Woke up to a flat rear tire. I patched it, but noticed that the tread was starting to split - turns out that you shouldn't inflate a tire to max, load all your stuff directly above it, and then take it through 10 miles of steep gravel. I removed the thorn, lined the splitting tire with super glue, and pumped it up to 60 (instead of 80) psi, and set off expecting to find a new tire in Umatilla. I left Ethan and Jon behind and rode hard to get as far as I could before the tire exploded. It had no problems, though, so I made it to the Umatilla visitor's center to find that there are no bike tires in the town. There are in Hermiston, though, only 7 miles south. Further, the attendant's boyfriend would be showing up with a truck to take me there so that I didn't have to ride on the limping tire anymore. Since Hermiston added distance to my route, I didn't consider it cheating, and took the ride. Scott in Hermiston fixed me up with an armored Panaracer knock-off version of the renowned Marathon Plus tire for only $20, so now I'm pretty certain my back tire is going to be fine for the rest of the trip. I left my front tire since it doesn't have to deal with all the weight that my rear tire does.
I set out from Hermiston, again thinking that I could rejoin the planned route somewhere ahead instead of backtracking directly to Umatilla. Thankfully, it worked out much better this time. Caleb's route took him elsewhere, but I kept looking for Ethan and Jon around each corner, thinking they must be far ahead of me at this point.
We had discussed meeting at an RV park ~30 miles outside Umatilla, so I pulled in there and asked the first people I saw if they had seen any other bikers that day. They were sitting around a cooler drinking cheap beer, and not only hadn't seen any bikers, but couldn't comprehend how a bike got out here in the first place. They guessed I was some kind of hippie, I agreed, they decided I was alright, and started handing me beers. Billy, Brandon, and Dustin asked me all the usual questions, albeit with vulgar language than usual, and their buddy Alex showed up with tequila, lemons, and salt. They mentioned that they all worked for a construction company and were living in these trailers for a year, until their job was done. The company was putting them up, but for some reason, they had an extra trailer that no one lived in. For the night, that could be ours. I texted Ethan and Jon saying not to check in when they got here.
Once Ethan and Jon arrived, they were a little more put off by the beer-swilling construction workers than I was, and quickly went to sleep. I stayed up to shoot the shit, and witnessed the greatest game of Gay Chicken I may ever see. Gay Chicken is where two guys that don't like gay people pretend to be gay, daring the other to get uncomfortable first. Billy and Brandon sure could bicker like a long-married couple. I awarded them some imaginary homophobic man-points for their performance, thanked them for the trailer, and went to sleep.
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