Marge had a luncheon with coworkers in Reedley that she was leaving for around 9:00 (for some reason). I got up and made us some more chocolate chip pancakes, finishing off the batter. I said bye to Marge and forgot the goodbye photo again! Oops. Our ride wasn't coming until about 1:00 so we had some time. Paul ran a load of wash, as we picked the place up. I still had the rim issue to resolve and was in pursuit of a bike shop. I found one that was 2.5 miles down the road that I decided to run to. It was fine barring the fact that it's a little awkward to run carrying a bike rim, oh yeah, and the 100 degree heat didn't help either.
When I arrived at the bike shop a sweaty mess, they were unable to assist me because they didn't have a rim that fit. They gave me the number to their Clovis store, but we would be leaving within an hour or so (so I thought), so it was useless. Then I received a call from Henry, our driver, telling us that he was going to stay another day. This meant we would miss Mike and Mia as they flew off to Europe. It was the first time in the trip that things didn't work out for the best. It was pretty unfortunate, but life goes on.
On a positive note, it meant I could go to the Clovis store and get a new rim and have the bike ready to ride when we got back. I walked back to Marge's place where Paul and I hung out. It was a pretty uneventful remainder of the afternoon. When Marge returned, we all ended up taking a nap.
We all woke around 6:00, so I called the Clovis store that closed at 7:00. They had a rim that would fit my tire, so I asked to borrow the car to get there. It took me a while to find it because google gave me the wrong address on my phone. Damn.
When I got there, 15 minutes before they closed, I headed over to the mechanics. They were good guys and helped me immediately. They made sure the rim they sold me was true (bike term), and the right size (which I wasn't even sure about). I got to talking about touring with one of the guys. They ended up giving me a beer, and we hung out for a while. They were a fun group, and had fixed me up with a nice new room.
When I left there I called and figured out what we wanted to eat for dinner. Marge was going to make a pasta, and wanted me to pick up some stuff. I stopped by a grocery store on the way back, which took forever, but was delightfully inexpensive, and went back to the apartment.
Marge cooked up a delicious meal, that we feasted on while… you guessed it… watching the olympics. It was quite a nice dinner, and wasn't so bad to spend an extra day in Fresno with a friend. Unfortunately we would miss Mike heading to Europe, but something tells me we would see him again.
We ate a late dinner, so the rest of the night consisted of watching olympics until we all fell asleep. We were fortunate to have gotten a ride into Fresno, and I was glad to see old friends. Tomorrow was back to Santa Cruz, and the pacific ocean where it's not 100 degrees everyday.
Life was good.