| Cross-Country Ramble 16:
Life After Globe Sent: 96-05-03 02:33:48 EDT
A couple of messages ago I told you-all the route we expected to
be following. By now, sharp-eyed readers will have noticed that
we're not where we said we'd be. That's because we examined our maps
of the Silver City part of our planned route and saw two steeper,
longer grades than the Superior to Globe grade--and we flinched. We
found an alternate route that took us over the continental divide
via a road so flat that, with the wind behind us, we were able to go
60 miles in a day with relative ease. What we saw--flat brown desert
without flowers--couldn't have been as interesting as going through
Silver City, but discretion is the better part of valor, right?
Please say yes.
We spent today in Deming, NM. We visited their historical museum
and were quite impressed. We hadn't expected such a small town to
have this large a collection so well presented. Deming is one of the
nicer towns we've visited. It has a center, it has a good variety of
businesses and things aren't too run down. It's too bad, but Deming
is the exception. Most of the small towns we've gone through appear
to be dying--or dead.
Globe, AZ, was another town that impressed us. This small town
has excavated and partially restored a prehistoric Native American
town called Besh-Ba-Gowah. We enjoyed climbing ladders up to the
roofs of the one- and two-story dwellings, then descending into the
windowless, doorless rooms via holes in the roof. We have seen
dwellings like this embedded in cliffs, but these were on flat land.
Globe's business district even includes a bike shop--the One-Stop
Bicycle and Trophy Shop, which, in addition to bicycles and
trophies, sells used furniture. The owner's girl friend--the owner
was off working at his day job--sold me some spare spokes and a
Hyperglide free-wheel remover tool. Unfortunately, she couldn't tell
me how to use the tool and I couldn't figure it out. Perhaps one of
our readers will be able to answer my simple question: which way do
I turn it? We also bought some Slime--day-glo phosphorescent green
slippery goo that only a 12-year-old boy could love. One of our
seemingly trustworthy active correspondents recommended Slime to us
to prevent flats.
As luck would have it, we got the opportunity to try out our
Slime the very next morning when we discovered that Carol's back
tire had gone flat overnight. Rather than remove the tire and patch
the tube, I simply injected a cup of Slime into the tube and pumped
it back up again. It held! Apparently the little fibers imbedded in
the Slime had plugged the leak, something like the way platelets
clot to stop bleeding.
Later that day, Carol's back tire got a little low, so I pumped
it back up again. Later, we began to hear a new sound--like Carol's
tire was rubbing on something. We stopped a couple of times to check
and found nothing, but the strange rubbing sound got louder and
louder. When Carol's tire got soft again, I decided it was time to
patch it right--the old-fashioned way.
It was at this point that I learned something new: releasing the
remaining air from a slime-filled tube can give you a wonderful day-glo
green slime fountain! I also learned another thing: that hadn't been
a rubbing sound--it had been a squishing sound. It was the sound of
Slime that had leaked through a too-large hole in Carol's tube and
which was now occupying the space between the tube and the tire. I
still believe that Slime could plug a small hole, because I saw that
lots of fibers that had almost plugged that large hole. But next
time I work with a Slime-filled tube, I'll hold the valve stem
higher than the rest of the tube and give the Slime time to flow
down before I release any pressure--and I'll point it away from me.
Ken Lyon
PS: Carol and I really enjoy your comments. Keep ‘em coming.
Itinerary:
- Day 30-31: Lordsburg, NM
- Day 31-32: Deming, NM
The pace of our trip is slowing down right now because we are
ahead of schedule. We have to fly out of El Paso to do some business
in Washington nine days from now. We're only two or three biking
days away from El Paso. We'll use the extra days to take some side
trips or to just goof off.
PS: In Deming, another newspaper reporter spotted us and
wrote us up in the
Deming
Headlight newspaper.
Click to see an enlarged copy of the article.
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