September 20, 2021
Looking for that pot of gold
Meridian to Eagle loop
Boy was it cold this morning! 42 degrees! It took all morning to warm up into the mid-60's.
But that was ok since we had to deal with a flat tire on the trailer that Don just discovered. Our neighbor suggested we go over to the nearby Les Shwab tire place and have one of their mobile service trucks come over to repair it.
So after a grocery store trip to Wal Mart, we did go by the tire store. They said they would have one of their available repair guys call us to schedule an appointment. No time was given, so we don't know if this would happen today or tomorrow. It looked like Don would be stuck at home so we wouldn't be able to do a tandem ride this afternoon.
So after lunch, Don said he would fix up my bike so at least I could do a ride. As he was outside doing that, I heard voices and looking out, saw that the tire repair guy was at our site. Yea!!! Maybe our planned ride would actually happen.
The guy quickly jacked up the trailer and took the tire off but gave us the bad news that it was damaged beyond any repair. We would have to replace it. Oh boy, that wasn't good.
Apparently a rock got wedged in between the treads and while driving on it, damaged the tire. They can't repair/patch this type of damage. It was fortunate that this didn't happen on the road yesterday as we hadn't dealt with a flat before.
But we do have a spare, so the guy took that off and informed us that he would need to take both tires back to the shop to swap the rims as the spare was on a steel rim while the tires on trailer are on aluminum rims. Then we'll need to replace the spare. But Les Schwab doesn't carry Good Year tires so looks like we'll be tire shopping tomorrow. Boy, the fun never stops!
The repair guy told us to go ahead and go on our ride since he could put the tire back on without us being home. Ok, that worked for us.
We finished getting ready and headed out. Don had looked at a potential route that went north on roads leading to a state park. But he wasn't able to see that it was they were very busy 4-lane roads!
I was sure glad that I hadn't tried to ride this on my own bike. Although they had marked bike lanes everywhere, traffic was continuous and noisy. So it wasn't the pleasant quiet country ride I had envisioned.
In fact, we saw little evidence of country or farm land. While there were a few horse properties, most of the land had been eaten up by new housing and retail developments. This is exactly what we ran into the last time we toured through this huge metropolitan area.
Once we reached out endpoint, we turned into a development where we immediately had a quiet street. It was nice to just meander around, looking at all the nice homes. But the streets eventually spit us out back onto the busy highway.
I was willing to check out another road going south, but Don said there weren't many based on his research. Plus we didn't have time to do a longer ride.
So I just tried to relax and watch the traffic behind us while looking at all the different businesses and homes. At least we had gotten in a ride on this beautiful sunny day.
Back at the trailer, we spent the rest of evening as normal. Hopefully we'll be able to get in another ride tomorrow on quieter roads (if they even exist around here!).
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Today's ride: 17 miles (27 km)
Total: 803 miles (1,292 km)
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