Day 42: Wooster to Youngstown, OH

When I was riding with Chris today on the 92 mile ride northeast to Youngstown I asked him, "So - what Youngstown about?" He is from Columbus, OH, I figured he should know. He grimaces and looks at me and says, "Corruption. Mafia." OK ... I guess Youngstown has a bad reputation.

So, here we are. If it is the case that there is a corruption and mafia problem here, I'd say it's extremely likely they've been skimming out of the transportation budget. The roads we were riding through Northeast Ohio were collectively the worst I've ever been on. Like almost unridable in many parts except near the center line. Like break a car axle. Like layer upon layer of asphalt filling potholes and then trying again. Like long vertical tire catching ruts that went hundreds of feet near the white line. Like loose gravel over the shoulder. Chris apologized for the condition of his state's roads here ... we told him the first two beautiful days and good roads made up for it.

Today's ride was fine. Very cool today - felt like a fall day. Seemed like a long riding day - in part because the roads really beat you up and required constant attention to keep from crashing and in part because we've been putting in back to back high mileage days for a week. Tomorrow we have another long one - 97 miles into Erie where we get a rest day. (yeah!)

There has been an interesting change in the group dynamic the last couple of days. Lots of folks are talking about going home. They are making plans and talking about being ready for the riding and the trip to end. I hope everyone can stay positive as the trip closes ...

But for me the part of the trip I've been most interested in is still coming - upper state New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. I've never been there, and can't wait.

I am, however starting to get weary of the daily regimented routine and starting to think about home. I am thinking that my deck with a quality glass of Washington wine and some salmon on the grill and friends over is going to be welcome. And my comfy bed. And not packing every day for 52 days. And never, ever going to Bob Evans or Sizzler or Perkins again.

So what is the routine? Someone asked early on and I don't think I ever described what exactly we do everyday - we actually have a pretty regimented in a set schedule. In fact, Chris and I were talking about how hard it would be to think for ourselves when we get back after adhering to a schedule for so long. So here it is:

5:30 ish: Wake up
6:00 ish: Breakfast - often at the hotel, sometimes at a nearby Dennys or Bob Evans type restaurant if the hotel breakfast is too light
7:00 ish: Load the vans. Load the van basically means they open the trailer and everyone hands off their bag and signs in that they've loaded their luggage. (We sign in for everything - their way of herding us and making sure we show up and are accounted for)
7:05: Pump up tires, Riding out. On long days or big climb days we often left earlier - always after it was light.
Between mile 30 and 40 ish: First SAG stop. The SAG van is parked somewhere visible - a park, a convenience store parking lot, a church, a turnout in the road with a cooler of water, Gatorade packets for those who partake in that nasty stuff, food table and basic mechanical support. Everyone has to sign in so they can make sure you aren't dead on the road somewhere, whether or not you take any food or stay for a break. May or may not have bathrooms there. SAG usually has cookies, fruit, salty chips or mix, trail mix, granola bars. They are always low on proteins, which I think is weird since that's pretty key for endurance riding. Some weird reluctance to put out peanut butter ... So I carry my own proteins on the bike. There is a strict sanitation routine at SAG that I think is really smart. Gloves off. Everyone has to use a wipe on their hands and then sanitizer before touching anything on the food table or water cooler. Good idea ... one virus could wipe out half the cyclists and spread quickly. I guess this happened a couple of years ago where van loads of riders were so sick they just were driven from hotel to hotel until they recovered.
Between mile 60 and 70 ish: Second SAG stop. Rides shorter than 70 often only get 1 SAG. Many riders also stop for lunch along the way at a cafe. I usually don't ... I prefer to eat a little constantly than sit down too long and have a big meal in my stomach. But I'm not above a milkshake around mile 70 ... that will get you in for sure.
Anytime after 1:00: Hotel time. The time you get to the hotel in the afternoon depends on how fast you are riding and how much site seeing/lollygagging you do. Afternoon is the easiest time to do laundry, ice bath, shower, blog time, sit by the pool, go to the bar. Sometimes you jump in the shower and go straight to dinner. Often the fastest riders don't have luggage ... the support van with the trailer stays on the road as needed to make sure everyone on the road is safe. This is the right call, but it means that lots of cyclists who dash in quickly sit around in wet bike shorts for a couple of hours ... which begs the question of why rush in ...
4:00 pm ish: Mechanics Hour: Our mechanic has office hours every day and it's first come first served to get your bike worked on. Popular guys, the mechanics.
5:00 pm ish: Route Rap: This is where we get our cue sheets for the next day and review the route for tomorrow. Construction. Stuff to see. Dangerous ride areas. etc. Usually just takes 15 minutes.
5:30 PM ish Dinner: Usually a high volume, modest quality place near the hotel. They try to be done with dinner by 7:00 so some of our more senior riders can make their 7:30 bedtimes.
7:00 pm ish: Post Dinner: Prime blog time. Tour de France if we are lucky is on and we can catch the replay. Many folks sit together in a common area to do their blog where the Wifi is strongest and chat. Others disappear into their rooms till the next morning. This is also when you get all your gear ready for the ride tomorrow. Clean and disinfect water bottles and refill them with electrolytes (for me NUUN) and water. Refill the Bento box (my favorite ride fuel is currently peanut butter filled salted pretzel nuggets and peanut M&Ms ... can go miles on that). Pull out clothes for the next day. Set up your cue sheet. Recharge the Garmin and the Mobile. Pre-pack to enable sleep fogged brain to get you out the door by 6 AM the next day without out forgetting stuff.

Speaking of, I need to go get my bike ready for tomorrow ...

Day 41: Marysville to Wooster, OH

If Mrs. Stafford of Mifflin OH had tempted us with hot chocolate in addition to the cookies, Chuck and I might still be sitting in her living room.

We had taken shelter under a tree in her front yard as a storm blew in and it became clear we were not going to escape without a drenching. As the wind picked up and the rain started to blow in sideways, we eyed the front porch of the house, debated, and then headed up. The door was open and someone was clearly home but it was quiet ... we were afraid if we shouted we might disturb someone.

Soon enough a cheerful little old lady popped out the door "Well Hello". She was delightful - she told us a bit about the area and that her house was built 150 years ago. And did we notice the lovely farm at the bottom of the hill with the white house and red barn? That was her husbands family farm. I had to smile at that ... there must be some Ohio ordinance that requires a white house/red barn combo (the same color red, no less) and we had passed hundreds in our miles in the state. But of course we nodded and smiled.

Her husband came out (she had told us he had indeed been napping but he denied it). I believe her. She invited us in and offered cookies. So nice. We knew if we went in we would be there for a while ... they were elderly and we were entertainment. Normally that would be fine but we had 30 miles to go on a 106 mile hilly ride and the weather was throwing some curveballs. The last thing I want is to end up having to get in the van and be SAGged in after all these miles biking every inch cross country, and bad weather, water on the road, low visibility all make it more important to go slow and take the time to get in safely. So we politely declined and rode on when the weather cleared a bit.

If a soggy stranger showed up on my front porch, would I invite them in and offer them cookies? I hope I would, but then I don't know. While I live my life as fearlessly as I can there are definitely boundaries to how much I open my world to others. But I think one of the lessons of this trip for me how much simple openness and acts of generosity can mean to others.

The rest of the day was beautiful riding, cloudy enough to keep the high humidity from feeling like a sauna and hilly. Steep hills - lots at 14% grade (which is steep enough to have me wishing for another couple of gears after I'm in the easiest ring possible.) Wildflowers, very cool birds - blue herons and a huge hawk. Farm after farm of white house and red barn.

Wooster is a cute town. I walked around main street after dinner. Nice little restaurants and craft/art stores. Went into one that had pottery and asked if it was local and she said no, a lot of their pots come from Seabeck, NC. Which is interesting Seabeck is exporting up here ...

They seem to like their edifices here in Wooster ... in a couple of blocks there were 6 churches with huge footprints all competing for real estate. The Masons and the Elks also had their own huge buildings.

Tomorrow is another long one - 92 miles to Youngstown.

Day 40: Richmond IN to Marysville, OH

Today started out with beautiful light that streaked through the haze and the trees in long stripes of white to soft yellow. It was a beautiful start to a perfect riding day.

We were only 2 miles from the Ohio border when we left the hotel this morning. I figured it was going to be a beautiful day when - after the obligatory state sign photo-op I looked to my right and saw a hummingbird having breakfast and ahead and saw the light falling in streaks through the mist and trees into a clearing. I let the folks I normally ride with ride on ahead and spent the next hour just enjoying the early morning.

The next 65 miles of our 106 mile ride was a relatively easy meander. Lots of navigating and searching for road signs through country roads as we worked our way north, then east in the square pattern that so many rural roads are laid out to accommodate the fields.

Green fields. Corn. Ponds. Pasture.

Queen Anne's Lace and Chicory were out and covering the road side and fields.

Ohio is not flat - surprisingly, but was a series of gentle hills with a promise of many more and steeper tomorrow.

Golden eagles - tons of them - were circling overhead and hunting in nearby fields. Huge birds - never seen so many.

We road through communities of German Baptists (also called Dunkers because of their tradition of baptism by immersion) driving horse and buggies, building a barn, a woman in her modest dress and cap mowing the lawn on a riding lawnmower, a boy driving a tractor who could hardly reach the clutch with a dog happily running along in front of him. They always waived and smiled and clearly accepted modern tools more readily than the Amish communities we visited earlier in Missouri.

I missed a turn and accidentally found an old grist mill I was hoping to find and would have missed for sure had I not been lost. It ground meal using an old water mill ... Unfortunately it was closed but it was a beautiful spot on the outside.

And had fun watching 4 kids chasing their pet pigs around and playing in the mud.

By the time I got to the small town of St. Paris I'd worked up an appetite. Luckily the mayor of the town also operated a cafe and he was ready for us. He hosted previous tours for 2 years before us. He even had the Tour de France on the big screen.

A smoothie and half a sandwich later (courtesy of Marilyn who offered to share) I decided to get on with it. I'd been riding really easy for a few days, and we had a nice brisk tailwind and I decided to make the most of it. So the last 35 miles I hauled in at well over 20 mph. It's one thing to take your time and see the sites, and another thing to just get lazy.

I hope tomorrow is more of the same. Maybe a little less corn.

Day 39: Indianapolis to Richmond, IN

I was grumpy this morning.

Alarm went off way too early at 5:20. It was supposed to rain. Whine, Whine.

By the first 30 miles it was pouring rain. I was covered in road grunge from the knees down and wet. I resolved to put my head down and finish the ride as soon as possible. I was debating today's ride ranking ... Was it worse or not as bad as the current #2 worse day of riding - the Kansas headwind day.

Then, about 53 miles into a 75 miles ride I noticed something interesting. Towns started coming quickly along highway 40 - and I noticed a sign designating it as the country's first National Road commissioned by the federal government in the early 1800s and completed in Indiana in 1834. So that means we started seeing a lot of very old houses and buildings in towns that had popped up along the road as one of the first highways extending west. Then in the town of Cambridge City I saw several historical designation signs.

One historical designation sign stirred me out of my grumpiness enough to prompt a turn off to the right ... to the home and pottery of the Overbeck Sisters. As a former obsessive Antiques Roadshow watcher I'd heard of them ... their pottery helped set the standard for American pottery in the arts and crafts period of American decorative arts. So as I rode over to the house I saw a pretty old house and a lady working in the front garden. I stopped and said hello and we chatted a bit. And she beckoned her husband over.

Meet Phyllis and Jerry Mattheis. They made my day, and I have no doubt meeting them will be a highlight of this trip. They were so generous with their time and knowledge and spent at least 2 hours with me showing me the sisters home they had bought in ruins 35 years ago from an owner who planned to turn it into a parking lot and restored themselves. We chatted about family, they educated me about the history of the sisters, the area and the pottery and about bicycling. Turns out Jerry rode from Indiana to Miami with a friend in 1951 and they stayed in fire stations and police stations along the way. Sounded like a great trip.

Phyllis and Jerry are very modest about their accomplishments but it's clear they are movers and shakers in that community. Just the act of buying and restoring the home and pottery and getting it on the National Register is a huge service to anyone who cares about art and history and a gift to everyone. And Phyllis also helped set up the local museum, sees to restoration of other buildings and is involved in the Overbeck pottery museum at the local library.

She offered to take me to the library and show me the collection and I jumped on it. So we hopped on our bikes and road on the newly built sidewalks (Phyllis likes to ride on the sidewalk) and went to the library. They opened the museum which was housed in the basement. She showed me the pieces and we watched a video that she and Jerry were featured in as preservers of the home. The library was buzzing with activity above. There were numerous nice and very valuable pieces donated to the local museum, which is great to have them here rather all in private collections.

Their pottery ranged from vases in all kinds of glazes and shapes and decor to figurines and grotesques that were funny and showed the sisters humor.

It was a wonderful experience. For more info and to see some of their pottery go to http://www.waynet.org/nonprofit/overbeck.htm

Another thing Phyllis did was help get some important women's history recognized in the town of Dublin just up the road from Cambridge City. She worked with a state women's organization to get a plaque erected recognizing the first women's rights convention, held in 1853 that demanded equality in political, social and financial rights for women. Of course this was instigated by the Quakers, who have a very strong presence in Indiana.

In fact, Quaker founded Earlham College, sister college to Guilford College where I went to school is on the route. It was founded about 10 years after Guilford, and many of the Quakers came from North Carolina. So I cruised through the college with Brian and it looks pretty similar to Guilford. Similar old buildings. Classes that emphasize how to be a good liberal. They even have an equestrian center on campus.

Jerry and Phyllis have a granddaughter going to Earlham. I assured them it was possible to graduate from a Quaker college with a liberal arts degree and actually earn a living later. They looked a little skeptical.

So a great day. Reminds me that a trip and a day - and a life - is what you make of it. And the best things on a trip are not the sites but the amazing people you meet along the way.

Day 37 and 38: Crawfordsville to Indianapolis and Rest Day

First off, I can't believe I forgot to write about the Fountain County 4-H Animal Fair for Day 36.

Not sure how many of you know about my 4-H days. In rural North Carolina where I grew up I had a horse there were a lot of activities based in 4-H, including tons of horse stuff - shows, horse judging contests, horse knowledge bowl, and tons of other projects. I was on county teams that were actually pretty good - we won state level competitions and went to nationals. So between the time I was 11 and 17 I spent all my free time either riding the horse, caring for him or cleaning up after him - no doubt smelling like a barn.

So when I saw the sign at for the 4-H show in I went. And sure enough, there they were - mop-headed horse crazy little girls riding horses ranging from high quality and well trained to the backyard swaybacked pet.

It was a hoot to watch a few classes. I'm quite sure I looked just like those bouncing little girls out there -- very serious, nervous, and barely in control (or outright no control at all in many cases as their horses shied and balked). I saw Bryan, Meiri and Norbert in there and as usual we made quite a site in our spandex and helmets.

One nice thing in Crawfordsville is we went to a nice local cafe for dinner and breakfast. This cafe served healthy balanced meals in proportions that would feed normal people. For us though, used to chowing on all you can eat buffets of marginal to outright crummy food, it didn't seem like enough. Some just went to McDonalds after dinner for a second dinner. I didn't but was interested in how hungry I was on the bike all day - maybe I am burning all that food off I'm stuffing in. I do feel like I'm eating so much food I'm getting sick of bothering to eat and in some ways it will be a relief to just eat when you are hungry and not eat out of fear of bonking and passing out on the side of the road.

Our ride into Indianapolis was short - 65 miles but we had lots of great stops and fun coming in.

Roark titanium bicycle factory was on the route and some of us went in and got a tour and met their frame maker. That was pretty interesting. He only makes about 100 frames a year - all custom. It was fun to ask him how he would build a bike differently to support a heavy rider verses a light rider (thicker tubes for the down tube and head tube) and how he might build a race bike different from a touring bike (race bike needs more reinforcement around the bottom bracket where the cranks come in to give the racer as stiff a possible platform when she pushes peddles for max speed and reinforced around the fork for strength). The factory also does work for the defense department on nuclear subs and he was very excited to show me this fusion drill that is an engineers dream toy but honestly I had not clue what he was talking about for most of it.

They are beautiful bikes. For non-bike folks, when you decide to buy a new bike and you are ready to advance above what's available at Target you have a ton of complicated decisions to make about what bike is right for you. Because it is a gear intensive sport, nothing can be simple or straightforward. One of the basic decisions is what do you want your bike frame made of. Steel (my first bike a Bianchi - heavy but solid and a comfortable ride), Aluminum (like riding a tin can and will jar your teeth out - hate the feel of aluminum), carbon (what my Orbea is made of - light and comfortable - what Boeing is making its Dreamliner out providing one ever actually gets built. Bad thing is carbon is basically fabric wrapped in plastic and its fragile and can crack and isn't repairable. Expensive but prices are coming down) And Titanium which is light, strong, will last forever ... and really expensive. One of the custom Roark frames will run around $3000 - that's just the frame, no wheels, saddle, handle bars or the expensive components in the gears and the breaks. So a custom Roark with good quality components and pieces is probably a $7000 bike.

After drooling over the bikes, we rode on through Eagle Creek Park and saw the first evergreen trees since California if you don't count the half dead cedar tree in someone yard in Missouri. It looked like home.

And of course you can't go to Indianapolis without going to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We got pretty lost getting there and once we found it were greeted by a cranky old lady at the guard house who gave our bikes a nasty look and said we couldn't ride across the parking lot to to the bike racks we had to walk the bikes and we couldn't take all the bikes in because the bike rack wasn't big enough. Clearly we are in CARland - bikes not that welcome.

Again, I'm not a car person. So once in the museum I enlisted Lois, a very nice woman in a red jacket who spent 20 minutes answering all my dumb questions. The short version: there are only 3 races a year there. Indie cars, NASCAR and motorcycles. Indie cars are different than NASCAR and Formula 1 Cars, but look more like Formula 1. NASCAR goes slower and gets in more wrecks, which explains North Carolina's obsession with it. Formula 1 raced there for a few years and then won't come back because of some dispute about the track, but she thinks the track has made changes and F1 may come back. They must make a slug of money to operate a facility that size on only 3 races a year. It's unbelievably huge and got to cost a ton to operate. Even though they charge $8 for a brat and a soda for all the visitors that still can't do it.

So after the car racing we headed back to our own kind and went to the Major Taylor Velodrome. If you don't know, Major Taylor was an elite black athlete and cyclist at the turn of the century and competed and won in Europe since he couldn't compete here. Pretty amazing history - here's more info: http://www.majortaylorassociation.org/who.htm

A velodrome is a track for bike racing. It's oval and has steep banked ends. Races on there are single speed and have no brakes. I like my brakes so I think track racing isn't for me. But even though we have a Velodrome in Seattle and I've been to some races there I've never ridden on it. We had a good time flying around the track, and then got the competition on and started timing laps. I got a lap in 29 seconds. Not fast by racing standards but I beat a lot of our guys which is what I cared about :) That's a lot of fun and a good workout ... heart pounding and gasping for breath. You go up those steeply banked turns and it's unnerving to feel like your wheels will slip right out from under you down the bank ... but they don't. I could see doing this again ...

We followed a great bike trail into Indianapolis that went right through the river and came into the city in front of the capital downtown. Indianapolis is a great city - they've done a nice job developing their downtown. Store fronts are full - no vacancies. Lots of green space. Bike and pedestrian friendly. They've done a lot of things right here. I was impressed. And had we not been biking through I might never have thought to come here. Went and explored the city a bit today including the NCAA Hall of Fame which features all the NCAA sports and a lot of audiovisual and experiential exhibits (shoot hoops, kick the ball in a goal ... good place to take kids.)

Tonight we go over to Jay's house - he lives here and rode with us on the first leg to Salt Lake. He's hosting us for a BBQ- very sweet of him. I'm looking forward to lounging in his back yard with a beer.

Day 36: Champaign IL to Crawfordsille, IN

Today was a light-hearted ride. Perfect weather. Short by recent standards - only 82 miles.

It was pretty funny listening to people talk about our "short" day ... We'll have so much time ... Piece of cake ... such a nice break ...

When did 82 mile rides start to seem easy?

Anyway - that perception of an easy day combined with a day off after a short ride tomorrow (63 miles) made us more willing to play and less concerned about getting in and getting ready for tomorrow. A bunch of us rode together the first 30 miles to the sag stop. The group I usually ride with spent a lot of time with some of the folks who pace a little slower and we had a blast. After our 20th mile of corn we decided to practice our CORNOGRAPHY. Many staged goofy corn photos and probably a few damaged corn plants later we headed on east.

But the goofing off didn't end there. Photo stops at the Indiana photo that required a bit of slogging through weeds and thistles. Then a retro photo stop at the Illinois border since we didn't have a good sign coming in where there was a convenient corn field and prison framed in the background.

The ride was made even better by a string of small towns that were all interesting and felt like thy had a nice balance of being local and lived and having their own flavor. One thing I've noticed in the countless small towns we've been through is how many towns have succumbed to the fast food chain strips and homogenization that has stripped the character from towns that were once unique.

We had broken up into loosely formed strings of riders by the time we hit Covington, Indiana, a pretty little town with lovely old houses and a main street that looks like it has stores catering to visitors who come in for antiquing. I was navigating through the town trying to follow directions when I noticed a woman hollering out - "where are you going" at other passing cyclists. I had ridden past her, too, before it registered she was talking to us and getting a little discouraged at flagging one of us down. So I turned around and went to say hello and met Murph (a gal) who was helping move a family members antique store to smaller space. She's got the blog address, so Murph if you tune in tell us a little more about Covington cause it looks like a nice town.

Riding on we went through the town of Veedersburg that sported a mighty fine cafe with homemade cakes and pies. I had the black raspberry/lemon cake. Delicious.

Next up was Hillsboro, which had my favorite welcome sign of all time: "Welcome to Hillsboro, home of 600 happy people and a few old soreheads."

Waynetown boasted a pioneer cemetery with graves from mid 1800s, including for William Bratton, a Lewis and Clark Expedition member who successfully completed the journey to the Pacific Northwest and then came back to settle in Waynetown. Several War of 1812, Mexican War and Civil War veterans were buried there. Lots of graves of young people in their 20s and infants ... folks died young back then.

And finally I lollygagged into Crawfordsville, Indiana. I'd heard about an old jail there and set out to check it out. So instead of turning to the hotel I headed into town. And sure enough - it was at the top of the hill and miraculously still open on Sunday afternoon. I walked in during the last tour of the day from the local historical society.

This jail, like the one we saw earlier in Linn County MO, was also the home of the sheriff and his family. But ... this was a jail that was built with an ingenious system that had a rotating cell block. The jail is shaped like a double decker pie chart, with each cell being a piece of the pie. There were originally no doors on the cell, the only door was a the entrance and the entire structure rotates around to rotate the cell in front of the door. The guards could rotate the entire structure with less pounds of force than it took to open a patio door. It was pretty interesting. Here's more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_jail

A fun day and tomorrow there will be lots of side trips and interesting stuff to see. I'm looking forward to my day off.

Any suggestions for Indianapolis for food, drink and/or fun?

LeRoy's Homemade bike: Chapin, IL

Day 34 and 35: Quincy to Springfield IL to Champaign IL

Corn. Oceans of corn.

Unbelievable how much corn is grown in Southern Illinois. And I expect in Indiana, Ohio and many other places we'll be passing through. The production scale is huge ... Like the wheat in Kansas. It brings home the "breadbasket to the world" and makes that marketing phrase actually believable. Apparently even just 5 years ago you would see a lot more soybeans planted on this route, but ethinol has fueled a huge surge in corn that has all but pushed out other crops.

Yesterday riding the 107 miles between Quincy IL and Springfield we estimated that at least 85 miles of the first hundred were corn miles. Corn tunnels (what I started calling the small rural roads pressed on both sides by corn fields as far as the eye could see deep. Signs identifying the corn as a special genetic modification (like that would fly in Seattle) or as seed corn. Most getting tassels and the rest just knee high. A cool wet spring meant a late planting for most farmers here. Small white houses boxed in by huge oak trees sitting in the middle of huge cornfields. Corn on rolling hills and corn on pancake flat land that stretched for miles. No wonder corn syrup is in so many foods ... We raise enough corn to demand as many potential markets as possible.

Biking both yesterday and today was essentially 200+ miles venturing through corn with the occasional soybean field and pasture land and small town.

To amuse ourselves we invented CORNY jokes like: What do you call a group of cyclists taking pictures of corn? Cornography.

Another entertainment was the various insects that seem to like the hot humid summers around the cornfields. Every now and then you pass through a cloud of gnats and can feel them plastering themselves to your arms and face. You try to remember to wipe those off before grossing out normal people when you head into a cafe or gas station.

Or there are the beatles. Low and slow flying, about half an inch long, they occasionally bounce off your helmet or arm with a THWACK! Occasionally one flies into the vents of your helmet (or better a riding companion), and then it's amusing to watch them trying to get the helmet off and the beetle out while still pedaling 18mph. Nothing like a big bug crawling around in your hair to inspire drastic action. Better is when one flies into your jersey or sports bra ... That generally entails colorful language and groping around in your clothes trying to extract those prickly little buggers while pedaling.

Yep - that's what passes for entertainment biking through 200 miles of corn. Wonder what we'll come up with tomorrow?

But thankfully there were a few non-corn related happenings that broke up our trek east.

In the tiny town of Chapin about 60 miles east of Quincy, Bob and I pulled into to a convenience store for a little caffeine rehabilitation. Parked out front was a very homemade looking recumbent bike. ... Meet Leroy. He's a former navy guy who now is the welder in Chapin. He made this enormous recumbent bike himself, complete with a tie rod to steer, a kick stand, duel rear baskets and a huge hood ornament. The wheels were solid rubber. The handlebars were like those old bars on girls bikes with the banana seat. It must have weighed well over 60 lbs. After duly admiring his wheels, he offered to let me take it for a spin. I couldn't actually reach the pedals, but felt like sitting in a homemade recliner. Both LeRoy and his Bike were a kick.

Springfield, Illinois is all about Abe Lincoln. We got into Springfield in time for me to get a bike repair done (maybe more bad news on the frame around the water bottle connectors) and then to visit Lincoln's house when he was a lawyer and elected to the state legislator and before he won the Presidency. The Park Service had restored a 4 square block area and led tours of the neighborhood and of the Lincolns old house. They had acquired much of the Lincolns furniture that they had sold off prior to moving to DC. Lots of information on the family, their philosophy on raising children ("let them be free of parental tyranny") Mary Lincoln (a hottie from an aristocratic family who was also courted by Lincolns Political Rival Steven Douglas.).

Really interesting is they just discovered some letters that confirm that Lincoln's neighbor 4 doors down was a station master on the underground railroad. The Sheriff lived next door, too. Hard to believe that Lincoln and the Sheriff didn't know about and condone UR activity happening right under their nose ... Wonder what light this can shed on his choices as president. The whole park is really well done - worth a stop through.

Then I headed back to the hotel and cleaned up for a visit from my friend Bryan Dozer who recently moved to St. Louis with his wife. We rode together for many years with Team in Training in Seattle. It was delightful to see him and catch up ... Bryan you look fabulous and clearly this move was a really positive (even though I miss riding with you.)

Today was more corn.

Springfield to Champaign was 98 miles, but it felt pretty easy with a nice tail wind and everyone was pretty mellow and not in a hurry.

We had our first rest stop at a state park where the Lincolns had a cabin when they first moved to Illinois. Then after more corn a second rest stop at a cemetery where another ABB staffer came down to visit and brought yummy watermelon. He hung around through dinner and gave us a little presentation on ... Sex in the Corn Field. Yep ... We learned about how corn reproduces ... It can self pollinate or cross pollinate - which is why corn is planted so closely together. Appropriate to end our corn ride with more corn facts.

Tomorrow we go to Indiana and no doubt pass a lot more corn.

Day 33: Kirksville Missouri to Quincy, IL

Yesterday I overdid it a bit. And today I could really feel it.

Basically it was laziness, in a twisted sort of way. Tons of hills the last couple of days. Climbing these kind of hills in a smart way requires really working your gears. You want to maintain a steady rapid cadence so you are pedaling consistently - ideally around 90 revolutions per minute. To do this on hills, you have to work your gears constantly to make it easier to pedal when you are climbing and harder when descending.

Basically I just started short cutting it and would just stand up in the pedals and mash up the climbs rather than pay attention and do the shifting. This is fine for a bit, and fine if you can rest the next day. But it really strains your muscles, and riding nearly 100 miles day after day taxes your reserve strength. Especially for me - I tend to mostly sit and spin and rarely stand to climb so some of those muscles aren't as strong as they could be anyway. So there were two 85 mile days with serious mashing that took a toll.

To top it off I didn't get my ice bath last night because the tub was draining slow which usually means something nasty is down there and I just didn't have the stomach to clean the drain and then hunt down the disinfectant from housekeeping to sanitize the tub (like a few days ago ... Yuck.)

So when today rolled around I knew I was going to hurt after the first couple of miles. Muscles on the left side cramped and tightened and pulled into my lower back and side making the back hurt. So you stretch and contort and twist on bike while riding while making complaining grunting noises. My more spry riding companions totally outpaced me today. But that's OK cause my body is demanding I slow down and behave on the hills ...

And there were plenty as we finished Missouri before dropping into the Mississippi river flood plane 70 miles into a 97 mile ride.

Today we rode a gorgeous set of small country roads through pasture land, corn and soybean fields and farms. We passed through several more Mennonite and Amish towns and I was pretty amused seeing a teenage girl in dress, apron and cap sitting on a riding lawnmower mowing the field. She looked as surprised to see us ride by as we were to see her. The clouds and fog in the morning turned into a comfortable riding day and full on sun by mid afternoon. It was quiet and peaceful for the 70 miles heading east to the Miss river ... A good day to meditate in the saddle and enjoy just being out.

We passed through some tiny towns - Barring was one and it was sobering. There was once a big hotel there that had fallen into disrepair and other buildings on main street that were almost falling down.

Finally we dropped down into Canton, a small river town where we caught a ferry to the Illinois side of the Mississippi. The ferry took about 10 minutes to cross and just ran back and forth continually. It was a small little boat with a flat deck that sat low to the water and an engineers cabin that was attached to the deck by an arm ... The engineers cabin just rotated around to push the ferry in one direction and then back across.

On the Illinois side we were greeted by a dirt road that led to a big grain silo that was a co-op for the county ... No grand hoopla for entering the state in this direction.

We rode south through the Miss River flood plain for 15 miles - pancake flat - with the ridge that was at one point the rivers edge rising several hundred feet on our left. The flood plain was planted entirely with corn for miles. Gradually we paralleled the river again and followed it south past several parks to Quincy. The river was running gently, very muddy and brown, and I was surprised how narrow it is this far north.

Quincy is an old river town known for its architecture. We ran into a woman who is a cyclist and she gave us hints about where to find the bike shop and suggested we ride through the neighborhoods and check out the historic houses off Maine Street. I did, and they were beautiful, huge and impressive. The money here came from the railroad - the bridge west to Kansas City and beyond came through Quincy and combined with steamboat traffic it made this the second largest city in Illinois in the late 1800s.

An extra long ice bath tonight has made the muscles feel better - hopefully up for a 110 mile ride to Springfield tomorrow.

Day 32: Chillicothe to Kirksville MO

The show me state was showing off today.

Wildflowers were blooming like mad on an incredibly beautiful and extremely hilly 85 mile ride. Green pasture land, flower coated hillsides and farms with stately old white houses and occasional crumbling barns just kept coming all day. We were on narrow country roads. Flowers lined the road and coated fields - many which looked like mottled patches of green, red and yellow.

Lots of new wildflowers out today: yellow snap dragons, pink echinasia, and many others in purples, pinks and yellows.

The morning light and sky were beautiful and lasted much longer than usual making it a great morning for photography. The sky and clouds were layered with white fluffy clouds, some heavier and grey threatening rain and high thin clouds that looked like stretched cotton making curving soft streaks.

Basically the day was ride, stop, photo, ride, stop, photo. No speed records.

And climb. Lots of steep climbs (between 8 to 14% grade). We climbed about 4400 feet today. There is a park just outside of Kirksville called Thousand Hills State Park ... Aptly named. Someone claims they counted 146 hills ... Believable.

Our first rest top was in Linneus (population 346) about 35 miles into the ride. Next to where our van was set up was an old house
with "Jail Museum" on a sign out front. Turns out this house was the home of Linn County sheriffs from the late 1800s through the 1970s ... and it had the men and women's jail built into the house.

The sheriff and his family lived in the house. The wife also cooked for the prisoners. The men's cells were built into a large walled off reinforced room in the middle of the house directly behind the house foyer. We talked them into letting us down for a look and there were heavy metal cages built into two walls with bunk beds, graffiti and toilets. We of course staged photos locked in the cells. There was open space outside the cells with a sink, mirror and bench. The rest of the space was filled with junk being stored.

The women were kept upstairs and their rooms had iron bars over the outside of the window. One of the local museum committee ladies was telling me that women prisoners liked to shout down and scare the kids walking by when she was a girl.

The local Museum Committee had successfully gotten their jail added to the national historic building registry and were trying to raise the money to restore it. Currently they are $800 short of restoring the Sheriff's office. I was over hearing them discussing who was going to talk to the mayor about getting information on their fund-raiser in the next months utility bills mailing and how they were going to have to work around the secretary who didn't want to fold extra papers for the mailing. It's funny but I've heard the same conversation with local school districts trying to publicize their local events in WA.

I dropped a donation in the jar, but if this intrigues you consider a donation to the project. Linneus Historical Museum, 101 N. Main Street, Linneus, MO 64653.

When we got into Kirksville Bob and I still had some energy and so we kept riding downtown. Turns out Kirksville is a 2 college town - a med school (osteopathic) and a liberal arts college. The town is a funky mix of old downtown stores and diners that have been there forever and coffee shops and tattoo parlors for the college kids. The courthouse fills the main square and there are 4 historical plaques on each corner - double sided - you have to walk to the back to finish reading them. Most interesting was the "cyclone" i.e. tornado of 1899 that retells stories of women seeing white horses in the same funnel cloud, babies being found cooing 400 yards from its house and a horse still tied up to a post unharmed when the barn around it was picked up and destroyed. Less entertaining but probably more factual is that Kirksville was the site of the Civil War battle that let the Union secure northern Missouri. The town fell in 3 hours to Union troops.

Tomorrow we cross the Mississippi River and leave Missouri. Illinois has a hard act to follow after all the beautiful miles the last few days.

Day 31: St. Joseph to Chillicothe, MO (wildflowers and Amish country)

Between enormous crop sprayer coops that stood a couple of stories off the road and had extendable arms going out up to 120 yards, and bearded men driving horse and buggies, we had interesting company on the road today.

I only know the enormous, tall tractor things were sprayer coops because the very nice woman who owned the frozen custard shop in Jamesport told us so.

Today we biked 89 miles east through Amish Country. It was an interesting contrast between the first 50 miles of farmland, tractors, sprayers, trucks and the land around Jamesport with horse and buggies on the roads and flat carts pulled by enormous draft horses sitting in yards.

Amanda at the custard shop told us there were around 1600 Amish in the Jamesport area. She grew up there and looks at her Amish neighbors as anyone else. Ahead of us in line was a young Amish man. As we were chatting after he left she told us that he already had 4 daughters, and only a year ago their house burned down with the family sleeping around the stove in the lower floors to stay warm. He barely escaped with one of the kids before the top floor collapsed in on the house. In a month the Amish community had dropped everything and rebuilt their home. It's obviously a community that looks after each other.

Beautiful ride today - rolling hills, corn and soybeans, pastures. A couple of mangy, bike chasing dogs kept things lively though I never had to deploy the water bottle squirt method of dog repellent.

And we had the best wildflowers I've seen yet. Huge fields of what looked like Queen Annes Lace or white yarrow. Yellow black eye susans. Purple thistle. Pink clover. Great purple flowers Bob looked up and identified as Chicory.

I had fun playing with photos to try and capture the color of the flowers with the green of the fields.

The roads were narrow, low traffic and rolling hills. Often no shoulders, but very fun and relaxing to ride on. As we head east there are simply more roads to ride on ... I was thinking of how much more anxiety there is riding on trafficky roads that you don't even realize you are managing until you are off them. It's like a burden off. A lot fewer flats, too.

Tomorrow we have what sounds like a beautiful ride north east to Kirksville on little county roads with tons of hills.

Day 29 and 30: Topeka to St. Joseph MO and Rest Day in St. Joseph

Missouri feels like the South.

It's not just the humidity, though that's certainly part of it. It's the people. I spent my rest day today doing anything but resting ... touring around St. Joseph and visiting the Psychiatric and St. Joseph Museums, Jessie James house where he was killed and the Patee House museum where the Pony Express was headquartered and walking through a downtown of condemned beautiful old mansions and buildings that fell apart after all commerce moved to strip malls by the interstate. But we won't talk about what's wrong with American Urban Development. Overall, St. Joseph is an interesting place to visit. Worth a stop if you're heading through there.

In between touring around I got the 3rd worst massage of my life (The two worse were Mr. Thumbs and the woman who cried through the whole massage because her boyfriend had just broken up with her.) This one the woman was incredibly nice, so thrilled to have us (Meiri and I) in, and just unfortunately poorly trained, for some reason skipped pretty important anatomical parts needing a little help, and pretty heavy on the oil. The rest of the day roaming around downtown I felt like the oil only enhanced my simmering in the hot, humid heat - stick a fork in me already.

But what really stood out today were all the random interactions with people. These St. Joseph folks are talkers. First there was the cab driver who told us how awful this town was and how he got stuck here. How? Well ... He was working the fishing boats out of Seattle and then his former high school girlfriend who just got divorced started writing to him. So he moved to St. Joe as he wanted to retire from fishing anyway while he still "had all my fingers and toes" and moved in with her. But that didn't work out ... apparently when her ex got remarried she went to his wedding dressed in a black dress and veil. (Meiri and I told him we thought he dodged a bullet there with that gal.) Then he met his current wife, married her and got stuck. But it must not be too bad because they spent all last summer riding motorcycles all over the west, and hoped to ride out with 2000+ Harley riders who are retracing the Pony Express route in September. (In case you are interested in that kind of thing).

This happened all day. The very nice lady who gave me a massage insisted on driving Mieri and I to where we where having lunch so we didn't have to walk in the heat - so we cramped into her tiny font seat in the pickup truck for a 2 mile drive. Very sweet.

The lady at the fabric shop initiated an extensive consultation on how to best repair the hole in my bike shorts that involved all the staff and a few customers in the store.

So an interesting day.

Getting here from Topeka was a beautiful ride - and quite challenging. Hills all the way - not huge climbs but enough to keep you working. I was pooped at the end ...

We rode through farmland and pastureland for the first 40 miles of our 85 miles ride. There was rain the first 10 miles and a steady headwind all the way to the Missouri River when we turned north.

A highlight was the town of Atchison on the Kansas side of the MO river. It is the birthplace of Amelia Earhart (born at her grandparents) and while her home was closed for tour it was a beautiful large home on a bluff overlooking the MO river. There were other beautiful old houses and mansions in the historic town on brick streets lined with large oak trees. Lovely town. A wonderful riverfront park ran for miles up from the town with a Lewis and Clark interpretive area (they landed here) and a bike and footpath filled with locals taking walks or rides. A great little town.

I crossed the river on a dicey bridge where some dumb head decided it would be fun to start a conversation while driving past me on the bridge. Jeez.

And then met up with the group I was riding with and we headed north up the east side of the river towards St. Joseph. Very hilly, tired legs, beautiful country.

Now that we are in Missouri I feel like we are truly close to the end of the trip - even though we are just over half way. Vital stats so far: Approx 2100 miles ridden. 85,000 feet of climbing, 101,000 calories burned.

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.