I awoke to a very cold morning and was glad
to have my long underwear and wool socks on inside my sleeping bag.
I stayed in my sleeping bag and attempted to write in my journal some.
The sun took awhile to warm up the area since I was shaded in the
thick green forest. I had some left knee pain last night and
it never bothered while riding at all. It woke me up a couple
times in the early morning but now it just has a slight ache, barely
noticeable. This is the same knee I had a problem with on the
trampoline and the one I injured prior to my journey. And of
course I've been plagued by knee pains in the past from all the running
I used to do and some left hip pain from that time in my life.
Biking is far less traumatic on the body.
As I was getting ready to leave I noticed my BOB wheel was flat again.
GEEZ what the crap! I pulled the tube out and found a small
piece of glass that punctured through the worn tire. I think
I need to get a new tire this one is starting to pick up everything
from the road. I broke out my patch kit and patched the tube
and pumped it up effortlessly to 80 psi with my new pump. WOW
this thing works very good and quick. It was now noon
as I rode out of the park and continued north on 83.
Along the road I passed many dead deer off to the side with their
bodies long out of life and decomposing. That was the worst
part of the ride, the scenery continued to be quite incredible as
my pictures will show. I only hope I'm able to capture things
accurately through my photos. After stopping at Summit Lake,
I was a approached by a lady that had just pulled up in her car.
"You're going faster than me" she said. Apparently
she had passed me several times as she took time to stop for photography
along the road. Her name is D. and we talked at great length
about photography which is her passion and what she teaches.
I was able to see all of her photography equipment in the back of
her car. A lot of blankets scattered over and around boxes.
A cooler contained slide film to maintain the cool temperature required.
A very large sturdy 7lb tripod, lenses, extension tubes and 2 cameras.
She just bought her first auto focus camera. D. has always used
fully manual cameras and had been skeptical of using automatic cameras.
But this new rebel G 2000 has depth of field preview which is something
that is a must for photographers I guess. We compared our cameras
and she taught me a few things I didn't know about mine. And
after hmmmmmm.. I think an hour maybe longer, she had taught
me about the use of extension tubes for macro photography, how to
trade f-stops for aperture settings, and depth of field. WOW
I'm getting an education on the road!
After she left I continued my ride north
and thought. Arriving at Swan Lake National Forest Recreation
Area and campground at 7 pm, I rode in looking for a camp site.
There was a campout that charged me $10 to primitive camp here.
And there are no facilities at all! Nothing, no showers just
outhouses. What a rip off, I paid ten dollars for a very nice
campground with a very nice bathhouse back near Drummond, the "Good
Time Camping" campground. Oh well, I found an area near
the stream of cold glacial water near an open field. I leaned
my bike along some old gray logs then made a cozy little spot for
me to sit in the grass against one of the logs. There I wrote
in my journal and relaxed to the sound of the water and birds.
When the sun escaped the sky, it began to get cooler again, so I prepared
for another cold night in my sleeping bag. I left the rainfly
off and looked straight up at the stars and slowly starting going
into the stages of sleep with the hypnogogic stage hangin' on for
a long time before finally drifting away.
Wind - Calm
Today - 59.47 miles
Total - 3791 miles
Avg. Speed - 12.5mph |