Day Forty-three

Today’s been pretty rough. I didn’t sleep well last night, and the sleepless nights have been hitting me harder than they did during the first three weeks. We were both anxious to leave the University as soon as possible, so we went downtown to find a cup of coffee. We found a coffeeshop on the main street and they had a few breakfast offerings, so I got a bagel with egg and cheese, and it was perfectly AWFUL. We’re both pretty sick of the bad food we’ve had. In that respect (and more), I miss Vermont!!!

Chuck went to the library hoping for wifi, but they were closed, so he went to Subway. I’m liking Subway a lot more than I used to. Some of my better (and cheaper) meals have been at Subway, and it’s a refreshing change from all the fried food we find out here. I battled the wind on Route for 2 hours and didn’t get very far. The wind took my speed down to about 6 mph. Chuck got the oil changed in Havre and went to Sears, and then we hooked up. I took some vitamins, ate a yogurt, put in my contacts and changed my clothes, and I felt better.

I was very frustrated with the rumble strip outside of Havre (and it goes for miles and miles). Whoever installed it didn’t give one thought to bikers. The strip extends all the way to the outer edge of the road, which means for me to get out of the way of traffic, I have no choice but to ride on the rumble strip. Not fun. The combination of the wind, the rumble strip and a terrible night of sleep really got to me.

We stopped for lunch in Gildford at a little café. The owner was so nice, and she made us a special veggie sandwich. When she first told us the sandwich options, she said, “I can make you turkey, ham or roast beef.” The café had internet access, an unexpected surprise. We spent quite a bit of time there, since I was exhausted.

Chuck took me to Rudyard, and we tried to track down the two farmers we had met in Malta. We found out their names, but they lived too far from town for us to stop in for a visit. I got back on my bike and rode the rest of the way to Chester, our stopping point for the night. We stopped in Joplin first to check out their city park, and it was nice, but there was no way to take a shower, so we moved on. Chester had a very nice park, but if you don’t use the restroom first, you don’t get the warning about the sprinklers. And we didn’t. We set up the tent right in the path of the sprinklers which turn on every evening and go all night. We tried to just grin and bear it for a while, but the tent was leaking a bit and I could feel a spray on my face every time it swung by. My pillow was getting soaked too. We took everything out of the tent except the mattress, and were able to drag it over to the “safe zone”. We were much more comfortable after that, but once again, we had to deal with TRAINS. Maybe I haven’t mentioned this much, but every time we’ve camped in the tent, we’ve listened to trains going back and forth all night, usually very close to our tent. It’s getting pretty frustrating. Probably more so for Chuck, since he refuses to sleep with earplugs.

I hope he was able to get some sleep.