B-Say Tah to Yorkton. DAY: 134.32km. ODO: 2,683km. AVS: 19.6km/h. MXS: 37.50km/h. ATM: 6:51:06.
A tough day. I was travelling nroth-east on highway 10, and I had a headwind the whole way, though at least it was mainly sunny-overcast.
I’m not so good, so far, at identifying birds of prey (unless they have a white head), but I managed to spot a Swainson’s Hawk.
When I (finally) reached the outskirts of Yorkton, I found that the provincial recreation area that I had planned to camp at had as its access a two mile gravel road, which I wasn’t keen on traversing. I stopped at a pullout that featured a large map of Yorkton, so that I could find the municipal campground. While there, I decided to unload the bike an investigate why my rear tire was rubbing against the corner of my fender each revolution.
I removed all luggage from the rear racks and piled it on the asphalt near the grass while I checked it out. It seemed that the wheel might be warped, so I started checking all the spokes. I eventually determined that the problem was actually a bulge in the tire at the same spot that I had patched a puncture in Westbank. As I wasn’t in the mood to fix it there, I let a little air out of the tire until it was spinning freely, and started loading up again.
It was then that I noticed a little red wood tick climbing up my leg. Can you imagine anything more repulsive than ticks? Ok, maybe leeches. And Stephen Harper. I flicked it off and continued loading. Then here was an itch on the other leg. Another tick! It was then that I noticed that the asphalt was crawling with the damn things. In fact, they were all streaming out of the grass and heading straight for me. There must have been a whole nest there just waiting for a horse or a deer, or me, to come by. I finished loading, did a quick inspection of my shoes and legs, and then got the hell out of there. It was like “Day of the Triffids”.
Naturally, for the rest of the day, each time I felt an itch, I was certain that it was a tick. And, as the prairies are giving me quite the dry skin, there are a few itches.
By the time I got to town, I was so hungry that I was feeling light-headed, so I headed straight into the first pasta shop I could find – Pizza Hut, for a little lasagne. It looked like a bit of a low-end Pizza Hut, but as I needed to get my blood sugar up, I didn’t have time to be picky. I ordered the lasagne, a small Caesar salad, and an iced tea. They were out of iced tea. Apparently this is because the circus was just in town. What, do all the clowns go to Pizza Hut for iced tea? I ordered water. As I was eating my Caesar salad (which tasted not unlike a salt lick), the waitress came by to tell me that she couldn’t bring me the meat lasagne because the meat had gone bad. Would I like a tomato sauce lasagne? I asked her what other pasta restaurants there were in town and left.
Down the road at Boston Pizza, I found that the place was packed, and looked far more reputable. As there were no tables situated were I could see my bike, I ordered a lasagne to go. As I was paying, I felt an itch on my leg. Another bloody tick! I flicked it off. The next thing I know, a spider is lowering itself off of the visor of my helmet as I’m talking to the cashier.
I suppose I should have killed the tick. It probably crawled up some other customer’s leg after I left.
Before bed, I took my rear tire off and pt in a new tube, to solve that bulging tire problem. It is still budging a bit, but not nearly as much. It could just be misshapen from the bulging, I suppose.