So you got caught with a flat

Well, how 'bout that?

Flop, flop, flop

That would be the sound of a flat tire. I was just entering the town of Lake Providence, Louisiana, thinking "I could keep going". My break line my tire found had other plans.
I looked around to see if I was near anything besides corn and cotton, to see the Cotton Museum about twenty yards away.
One of their picnic tables was conveniently shaded from the brutal August sun. I had pulled my tire off, and was pressing the patch on when a voice called over to me. "We've got a tour goin' honey, if you want to join at the end of the line." I looked down at my blackened hands, noting I need to clean my chain soon.
The Cotton Museum has old buildings taken off of local plantations, including a church, Gin, and shacks used as homes and stores. I was looking at an old iron when someone besides me said "you're probably too young to remember one of these." There were about 25 retired couples all wearing red vests and matching Louisiana state shaped bola ties with their names on them. As the tour progressed and more people asked what I was doing, they asked if I could stay after to share my journey with them.
While looking at the repainted cotton gin, one lady came up and requested that I join them for lunch. "My name is Janece" she said, and I sputtered back my surprise as I spelt my name to her, not hiding my excitement about meeting someone else with my name.
Lunch was at a restaurant called The Dock, where we ate local seafood and they took turns asking me the usual questions I get from kind strangers. Most of the group headed 25 miles west to their campground. Janece and Louie, her husband, drove me back to the museum with another couple from their group. After some help getting my tire back on, we exchanged numbers and hugs, and my heart was blessed a few times.
I went in the office to ask about camping, and spent a few hours out of the hot sun talking with Barbara and Katherine about the town. Barbara is about four foot ten and full of laughter. "When you get this age, you don't care all too much about being sophisticated no more."
She called all around town asking if anyone might have two trees I could use, since this 80 mile stretch of trail has all but nothing. "This town ain't all that safe" Katherine told me as Barbara called the preacher, priest, and sheriff's detective "and lots of us is old people who are well set in our ways". Katherine's laugh could fill a room, and I left with stomach pains from how contagious it was. Barbara got an old of a woman named Geneva, who let me stay in her RV campground in Transylvania, 6 miles south.

In the morning I stopped at the gas station, and filled my tire back up to 85 psi, which I've been at for the past 2 months. I refilled my water where Olivia, the owner of the quaint little Farm House Store, traded me a sausage patty for some stories. I was aiming to get on the road as early as possible to beat the heat, but couldn't get away from the surprised people that wanted to get my number and hear more from me.
I was out at my bike and pulling away when the familiar flopping noise came again from my tire. As the music from Rocky Horror Picture Show looped in my head, I pulled off the inner tube to find an inch long split. I pulled out my already-patched-twice spare and worked it on, only to find it wouldn't hold air.
The hole ended up being right next to the valve stem, a pretty impossible spot to fix. As I talked with the firestone employees, Percy took it upon himself to be the hero for the day.
"I will fix this tire" he repeated, after the 4th patch didn't work. He ended up pulling a tube off his bike, when Olivia's husband offered to drive out of town to pick up a new tube for me.
In writing this, I'm still in Transylvania, awaiting the tube from the kind stranger that wants to help a traveler. I hope to make it to Vicksburg tonight, where I'll have to take tomorrow off. I have a package at the post office, and I'll be aiming to get it early Monday, in hopes for an early start.

Things don't always go exactly as planned, but it always works itself out in the end. Let's see where today takes us.