Jet Airliner

“Leaving home, out on the road

I’ve been down before

Riding along on this big jet plane

Thinking about my home”

- Steve Miller

Once again, I am faced with a choice. It seems that this trip has been full of these decision points. As I mentioned yesterday, I fell about 15 miles short of my target due to another flat tire. I had stopped at two bike shops in Durango and neither had the right sized tube. I had walked to my hotel last night and woke up this morning a mile and a half away from anything. I had one card left to play. Last night, while I was sitting at the McD’s in Aztec trying to find a ride to my hotel in Farmington, a man came in and sat at the table next to me. While he was eating, I finished my drink and went outside and was sitting with bike. Eventually he came out and walked to his car. He saw me and turned back to ask if I needed help. I told him I was looking for a ride and that neither Uber or the cab company appeared to be an option. He apologized that he only had a small car and he was on his way to pick his boys up from football practice but he said he would ask around and see if anyone had a truck that was willing to drive me. I thanked him and he went on his way. Not really expecting anything, he returned about 30 minutes later. I was still sitting in the same spot. He had his kids in the car and again apologized that he hadn’t had any luck on my behalf. He then gave me his name (Steve) and phone number and told me he had the day off work today, and should I need any help, to give him a call. I sent him a quick thank you text so he would have my number. At that point, it was pretty clear I wasn’t going to Farmington last night, so I booked the hotel in Aztec and started walking. Right then, Steve called me to see if I had sorted things out. I told him I what I was doing and he said he would call me in the morning after he dropped his boys off at school.

At 8:00 this morning, the phone rang and it was Steve. He was on his way to the hotel and he would give me a ride to Durango. We took the wheels off the bike so it would fit in his small car, loaded up all my bags, and headed off. We tried two more bike stores, neither having the right size tube. In the meantime, I bought him breakfast at the Durango McD’s where he said he was going to start working next week for $17/hour. He ended up driving me to the two bike shops, McD’s, back to the first shop where they had a bike box, twenty minutes to the hardware store for packing tape and bubble wrap and then back to the first bike shop again. All in all, Steve shuttled me around for over 3 hours this morning before we parted ways. Steve is a 52-year old Marine vet, recently widowed, with a breathalyzer in his car. He and I share very little in common. I can pretty much guarantee that we’ve never voted for the same candidate. When I asked him for his address so I could send him a thank you, he told me he didn’t have one. But believe what you want - fate, luck, coincidence or something else - but the fact that he was at that McD’s in a town he doesn’t live in, at the same time I was, was unbelievably fortunate for me. . People are good, whatever their circumstances.

As you can probably surmise by the acquisition of the bike box and packing tape, I’m on my way home. Even if I were to successfully patch the tube I have again, there’s no way I would set out across the desert without spares. The disappointment is real at the moment. Over the past two weeks, I would say that the majority of the time, I have simply been ready to be done. Just pack it up and go home. I’m tired of being on the road. I’m over it. There have been a few times during that span, however, that I felt reinvigorated. Yesterday had been that day. I had cleared the last two major passes with relative ease, I was in another state - just 5 to go - and I could see the path pretty clearly. 6 days across Arizona and Utah, then down to Vegas. Up to Reno and then sprint for the house.

The trip will be finished. I will head home, go to the bike shop that sold me the bike in the first place, and grab some spare tubes. I will then load the bike into our car and head back down. I’ll ride in Arizona, Nevada and maybe California. My plan was to have Kelly drive the sag wagon for the last 3 days. I might still have her do that so I can ride point to point to get to the house, instead of out and backs. It’s just another unexpected bump in the road.