Well, things have turned a little... slow. Tried to get out of town this morning but was unable. First, I my tires have thorns in them. I try to pull them out with pliers but they break off in the rubber. I need new tires; I have some old dried up ones but they are backups only. I also need a Presta valve adapter as I seem to have lost mine while changing a flat. So I am running at half pressure, which is slow and hard on the rim. My hand pump only inflates to 35psi, and the handle broke off that attaches it to the valve. There is no bike shop in Sterling. So I went to Wal Mart this morning. I bought a hand pump and some tubes. I took the hand pump outside to use it and it immediately exploded.

I have now ordered all the parts via mail. Due to the parts being esoteric and Sterling being a small town, it will take 2 days to get here. I won't be able to leave... until Thursday morning.

At first I was pretty depressed about it, but then I realized that it's all part of travel and I should just take it as a learning experience. It's not as if I have a job to go back to right now. The only thing bumming me out is that this nice weather is ticking past. When the bad weather comes, I have a feeling it's pretty extreme out in the plains.

There isn't a ton to do in Sterling, but it's not all bad. I already checked out the Overland Trail Museum. It's suprisingly pretty amazing. Then I came over to the community college where the grumpy librarian (aren't they all?) grudgingly let me use the Internet terminal. I haven't seen a movie in awhile so I guess I'll do that tonight and tomorrow night. Then maybe over to the rec center to go swimming or something.

So I'm basically trying to turn this from feeling like I'm in the Donner Party to taking a minor detour on the route. One thing is for sure, I did need a bit of a rest after yesterday.