Well, I'm a week in today. It's been a pretty slow start. I'm chugging along though, I'm getting better at this each day I do it. Good thing I don't have a solid deadline to arrive by!

Made it to Ridgeland last night. I noticed my front breaks were squeaking a little bit, and my handlebars were wobbling. They would begin vibrating rather vigerously if I picked up speed downhill. Further, my bike felt like it was pulling to the right and giving me an unusual amount of resistance, but it wasn't hard enough for me to really confirm it. My inspection didn't really turn up anything. I knew I wouldn't be able to just ignore it, but I was getting close to my destination for the night, so I was careful and limited my speed.

While on the highway, I bumped into a journalist for a local newspaper for the Magee area. He was really interested in my trip, and ended up interviewing me to write about in a local paper!

I stopped at a family campground where I stayed the night. Just as I was finishing cooking dinner it started to downpour, I quickly took the food into my tent with me and just ate it awkwardly while lying down as the storm passed.

This is my tent with it's rain fly on. My bike is under the tarp behind it. I have the bike and tarp discreetly attached to the tent. If someone tries to move it, I'll feel it in my tent.

The storm only hit for about 45 minutes, so once it was passed I was able to go back outside and relax until nightfall. There was a pretty cool dude with his own tent pithced up in the site next to mine, he was motorcycling to oklahoma. He gave me a couple dehydrated backpacking meals, which turned out to be delicious!

Boiling water for the dehydrated meal.

This morning I woke up at about 6:30 and had eaten breakfast and got myself packed up by 8. A few miles of riding and I finally made it to the Natchez Trace Parkway.

I got to ride over the dam that keeps the reservoir flooded.

This is the road that will take me all the way to Nashville, TN. I made it about a mile down the trace before the smooth, nicely paved roads began to really make me notice the pulling, now noticably to the right, and the wobbling was very rhythmic... I was also getting winded despite how flat this stretch of road was. I had a hunch, so I pulled over and took off my front wheel and spun it in my hands; It was warped. It looks like a couple spokes on different parts of the wheel were unusually loose. I spent a good half hour adjusting my spokes and I reduced the warp a little bit, but my wheel is definitely not okay as it stands right now.

Of course, just like every other bike shop I've attempted to visit that wasn't a Walmart, the only one around here is closed on Sundays. There isn't another shop for 120 miles up the road. Up until now, I've always put off the shop telling myself I'll keep an eye out and hit the next one (which never ends up being too soon after). This time, I think I have no choice but to stay one more night here in Ridgeland so I can go to that shop tomorrow morning. I'll have them give my bike a full tune-up so I might prolong the need for my next visit. I'll also use this visit to get myself those extra inner tubes I really should have.