We thought we'd try to have a long day today, and make it into Missouri tonight. But our plans changed when Greg's bike made a slight "ping"-sound on a small but steep uphill. When it happened we both heard it, and we stopped so Greg could look for the reason. He didn't find anything obvious, and the bike was working fine, so we continued with our ride. About 10 miles later he noticed that his rear brake pad was rubbing, and then I noticed his wheel was out of true. Our first thought was, ah the ping was from a broken spoke. No problem, we have the tools and spare spokes to fix that. It would be a pain, but we could fix it. Greg set up the bike shop on the lawn of a "campground", when he found the real source of the "ping". The hub flange had failed. THAT we can't fix, and we are equi-distant between 2 small towns, with barely a gas station and a coffee shop, let alone a bicycle shop with a touring rear wheel.
Google maps gave me the phone number of the "camp ground" whose lawn we were sitting on, to find out its not a nightly kind of camping ground, but the owner was coming in anyway and she would see if she could help us out. As we have found many times on this trip, there are so many kind people! We set up our tent next to the park's community building, and our host gave us the keys so we can use the bathrooms, showers, laundry, and kitchen!
Meanwhile, Greg, with a few txt messages has already arranged a replacement wheel, thanks to our good friends, Terry, Kevin, Laura and Gary. Only this morning, Laura confirmed that she and Gary would be joining us from Madison on Fri. Now they have a second reason to drive down ... they will bring Greg's replacement wheel!
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