Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Day 28: Ogallala area to North Platte

Posted by: Arin

We're living on the edge right now... kind of. This morning, Brad used our last tube about 5 miles into riding and we still had 40 to go before we were anywhere near a bike shop. With about 6 patches left collectively, we were pretty sure we could make it but obviously a little wary.

We rolled through a couple towns on the way, the most memorable being Hershey. It's funny, just a couple days ago I was talking about wishing playgrounds still had merry-go-rounds and we've come across one in both the days since then. In Hershey they had a real nice one, so we stopped to play on it for a while. You get a lot more dizzy as an adult than you did as a kid!

Anyways, we finally reached North Platte after hours of punishing headwinds. We've actually had a headwind the entire time we've been in Nebraska so far. But we spotted what we wanted to see: a Family Dollar. It was time to get some food. I bought some stuff first, then came out and realized it was 5pm! Brad went in and I used his phone to look up the bike shop (I have t mobile so I only get internet in major cities). By that time it was 5:11 and the shop closed at 5:30. I hurried to pack all my stuff up and ran to get Brad from inside the store. We could come back. We hauled ass for the mile and a half it took to get to the bike shop, making it just in time to grab a tube, more patches, and some tire liners. 

We were hungry already, so we grabbed a hot-n-ready a block away from the bike shop before heading back to Family Dollar. When we got there, I gave Prany (my girlfriend) a call and found out why it was so late. We had gone through another time zone! They should have signs up where the time changes. After buying what we wanted, we headed down the highway. On the map it had looked like we would come across another spot like the one we had spent the last night in, but that was not the case. We continued on into dusk for another eight or so miles past the bridge, constantly scoping the side of the road to find a place to sleep. Finally we found it! The road curved to the right and a bunch of trees filled an area between the road and the train tracks we had been riding alongside. We hiked our bikes through some tall grass and found a perfect little alcove of trees in which to set up camp. Neither of us were that hungry, so we just are some cookies before passing out in the tent.



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