The Stress of Making Delicious Sandwiches

June 29, 2013

Day Six: Broken Bow, Nebraska to Tryon, Nebraska

I slept well despite the fireworks and the train. I did wake up three times to hear water hitting the rain fly. I had not set up the tent far enough away from the water sprinklers after all. My decision to use the fly even though there was a 0% chance of rain was an inadvertently wise one.

In past tours I have been anxious to get out of the tent as early as possible, but this time the combination of a much better mattress and my beloved three pound buckwheat pillow has allowed me to actually sleep in the tent, so I was up an hour later than planned.

I stopped in the supermarket for breakfast, and while I was eating my sandwich an older lady came up to me and read my jersey aloud: "Berry's Barbell and Fitness Equipment Company, Columbus, Ohio!" "Are they sponsoring your ride? Where are you going?"

I've been self conscious about the very unstylish jersey for years, and have been dreading the day someone actually asks about it. For the record: I wear it because it is free, I am cheap, and it fits well. I have no knowledge of the Berry company, and some random dudes I met while doing the TransAm gave it to me in 2006.

I deviated from my planned route and took the busier but wide-shouldered Highway 2 out of town, which shaved a few miles. Today was going to be long in any case.

I stopped in Merna at a "Trotters", this one with a correctly spelled "Emergency Exit", but with one of the surliest convenience store employees I've ever encountered. Despite the bad attitude she made an excellent ham-cheese-egg sandwich. Perhaps her bad attitude was caused by the stress of making delicious sandwiches. This was one of the quickest "second breakfasts" on record, at only nine miles after the first breakfast.

This "Trotters" store featured something I've been noticing lately: Super-detailed handwritten signs explaining (often obvious) procedures to customers. This store displayed a sign on the men's room door that warned customers that sometimes the door was just stuck, not locked. Some of the steps listed: Jiggle the handle. Knock on the door and await a response from within. Lift slightly on the handle. And (my favorite): See if light is shining from the crack at the bottom of the door. Note that this would appear to require actually getting on the floor to gauge the brightness of the crack of light.

It was 24 miles to Arnold, which actually had a lot more in the town than I expected - a motel, multiple bars, even a small car dealership. All this for a town with a population in the hundreds. I stopped at a bar, which I chose because it looked the funkiest. When I walked in, the owner asked what I was up to, and upon learning about the bike ride, said: "I want to shake your hand, cause you're doing some shit that I would NEVER do!"

The guy was a transplanted Wisconsite, who kept up a line of amusing patter while making an excellent burger and fries. This now made three meals in about three hours. I'm trying to catch up from the disastrous couple of days when I wouldn't/couldn't eat anything.

After Arnold, it was back on 92, which had now become extremely empty of traffic. Not a lot happened on this stretch except for one of my periodic cemetery stops, where I contemplated my still-not-flat rear tire, and briefly considered swapping it for the spare I'm carrying. I guess I'll just wait for the inevitable flat before doing that.

Several miles and some terrible headwinds later I stopped in Stapleton, a prosperous-looking little town that had a nice city park campground and a supermarket with fresh fruit and an employee who was willing to make sandwiches. Sadly, I needed to move on in order to get enough miles done for the day, so I left for Tryon. This was an incredibly empty stretch of road - perhaps 5 cars in 25 miles.

Tryon (no population listed) initially appeared pretty bleak, but I struck up a conversation with a saloon owner, sitting on the saloon's porch, as soon as I entered town, and he became my guide for all the available Tryon amenities: There was his saloon, a park with no showers or flush toilets, and an ancient payphone which I used to call Joy (no cell service in Tryon.) One thing the saloon owner told me I found fascinating: The entire population of McPherson County (of which Tryon is the only town and county seat) is only 500 people. And the county's area is huge!

After dinner at the saloon, and a long conversation with the owner about motorcycles and bicycles, I went back to the park and attempted to clean up with the water spigot, a task made more difficult than usual because of the presence of several giggling teenage girls in the park.

Today's ride: 83 miles (134 km)
Total: 502 miles (808 km)

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