Vomiting and a Flat Tire On the Way to Butte

9/9/2006: Day 21, 42.7 miles; Total 765.6 Miles

We slept until 7 AM and then had the big breakfast at the truck stop. The TB had 3 eggs, toast, hash browns, pancakes, and red-eye gravy on biscuits. He did not eat the red-eye gravy biscuits. But he would have done a truck driver proud. I had the French toast, and it was good. We drank some coffee and as promised were off in a more relaxed manor for the 48 mile drive west on I-90 to my stopping point of yesterday.

It was 72 degrees, which feels like about 50 on the bike, and slightly overcast. The wind was with me! The elevation was about 4500 feet and on the hill just out of Butte will be about 5500 feet so will be climbing steadily all day. The Stallion rode beautifully and the tail wind was wonderful and I made about 12-15 miles per hour at times. There was an exceptional amount of glass on the road and some I could not avoid by swerving. I stopped at least half a dozen times to clear the tires with careful inspection and rubbing.

And at the three-mile mark I had a flat tire! This time there were three staples and a piece of glass in the tire; I think it was the glass that got me as it was clear through the tire and into the tube. I pulled off on an entrance ramp and got all my tools ready for a record speed attempt at tire changing. I turned the Stallion upside down, and realized I was going to get greasy so I put in a call to the TB to bring me a paper towel. I told him to go off the exit ramp and back on down the entrance ramp he would find me near the Interstate. Soon I had the tire off and turned it inside out to inspect. There was a piece of glass sticking out of the interior of the tire and a hole in the tube at that point. Then I ran my finger around and found not one but three staples sticking through the tire to the inside surface although I didn’t find a tube hole related to the staples. How do the secretaries get these staples out to the Interstate?

As I found the staples up pulled the Montana State Police. The officer gave me the lights and asked if I was okay. I told him we should arrest all the secretaries and showed him the staples. He couldn’t believe it either! He was another nice guy who wished me well and then looked up the entrance ramp and saw the TB and the Van sitting in the middle of the road. “What’s that,” he said. And I told him about my crewman the TB who was probably afraid to come down while I was under arrest. The trooper said, “He needs to get out of the middle of the road.” About that time the phone rang, and the trooper said, “He’s calling!” So I answered while looking the TB straight in the face from less than a hundred yards, and he said: “Where are you?” I said, “down here by the trooper.” And the TB said, “Step out where I can see you plainly.” I thought, just who is the cop here? The trooper who apparently could hear all of both sides of the conversation said, “I‘ll leave so he‘ll come down, but be sure he is all the way off the road.” The trooper left and I told the TB NOT to come down, as I knew he’d have to have a wheel off the pavement to get all the way off the road and wouldn’t do it. Then as I proceeded back to my work, suddenly the TB was yelling over the fence from the frontage road and had a new tube, my new pump, a gallon of water, a quart of liquid soap, a full roll of paper towels, and a caffeine free diet cream soda for me. Just like Millie, he had it all; although she would have jumped the fence! By this time I had put the BAD tube back on the bike and was beginning to inflate it when I recognized the error of my ways. So I began to make the change to the new tube, when I saw the TB vomit on the other side of the fence. So I ran over to attend to him through the barbed wire. He claimed to be okay, says he’s tired, needs his walks, and is swearing off of the heavy breakfasts in the future—but not eggs! Needless to say, this was not the record setting flat repair!

He had apparently vomited after he left me off and was having a lot of indigestion and burping and now vomited a second time. He has been having indigestion and heart burn for two weeks but didn’t want to take the Prilosec I suggested. Now he took it.

We decided right then this trip is over. I’m avoiding the mountain passes; we are having personality clashes, and I don’t want to lose his friendship; his stomach is upset; I can’t go more than 50 miles per day, and at this pace it would take five months; and we can’t stay on the Interstate forever. We are going to go back to the motel again tonight to see the Ohio State/Texas football game and he is going now and I’ll pedal the 20 or so miles in by myself. I can call him if needed. He needs to rest his stomach. Then we will pedal 80 more miles on over to Bozeman, MT, near Big Sky where I go on an annual ski trip as a guest of my buddy Dr. Jay Crittenden. Last year Millie and I bought a 1/6^th share of the Condo and this happens to be our two-week time in the late summer. We will drive to the Condo for R & R for a couple of days and so the TB can see the place. Several days ago he said he has been dreaming of two things: 1) Going someplace and sitting by a fire with a blizzard outside and relaxing with a book. He hasn’t seen a blizzard since his youth in Rhode Island. 2) Going to the Blackwater State Forest, near Pensacola, with his Van and just sitting by the water and relaxing. It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to see that neither of these dreams involves chasing a buddy on his bike across the country with the van. Millie and I will make the first dream come true by giving him a week at the condo in December.

After all of this I started pedaling again, and he stayed at that exit for a rest. I did great for about 15 miles with the nice tail wind, and then all of a sudden the wind turned 180 degrees into my face and I could barely move over 8 mph again. I also noted that I had gained 500 feet in elevation and was steadily going uphill again. I plugged along in lower gears for about 8 miles and then the unheard of, IT RAINED! About a hundred drops hit me and I noticed some overcast. I pulled in under a bridge to wait it out, but it was already over. This was the first rain of the entire trip and if you paused, you missed it. I rested 5 minutes (or 15) under the bridge and started again to a new wind again at my back. I had about 700 feet of climb but steep and quick, and then I was able to do a mile at 21 mph downhill! Before you knew it, I had 42 miles under my belt and pulled into the Motel 6, where the TB already had the light on for me.

Tomorrow we will have a short day so we can watch the first day of professional football. Then we will get on into Bozeman, probably on Tuesday and then go to our Big Sky condo. We’ll then drive home by way of Yellowstone (42 miles from the condo), the Grand Teton National Park, and a few other sites the TB wants to show me.

When we finish in Bozeman, we will have done over 800 miles. That is more the 20% of the cross-country trip. We will have pedaled through Oregon, part of Washington, across Idaho, and several hundred miles of Montana. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better for my friends and readers; but we did the best we could for two grumpy old men.