Air, give me air

Friday July 17 Venerdi 17 Luglio

Today would be a short day to make up for yesterday. We casually meandered north to Sidney, Nebraska. Of course the GPS and the freeway signs said to go west to get to 71 north. 71 was actually one mile east of us and I had ridden to Sidney on that same road a few years ago. But I followed the GPS and went 30 miles northwest on the freeway, 30 miles north and then 31 miles east back to 71 and ended up 37 miles north of where I started. So finally we are going north toward Sidney. After a couple of hours we came into Brush, Colorado. I have been through here before but did not stop. I was looking for a place to have a cool drink indoors. I am thinking that it would sure be nice to find a coffee shop or a bar like they have in Italy when I see a sign “COFFEE SHOP”. So we stopped and we both had a root beer float. Then we walked across the street and walked through an antique store but came out empty handed. Back on the bike we continued on to Sidney the home of Cabelas. Cabelas is a large hunting/fishing store. They have a large display of stuffed animals of all types as well as a large aquarium full of game fish. I was searching for a pump to inflate our air mattress and some folding lawnchairs that are shorter than normal. Clint and Charleen have our air pump with them so we would have to sleep on the hard ground unless we obtained an air pump. (NOTE: the previous sentence was intended to make Clint and Charleen feel extremely guilty but I doubt that it will work.) Cabelas had air pumps but not really the one I wanted. Plus they are 30% higher than Walmart and there is a Walmart across the street. But we did find the lawnchairs we wanted. And this Cabelas has a campground so I rented a tent site for $14.51. That is a good deal for a campsite with showers, grass and a sandpit where you pitch the tent. The only drawback was the sign on the door saying “Tornado Watch until 7 PM”. That is to be expected here and farther north which is the direction we are going. So we set up the tent and then proceeded to Walmart to buy an air pump. We could get the 12 volt model, the 120 volt AC model or the rechargeable model which charges from 120 volts AC. I chose the 12 volt model as I have outlets on the bike and the trailer to supply the electricity. But the unit we bought was defective, i.e. dead as a doornail. So we took it back. I waited outside while Linda took care of the paperwork. A person inside told her of another store that may have what we wanted so we took off looking for that store but could not find it. Well, we will just sleep on the HARD sand. (More guilt to C&C). But that just did not make sense as we are next to both Cabelas and Walmart. Why not just buy one of the other types? Back to Walmart I go to buy the rechargeable model. But first I open the box and read the directions. You must charge the battery for 10 hours before using the pump. So I buy the AC model as there are outlets at all of the motor home camp sites. Back at camp I am ready to inflate our air mattress. Of course motorhome sites have a specially shaped outlet that is different than the plug on the pump. No worries as we had an adapter in the trailer for just this type of emergency. Just then the motorhome next to us told us we could use one of his motorhome outlets to pump up the mattress so we did. But the pump did not work. Surely we could not have found 2 dead Chinese pumps on the same day from the same store! But it seems that the motorhome's battery was dead so we carried the pump and air mattress across the field to the closest site with electricity. Voila! We have a working pump and soon we have an inflated mattress. Joy of joys, we do not have to sleep on the hard sand and C&C do not have to lay awake at night thinking of how we are suffering.