Michael's Excellent Adventure

Day 13, 6-28-2002

Hope

How many people do you know for whom the weather channel is high drama? Useful for planning your weekend trip, or for figuring out your gardening schedule perhaps, but do you know anyone who roots for high pressure fronts the way some folks root for baseball teams? A good forecast can have John and I giving each other high fives. On the other hand....

Today began with John and me watching the weather channel, pits in our stomachs. Ten-20 mph winds out of the south, with gusts stronger. Uh-oh. We hit the road anyway, determined to do what we could. I broke another spoke outside of Glenfield, but fixed it (I'm getting pretty good at this field bike repair stuff). Our progress and our spirits looked OK in Cooperstown, but nine miles into the headwinds put a damper on both in a hurry. We finally pulled into Hope at 3:30 PM where we threw in the towel — we could have made it further, but there was nowhere better to stay for the next 70 miles until Fargo. The next town of any size was Page, 14 miles upwind. We considered ourselves pretty bad-ass to have eked out 79 miles in that stuff.