6/24/05 Well sometime in the early morning the sky opened up and dumped rain on us. As I was laying there thinking rain all you want I got the super tent. Yeah well my super tent decided to spring a leak so there was a nice puddle at the foot of my tent. Not a problem that is why I bought the super tent repair kit from REI, I was actually quite excited to fix something. So after soaking up all the water up with my old socks, gotta be creative, I was ready to seal the seams that was allowing water in the tent. So as I was getting ready to apply a generous layer of sealant on the seams I thought hmmm this would probably be better if it was dry. Ok I actually read the directions and it said it had to be dry but I would have figured it out eventually. So after wadding my sleeping bag up at the opposite end of the tent I figured there was nothing I could do about this right now. I had been talking to friend I had met in Ireland who lived close to hear and recommended a place that I could pick up a front tire since mine was getting close to the end of its little black life. So with GPS coordinates programmed in I was off to get a new tire. The rain became worse as the morning went on to the point where I probably could have had goldfish in my boots but at least there was allot of traffic on the road to make it harder to drive. Once I got to the tire shop I explained who I was and that I needed a tire, the guy behind the counter really didn’t care who I was but got me the tire grumpily. I quickly thought that I should drop the name of my friend and see if that helps. Well it definitely did and the man behind the counter quickly loosened up and even gave me 10% of the tire and offered to mount it for free. I politely declined the offer for the free mounting, hhmm that doesn’t sound right. Anyways I wanted to put the tire on myself and get some practice in. When I made it back to the campground the sun had come out, well kinda, ok well it stopped raining at least so I quickly set about fixing my tent. After ten minutes of generously applying seam sealer to the seams of the tent I was quite satisfied that it would not leak. As the afternoon passed by more and more people rolled into the campsite and by the end of the day there was close to 300 people there. I spent most of the day talking to fellow travelers and listening to stories of far off places and their adventures. I met two guys from the Netherlands, Dirk and Mark, who had both ridden North and South America who had some great stories and they were quite good cooks, well they could make a mean grilled ham and cheese sandwich at least. Dirk road from Alaska to Argentina (which he liked so much he moved there) on a 90cc moped. I made a joke about that being the longest pizza route in history but he didn’t think it was too funny. Well after watching some presentations and listening to many stories and even drinking a few pints it was off to bed. Today’s Specs Weather: Rainy, 70F Distance: 70 miles, campsite to tire shop back to campsite 6/25/05 Well I woke up this morning hoping to hear that it was pouring down rain to test my tent repair job but alas it wasn’t raining. Probably wont rain on me the rest of the trip now that my tent is fully repaired. I guess that wouldn’t be that bad. There was a demonstration on how to change tires this morning so I figured that would be perfect to go to before I attempted mine this afternoon. The demonstration was done by a Scottish guy who loved tires, I mean he really knew tires. Oddly enough he hated mine since they are tubeless tires and in his opinion are quite worthless. So after watching him change a tire with ease and picking up a few of his tricks I set off to my tent and bike to change mine. I mean I just saw how easy it was so I should have no problems. Well word quickly spread throughout the campground that some Yank (American) was changing a tire and before I could get the rim off the bike I had a crowd of 20 experts/comedians/Brits watching me. Well as it turned out I did quite well I had the wheel off changed and back on in less than an hour. Not quite a record but none the less pretty good. I did learn one valuable lesson and that is the air compressor I am carrying will not reset the bead, so if I did get stranded in Africa and had to change a tire I couldn’t inflate it. So after some discussion with the local experts I decided that I will be carrying tubes through Africa. Well I spent the rest of the evening meeting loads of people who had done and gone just about everywhere. I met a few women who had ridden around the world solo, I have no doubt that they are tougher and better bike riders than I am. The one thing I took away from today is that these people fall allot, I mean allot. Everybody had several stories about having a “get off” which is British for falling off your bike. I feel allot better knowing I am not the only looser that drops his bike and falls off quite a bit. There were several good speakers who covered everything from Rally Racing (Paris Dakar type stuff) to how to deal with bribing cops. Well after the campground pub asked us to leave at 2:30 I figured it was time to go to bed. Today’s Specs Weather: Cloudy 70F Distance: 0 miles, campsite