Day 27: Abilene to Topeka (July 4th celebrations, tornados and tallgrass prairie)

Got some excitement last night when the tornado warning sirens start to wail.



Of course I rush to the window ... I mean if one is going to take me out I at least want to see it first.



A big thunderstorm had come through just north of Abilene. We're surfing around for information listening for the roar of a freight train that would signal running for the bath tub for cover. Word of a touchdown due west of Abilene and heading East ... Everyone on the top floor of the hotel came to the lobby. People came in off the roads to wait out the storm - it was blowing hard, pounding rain and lightening was popping. Very exciting.



Then it passed. And I went to sleep.



Gorgeous and very fun ride today. 108 miles and we finally broke out of flat farm lands into rolling hills that turned into the Flint Hills, the largest remaining preserved tall grass prairie. It was beautiful, emerald green rolling hills and valleys, wildflowers. Locusts sang from the trees so loudly we couldn't believe the sound came from insects. Check out the National Geographic spread and photos
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/04/tallgrass-prairie/klinkenborg-text.html



Cattle rule here - acres dining on beautiful tall prairie grass - a very different site than the cattle stuffed in feedlots near Dodge destined for Big Macs. Here people take pride in their animals and have their name on the farm with Hereford breeders on a sign in the front.



The rolling hills - so fun to ride as you fly down a hill and try to keep up momentum to reach the top of the next roller with minimal effort - becomes a game and it's own rhythm.



As the rollers became actual hills that required buckling down into climbs. the terrain became more rugged, more green (an unbelievable emerald green of healthy vibrant grass), less cattle, more open prairie. It was exquisite. Totally recommend anyone take a trip to this area. Who could think grass could be so beautiful? It's such a shame it's gone now. You can imagine the buffalo and prairie critters running amuck. It just looks like bounty. You can see why settlers were so eager to plow it under and plant but if you've read Tim Egan's The Worst Hard Time (you should) you know that the green prairie grass and ecosystem can't sustain the rigors of agriculture easily (i.e. dust bowl). As I rode through here I also kept thinking of Willa Cather's My Antonia which I'd not like to go back and read again.



We passed through many small towns decorated for Independence Day. Flags hung from the light posts of 4 block main street in White City. Bunting from the town Gazebo in Dwight was set up ready to host the afternoons celebration. We stopped in Eskridge at their main park where there were picnics, 3 legged races and other games for the kids and local folks on a squealing speaker singing from the gazebo. Bob looked over at Hans from Switzerland and said "see Hans. This is what 4th of July is about. Community and family getting together to celebrate for a day."

Day 26: McPherson to Abilene, KS - HALFWAY POINT

Dinner lately has been pretty blah. It's not hard to please this crowd ... give us edible food and lots of it. An occasional vegetable is bonus. But lately it's been pretty tiresome - the same restaurant in different cities three nights in a row. Insurrection was brewing.

Tonight we were fortunate that the restaurant where we were supposed to have dinner was closed up for the month of July. So instead we went to this old 1870s hotel turned restaurant that was great. Family style, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, biscuits and gravy ...

As we were elbows spread on the table chowing on chicken the waitress came by and said - would you like some more sides? No? OK I'll bring you the rest of your chicken. Huh? Our eyes got huge ... you get half a chicken each. Wow. I started to look around me at the other patrons of this restaurant ... they were all very large people. Several of our crowd rose the chicken challenge, but I was thinking it's really incredible how much food gets served in the restaurants that the majority of Americans frequent. In many ways places like the Golden Trough (Corral) and Sizzler with its huge salad bar and spread of food works is mainstay for most Americans, while for most of us they are places we haven't gone in years.

Today was a beautiful and fun ride. We were on country roads winding North and East. Going North we had a partial fabulous tailwind. Going East we had a whopping angled headwind. Tree flapping, grass laid flat headwind. Make yourself as small as possible on the bike in the aerobars to minimize the wind. But that's OK - it was still a fun ride. At this point very little is phasing me on the bike - you just hunker down and ride through it.

We are in farm land. It looks a lot more like the east coast now that the plains. More trees. Smaller fields. I watched a farmer loading up huge round bails of straw cut from a recently harvested wheat field into a truck fitted with a huge pitchfork front. He would spear the huge bails and drop them into the slanted truck bed. Pick up 5 bails then fly over the field release the bails and let them fall in a line. Fast, efficient. A special truck designed to the task.

We rode through several small towns with one paved road - Roxbury and Gypsum. Small stores on main street along with the post office, fire station and city hall of various sizes. Maybe 2 blocks of houses behind main street - often with dirt roads.

We came into Abilene, Kansas. Their biggest claim to fame is it is the home of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and hosts his presidential library, a museum and house he grew up in. He's buried there. We went there and made the mistake of going into the nice air conditioned theater for a very softly spoken 20 minute film ... kept nodding off. His home was interesting - a modest house on the wrong side of the tracks. And the library had many of his famous orders and speeches from D Day which was interesting to see his hand written edits.

Abilene is worth a stop on any travels. It had money in its day and still seems to have a community that will support interesting restaurants downtown. Much more affluent than Dodge cities and many of the towns further West. It has beautiful old mansions build by early cattle barons and later bankers and investors who moved here. At one point they thought it would be the capital of the state. Somehow this part of the state has survived the changing agricultural economy better than it's western neighbors.

We only had one washer and dryer and so it was the laundry scramble when we got in. Various stalking and moving everyones laundry along ... we all know each other so well that no one things twice about handling the others underwear. Maybe that's wrong ?

Tomorrow we have a 108 miles ride to Topeka. It's July 4th, and we're riding through many small town and probably right through the Independence Day celebrations. Should be fun.

Happy 4th!

What it's like to bike on I 80

This is the first video I shot in California on I 80 ... a test for posting

Day 26: Great Bend to McPherson, KS (Kansas ... the longest state in the union?)

Well, not every day is a home run.

Today we rode 64 miles due east into a stiff headwind/sometimes when we were lucky crosswind through ... Kansas. Yep, we're still here. Kansas.

Other than putting my head down and pedaling, my only interesting stop was to check out one of those oil wells that was by the side of the road. The kind where the horse headed shaped lever bobs up and down endlessly. And that's all there was to it.

The territory is looking more and more "back East". Smaller farms. More hardwood trees. More diverse agriculture. The ground is rolling. There is the smell of hay as we pass freshly harvested wheat fields, and I'm seeing alfalfa and other legumes.

Got in pretty early and cleaned my bike. I noticed what looks like a small horizontal crack in the top tube ... bad news on a carbon frame. Hopefully it will be OK, but I documented it for the warranty, sent photos back to Redmond Cycle where Brian is taking care of my bike and am holding my breath. That could be expensive to replace the frame. No idea how the crack got there - I hope it's just a scratch in the paint.

We watched bad movies this afternoon and goofed by the pool. That was a nice change from rushing around worrying about laundry or other tasks that pile up on long ride days.

Another short day tomorrow.

Day 25: Dodge City to Great Bend, KS

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.

Day 24: Garden City to Dodge City

Biking along we saw a little sign that said Scenic Overlook - one mile. Odd ... There was a slight rise in the flatness down the road but what could you possibly see that you couldn't already. The horizon is so large you feel you can see the curve of the earth.

Our curiosity peaked we pedaled on and came to the turnout. The scenic overlook was - I'm not kidding - looking down on an enormous feedlot full of cows being fattened up for slaughter. Yep ... Cows. Pretty funny.

For the last few days we have followed the Santa Fe trail that connected the East with the South-west. Freight caravans were lucky to advance 12 to 15 miles a day across the ruts and pits in the trail. The Arkansas River just to the south of the trail was the international border to Spain and in 1821 to Mexico after Mexico gained independence. In 1846 the US sent troops down the trail to take the territory from Mexico and move the boarder south. In the meantime the trail was a huge trade route, and you can still see ruts from the wagons in a spot about 7 miles west of Dodge City. The trail was still heavily used till the 1860s when it was replaced by the railroad.

Today was an easy ride day (51 miles, mostly flat), so besides brushing up on my history I also took the time to really look around. First thing I noticed is that the highway parallels the railroad and most every town has huge grain silos that are organized into community co-ops. The silos are placed right between the highway and the tracks and there is a series of them as we head east. They tower out of the ground and can be seen for miles before you get there.

The second is that all those trucks and many cars going between the feedlots and silos don't give a hoot about cyclists. No slowing down, no giving an inch. We had a narrow shoulder the first 25 miles, and between huge trucks passing at 60+ MPH without moving over and 2 idiots passing and coming head on in our lane (it is still our lane, you know, even though we ride on the shoulder) my life passed before my eyes 3 times and I considered a dive in a ditch once. Can't ever remember being so nervous about traffic.

But luckily that was over soon and as we rode into the little town of Cimmaron – a crossing point where the Santa Fe trail branched off into two alternate routes heading to New Mexico - tales of Clarks Pharmacy and their yummy milkshakes had taken over my grouchiness at idiot Kansas drivers. Amazing what a strawberry milkshake can cure (strawberry because since it was still morning I though a fruity thing might be a better excuse than my normal chocolate). Clarks is a great old drugstore with an old fashioned soda bar. Shake for $3, sandwiches for $2.50. It was full of locals when we invaded,and the gals behind the counter took us in stride. Oprah passed through here on there on her Oprah and Gayles great adventure on the great plains ... And they apparently ordered a smoothie which was (nope, you wouldn't want actual fruit in a smoothie in Cimmaron) Orange sherbet and Sierra Mist. Hmmmm ... Actually pretty refreshing when I tried it.

Pedaling on I was in open prairie land with slightly rolling hills. Lots of wildflowers popping out - reddish orange small daisies, sunflowers, yellow purple and white flowers mixed in with knee high prairie grass and dandelion seed balls as big as baseballs. At the historical marker where you can see the original tracks for the Santa Fe Trail I walked out onto the prairie. Wildflowers. Different shades of green. The remnants of the trail and an irrigation canal some investor tried to dig that failed. Enormous grasshoppers were hopping everywhere. (Random aside: The day before we also saw grasshoppers - different species - on the roadway. They were a little freaky - you try not to hit them because they are big enough to have a disgusting crunch/squish. But they are fearless - just sit there and watch you. And cannibals - they go eat the other squished ones. Perhaps the result of years of pesticides? The grasshoppers are still there, fearless and hardcore despite years of being bombarded with chemicals.)

Heading into Dodge City I had high expectations. This was the home of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday. The TV show Gunsmoke was set here. I had big expectations of some sort of restored historical street with just enough cheese to keep it interesting (think Tombstone)...

But ... what we got was a fake old street owned by a hotel that you had to pay admission to go look into fake old merchantiles and stores. Bleh.

I did bike around and there are lots of old houses, many run down, with a grid of streets with the original brick pavers intact. There was a wax museum of gunfighters. I didn't go in. Sigh ... very disappointing. What a lost opportunity for a city that really needs a lift.

I retreated to a coffee house and chatted with a woman and her son instead. She has lived here for 13 years. They chase storms for fun. The ones with Tornadoes. Not kidding. Get in the car and chase storms. Apparently you can pay people to take you out storm chasing here. She said they did it long before the movie Twister came out.

She was telling me about the area which was great. 80% Hispanic, lots of illegals. Farm based economy. Struggling community.

The climate has a huge impact here. A huge tornado rolled through and wiped out a town just south of here. They are rebuilding it as a "green" town ... which should be interesting to follow. She was also talking about how radically the climate had changed ... they used to get a lot of snow but now hardly get any. She's concerned about how the dryness will impact agriculture, which she sees as struggling anyway.

She confirmed all the farms here are huge agribusiness and small farmers are long gone.

Day 23: Lamar to Garden City, KS (Newsflash: Kansas is not totally flat)

Prairie Dogs are funny little critters. There were a ton of them scurrying around in the miles east of Lamar. They live in colonies on the high plains and are constantly popping in and out of their dirt mound/holes and dashing around doing whatever prairie dogs do early morning. Don't really see them once it gets hot ... they are much more sensible than we are and get out of the heat.

Our ride today was fun. Spent most of the day riding with Gerard who is on the staff and Seattle Bob. With Chris joining us in the beginning till he figured out he could break his record for a hundred mile ride and left us in the dust.

These (mostly) flat lands make it tempting to see how hard and fast you can ride. Today I set my all time best record for a century ride. Averaged 18.5 mph for 100 miles and got in in 5 hours, 22 minutes ride time (doesn't include stops). That means riding above 20mph for most of the ride. It was the perfect day for a fast time ... four riders made it in under 5 hours which is really fast for a century. Chuck made it his mission to beat Tom in and break Tom's string of fastest/arrive first that he's held since the beginning of the trip. He's pretty pleased with himself. He rode the full 105 miles today in less than 4 hours, 30 minutes. This rivalry should be entertaining as we go on.

And, who knew, Kansas isn't flat as a pancake. I knew of hills in East Kansas, but we rode through 25 miles or so of bonafide rollers A few miles east of the Kansas line. How exciting!

What we are seeing is farm land ... a lot of it. As we pulled into Syracuse I joked "Look, there is the Kansas skyline." This would be the huge grain silos and ag processing equipment that rose way above the prairie and resembled a small version of skyscrapers. We are seeing more corn - all looking good and knee high by the fourth of July. Fields and the dark green of maturing plants, the lighter greens of new growth and shoots and golden fields of what must be wheat that was cut short and left fallow. Most of these fields will have a tree sheltered house and barn in the center of open space.

It's clear a lot of the small towns we passed through are struggling. Closed shops and for sale signs are prominent. And large agribusiness is evident everywhere from the huge Tyson processing plant to semi-trucks hauling livestock, hay and farm equipment. I can't believe the small farmer is faring very well now.

Right now we are staying in a Comfort Inn in Garden City. They are being incredibly nice, including having a bike wash station complete with cold bottled water and oranges for us when we got in. I was chatting with a woman from here and asked us what we could do here and she said "Well. We used to have the largest free swimming pool in the country but then they built the slides and started to charge." Probably won't make it to the pool.

Tomorrow we go to Dodge City. This promises to be full of cheesy touristy wild west wax museums, fake gunfights and who knows what else. Should be a blast. A short ride - only 51 miles - should get us in with plenty of time to be tacky tourists.

Day 22: Pueblo to Lamar, CO

Today we saw a woman who was running across America. LA to NY, 30 miles a day. Raising money for the Heart Association.

You all think I'm crazy ... I think she's crazy. That's perspective for you.

I regret not getting to talk to her ... I was in a heat induced haze and trying to get done with our 121 mile day before you could fry and egg on the top of my helmet and didn't fully clue in to why this really skinny woman was shuffling along through Las Animas Colorado. Oh well ...

Today as we headed east we were in farmland that reminded me of where I grew up in Eastern North Carolina. Except it was all bigger. That's one big difference between East Coast and West Coast ... out in the west there is still a sense of vastness and ranches and farms have had many fewer generations to be divided up among siblings.

We had a long day - 121 miles. I had a good pace - averaged 17.5 mph. The first half I rode with a group and we did some pacelining to cope with the headwinds. After a bulging sidewall on my front tire followed by an immediate flat in the back (darn Goatheads - bane of all cyclists - evil little thorny bastards) I cut them loose and ended up riding the rest of the way in on my own. Which is kinda fun ... go at your own pace and aren't tied to others needs. Kinda like my life. Anyway ...

We started out through horse country and then moved into farm country. Started passing huge farms with corn and other food crops. Then back into grasslands. We are on the high plains - still around 4000 feet of elevations. It's flat. Rivers are drier and trickle instead of roar. Small houses and barns dot the landscape. We road through several small towns with names like Manzanola, Rocky Ford and La Junta and Hasty that look like small towns all over America: post office, small store with a porch or area where community members gather, little houses along the road.

Stopped at a small store/restaurant/gathering place in La Junta and made a dash for the water fountain to fill up on cold water. Bought some chocolate milk cause by then it was too hot to eat - had to drink my calories. This ended up being a 20 minute visit chatting with the store owner and customers about what I was doing. They were very nice.

I must have looked like a freak ... glistening sweaty from the 90+ heat and covered in dirt from the knees down and gnat carcases from the knees up. (Unfortunately the oily sunscreen the tour provides turn out to be gnat magnet when you ride so I get off the bike and look like the windshield that all the bugs find on a summer night. Gotta figure out an alternative way to carry my good, non bug attracting sunscreen.)

Anyway, my La Junta visit ended with a chat with a woman who wanted to know how I could ride in this heat. I was telling her about electrolytes and she is off to stock up at the bike store in Colorado Springs. Score one more for better fitness for America.

Did pass one of the huge feedlots. Thousands of cattle stuffed in acres of metal fences, literally there to be fed and eat all day and fatten up before being slaughtered. It was pretty grim ... just crowded in there being fed and waiting to die. The slaughter plant was next to the holding pens. A look at our modern food production we don't often see on that scale. Even though I grew up in North Carolina near many farms, I don't remember it being so industrial and efficient in production. But then I left NC a long time ago ...

Tomorrow we enter Kansas ... another long ride 105 miles.