Gig Harbor Washington to Bar Harbor Maine 2001

We each woke up today whenever we wanted to. After a stroll to the bathrooms and a few mosquito bites, I crawled back into my tent for some quality time with my computer. Last night was the first night I haven't slept in my sleeping bag. It was warm enough I left my rain fly unzipped and went to sleep on my thermarest. I eventually draped my bag over me, but it was never cool enough to get in. I suppose I'll be mailing back the bag soon, like I mailed back my long johns today.

I got out when I heard Mike and we had our cereal under the tree next to the river. I noticed something black in my cereal and the sound of things dropping. Turned out a squirrel was cleaning out its nest overhead. Then we were attacked by the jabberer, another guy who wanted to fill us in on places to see and tell us his pathetic life story. I like to hear people's stories, but there's a million stories in this city and we've heard most of them. He also woke Kathryn up.

We all had chores to do. We mailed excess gear and maps, got more gear and maps, found a great book store with coffee and mint lemonade, discovered that I can upload for free at Kinkos, although it costs 20 cents /minute to use their machine to look at what I uploaded, ate Bosnian food (no wonder they're fighting), became intimate with another great bike shop, ate different but good Mexican food, returned to the book shop for more books and dessert - Dakota Soda Banana Sundae - mmm.

The new Gridley.

Gridley decided he liked the look of my shaven face and decided to do the same to his head. Well, almost. I hadn't been to a barber shop like that in years. They're very entertaining as long as they aren't working on you.

Island Park Cycles (ipcycles.com) is a great shop. First off, I called Rans (my recumbent maker) tuesday because my seat cover was deteriorating. I had images of leaving a trail of foam chunks. They said they'd have another one waiting for me at Island Park Thursday, that's with the 4th in between. I didn't really expect to see it till Friday, but there it was Thursday morning. Good ol' Rans. Garcia got his rear wheel completely rebuilt to try to end the broken spoke saga. He and Kathryn both got new seats. I also replaced the mirror and bottle cage that got broken when the wind blew my bike off its kick stand too many times. On top of all that, the owner (I think) spent about half an hour going over maps with us showing us a detailed route through Minnesota and general suggestions thereafter, plus told us other bike shops to talk to for later routes.

Garcia and Kathryn managed to get our clothes locked in the laundry till 8 tomorrow morning. At least they'll be clean. Other than that, a great layover day.