair of tweezers so I could pull it out. I then proceeded to Clare, stopped into
Cops and Donuts for a sticky bun, then crashed at the Best Western.
My plan to cross into Sarnia, Ontario over the Bluewater bridge has been thwarted. A few days ago I emailed the bridge authority to make sure that they were still providing bike transport (as they had in my 3 prior trips) over the bridge. They replied today that they no longer do that and suggested that I take a taxi.
I'll be spending some time later today figuring out what to do about that. It's either a taxi from Port Huron, or a 68 mile ride down to the
Walpole Algonac Ferry, followed by 8 miles to Wallaceburg, or find a taxi that will take me across.
