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Day 20,

August 11, 2003.

 

A little accident in the middle of nowhere J

 

 

Here I will paste a text written soon after the events have taken place.

In the morning, after taking a picture near Oregon entrance sign, I continued north on Highway 95. In Nevada and that part of Oregon, the distances between towns are stretched greatly compared to more populated States, so the next place where it should be possible to get water, was Burns Junction 55 miles away. As it turned out later, it was a closed restaurant, and not working gas station. From there, highway 78 goes 91 mile to town called Burns, that's north/west, or 95 continue north/east 111 miles to Caldwell, Idaho. SO! nothing very close.

What happened then is, what many people fear so much. I broke down, in the REAL MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. I was riding on the pretty narrow shoulder of about 12 inches wide with snow bumps on the left and gravel/sand on the right. When I was shifting and looked down to a derailleur to see what gear I was in, the front wheel went to the right, into the gravel and suddenly stopped, I was going about 15 miles per hour and this caused me to fly in front of the bike about 10 feet, landing on my arms first and then on both legs. I think years in gymnastics helped not to loose much control. So, I was fine, wondered what people thought in the passing car... Then I found out that the front wheel is bent, brake pads wouldn't let it spin and there was more than an inch wobble. Luckily, in Winnemucca, two days ago I bought my first spoke wrench, so with good spirit, I put the bike up side down and attempted for the first time to true the wheel. Unfortunately, spokes on the front wheel never been touched, from probably the beginning, the early 80s when the bike was built, so they were so rusted that nipples didn't want to turn, and some of them rounded. Well, I took the brake pads off and continued to ride slowly with wobbling wheel, thinking about where would be the next bike shop to get some spokes, and since I was attempting to go to Burns, which is 130+ miles, there is not a big chance that there is a shop there, so basically, nothing good.

 

In about 40 minutes, a pickup truck that I thought passed me about 15 minutes ago, was going oncoming way, and an old man yelled from the window that I can get killed here and he wants to save my life, he said that he will pull to the turn out 100 feet away and wanted me to go there. So I turned around and came to the man. He had a little trouble hearing, but no trouble speaking, so he told me that he is heading to Canada, to visit his girlfriend (man is 75 years old) and that he can take me anywhere I want, since he didn't have any certain route preference. Well, I never really expected to take rides, but since the bike was a little out of order, I decided to go with him. While loading a bike in the pick up bed, I noticed some heavy rocks in cardboard boxes, I wondered what were they for, assumed that either he didn't get to removing them from last time, or he carries them as additional weight for some reason. I got all the valuables bag, camera and maps and got into the truck. We turned around and headed north. When the truck accelerated to 70 mph I had a VERY strange feeling, the road was going unbelievably fast, so unusual after 3 week crawling. I had a bad feeling of cheating and how nice it would be to ride there. The road was mostly flat, I knew it would be easy to pedal. The landscape outside the window was still the same, yellow dusty dunes, occasional dry plants, and gray mountains on the horizon. James, which is the name of this man, started an interesting monologue about politics, war, modern life and how it was different when he was young. He was upset that people now days live too fast, don't' notice or care about nature and are being brainwashed to be part of the big wheel. He sounded very intelligent and I actually was curious to hear his views. I never found out what was his profession, but rocks in the bed were URANIUM ORE, which he discovered on his property, in large quantities, now he was dealing with companies that could be interested in mining the ore. He was talking something about Chevron, making business with him and something about getting official approval documents. He also named a number of 40 million pounds of (uranium ore or uranium itself that were under the ground there). He definitely knew the basics about the isotope and was talking about using the it for producing electricity.
As some elderly people experience loneliness, I think James also enjoyed being in company with me, we stopped at a gas station and he bought me a hamburger and drink. He thought that there wouldn't be any bike shops around Caldwell, where I decided I wanted to go, and really thought I should have ridden with him all the way to Spokane, Washington. Of course, I couldn't cheat so much, especially because the landscape was becoming so beautiful, with green trees and grass appearing more and more. Then we came into the valley, about 8 miles downhill, on which I would like to roll down so much. Around Caldwell, were several little towns, Homedale, Marsing, where there were fruit ranches with grapes, apples, peaches... numerous fields of corn and other crops. I already decided to pedal back this way, to use a chance to eat some free fruits from the gardens.

 

At around 3 pm James stopped at a gas station near Caldwell, where I unloaded a bike, wrote down his address, promising to send a post card, thanked him for all he has done, shook the hand with a good bye and pedaled into the town. There was supposed to be a bike shop, as a young man answered me, and I went further looking for it. After some more wandering around 100 year old
buildings, I finally found the place but it was closed on Monday, so I will have to come back tomorrow.

The rest of the day I spent in the library, and rode to Wal-Mart, several miles further going towards another little town Nampa. The neighborhood of this towns makes a pretty big place, so the Wal-Mart (super center) parking lot, was full of cars. Great, this store had food section, so I could buy
nice stuff for good prices. I ate some fruit salads, bought an extra tube with patches and talked to a nice guy in bike section of the store who was riding Nishiki, he suggested that 95 north is prettier than going on 26 back to Oregon and is also closer to go to Spokane that way. Since I had so many
flats recently, I bought this tube and at the register, cashier lady asked, if my tire was flat right now? I said - no, but few minutes later, when I took a glance at the rear wheel, it sure was sitting on the rim. 15 minutes, the tube was fixed and I went down riding further to Nampa. Evening was cool, and riding was very easy. The sun already set and big moon was in the sky... Gorgeous. I stopped to eat some sandwich with peanut butter a little later and enjoyed the evening, sitting on the bench, in a place I never been before, somewhere in Idaho...

 

Total miles today – not many at allJ, by bike, at least…

 

 

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