Charleston

The trip started okay. I got to Charleston successfully, less trouble than I thought. I passed through Washington during the inauguration; people waiting for their flights broke into applause as the swearing in was shown on the televisions. But, once I got to Charleston I had some trouble. My tires were low on air. I had some trouble pumping them up. I was using the ol' feel test, because I don't have a pressure gage. The marathon tires are a lot stiffer than what I'm used to and so they were grossly under-inflated as I started out. I dropped by a gas station and bought a pressure gage, but I didn't trust it because it maxed-out at 100psi. Anyway the vigorous pumping to get up to pressure with the short handle pump tore the valve from the tube. I was rough, but it must of been old too. I had trouble getting the tire off to replace the tube, my fingers were numb with cold and I broke one of my two tire levers
I gave-up and got a cheap motel room near by. It was getting late anyways. With warm finger, two tent pegs and my remaining tire lever, the tire came off easily. I switched up the tube.

In addition to the tire, on my way to the motel my handle-bar bag fell off. The mount to the handle bas is heavy metal, but the attachment to the bag was weak. This failure is not result of spend thrifty-ness, because I did spend some money on the bag.

The motel wasn't too bad, and there was a classic greasy-spoon next door, where the three-patty burger was cheaper than the two-patty burger. There were firemen there, and the waitress alternated between calling me, baby, honey and sir. True greasy-spoons are now extinct in Canada, as the non-smoking laws remove that haze of authenticity.

Today, I rode to the hostel I was planning on staying at the first night. And in staying with the theme of bad luck, it didn't open until 5pm.

I rode around and found a bike shop. I asked if they could keep my stuff for a bit. Letting me off to explore. I dropped by a hardware store and picked up some hardware for reattaching the handlebar bag - that was easy enough. I grabbed a pretty amazing lunch at small cafe. Left my camera with my bike, so I didn't get any photos of the city.

I'm at the hostel now. I head out tomorrow.