Surly got hurt...

As I departed from the Yoder farm, Martha and I agreed that highway 71 was the best way to get south in a hurry. Now, during my approach to the Yoder farm, I spent a few more miles on some rough gravel roads than I would have liked, but I figured it was ok. Now, as I headed south on 71, my bike was making occasional funny noises when I would hit bumps. I looked at the back of my bike, checked to see if my bags were attached properly, picked up the back end and spun the wheel to see if I could find any explanation to the peculiar noise that came when I would hit a bump or have to cross the rumble strips. As I continued down 71, I came into a construction zone where they were repaving the road (not so much the shoulder). Things got a little rougher through this stretch. For a while, I rode on the new pavement in the lane that was coned off, but when that ended, I needed to return to the awful conditions of the shoulder. As I transitioned from the new pavement to the old, I had an awful case of deja vu as my heart sank into my gut. Back when I was in Delaware, I had a moment when, with little warning, my bicycle gave out a brief cry of pain, followed by a very sudden loss of momentum. Another awful sound came from the rear end of my bike, and I was quickly drug to a halt. In Delaware I had shelled out the bearings in my rear wheel. This time, the eyelets on the fork of my bike that the rear rack attach to had sheered off and the rack and fender were resting on top of the tire under the weight of my baggage. The sound I had been hearing prior was probably made because one side was broken and clanging every time I hit a bump, but the other side held the rack in place enough that I couldn't find the problem.

Well, technically speaking the bike was still functional, but I couldn't carry most of my gear without that rack. What do I do next? Stick out the thumb. As I waited for a kind passerby, I called my parents to see if there was any way for them to get my trailer out to southern Missouri. (There are two primary methods of carrying your gear when bicycle touring. One is racks and panniers like I have been traveling with, the other is a bicycle trailer. I own a single wheeled trailer called BOB.) As I was running through options with my parents, a pickup pulled over, so I hung up the phone. Frank came to my rescue. Frank drove me the last few miles of my day to get to Lamar, Missouri, and even helped me find a machine shop. My bicycle is made of steel, so it can be welded. Frank and I eventually found an old man with a shop, and he tacked things back together for me. It doesn't look pretty, but it's held up thus far. This whole ordeal took us a little while, which delayed Frank's commute home. I gave him my card with instructions to have his wife call and chew me out for his tardiness instead of him.

From the machine shop I headed back towards the highway to find food. As I was on my way out the door with my sandwich in hand, a small child walked up to me and handed me a bicycle inner tube. At first, I was very confused as to what was going on, but his father, Mark, was there and explained that they see a lot of cyclists in the area, and he always kept a few inner tubes in his truck to give to them. We chatted for a while and he gave me directions to the city park where I could camp. When we parted, I made my way in that direction, but wasn't really feeling like a night in the park. I was still pretty bummed about the mechanical failure and the scars that Surly now has from the old man in the machine shop. I made my way back to the highway and checked into the cheaper of the two options of hotels there. I made a few phone calls to explain the mechanical difficulties in more detail to the few people I had texted during the whole ordeal, but spent most of the evening looking at google maps and enjoying silence.

The following day I continued south, avoiding highway 71 where possible. It was a fairly uneventful and relatively short day, ending in Anderson, Missouri, at a small campground by Indian Creek. I spent the remaining daylight hours at a truck stop at the top of the hill, making a few phone calls and attempting to use the wireless internet that never actually connected. The creek was running at just the right volume to provide very relaxing white noise to block out the sounds of the old highway, which was not heavily trafficked after the bypass was built.

In the morning I got packed up and on the road in decent time, but I was in no rush. If I cover too many miles too quickly, I'll beat my parents to the finish line. I had been across the Arkansas border for several miles when lunch time came around. I pulled off in a McDonald's to use the internet for a bit. I also ate a Big Mac for the first time in a very long time. I think I'm ok with waiting a very long time to have another, though it wasn't an altogether unpleasant experience. Either I was very hungry or their food doesn't suck as bad as I remember. From the McDonald's I continued my trek against the wind to the south. When I got to Fayettville, AR, I was reminded that it is the home of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks. I had the misfortune of stumbling across their campus. I say it that way not because there is anything wrong with the University of Arkansas or their campus, but the street that Martha put me on was ridiculous. Somehow I ended up in this residential part of town, and when I made the turn that Martha wanted me to, it appeared as though the other end of the tunnel created by the bows of the trees was a concrete wall with two vertical yellow lines painted on it. Apparently in Fayettville they call walls like this streets and expect you to drive and bicycle up and down them. I have biked all over this country, and the only thing that I have seen that could compare to the grade of this street is the hill I came down from after Bob's birthday celebration at Sea View in California. This wall that they call a street went for only about a quarter mile I would say, but for that entire quarter mile I was in my lowest gear, standing on my pedals to make my heavy touring bike move. With every shift of my weight from one pedal to the other, my bike lurched forward about 2/5ths of one tire revolution. The split second between shifts of my weight from pedal to pedal, I was not moving. I had to shift my weight quickly so I wouldn't fall over or move backwards. I kind of wanted to stop and rest part way up, but I wasn't going to give the state of Arkansas that kind of satisfaction. Resting during a climb is something I reserve for mountains, not hills in Arkansas.

From Fayettville I pressed on a little further to an RV park that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, south of another place that may not exist, West Fork, Arkansas. I don't know how anyone else found this RV park, but there were other people there. I had to knock on a few doors of campers to find change to pay my fee. The few people I talked to were very friendly, but I never asked how they ended up at this particular RV park that seemed so lonely. I spent much of the evening in the laundry room reading. It had lights, so I didn't need to use the batteries on my headlamp.

The following morning I meandered around on the old highway through some towns that probably wish the new highway hadn't been built to bypass them. I appreciated the lightened traffic, but pittied the drivers that took the new highway. Most of the time I was a few hundred feet above them, looking out over the rolling hills, blanketed in fall colors. The trees looked like they were rusting.

When I got near an active major highway again, I found another McDonald's to use the internet to decide where I should end up that day. It seemed like a good day to see a new state, so I angled towards Oklahoma. I rolled into Poteau, Oklahoma, with sunlight to spare and checked into a cheap motel to get a shower and wash my laundry.

The laundromat was just under a mile from my hotel, so I decided to walk it. It's good for my body to do something other than turn the pedals all day, right? As I walked along the highway with a trash bag full of clothes slung over my shoulder, it made me think about how I was perceived by those passing by. Most people probably didn't give me a second thought, but if asked what they imagined was my story, an unshaven man in grungy clothes carrying a trash bag full of really grungy clothes, what would they have said? What would I have said? I probably looked homeless. I mean, I am, sort of, but not in the usual sense.

Anyway, this morning I tried to get on the road early, but after I was already dressed and headed out the door, I noticed that my rear tire was low and I needed to change it. Luckily I'm pretty dang quick at changing tires by now, but it was still irritating to start a day out that way. From there things went pretty smoothly. There wasn't much temptation to stop, because there was really nowhere to stop. I did pull over to take another picture by the welcome to Oklahoma sign. On the way into the state I had a weird angle at the sign because I was on an access road next to the interstate. That sign wasn't trying to welcome me anyway, it was meant for the interstate travelers.

After a bite to eat in Mena, Arkansas, I continued a few more miles down the road to a nicely kept RV park on a hill. The woman charged me less than I paid for the one in the middle of nowhere and the facilities here are infinitely better. Tomorrow I intend to cross into Texas, which will be the 48th state my bicycle has ridden in since May 31st. Once I get there, all that's left is closing the loop and ending in New Iberia. I do have to make sure I put on enough miles to get to that 10,000 mark, so I am not necessarily taking the shortest route to New Iberia from here. I intend to stop at the Cameron, Louisiana, MDS site as well. I'm still on pace to finish on the 19th. 10 days to go!