We've been biking past these huge grain silos for days. I've been calling them the Kansas skyline, showing up reliably in every community. Finally I can't stand it, I pull off and decide to check one out.
I start of carefully ... not knowing how these actually work I don't want a ton of wheat dropped on my head or to get sucked in to some wheat vacuum. So as I'm standing in the middle of one of them in my helmet and spandex looking perplexed out comes a tall skinny guy with an ADM hat. So I just say, "Hey there. I've been biking by these things for days and I was wondering how they worked?". It's like the magic door opened ... Off I go on the tour. By tour I mean the 10 steps to look at the scales where the trucks pull in to be weighed before and after they drop the wheat. The grates where they dump the wheat and it falls through to an underground compartment. The conveyor belt that runs up to the huge towers to carry the wheat up into the towers.
Learned all about the harvest - it's almost over. Lost 800k acres to a late season hail storm so they are short. Most are owned by big companies like ADM, but there are still a few community co-ops. Most grain from this facility will be shipped by train to Louisiana, Mexico or Galveston for processing. Any local farmer can deposit their wheat for free in the ADM granary for 30 days and then there is a charge by the bushel per day for storage.
It made me reflect on a couple of things I believe are fundamental about human nature. When you show genuine interest in a person's life or craft or interests, they are usually more than willing to share what they know, generous with their skills and time, and it's almost always more than you could ever hope to learn on your own. I think it's in human nature to respond positively and generously when presented with the opportunity - and most folks will respond that way if you let them. That's been my experience as we've been welcomed in every community we've come though. It's been one of the best gifts of this trip.
Today we kept our eastern trek through farmlands ... less prairie now and more agriculture. Fewer feedlots and passing livestock trucks with that acrid, rancid, unmistakable smell. More corn and wheat fields all huge ... some for as far as the horizon.
We had a rest stop at Midway, USA which billed itself as the official midpoint of the country between San Fran and New York. It's not the midpoint of our trip, but made for a fun photo stop anyway. They had a great little community museum there. Three rooms of stuff donated by community members, including an old John Deere wooden wagon - the precursor to the tractor (still with the green and yellow logo), a permanent machine for ladies hair that looked more terrifying than an electric chair and someones diligently organized barb wire collection mounted on the wall of all different styles of barb wire. They had built a sample sod house and then furnished it - complete with wall paper to make it look nicer even though they say that may not be so common.
Our ride today was supposed to be 85 miles, but the Tornado-chaser Lady from Dodge City had suggested that I try to get by Fort Larned which was sort of on our way to Great Bend. This added about 15 miles - getting me and the 2 others I talked into going with me - Hans from Switzerland and Brian who is great about exploring everything - an even 100 miles today. But the extra saddle time in 95 degree heat it was worth it.
The fort is run by the National Park Service and is an un-walled open fort built by the Pawnee River and only active for 20 years to protect the Santa Fe trail, trading, the mail and to play various unsavory roles in the Indian conflicts and tribes were being forced into treaties and onto reservations. No buildings were destroyed after it was abandoned. It's been re-furnished with the hospital equipment, bunk beds, armaments and officer quarter furnishings of the period. It's pretty interesting. The park service folks were a little bored and so spent a lot of time answering questions. One of those pieces of history you've never heard of that's so relevant to place when you are there.
On the way in we saw wheat being harvested ... for enormous combines sweeping a huge field and shooting out grain into an enormous tractor trailer ... they must have completed that harvest in under an hour. Amazing the massive scale of today's agriculture.
Tonight is the last night for our staff mechanic, Sean. He's a talented bike mechanic which we have all noticed and appreciated, and a super nice guy. He's off to fly around the world for a few months - Sweden/Europe, South Africa, India, Australia. But he's nice enough to say he's sorry to miss the end of our trip and not see it through. We get a new mechanic in a few days, so everyone is eying their bike skeptically.
Tomorrow we are still in Kansas. In fact we are in Kansas for a long time more ... big state I guess. I hope no-one gets tired of hearing about wheat.
Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016!!
9 years ago
