Winter 1998 - San Diego to Cincinnati
Journals - 09 February 1998
Day 12
09 February 1998 (Grand Caverns; mileage = 36.8) -- X - In the night, we
weren't surprised to hear rain. It lasted a long time in the middle of the
night, but eventually, it started to take on a strange sound. It was snow
-- or slushy, frozen H2O. When we got up, the tent was covered in it. The
inner tent was dry for so much precipitation, but the outer tent was soaked
and my fingers got very cold dealing with it. After we finally got
everything packed away, I had a flat on my front tire. I couldn't find the
leak, so I put a new tube in. This was extremely cold to be wiping wet, icy
muck from the rim, etc. We ate some at the visitors center and FINALLY got
going around 10:00. It was snowy and drizzly, but the landscape was very
impressive. We were making good progress (climbing all the way), until we
got to the Indian town, Peach Springs. There, April's back tire was flat.
Again, I fixed it in the icy, mucky, cold -- by patching a tiny hole. This
is yet another mystery metal sliver -- maybe from steel-belted radial
remnants? We climbed up out of town, but a mile later, the same tire was
down AGAIN! I worked on it and found many even tinier holes near the
previous. I was getting quite nervous about our wheel rubber at this point.
Then, it snowed slushy stuff real hard for a long time. We made good
progress in it, but by the time we got to anything, we were soaked and
freezing. We got a motel room and rode to the Grand Caverns to eat dinner.
Back at the room, we did a complete tire tube renovation and a full winter
reorganization. We also dried the soaking tent and washed some clothes by
hand.
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