Day Thirteen

Fullerton to Madison NB

We awoke to a quiet community. A few elderly types did laps around the park. This would likely be their ‘outing’ for the day. We packed the bags once again and sought out the laundromat and did a load of wash. We talked briefly with the proprietor of the appliance store next door. His small store could have been the home of the Maytag repairman. There was not a heck of a lot going on. He did have some groovy machines from yesteryear. He had a gas powered washer that would also fumigate the house at the same time.

With fresh, clean clothes (especially socks) we began our travels northbound. For the first time in many days, the winds were somewhat favorable though they seemed to be out of the west, a direction that would have been helpful earlier. The sky was overcast with the threat of rain. We traveled about twenty miles before the rain began falling lightly. We came across a remote, county campground. It was a beautiful facility in the middle of no where. We ducked under a picnic shelter and donned our rain gear before returning to the road. The temperature was warm and the rain remained very light before stopping altogether.

We now had the road entirely to ourselves. In the course of ten miles, we would only see a couple of vehicles. We chose very small back roads to travel. We worked our way north and east to a small town of Genoa. Then we turned north to Lindsay where we found a small store to purchase drinks. We returned to the trip and pedaled until lunch time where we found another cemetery to accommodate us for lunch. We pedaled along a highway with a section of leaning telephone poles. We pedaled past large areas of wild marijuana. It seemed out of character with the hysteria about this simple weed.

Eventually we pedaled into the town of Madison. We noticed many Latino people. They were there to work in the local meat processing plant, apparently a job that the gringos don’t want to do, at least at the wages that the Mexicans are willing to work for. We asked a couple of Latinas where we might find the grocery store. They giggled and pretended not to understand. They seemed frightened to talk with us at all. We didn’t understand. Our Spanish isn’t that bad. We eventually located the store, bought food and found the local park. Again it was a classic small town park with picnic shelters, swing sets and a ball field. There were several girl’s softball games in progress.

In the middle of the evening, the town siren began to sound. We looked towards the downtown area and saw a building on fire. The excitement lasted for an hour or so until the fire fighters were able to quell the blaze. As the ball games wound down, we settled into our tents for the evening. We felt strong and anticipated the next day, the day we would arrive in Winside, the town of my dad’s beginning in America.