My first thing that I wanted to do today was go to a bike shop and get a few things taken care of with my bike. My chain had probably 1,300 miles on it at this point and I didn't want to stretch it out too much so that it would ruin my cassette. Just like yesterday I had to wait to get out of my tent because it was too cold if I went out too early. My elevation was somewhere around 6,000 feet at this point and it seemed a little cooler when I woke up. I was out of the tent and headed towards the first big city that I had seen in awhile and that I was going to see for quite awhile. the town was Gallup,NM and it had a population of somewhere around 7,000 people so I was hoping that it might have a bike shop in town. As I made it towards the downtown and only had about 10 miles in for the day I saw a bike shop directly on the corner. It didn't open until 10 and it was currently 9:45 so I waited the few minutes for someone to show up. I was prepared this time with an extra 10 speed chain just in case if they didn't carry any and I didn't see why there was going to be any problem to get what I needed fixed. When the mechanic arrived he took my bike back and surprised me. He said that even though I had put so many miles on the chain at this point, I could still get a few more out of it. He told me that I might as well ride to the next town with a bike shop, some 250 miles down the road. I was happy that I was going to be able to get a few more miles out of the chain that I had and I was only hoping that he was accurate with his information so that I wouldn't have to replace my entire system again. I figured since I was already downtown that I might as well take care of a few things on the computer at the library and so I spent a good couple of hours in town. When I got up to leave, my bike had suffered another flat. I was happy to see that it was only my front tire and that made for an easy fix. I was also glad to see that i was only one block from the bike shop so I was going to be able to take it down the block and then use there tools inside to make the repair quick and easy. They had no problem with me using their shop and in only a few minutes I was back on the road. It was about 2 in the afternoon when I finally left Gallup and I knew that with the sun going down in the afternoon that I wasn't going to be able to put in a monster amount of miles. I was about 30 miles down the road and facing an incredibly strong head wind. The wind seemed to be blowing straight from the south to the north and I was going straight south into it. I was planning on taking myself a little south into New Mexico ad then start heading east so that I could keep off of some busy roads and avoid a lot of the traffic. It was about at this point that I realized what I had forgotten at the bike shop. I knew that there was something that I was forgetting when I took off, and it seemed so apparent that I couldn't believe that I had forgotten. With blowing all of the tubes that I had, I needed to pick up a couple of extra and I had forgotten. I only had one spare patch with me at this point and I really was crossing my fingers that nothing would happen. With all of the goat heads in the area I knew that I was going to have to watch where I set my bike a little more closely and really hope that nothing seriously bad would happen to make this trip to the next bike shop end up in a hitchhike. As I went from one road to another the traffic was practically no where to be seen. It was a great time to enjoy more of the scenery in the area, but the weather was starting to take a turn for the worst. I had seen some clouds overhead, but having not seen rain since practically Oregon, I wasn't quite sure what to make of what was forming overhead. It started to sprinkle a little and I was glad that it was only sprinkling at this elevation because at this time of the year it could have been maybe hail or snow. The rain didn't last long and I was out of it before it started it seemed. The sun was starting to go down and all around me I could see large black clouds. They were really everywhere around me, but I seemed to be in one little spot that didn't have any thunderstorms. I think there were clouds maybe in a two mile radius around me and I could see the mist in the air of where the rain was pouring down, but I wasn't feeling a drop. Since I was in such a barren part of the state and I had only seen a couple of cars on the road that I was on, I decided this would be a good place to stop. I didn't feel like pushing into the thunderstorms and I was thankful that I had somehow managed to find the one spot that didn't have any rain. I had another 30 miles to go before the next town and although there really wasn't a good place to set up my tent for the night, I didn't have much of a choice. I was only about 10 feet off of the side of the road and my tent could be seen as clear as day to anyone that was driving by. The only saving grace that I had in this situation was that the area was completely deserted to all civilization and I didn't think that anyone was going to approach me over the course of the evening. I wasn't tired since I was only awake for about 12 hours each day at this point, but the sun and the temperature were my deadlines and I had just reached my deadline for the day.Daily mileage: 47.7 miles
Average speed: 10.6 mph
Total mileage: 4,501.7 miles
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