EnRouteTransport

I rode into Pittsburg with the American flag mounted on my bike so it would flap in the wind. Things felt different that day. Could have mostly been that things felt different in my mind and I externalized a well-fed state to one of our national symbols…regardless, I considered the flag a great deal on my ride. I liked what it told me about how fast I rode, what direction the wind came from, and how it made me notice the American flags in my environment. I began to dig around in my own psyche, “What does this flag mean to me?” I did put the flag on my bike as a kind of friendly charm, and the more I looked at it, the more I realized I was coming to a new understanding and appreciation of being American. Somehow being on this trip and pedaling through the landscape and the towns and talking to people all gave me a greater appreciation for my home country, and I liked it.

A quick ride brought me to the Missouri State Line. I almost missed it because it was just far enough out of town for me to be in an early morning, direct light daze. I abruptly pulled to a stop. A truck that had waited for me to go by exiting the convenience store pulled up as I got my camera out, and the man inside said, “Would you like me to take a picture of you?”
“That would be wonderful. Thank you. I’m afraid the sign won’t come out very well in this light though.”
“I can take it from the side. That ought to work.”
“Right on.” I wheeled my bike down to the sign, and he snapped a couple of pictures. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. All men are friendly in Missouri.” He pronounced Missouri with emphasis on the consonants, “Muh-zzrr-uh.” “When you get down the road in Golden City, you have to stop at Cookie’s Café. They have amazing pie there. Everyone knows about Cookie’s.”
“Thank you. I will.”

I had a long day of riding planned. After several shorter days in Kansas in the heat, I couldn’t help an upwelling excitement about Missouri, hilly terrain, cooler temperatures, and somehow getting on with this ride. The services in the beginning map segments were few and far between. Unfortunately the temperature hadn’t moderated any, and I still didn’t want to sleep anywhere without air conditioning. Some lodging potential existed in Everton, a town about 50 or 60 miles down the road, and my next option was in Marshfield, over 100 miles down the road. The overdriver in me really wanted to get to Marshfield. My body mind was ok getting to Everton and stopping there.

The scenery changed, but the crops didn’t. More trees. More waterways. More hills. The road followed a pattern of going up, then down to the low areas that filled with water, and then climbed up – out of the ditch, if you will. Signs signaled caution: Impassable in high water. On that particular day, the only high water was coming out of my pores in the steamy heat. Still, I enjoyed the bridges and the views of the rivers cloaked in the shadow of deciduous trees. Looked dreamy to me and more my image of the south than anything I’d yet seen. I don’t know if people consider Missouri part of the south. I’ll have to ask.
I found Cooky’s Café easily.
“What a great sign! What do you think, he said Cookie’s, but that’s ‘Cooky’ like maybe a little weird. Yeah and like Sesame Street’s Cooky Monster. But he was a little less than upright, don’t you think, listed a bit, googly eyes?”
I hadn’t planned on stopping for food in Golden City, but I like to follow suggestions of such friendly people.
I went in and found a comfy place at one of the booths. All the booths had bright orange vinyl upholstery. Cool. The waitress came over and handed me a one-page menu.
“Here’s our bike log too, if you’re interested in signing in.”
I got a small breakfast. Second breakfast, yum, to save room for pie. Pie is awesome, but it can burn up quickly in my system and be a bit too sweet just on its own. Fuel intake is such a science sometimes and breakfast meats don’t appeal. So, I had breakfast on breakfast and then was ready for pie. Of course I couldn’t decide between peach and cherry, but since I’ve been more on a cherry kick I went with peach.
“Regular or Dutch.”
“Dutch please.”
I polished that off in no time.
“Would you like some more pie?”
Tempting offer. “No thanks. If I have any more I don’t think I’ll be able to pedal down the road.”
“Most cyclists have at least two pieces.”
“You are pie pushers here! I’ll give it some thought.”
In the mean time, I busied myself with the cycling log. Yep, there were all the people I’d passed. John from Portland. Matt Soria, the photographer going from Chicago to Mesa. I found out he was a vegan. Lots of people had been hearing about Cooky’s for states.
“What do you do with the old bike logs?”
“We keep them here in these binders.” They had three binders. She handed me the most recent one. “Be careful turning the pages, they’re kind of fragile.”
An entry from a 2009 Portland rider caught my attention because he’d illustrated his entry with a kind of tired, far out look on his face: “Kansas was the most challenging so far.” I thought so too. Someone else in the log book had written: “And here I thought I was the only one who’d ever ridden across the country.” Looking at the thousands of entries from cyclists I couldn’t believe myself how much traffic the TransAmerica Trail gets. The reason we don’t have numbers and hard and fast data on how many people use the trail is because it’s hiding out in the log books in these little towns, in the binders on the bottom shelf of the bus tub cart. I’d love to go back to Cooky’s and count those entries. The binder I looked at went all the way back to 2001.
I had one TransAm window decal left, and I decided Cooky’s while it wasn’t on the list of businesses was one of the most appropriate places I could leave one, and I happily saw it posted on the door before I left. I made a note to connect with them on facebook since they had that written on the edges of the log book.
What a curious thing, the elements that make a place bike-friendly.

Onward I went without sampling the cherry pie.
I would be roasted in no time. Pedal fast.
I passed a number of cyclists in the stretch between Golden City and Everton, a group of three, a young couple, maybe another couple…seemed like that many. At one point I yelled out, “It only gets hotter.”

In Everton I passed a brick plantation house. Surprise. And then I rode around and around the town looking for any of the services I saw coded on the map. Where was the lodging. Vague directions. “Hell with it, I’ll push on. But I need water. Where?” I could find no sign of even a gas station. I saw a man go into the post office. He threw the stub of his cigar into the street before going in. I followed.

“Excuse me. Where can I find water or ice in this town?”
“There’s a convenience store just down the way a bit. Go to the Y – that’s what we call it here – and take a left. You’ll pass the school and it’s on your right. You’ll see it. They have fountain drinks and things there.”
“Thank you!”

I followed his directions and easy enough, there it was. I stopped out front and chatted with a man sitting in a chair under the porch. He couldn’t believe I was doing what I was doing. I went inside for some cool.
I got a Vitamin Water and a Klondike bar. Both cold. I sat in the air conditioning cooling down. Filled my water bottles with ice and hoped they would stay cold longer than a mile, but that was unlikely.
I went back out into the heat. Two other people had replaced the first man I’d talked to under the porch.
“I’d do it some other way, take a plane or something. Are you married?”
“No, I’m not married. Never was.”
“Look at what you’re missing out on.”
“I’m a free bird. Gives me a chance to do this.”
The woman chimed in then, “How old are you?”
I love the direct questions. “35.”
“Oh, you have plenty of time.”
“I need to get moving. Thanks so much for talking to me.”
“Do you have anyone knows where you are? You know it’s over 100 degrees?”
“I’m in daily communication with people, yes.”
She looked at me and sent one of those silent messages.
“Would you feel better if I let you know I was ok?”
“Yes.”
“You have a cell phone, I can text you or something?”
“I do. Here’s the number. My name is Nita. I have friends in Fair Grove too. If there’s an emergency or something I could call them.”
“Thank you Nita. I’m Heidi. I’ll be in touch.”

I pedaled off.
The first town wasn’t too far from Everton, about seven miles, Ash Grove. I didn’t even stop there. When I turned onto V (this is how the roads are named in Muh-zzzrr-uh), it went straight up. “Awesome!” The whole way between Ash Grove and Walnut Grove an incredible series of hills worked me. My approach is simple: pedal for all you’re worth on the downhill and try to maintain momentum on the uphill. If I do this right, I make it to the top of the other side of the hill right about the time I need to bottom out in my granny gear. That didn’t always work, but I was determined not to walk up the hills. However, standing to pedal in the granny gear is a lot like walking, and I did this several times.

Walnut Grove! I made it. Convenience Store. I went in. I had some serious concern about electrolyte loss and heat stroke and all sorts of things. I got a V-8 because all I could think about was Potassium. More cold water. Refilled my bottles with ice. Rested in the cool a little bit, messaged people. From Walnut Grove, I had 23 miles to make Fair Grove. There was one gas station between the two and it was on the near side to Walnut Grove. I had only gone 14 miles from Everton to Walnut Grove, and that felt like a dangerous distance in the heat with the hills because, baby, climbing those hills heats you up more than it takes your breath away. On a few of them, I stopped to rest at the top thinking I would puke my innards from my toes. The feeling usually passed quickly, but I didn’t like having it.

I was in Walnut Grove at 4 p.m. Marshfield lay another 15 miles beyond Fair Grove. Even if I made good time, I would be getting in at the end of light. 23 miles. Danger. What if something happens? I texted Nita: “Hi Nita. It’s Heidi. I’m cooling in Walnut Grove. 23 miles to fair grove should definitely not take more than 3 hours. If you haven’t heard from me by 7, help!”

I took off in a rush. The hills. “Awesome!”
I came to the gas station 6 miles down the road. Stopped. Got ice and had a brief conversation with the man inside.
“Where are you headed?”
“Marshfield.”
“You’re not going to make it.”

I did not want to hear that for a number of reasons. “I don’t have much choice. There really isn’t anywhere to stop between here and there. What else am I going to do?”

I left in a hurry. Making pretty good time, but man, hot and tired.
Right as I neared the junction to Highway 13, I came to one of those monstrous hills I couldn’t quite get over before I needed to downshift all the way. My chain popped off.
“Drat. I’m walking this one.”
I pushed my bike up the rest of the hill and then all the way to the intersection because the roads have no shoulder. If anything, you’re lucky if there is a white line painted on the edge of the asphalt. They are no place to stop with the traffic and limited sight distance.
I put my chain back on at the intersection, crossed it and decided to try hitching. I waited for 15 minutes. One truck came by. Didn’t stop. Two cars came by. One of the drivers waved. A van came by. Didn’t stop.
“I need to keep going. No one is going to stop, and it’s just getting later.”
I pedaled on. When I heard vehicles behind me, and there were few, I stuck my thumb out. No one stopped, but only two cars passed. I crossed another intersection, climbed another hill. At the top of the hill was a house. I pedaled slowly at the top, catching my breath and getting ready for the downhill. Some dogs were barking at the house and came running. The house had a white fence around it, and I thought maybe they had an electric fence and the dogs would stay, but they didn’t. They breached the fence and came running toward me.

I like to believe that dogs need to run and bark because that’s how they’re wired. I like to believe that they don’t need to herd me but need to test their own power to run and make noise and be dogs, that kind of primal wiring. So I respond back. I say hello (that’s what barking is, isn’t it?) and check in on the body language.
“Hi dogs. Hi. Are you runners?”
It’s tough not to get freaked out by the snarling, but that’s just what dogs do. And if they’re protecting their territory, well, I’d soon be past it. I was just starting on the precipitous decline. A car was coming from the other direction. I could still see it descending. I remembered the raptor attack too. I just needed to get past the dogs’ turf. It’d be ok.
I watched them come up to me snarling, two dogs, one brown, one white. My feet. I looked down at my feet with a protective impulse. “Hi dogs.” The brown dog snarled more, running along side me and then bit into the panniers and pulled.
“Whoa!” It pulled me off balance, and I tottered a bit. It came around the other side, bit into the pannier and pulled again, bringing me down.
I fell right in the middle of the road and freaked out because I was only a short distance from the crest of the hill. Someone could likely come fast over the hill, and I could be roadkill before I knew it. The car below continued up the hill and I tried to collect the spilled contents of my bike and move off the road. The uphill driver slowed, passed around me and pulled into the driveway just above me.
I’m not sure how I got to the side of the road, if I managed to get all the stuff together myself or if someone from the car helped me. The dogs disappeared to me…somehow they just weren’t there anymore.
A truck came over the hill.
Crying, I stuck my thumb out. “Stop. Please stop and help.”
The truck pulled over on the side of the road below me.
From two directions I had people there to help, the car above, the truck below. We all had cell phones.
“Damn dogs.”
“Are you ok?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re all shook up.”
“That for sure. The dogs didn’t bite into me. Can you give me a ride down the road? I’m headed to Marshfield or Fair Grove, anything would be good.”
“I could take you as far as Fair Grove.”
“Thank you.”

The three of us loaded my bike and its parts into the truck. I thanked the car for stopping, again, and climbed into the truck.
“I’m just coming home from voting. My wife is right behind me or might be home already. I can take you to Fair Grove. I can take you to my house too. You can get cleaned up. We can make you dinner. Take a breather and figure out what to do next. I’ll bet you can even stay with us too. That’s scary. Damn dogs.”
It took some minutes for me to compose myself, to stop crying and shaking.
We got to Daryl’s house.

“We have a dog here. Big nice friendly dog. It’ll probably jump up on you, but all it wants to do is lick ya.”
I opened the truck door and the dog was right there. I managed to slide out of the truck in the little space the dog left to its soft wet tongue on my hands, its rough paws up on my body and me turning to the side not wanting dog tongue all over my face.
Daryl handed me an orange Gatorade. “Here, drink this. I’ll get your bags.”

It was all a whirl, the orange drink, the dog, Daryl, my stuff and going into the house. I met Dayton the friendly 9 year old, Patty, Daryl’s wife, and Whitney who is seventeen and just got her braces off yesterday. I couldn’t really see between trying to see over my sunglasses in the house or trying to see through them in the darkness.
“I’m sorry I can’t see. Daryl, if you could, I need that red bag from the front of my bike.”
People talked to me in my blindness. I stood there with the orange drink, taking swallows.
The bag came in, and I put my glasses on.
“Here.” Patty guided me into the bathroom. “Here’s a washcloth and a towel. And here’s a fresh bar of soap. Wash up, take a shower, whatever you need to do.”
I took my gloves off and turned the water on.
She closed the door as she left.
I washed my hands first to remove the chain grime.
I took my glasses off and washed my face. Miles and miles of sweat running down, tears, sunscreen goo, whatever else.

I came out of the bathroom and got my phone. I went into the kitchen as my phone powered up. I didn’t have any reception.
“Do you need to call anyone?”
I looked at my watch. 6:15. “Yes, actually I do, but I don’t have reception.”
“Where would you be calling?”
“I don’t know. I need to call someone I met in Everton. The area code is 417. Is that local?”
“Yeah. Here, you can use this phone.”
I called Nita and left her a message, “Hi Nita. Thanks for being my emergency back up. I did have an issue that involved some dogs, but some nice people helped me out and I’m all good. Just wanted to let you know that I’m safe and you’re off the hook for emergency standby. Thanks.”

“Do you have internet connection here?”
“No, we just have a dial up. But Whitney has internet on her phone.”
“I need to send a couple of messages, if I may.”
Whitney got me to the gmail sign in page, and I spent some time navigating her phone functions trying to figure out how to send an email without a touch screen and keypad. Eventually I figured it out and sat there calmly trying to convey a message in as few words as possible, pressing the numbers two and three times each for one letter.
“Thanks. You got a text.”
Patty made sure I had what I needed. “You’re welcome to stay here, have dinner…whatever. I could also drive you to Marshfield if you want.”
I thought for a little while. “I’d like to have dinner with you and then go to Marshfield if that’s ok and not too late.”
“Yeah. That’s fine.”
“Heidi, have you ever driven a tractor?”
“No.”
“Come on. You’re gonna.”
“Oh great.” I followed Daryl outside to the blue tractor.

“Now, all you have to do is slowly let up on the clutch.” He took care of all the other levers and things, guided me through releasing the brake. “Don’t worry about the brushhog on the back there. It’s disengaged.”
I drove the tractor down the driveway, around the turn around, and back up the driveway. When I got most of the way up the driveway, Daryl stopped me.
“Now you’re gonna do a wheelie.” Whitney stood by with my camera.
“Oh geez. No. I’m not going to do a wheelie.”
“Yes you are. It’s easy.”
I had visions of the tractor flying backwards and squashing me. I knew the brushhog was there, but even so, I would be tangled in mower parts and screeching engine happenings. It wasn’t enough to have ridden 100 miles in 100 degree heat get pulled down by dogs and now, a tractor wheelie?!
He guided me through the steps. “All you have to do is let up on the brake and the clutch at the same time. Fast.”
I popped a wheelie twice. For the photo.
“Daryl, show me how it’s done.”
He nonchalantly took control of the tractor, gave me enough time to get a picture framed and ready. Boing!
“Excellent!”

We piled back into the house.
Dinner preparations and conversation got underway.
I felt incredibly well cared for in their generosity. I hadn’t eaten food since the pie in Golden City, back at nine in the morning. Not until I started eating did I realize how hungry I was.
“May I have some more?”
“Help yourself.”
Daryl was amazed. “You put away that whole second plate?”
I shrugged.

After dinner, Patty drove me to Marshfield and Whitney came along. I enjoyed the mother-daughter time with them immeasurably, the kitchen and dinner preparation and now the ride to Marshfield. I don’t remember what my Mom and I talked about when I was about to be a senior in high school, but we probably talked about similar sorts of things. We definitely had special time when it was just the two of us. Spending that time with them made me feel that somehow I’d known them a long time.

I made a decent start out of Chanute and hadn’t pedaled to the first turn yet when I caught up to Dermot and Mary.
“Oh, we got a late start. The hotel had breakfast, and we wouldn’t miss that. They said it started at 6, but it didn’t come out until 6:20.”
Dermot had been riding on a bunky back wheel since Cassoday when I first met them. Somewhere around there he broke a spoke. “How’s your wheel?”
“I’ve ridden almost 140 miles on it like this. Maybe I’ll forget fixing it in Pittsburg and finish the ride on it. One thing about these bikes, it would have been good to get some better wheels for them.”
Mary added, “I had a very hard day yesterday.”
“I did too. I wanted to quit.”
“Oh with the heat and running out of water and everything closed…”
“Yeah, on Sundays not much is open.”
“It’s not just that things were closed on Sunday but in all the little towns places are just closed.”
“I don’t know what it was about yesterday but it just seemed to take forever to get anywhere.”
“There was a headwind.”
“Is that what it was? I thought it was a furnace blowing hot air on me.”
“I left my gloves under a tree, and Dermot went back for them later. When we got to that gas station, and it was closed, I just wasn’t sure if I would make it. I’d run out of water. When did you get in?”

“Right at two. What about you?”
“I think it was 1:30.”
“I couldn’t remember the name of the town.”
“I couldn’t either.”
Dermot steered us through the turn. A man in a truck came by and told us the road was closed ahead because of construction. I went up to him and got details on a detour that involved going back down the road and eight miles out of our way. Dermot called to me.
“Heidi. We’ll be fine. Worst case we may have to carry our bikes a little way.”
That seemed reasonable to me, so we carried on.
Four miles down the road we came to the construction zone.
“You ladies go first. The odds are better they won’t tell you no.”
We rode through the barricades easily and every now and again passed some exceptionally large vehicles.
“Why don’t they do one side of the road at a time? Why do they have to go tearing up the whole thing?” Mary didn’t like the uneven surface much but did a pretty good job navigating through it regardless.
“You’ll want to pedal. There’s a long bit of this.”
At one point I got out in front as we came across some more people and machinery. The two men asked, “How’s that on your bike?”
“Oh it’s fine. Rearranging my innards though.”
They laughed. Sweet!
Dermot and Mary got in front of me. I followed close behind Mary, and she came to a sudden stop. I nearly crashed into her when she came down on the ground.
“Ew. Are you stuck?” Looked like she couldn’t get one of her feet unclipped. And then she did.
“Yeah. I’m ok. I didn’t see this big clump until I was right on it.”
“I started off this morning falling over. I hadn’t even gotten out of the motel parking lot. There was just a little bit of traffic, and for a split second I thought about going down the sidewalk on my side of the street, and in that moment I tipped just a bit that direction with my foot clipped in and went over. I pretty much had to do a backward roll to get out of it. It’s always funny when that happens, standing still and falling over.”
“When I first started, I fell over all the time. I had two skinned knees for weeks.”
I caught up to Dermot, and we waited for Mary.
“Dermot, I fell over.”
“I did too when I turned around to look for you.”
“Do you ever check the Adventure Cycling updates.”
“I did once. I figure a closure like this is there along with the detour.”
“Tell me, Heidi, if someone had said you could take a 10 mile detour or go the road closed route, what would you pick?”
“Well, you convinced me to ride this route.”
“It’s more adventurous.”
We went a little further and then the road became so bumpy we couldn’t ride it anymore and walked the rest of the way. When the surface had been mucky, andawesome penetrating machine had come through and made about six inch diameter holes everywhere. Stunning riding surface.

We rode into Walnut together and stopped for some refreshment.
I cruised the streets to see what there was to see.
“Did you find a café?”
“Just a closed His & Hers Bar with a padlock on the front doors.”
We went into the convenience store. Dermot had a coffee. I went for a juice, bottle of water and ice cream bar. Mary had fountain water but got a lemonade ice when she saw I had ice cream.
“You know in the grocery stores you can get a big thing of ice cream for a dollar-50.”
“You eat some of it an then throw the rest away?”
Dermot smiled and reddened a bit, “No, I eat all of it. Chocolate chip ice cream is really good.” I loved the idea of the rural physician from Wales eating a whole half gallon of ice cream. He didn’t eat much while he was out on the road though. Not that I saw anyway.
“Why do you buy water when it’s free?”
“I feel I ought to since I’m out studying rural economic development. Also, I ran into a cyclist, John, who really impressed upon me the idea of buying something wherever I stopped.”
“I think we met him. He was rather adamant about that.”

Back down the road we went. We all realized I was moving faster. At the café we looked at the maps. I realized that if I didn’t stop in Pittsburg, it was a long way to the next air conditioned lodging. Out on the road I decided I would stop in Pittsburg.
“I’m going to ride ahead, but I’d love to go out for a beer with you when you get in.”
“We usually stay at the first, cheapest looking motel. Since we’ll be resting up a day, if it has a pool that will be better.”
I exchanged some contact information with Mary while we rode. I handed her my tag…my version of a business card.
“I don’t know where to put this.”
“You don’t have a pocket on your shirt?”
“No.”
“What about in your sock?” That’s one of my favorite places to stash little items when I’m out of pockets. I was also pleased that the indelible ink wouldn’t melt into indecipherable writing as she sweated on it. “See you later.”
Dermot called out to me, “Stay lucky.”

I went off into space out here among the corn, soybean, and hay fields. I remembered that I needed to pay attention to the roads because I needed to turn. I counted the two roads before my turn and then found myself at the road after where I was supposed to go. Oh well. It looped back to where I would have dumped out anyway. Some of that stretch went through some pretty tree-lined segments. I crossed the road once to take a water break in the shade. Mary and Dermot planned to get lunch in Girard. I figured Pittsburg was close enough I’d stop for lunch-dinner (my one meal) there.

Seeing the Welcome to Girard sign hosted by the Historic Girard made me feel a little foolish for being so driven to get somewhere instead of enjoying the ride. I felt much better than the day before in terms of my energy level and enthusiasm for the ride. We didn’t have the wind like the day before, but I wanted to get out of the heat. Talk about oppressive. The three-story Queen Anne residences provoke a “wow” or two from me as I rode. The center of town had a Spanish-influenced central plaza with courthouse and good looking buildings all around…except for the one that had recently been demolished. So it goes. I see so many buildings that are about to fall to pieces that I am not surprised I saw one in pieces. It made me sad and curious –like how I respond to roadkill.

I approached the main intersection of Pittsburg taking space in my lane. I sensed cars moving slowly behind me. One car came around me and then turned right in front of me into a business on the right side of the road. I came to a quick stop, both feet on the ground. About two feet of space between us.
“Gee, that was nice.”
It’s unfathomable to me how people can do that, especially someone who had come up behind me. ‘Do they think there’s no materiality to my person? Just because it’s hot out here doesn’t mean I’m a mirage. If anything, I should be the one suffering from heat-induced psychosis.’ And still I was nice. I called no one names, and I got back on my bike and continued on.
I pedaled slowly through the downtown, gawking at the place. I have difficulty noticing the stoplights set on the corners. I’m not sure if that’s a standard for Kansas historic areas or if it’s just a feature of Kansas towns. Most of the towns I ride through don’t have stoplights, and that’s not because I don’t see them.
“Pittsburg has a nice downtown.” I probably will not encounter a fully occupied downtown anywhere. Newton came close. Pittsburg was getting here. It’s downtown has more height on most of the others I see, but it had cafes, bars, shops, antique dealers, kind of a little of everything which is about the right mix. I couldn’t tell if it had residential, and of course I lamented that the downtown hotel was not operational as such.
“Where is the lodging in this town anyway?”
I rode down an arterial looking for either lodging or food. I found food first.
“Thai food. I can handle that.”
While I had lunch, a delicious and spicy undertaking that soundly satisfied my hunger, I googled motels. They were all clustered on the north end of town except for one on the south end. I opted for the south end of town since it seemed closer to where I was and about equidistant from the route line.

I liked that the EconoLodge was in a Modern Era building. Aluminum frame windows, floor to ceiling, with views of the pool. I went into cave mode, curtains drawn, air conditioning on. Time to cool down. I didn’t want to go out into the heat if I didn’t have to. I sent a couple of messages to Mary, encouraging her and Dermot to stay there as well, but they made arrangements before my messages arrived. I probably came in on the wrong road again…well, wrong road for finding the easy lodging but the right road for this curious cat.

I wasn’t going to ride the six or seven miles to find them on the north end of town, and they weren’t up for coming out. I split the difference and went out for ice cream. As I left the diner, one of the women who worked there struck up a conversation with me, “That’s healthy, riding your bike. I walk, but I don’t ride. And I smoke. That’s not healthy. I’m trying to quit.”
“Biking does keep you healthy.”
“I keep telling myself how disgusting smoking is. I say, ‘You smell bad. Your hair smells, your breath smells…’.”
I quit fiddling with the stuff on my bike and went over to her. “You might try another approach and see if that works. As an example, if someone came by and punched you all the time, would you want to do what they said?”
“I’m really mean to myself.”
“I am too. One day I realized that I wouldn’t stand for anyone to be mean to me like I am mean to myself. I had to learn how to be nice to myself. It’s when we’re nice to who we are that we can begin to have a conversation. You might try that approach with the smoking and see how it goes.”
“That’s really hard.”
“It is, but surely there is one thing you can find to like about yourself. Concentrate on that.”
“I like that approach, I’ll try it.”

We switched to talk of the town.
“This heat makes people crazy. We’ve had four or five murders in the last month, all meth related.”
Pittsburg is a college town, and I wondered how safe town was considering this factoid. It surprises me when people talk about murder in small towns. “What brought you here?”
“A relationship. I came here thirteen years ago. I’m 54. I could get a house in Oklahoma on the reservation. I’m Cherokee. But I’m not ready yet.”
“What do you like about living here?”
“I’m about to become a manager at this place. When I first got to town, I started working at the motels, cleaning rooms.”

In the morning, I met a man in the ice room loading some coolers.
“You’re working outside today?”
“Every day I’ve been here. I’m from Colorado. This heat is crazy.”
“What are you working on?”
“We’re installing fiber optic cable.”
“I’m out riding my bike in it. It amazes me how quickly ice melts.”

Eureka faked me out too. I rode into the downtown looking for restaurants. I found a new grocery store among the brick and stone buildings that all seemed to have some crumble on the edges. The new library appeared to be the Saturday afternoon hang out. Back on the highway, I headed east. Sometimes these small towns have edge developments with fast food restaurants, lodging, and other businesses that attract most of the commercial activity in town. Sure enough.

I had some sleep deprivation going on that I needed to address. I kept thinking of Mary’s comment, “It’s much easier to get a good start in the morning after sleeping in air conditioning.” I liked it. I opted to eat dinner out there on the edge of town in a mom & pop Mexican restaurant and then get a room. I walked in the restaurant to a man cleaning the windows behind venetian blinds. A young girl seated me and brought my food out very quickly, which surprised me considering the menu alerted customers to the “long time it takes to make a fresh cooked Mexican meal from scratch.” She then watched the man clean the windows. He spoke to her in Spanish in low tones and made me think he was telling her a dramatic family tale or some wooing story. Eventually they ended up sitting at one of the booths talking until the next customers came in. The waitress thought I would like the fried ice cream, so I got one. I wish I’d taken a picture of it. It came in a fried tortilla bowl that had more Redi-Whip in it than ice cream. A bashful ball of ice cream hid beneath the fluffy blanket of white stuff that enveloped it on all sides and that was finished with chocolate sauce drizzle and little colored sprinkles. I know someone in that place likes Redi-Whip. I had to excavate to find the ice cream and left most of it melting together in white, chocolate, and little colored swirls.

Following that satisfying feed, I rode west to the Carriage House Inn where I discovered Mary & Dermot’s bicycles outside a room. Dermot came out, “Hey! You want to go get a beer in a little bit?”
“Hmm. Probably not. I just ate, and I’m looking forward to not going anywhere for a while.”
“If you change your mind, you know where we are.”
“Thanks!”
And as is often my habit, I went into the room and didn’t come out until I pedaled away the next morning. I had every intention of getting up early that next day and getting a good start on the miles before it heated up. Somehow, my sleepy brain wasn’t clued into that and had a definitive and rationale for “dismissing” the alarm in the morning, which meant I slept for another hour and a half. The sleep was good, but the late start was not.

Sunday in rural Kansas with few services. I wanted to make it to Girard, which would be about 100 miles. I stepped outside, and my glasses fogged up. After stopping to clean them a few times I came to, “Oh, that’s what they mean by high humidity.” I’d frozen water bottles, one of them solid, the night before. An hour down the road, there wasn’t a bit of ice left, and the water was warm.

Somewhere out on that stretch of road I appropriated an American flag for my bike. After the “Buy a car!” comment, I thought I would heed the advice of friend Colin who suggested an American flag would help me make friends in that part of the country. I draped it over the roadside pannier, but I wanted it sticking up so it would flap in the wind.

I stopped at a rest area on the side of the road. A couple was there cleaning. I went inside to cool down in the air conditioning a bit.
“Do you cyclists tag team riding?”
“No. I’m just out by myself.”
“A couple came by earlier.”
“Yeah. Mary & Dermot. We rode for a bit together yesterday. I got a late start this morning.”
“Where you headed?”
“Girard. We’ll see if I get there. It’s a ways.”
“Yeah, that is a way off.”
The man had plenty of visible tattoos, some kind of large insect like a giant cicada covering his lower leg. In particular I noticed the tattoo on his neck, a dashed line across his throat with a little scissors at the end of the line near his ear like on clothing patterns. I knew he was speaking English though he was near impossible to understand.
“I grew up in a town of 14, and that included the six of us in my family.”
“What do you like about living in the small towns?”
“We live in a place called Sycamore, down the road. If you need anything, it’s six miles in any direction. But you’re in the country.”
I took my leave, and as I clipped into my pedals and started moving I heard him say, “I’m just saying, bicycling makes you look good.”

Down the road came Toronto, a place I considered staying instead of Eureka except I wouldn’t have found air conditioning there. However, I could have slept in that heat under my tarp. Toronto services a recreational area. I giggled over the sign at the convenience store, a good thing because I was well on my way to missing my turn if I hadn’t stopped and gone back to take a picture of the sign. Somehow I forget that there are some turns in Kansas. Around Toronto came some hills, which I appreciated. Topographic variation welcomed by me. Unfortunately I didn’t feel like I was going very quickly. Again, each mile seemed like three. After Toronto, no services until Chanute except for one lonely service station at an intersection about ten miles from town.

In a speck of a place called Coyville, I stopped.
“I’m glad the bike route is in the direction opposite the cemetery, but for some reason I feel like I could just go there and fall into the ground with the rest of them.”
I heard the whine of an ATV and waited on the road for it to pass. A woman rode with her seven-month old son riding in front of her.
“Wow. I guess that’s how they do it here. They don’t ride bikes. I suppose she couldn’t have left him at home by himself.”
I wasn’t sure about Coyville. It had more of a decomposing feel and smell to it than most of the declining towns I see. Even the power lines listed a bit. Or was it me? “Who’s crooked here?”

I kept pedaling in the interminable heat. When I want to stop and give up, I think about Tricia’s guidance, “One pedal stroke at a time.” Sometimes I have to break it down that small. Instead of the next town or the next mile marker, my goal becomes, “turn the pedals one more time.” My Dad sent me a letter back in Eads that said he’s there with me on each pedal stroke too. We make the revolutions together. I always cry when that comes to mind, but it gets me down the road; it does. No one else turning these pedals but me.

“I’ll stop at that intersection service station and get water and maybe some juice or something.” It was only ten miles to Chanute from that intersection, but on that particular day ten miles was thirty. As it came into view I did a cheer. “Yay! Lenny’s! My Dad really was with me.” I rolled under the awning for the shade and discovered that Lenny’s is closed on Sundays.
“Bugger.”
I decided to break into my reserve water since I was out of everything else. It’d been cooking on the front of my bike all day, but it was water. I drank nearly half of the liter bottle in one go and then dumped the rest into my bike bottle, drained another half of it and headed on.

At long last, I made it to Chanute. I arrived on the southern end of town and thought to explore a bit, find the downtown area. South of town had a lot of the fast food restaurants I’ve come to find in this part of the country: Sonic, Pizza Hut, a taco place (it might have been here it was a Taco John’s. Taco John’s takes me back to my childhood and Cheyenne where the franchise established and where the International Headquarters reside.). I didn’t want to spend money at a major franchise restaurant if I could help it. I rode into the downtown. I saw a building with “Breakfast” painted on the side of the wall.
“That’s what I want.”

I rode over. Closed at 2 p.m. My watch read 2:04. I rode back down the street to another restaurant that was open. It felt good to suck down some iced water in air conditioning. I had lunch. Ordered the large. Yeah. Bring it on. The wait staff were very nice, making sure I had enough water and offering to replenish my bottles before I left.

After eating I felt a little more like I could think. Marginally maybe. I thought to take some pictures of the downtown area, a neat place with some nicely fixed up spaces and some others that were between those that were renovated. My camera battery died right then. “Well, gee, now I think I need a room because I’m not changing this out on the street.” I don’t know why I have an aversion to opening my bags on the street. Sometimes it just takes so much effort to unpack and pack everything. A tall hotel in the downtown in a buff brick caught my attention. Seven stories perhaps? Oh look, and there are Mary and Dermot’s bikes. I liked the look of the hotel but didn’t want to leave my bike outside and didn’t feel like paying extra for a room I wasn’t going to do much in other than sleep. Behind the Tioga Hotel, which reminds me of the Tioga Hotel in Coos Bay, Oregon, a ten-story building, the tallest one by a long shot in town, sat a beautifully restored train station. A bike path ran along the tracks in a pretty, linear, transportation park. I rode to the bike lane with the intention of heading south on it, but it ended right there. I could go north though.
“I wonder if they’re working on a ‘Complete Streets’ model.”
That was as much thought as I gave it.

I went back down the road past the franchises to the Guest House Inn. The man who greeted me seemed sort of surprised and slow and aware of me there, a little timid maybe if he should greet me.
“Do you have a room for one available?”
A woman came out.
“Yes. Non-smoking?”
“Please. That’s what I would like.”
She handed me the key while the man ran my card and then disappeared. The man very slowly put the lodging slip and my receipt together and tried to staple them with the same deliberation with one hand. Slowly he used two hands and stapled them, extending them my direction. I hoped the woman would come back out because I wanted to give them a decal. She didn’t, so I explained to the man, “I have this for you. It’s a decal for your window. It lets other cyclists know that you are a bike-friendly business.”
He looked at me kind of blankly.
“You can have this if you want it. It lets people know to come here.”
He nodded a slow assent and took the decal.
“Thanks!” I took the key and headed to my room.

I showered and washed my cycling clothes in the sink.
Then I let my people know I had arrived somewhere. I could not remember the name of the town except that it started with “C.”
“I’m in Cadaver.” Translated: “I’m in a town that starts with “C,” and I’m dead.”
I wanted to quit, but instead I took a two hour nap, which is kind of like quitting.

Sleep helped, and I got on with it.
At about 8 p.m. I needed to eat again, a meal.
“Two dinners in one night. Awesome. Second dinner.” I could have eaten a third dinner too but didn’t.

Out of the heat and green and trees emerges a crop I can’t identify, massive monoculture on par with corn cultivation. At George Washington Carver’s homestead, they mention peanuts and sweet potatoes. I don’t see fruits on these plants, but maybe it’s not their season yet even though they seem to have at least as many cycle start times as there are fields in a township. Could be underground crops though, that would be neat. A whole fascinating world thrives in soil (most of the time, when the soil lives). Probably back in grade school I learned about crop rotation, a farming technique that allows the fields to regenerate nutrients: corn one year (which appropriates all the available nutrients), grass and cows another (yeah poo!), legumes a third (to replenish nitrogen), and I can’t remember what for a fourth. Then you can do corn again. Based on observation, that fourth could be wheat or hay or grass. For everything wheat needs, probably that would be a crop like corn. I don’t know what peanuts look like above ground, or sweet potatoes for that matter. A legume of some sort….there are no climbing vines. Bush beans? What do chick peas look like as a green plant? They look a bit like a green bean with a distinctive pattern of three leaves. Whoa! They’re growing fields and fields and fields of poison ivy! Right.

Soybeans.
I learned that Kansas produces an astounding quantity of soybeans. Who knew? Thank you Kansas.

Considering I left Hutchinson with three nights of minimal sleep, I did not want to do more than I needed to get down the road. The next town, Newton, required me to go north, then east, then south. Or, if I stayed on Highway 50 in Hutchinson – off route – it would send me straight into Newton. How far was it? 30 miles? 40? I think it was 40, but I never really looked, just played mind games with myself and the mile markers the whole way. I took the highway. It had wide shoulders with a nice rumble strip protection and the regular signs that commanded people not to drive there.

I encountered a couple of construction zones not far from Hutchinson. The flaggers were friendly enough, but not chatty like in other places. In Kansas, you have to be pretty much crazy to want to spend any time outside on the hot road without air conditioning. I can’t imagine what an inferno working road crew in Kansas must be.

At the first stop, I waited at the front of the line with the cars as one man ran some sort of sanding machine over the center lane rumble strip. Two other men followed him with brooms, sweeping the concrete debris into a pile, and a fourth man came by with a shovel and scooped up the small piles and dumped them off the side of the road. We all went down the road, which meant two lanes of traffic close together and over the bridge, no bike lane. I had a moment of mental critique on this particular aspect of their safety management. Briefly.

The second construction zone had one lane of traffic closed to patch cracks in the roadway. The flagger waved me through. They had the whole process sequenced. First someone had a gigantic saw that cut a smooth edge on the cracks. Then someone came by with an air hose and blew all the dust out. A man with a tube of tar followed, and bringing up the rear was someone with a wheel on a handle who traced every single crack in that road. The caboose waved to me. The traffic released in the direction of travel opposite me. A big white truck passed me and a guy yelled out, “Buy a car!” Little did he know I bought one in Austin Junction for $4.99 and carry it with me, my fine 1955 Thunderbird. Collector’s item. I did wonder if my being out on the road somehow insulted his manhood and that’s why he felt the need to fling such a ridiculous comment my way. Well, maybe it’s just about the perception that bikes don’t belong on the road. This isn’t to say that there’s somewhere else they belong….who the hell would want to ride one, it takes too much work? Bicycles be gone. Even if they are a thing of the past (in some people’s minds), I still find currency in the outdated and outmoded. I handwrite letters and use stamps, send things good old-fashioned postal service. A bicycle suits me.

Moving on.

The soil has a richness to it I never saw in western Kansas. This earth, like yogurt, is a live culture. Bugs buzz in the air, and I know the nematodes practice their choreography below the earth at small scale – in places and ways I can’t see necessarily except by virtue of its effects, and color reveals.

This rich earth makes for incredibly nutritious grass, and ranchers ship cattle from the southwest each year to feed and “fatten” in this historic prairie land. Such a different scene than the feedlots. A cow looks happier set off in a green field than fenced in a brown pen. They wallow in wet spots, flicking their tails dipped in water, probably the equivalent of spraying themselves with a spray bottle. I wonder if that water is as warm as the water in my water bottles…probably doesn’t really help them cool down, but maybe it does, just like hanging out at the pool on a hot summer day. They cluster under trees, buddying in the shade. When I stop in tree shade, it feels likes a needed relief. I always thank the trees. That’s what feels good out here. I understand why they do it.

Here’s a bit on the roads in Kansas. My brother even noticed this when he was in Google Earth trying to figure out where I was in Kansas.
“The roads are set out on a one-mile grid.”
That’s a lot of road. Not all these roads are paved, most of them are gravel, but if you’re in the know or have an Adventure Cycling map, you can kind of zigzag your way through the state on extremely low-traffic, decently paved roads. Well, zigzagging might overstate the fact that you don’t turn much. Otherwise, the six-mile intervals call to mind that the more substantial roads follow township lines. It’s still a long way between towns with services though.

I made a short day going from Hutchinson into Newton. At midday I rode through town, getting a lay of the land. I like going slowly and gawking at the downtowns. I look for food, I look at buildings, I take it all in…kind of like when I go to the grocery I look at everything before I decide what to buy. I passed two shops that I thought I would return to. When I made it through the downtown and hadn’t found any lodging, I went back to Prairie Harvest and parked my bike against a tree outside Pages. Prairie Harvest wound up being more health food store and less deli, but I went with it and got a couple of salads from the counter along with an extra little bag of organic spinach and ate them at pages where I found a wifi connection and and iced soy chai. All the businesses at this corner had internal connectivity. Prairie Harvest opened into pages and a healthy baby clothing and supply store, and both of those shops opened into another that I didn’t go in.

All I really wanted to do in Newton was go to sleep, but it was a little early for check in. I worked at pages for a good bit wondering if Newton was a college town from the people I observed in the place. I couldn’t believe I ate organic spinach in Kansas. I liked the place. Won me over, just like that. As tired as I was, I knew the rest of Kansas would be ok.

Newton had more incredible surprise for me. Lodging, unfortunately lay at the edge of town, on the other side of the interstate. I rode through a mind-blowingly well-kept residential historic district along First Street. Their downtown looked pretty good, but this area…it would be fun to spend some time in Newton.

Lodging put me a good distance away from all that. I checked in and passed out for a couple of hours.

Kansas isn’t particularly walkable. I may have mentioned this before. At this particular location I noticed it acutely with the interstate development. I don’t know why they put chain link fences around everything without pedestrian access points. I must, again, be the weird one to want to walk across the street instead of drive. I just noticed that the fences really got in the way of walking and served no other purpose than to keep people from driving over the lawns. It certainly wasn’t aesthetic. Maybe they do it so people won’t walk. Mostly successful if that was the intent.

The next morning, I met Mary and Dermot in a place called Cassoday. I’d been following them for days and hadn’t realized it.
“We saw you in Hutchinson. You have a distinctive bike with only front panniers.”
Cassoday sits just off a junction with I-135 on a rail line, so it had a convenience store. Unfortunately the rest of town closed up except the antique furniture store. I went in for “breakfast,” which still wasn’t much at that location. I saw two bikes geared for touring outside and then two riders inside, enjoying the air conditioning. We chatted for a while, they took off, and I caught up with them. Someone asked me for directions right as I left the main road in Cassoday.
“What state are we in?”
Did they not know they were in Kansas?! “You’re in Kansas.”
“Which way to Colorado or Arizona?”
Oh, and a good sense for distance. “That way.” I indicated west. “Take the interstate to Wichita.”
“Which way to Wichita?”
“The way you’re headed will get you there.” I couldn’t figure out what their story was. Maybe they didn’t want to travel the interstate. Maybe they were in a car without a map and thought they would rely on others to help them get there. How could they not know they were in Kansas? Who was asleep at the wheel?

I enjoyed chatting with Mary and Dermot along the road.
“Where are you from in Ireland?”
“We live in Wales now, but we’re from Galway.”
“What prompted you to do this ride?”

Dermot responded, “When I was about seven, I was getting my hair cut at the barber, a thing I didn’t like. I had this Time magazine that had a picture of a hairy, weather-worn man on the cover. He’d just walked across America. It became a kind of mythic goal of mine. I drove across the country one year, but it just wasn’t the same, so we thought we would ride.”
“Is it working for you?”
“It is.”
“Do you do a lot of cycling at home?”
“That’s the funny thing. Not really. We would sometimes go out on the weekend and bring the bicycles along, like on a camping trip. In November we decided to do this trip and got these second-hand bicycles and started to prepare more.”
They stopped in the next town that had services, and I carried on to Eureka.

The morning I rode off route down 19 to Bel Pre dawned with a delicious cloud cover. Clouds do nothing to mitigate the radiant and latent heat in Kansas, but at least they keep the sun off. Somehow the human body continues to absorb heat no matter how hot it is out there…like my water bottles that sweat for 20 minutes and then turn their contents into hot water. In my perfect world, the body would stop absorbing heat after a while. I guess that’s why we sweat, to get rid of excess heat, but it seems as though the other half of sweating as a functional mechanism for dumping excess body heat doesn’t work in humid climates: evaporation. In fact, I have my cycling clothes “drying” as I write, and I just don’t know what’s a better way to dry them…put them outside in the heat or keep them inside in the air conditioned room? Right now I’m looking at putting some cool, wet clothes on in the morning. At least they won’t be standing up on their own with all the sweat crusted in them.

15 miles to Bel Pre, 7 miles to Macksville. I arrived at the junction with Highway 50 at 8:45. We originally planned to meet at 8:30, but with my late start, I figured 9 would be more realistic. I texted Delcie, “I forgot about the headwind going south.now it should only be a crosswind.” Without the wind in my face, I made better time, and the 7 miles felt more like seven miles rather than 21.

Macksville is pretty small. I didn’t think they’d be at the gas station. I headed for the downtown area. There, clear as day, stood a little café that said “Breakfast.”
“There.” I rolled up onto the sidewalk to park. I hadn’t heard from Delcie, so I pulled out my phone to give her a call. 9:15. Right as I did that, Sonora popped out of the restaurant and then Aidan. I leaned my bike against the wall, gave them both big hugs. “How long have you been here?”
“About fifteen minutes, but it’s felt a lot longer than that.”
We walked into the dimly lit place to an oval-shaped table that seated 6 and made for an awkward arrangement for four. I noticed a sign on the door as we came in “Watch for child in a walker.” Inside was no child in a walker, but Josh, and he seemed thrilled to have the company of other young people. I understood immediately why Aidan thought the wait was long. We ordered breakfast to go along with the milk each of the kids had. The menu prices felt like we were back in time, there wasn’t anything for more than $3. Delcie ordered oatmeal.
“We’re out of oatmeal.”
While she looked over the menu again, I jumped in, “What’s in your breakfast burrito?”
“Eggs, sausage, cheese, wrapped in a flour tortilla, and salsa.” It sounded like it might be decent although for $3 I wasn’t sure it would quite cover the 20 miles worth of calorie burn I went through to get there.
“I’d like that with some hashbrowns if it doesn’t come with them, and a hot tea if I may.” In Florence I ordered a breakfast burrito that you could get in two sizes (I ordered a large of course), and it was a monstrous creation slathered in green chili that had more sausage than egg in it. Frankly, I could have done with a little less meat in that particular breakfast, but it was just the thing to send me down the road. In Macksville, breakfast burrito is a different breed entirely. It comes small, and the cheese was an American cheese single split in half and in a state of partially gelatinous over the top. Yum. I ate it anyway and the egg that came with Sonora’s bacon that she didn’t want to eat.

Thankfully, the café owners told Josh to let us enjoy our breakfast together. I appreciated that. I understand that he probably doesn’t see other kids much, but he probably sees other kids more often than I get to see my family. That we were meeting in Macksville, KS, is the most unlikely location possible for this reunion. I couldn’t have even made that up on a good day. I hadn’t seen them since December in Albuquerque when the idea to ride to DC was still a fresh idea and I had to sort out how I would squeeze training for the ride into my schedule. I didn’t spend the time there riding a bike except for once when Sonora and I went out for a little ride. That was a fiasco in itself because we had some difficulty finding two bikes without flat tires. I also gained a new appreciation for how much Delcie likes to cook on that visit. Mediocre breakfast in Macksville met no one’s idea of what it could be, but none of us could deny that we were having a genuine experience.

Aidan didn’t want to eat his food either.
“You have to eat something. You’re going to waste away to nothing. What about the toast?”
“I don’t want the toast.”
“Put some sugar on it.” He sat there for a while looking at the plate and then acquiesced and made tidy mounds of white sugar on his toast and slowly ate it.
As soon as everyone had sufficiently eaten, I went to the counter so we could settle up and get out of there.
We walked down the street looking for somewhere to go and then headed for what looked like a park. I pushed my bike and leaned it against a tree when we got to the play area. Sonora immediately found a toad, and she and Aidan got in close to examine it. Aidan likes to catch lizards and things like that, so I expected we would have some entertainment value from the toad. The toad’s abrupt movements startled the children, and the chased it around the tree and freaked out when it hopped and chased it some more. Eventually Aidan got over being startled by it and we made enough jokes about catching warts from touching it that he could catch it. “It’ll pee on me.”
Delcie looked around. “Look, there’s water. You can wash if it does.”
He picked up the toad. Everyone remarked on its pretty golden eyes. It made little squeaking noises in his hand. He held it for a good five minutes before it peed on him and Sonora’s foot since she was in the line of evacuation. They put the toad back in its shallow dirt hole and washed.
“Let’s ride the merry go round!”
“Aidan, don’t push too fast. I don’t want to get sick.”
Delcie and I walked over to the community room at the park. “Wow, it’s full of desks.” The walls had neat rows of the chairs that you find in high schools. A little past that we came upon an amphitheater, built in 1939.
“I guess Macksville, KS, was doing ok then.”
“It’s quite a nice park. Designed.”
“Surprising for a town this size.” Sonora came over. “Are you done playing already?”
“We need a push.”
“Ok. I’ll push you.”
“Check out this little bridge. Let’s go over that. It’s like Dorothy in Kansas except this is the red brick road. Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the red brick road.” I sang in a Munchkin voice. Sonora gave me a look that cut me down to about five inches. I sat in the shade while Delcie gave the kids a push on the merry go round. Eventually I got up and gave some pushes to keep things going.
Delcie and I went back to the shade.
Sonora came over, “How do I keep from getting a yucky suntan?”
On the merry go round, Sonora suggested to Delcie, “Tell her the story about Spooky.”
“We were up for my great aunt’s birthday in Cleveland. The young cousins all got presents for everyone. Some of the presents were images to color. The guy has four and asks Sonora to pick one. Two were princesses, one was a unicorn, and one was a skull and cross bones. Sonora picked the skull and cross bones. He shuffled them and reordered them and asked her to pick again. She picked the skull and cross bones. He reordered them again and asked her to pick, making sure she saw all the options, and she picked the skull and cross bones. He looked at her and said, ‘Spooky.’”
Sonora then presented a monologue on “Stupid Princesses.” I don’t know how she managed to be seven and not fall prey to the princess craze. It was great. I wish she could be the spokeswoman for the girls of America. She came into the shade and sat with me and Delcie.
Something buzzed my leg while we were there. I looked down and found a cicada in the sand. I picked it up. “Is this what was buzzing me? It’s dead?” Cicadas look neat. They’re kind of gross looking too, but usually pretty colors. I put it on the edge of the sandbox between Sonora and me. At first it creeped her out. Then she had to touch it too.
“Look at how pretty that green is,” Delcie pointed.
Sonora decided she had to have it. “I like its wings.” Delcie opened the front pocket of her purse without saying anything, Sonora put it inside, and Delcie zipped it up.
On the way back to the car I invited Aidan to get on my bike, “You wanna take it for a spin?” We were on a gravel road, not the best for the weight on front. He couldn’t get on the seat, so the two of us worked the bike back to the paved main street with me running alongside holding onto the seat and handlebars while he gave it some pedal juice. At the road, we got on the sidewalk.
“I got it, I got it.”
Perhaps I was being overly cautious, but I couldn’t steer the thing when I first started.
“Watch out man. It’s pretty wide in front there. You don’t want to get caught on anything.” I thought back to my encounter with the bench in Missoula that sent me flying. When we got back to the car, he dismounted.
“I want to see you ride it.”
I took it for a spin back down the street, and cruised slowly down the sidewalk.
I needed to get some cold water before heading down the road.
“You need anything at the store?”
“I could get some cold water.”
“Me too. I’ll meet you over there.”
We deliberated over cold drinks, and I got an armful, as usual, along with a little bag of cookies. I knew I had 60 miles ahead of me, and the hour neared noon.
We sat in the shade at the gas station while I guzzled orange juice and water and consumed the cookies.
“Wow, you drank that whole thing already?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of like filling up the car with gasoline. This is how I fuel up.”
“Grandma said I should ask you why you spend money.”
“In these little towns, when I spend money, it helps. Maybe it doesn’t help a whole lot, but it helps. The restaurant stays open, the convenience store stay open. That man in there may not have thought a whole lot of the $7 I just spent, but I could have spent a lot less. On a bike, that’s how much a fill up costs. For the next person who comes through here who needs a fill up, they’ll be glad that this place exists. Even the restaurant. I may not have spent very much there individually, but we went together. Who knows if that place will stay open or if the woman there makes any money, but we did what we could to keep a business in that downtown, to keep a stop open for travelers or locals, and who knows…to help a woman out who needs some extra assistance for her son. Maybe even we provided her an opportunity to do what she wants to do, provide a service that helps others, that makes their lives a little more comfortable, or to give them something they need. Maybe she knew we don’t see each other very often, and she provided the space to make that happen. Coming from a city, it can be difficult to appreciate what life is like in these little places, but we need them just as much as they need the cities. And the people who live here want the town to continue to exist even if we may not want to live here. Perhaps they grew up here or they like the pace of life or their families have been here for generations. It could be any number of reasons. Doesn’t it make you curious, to puzzle out why someone would live here and what they like about it? Do you think you would understand people or the country better knowing this?”
“You’re weird.”
We said quick goodbyes. I squeezed Sonora so hard she made a noise and then said, “You’re choking me.” I can never tell if she’s joking or serious.
I gathered speed out on the highway as they piled into the car and gave a last backward wave in farewell.

I rode Highway 50 into Hutchinson. Without a map of the roadway, I didn’t know what lay ahead. As a larger roadway, it had signs indicating mileage to the next towns. 20 miles to Stafford. 60 miles to Hutchinson. I had my work cut out for me. I wondered if there were other small towns between. I’d find out when I got there. I also had nice wide bike lanes to ride that were in good shape with rumble strips way to the left. Who knows if those lanes are in such good shape because people are not allowed to drive on them? I figured since I wasn’t really “driving” I could be there. I wanted to make Hutchinson before the bike shop closed so I could get some spare tubes as originally planned for this day. The northeasterly direction gave me something of a tailwind, and I made pretty good time.

Here, I want to take a little break to comment on roadkill. When I got past Ness City and the fields started looking more alive again and the animals came back, I saw more stuff on the roadway, sometimes things I didn’t expect to see. Along Highway 50, I passed stretches of road littered with frogs of all sizes. Some of them may have been toads, but I couldn’t inspect them that closely from my bike in motion. Frogs signified moisture. The air felt steamy, and then along the side of the road I saw boggy areas, sometimes even ponds, lakes. Instead of mosquitoes, the area proliferates dragonflies. I love how they move. They have the art of any direction nailed. They can even fly backwards, can’t they? Armadillos. I don’t know when these creatures come out, probably at night since I never see them during the day except pancaked on the roadway. They’re kind of like a deflated basketball out there, stiff, textured, round. They do seem to shatter also, probably after they dry enough their skin breaks like egg shell. Turtles. Opossums. Raccoons. I saw more Monarchs – alive. I usually see about one a day. Something also likes to poo on the roadway edge, an omnivorous creature. I pass countless piles of scat always the same distance on the road from the edge, about 8 inches. Today I figured it must be raccoon scat.

I pass countless cows in the lush, green fields. Cows don’t mind cars and trucks. They are so accustomed to them on the roadway, there’s nothing curious about them. Bicycles are different. On one particular stretch, I passed a cluster of them hanging out by a tree and watering hole. All but one or two fixed their gazes upon me. As I rode past, one of them must have given the signal to run. Like a flock of birds, they all started running at the same time, probably to see who could keep up with me or if they could outrun me. I wonder how much exercise cows actually get and if running like that winds them. It’s fun for me. I call out to them, and we have this cross road exchange, and that gets me further down the road.

I stopped in Stafford and fueled up again, sat inside with the air conditioning and drank my cold water, snacked on something salty. Back down the road. I counted mile posts to help me get to Hutchinson, kept looking at the clock. I figured I could get there by 5, and since it was a Thursday, they’d be open at least until 6. Hutchinson has over 40,000 people, monstrously large in comparison to these other towns I visit.

I found the bike shop easily. A friendly man helped me out with the tubes and then encouraged me to look around and see if I needed anything else. I liked how fully stocked the place was. I found HALT! and decided I needed that. Some of the ride I spent thinking about the dogs in Kentucky and how I would fend them off. Rita mentioned them at Elaine’s. I’d been thinking about getting a little tin of cayenne, but I wasn’t sure that would actually reach some snarling dog at my ankles. Maybe. HALT! is the #1 recommended dog repellent, the preferred protection of mail carriers and gas meter readers. Yes. It’s basically cayenne, but it comes in a little spray can. I also picked up some more GU, just because. I could spend a little more.
“You have everything here.”
“We’ve been around for a while. Since 1964 at this location. Other bike shops have come and gone.”
“I want to stay at the hostel. How do I do that?”
“Here’s the key. It’s just down the street three blocks. When you’re done, just leave the key in there on the table.”
“How many cyclists do you see come through here?”
“We usually see about 150.”

“Those are pretty good numbers for being off the route.”
“We offer all kinds of services. We help people box up their bikes to send them home. We have a tandem here right now that we’re holding for some people, a father and daughter. They can’t do the whole trail at once, so they ride a certain distance and then leave the bike and come back the next summer to pick it up and keep going.”
“I haven’t heard that approach to touring support before. Fascinating.”

I found the Zion church three blocks down on the corner, a big red brick building, just like he said, used the key in the north door and went down to the basement. A man sat at one of the tables eating dinner. We were the only two people there.
“Did you ride in?”
“No, I belong to the church.”
I busied myself with settling in. The hostel was essentially the banquet room in the church basement. They had two double beds set up on the “stage” with a curtain between them. Each “room” had a shelf with sheets, a TV and movies, and instructions.
“Be sure to sign in.”
“You bet.” I added my name to their hostel registry and then made the bed. Something about the domesticity of making the bed made me really happy, felt a bit like home and normal.
He gave me a basic tour of the space. “The bathrooms are over there, the shower is over here. Feel free to use the kitchen and the air conditioning. If you use the air, just make sure it’s off when you leave.”
“Is there wifi?”
“No, but you can get it across the street at the library. They’re open until 9.”
“The library is open until 9?! Wow. Thanks.”

When I do lodging before eating it always takes me a while to get moving again. I talked on the phone, showered and changed, then headed out for dinner. As much as I wanted to walk to dinner, it sounded like a bit of a distance, and I needed to get there given the hour. I rode. When finished, I hopped back on my bike and discovered, much to my chagrin, that I had a flat on my back tire again. “Well, I guess I’ll get that walk in.” I decided that it had something to do with brick streets because every time I rode on a brick street I got a flat. I might mention that nowhere in Kansas have I seen a bike rack, and most places would rate poorly on walkability for the discontinuous or absent sidewalks and lack of curb cuts. As a cyclist going to businesses I find this troublesome. I don’t want to lean my bike against glass, but I don’t feel welcome when there isn’t a decent spot anywhere around a business to leave my bike. The man at the bike shop in Hutchinson recommended I lock my bike if I went in places. That’s advice I’ll follow. At the place I went to dinner, I did manage to find a nearby sign post that was narrow enough for my u-lock. Barring that, I probably would have just locked it to itself somewhere I could have a view from inside.

On my long walk back to the hostel, I stopped at the grocery store for water, bananas, and whatever else I could find. When I came out, a young girl and her mom rode up. The girl came to a skidding stop at the bike rack (they had a bike rack at the grocery).
“Nice stop.”
“Thanks.”
I liked her attitude. Her mom rode up smoking a cigarette. The two of them walked into the store, the girl coughing in the wake of her mom’s second hand smoke. I wondered if either of them connected the smoking and coughing.

I returned to the hostel in falling light. Hadn’t done any writing. Couldn’t. I’ll take a nap. My nap was not nearly as long as I would have liked. I woke sweating in the stuffy basement.
“I guess that guy turned the AC off.” I got up and turned it on and wrote a long letter as the air cooled. “I need another nap.” I took another two hour nap and got up again. The library wifi signal didn’t come through to the steps very strong. I walked around the parking lot until I found a stronger signal from someone’s house, posted in the six o’clock hour and dawn.
I went back to the hostel and dealt with my flat. I found a very small piece of metal on the inside of my tire. I pulled it out, inserted one of my new tubes from the bike shop and pronounced the flat fixed. I left both my old tubes at the hostel and got outta there in the growing heat of the morning.

Larned from Bazine didn’t total a big mileage day. I didn’t care, hadn’t slept a whole lot, a few hours on the picnic table between various disturbances. If I wanted to go for it, I wouldn’t come to another town for almost 60 miles past Larned. That would be a big day. Low mileage ok with the heat, flat start, weariness.

First town, Alexander, marked the end of another map segment. I stopped at the rest area, intrigued by “Clean as a Whistle.” I walked in to the most immaculate rest area I have ever before laid eyes upon. A woman had some sponge mops and buckets out, working on the water fountain, walls, etc. Before getting further than the foyer, I understood, “Wow, it really is clean as a whistle in here!” Then I wondered what that expression meant.

Shortly after I passed through Alexander, I noticed quite a lot of activity on the side of the road. Something that had to do with trains. I took a couple of pictures going by and then stopped to ask one of the men in hardhat and safety vest.
“What happened here?”
“Boo-boo.”
“I’ll say. What do you have to do to clean this up?”

“We’re taking two cars to the scrap yard” (they were bent and broken), “getting a __(thing I forgot the word for)__ to lift the other cars back on the track, and repairing the track.”
“Sounds like a lot of work. Does this back up traffic.”
“Yes. We’re trying to hurry. Expect to have things operational again by Tuesday. Like I said, boo-boo.”

I had a quiet day. Didn’t encounter any other cyclists or much car traffic. Quiet roads through gently rolling terrain that still had mostly a flat feel to it. I came across some mailbox art welded from farm parts. The cowboy even had a pair of pliers in his holster. He perched ready.

Something about the long, straight, flat roads make the miles seem long. Each mile feels like nearly three. I took the opportunity presented by two historic sites close to Larned to break up the lengthy feel of it all. First came Fort Larned. This outpost functioned as a major military stop for troops protecting travelers on the Santa Fe Tail. These people included merchants supplying the stops and settlements along the way with needed goods, and it also included many people traveling to California searching for fortunes in gold. After the massacre at Sand Creek, Indian hostilities increased in the area, and no one could travel the Trail afterwards without a military escort, provided by troops stationed at Fort Larned. I went into the visitor center and picked up some maps and other information, including a brochure on scenic byways in Kansas. For as many scenic byways as the TransAmerica Trail travels, it surprised me that I hadn’t seen any signage for the byways out here. “I guess Kansas has them after all.”

I didn’t spend much time at the Fort. I had some philosophical disagreements about the armed soldier cut outs. I know the history of westward migration is important, but I can’t help but feel troubled by the one-sidedness of these sites. Had I actually gone to the Sand Creek Massacre site, I might feel differently about how the Parks Service addresses site interpretation. When we place the white settler in the protagonist role in our history, the story of the people who lost their land and lifestyle gets eclipsed by those who sought safe travel corridors to their fortune. I think we ought to tell both stories.

A few miles further east, I came to the Santa Fe Trail Interpretive Center. I got off my bike and walked around the grounds some. The sod house I found particularly interesting. Buffalo grass slabs. Neat. The house looked like it stayed in decent condition. Inside the dark space stood a bed, table and chair, stove, and a kitchen lined the west wall. I got a shot of the limestone fence posts too. I found it difficult to believe when I first started seeing these rocks in the landscape that people really did use rough obelisks to string barbed wire on. I suppose you don’t have to concern yourself with them rotting nor fret over them toppling.

In addition to these two historical trail attractions, Larned has two state facilities to help keep people in the area employed and another group of them rehabilitated. I think there’s a message in the proliferation of correctional facilities and detainment centers in these remote, rural regions. Someone help me out with it. Do the people stay in these small towns, or do they go back to the cities and think rural America is a prison, a wasteland where no one would willingly go? Who’s the crazy if you like the small town and want to live there or visit for fun?

I rode into Larned through a cluster of fast food establishments and some other restaurants. I followed signs for downtown. I rode the length of the downtown area. Again, another town that faked me out. I figured the center of commerce would focus in the tall stone and brick buildings on Main, but I found mostly empty storefronts. At the end of town, the street sported brick paving as did the streets adjacent to main. I looked down at my rear tire and noticed the flat came back. Grr. I was hot. Needed lunch. Tired. Grr. I got off and walked. I’d seen an espresso stop and scrapbooking store. That sounded like a good combo to me.

Right as I walked up to the store, another bicycle rider joined me on the sidewalk. He was on a mountain bike and didn’t have any gear with him, but it didn’t take me long to figure out he was out touring, just on a leisure day checking out the sights in Larned.
“Where are you from?”
“Pittsburgh.”
“What’s going on in your life you decided to ride across the country?”
“I needed to get away, make a transition. This is great though. I’m hooked. I want to get a road bike. I have a big backpack I wear, I’m not using panniers.”
I couldn’t help but be reminded of a little snippet of conversation I had with Matt out on the road to Eads.
“It’s amazing how many people you run into on tour out here.”
“Yeah. In our daily lives it seems like no one does this kind of thing, but then when you get out on the bike trail you run into people pretty much every day. Hundreds of people do this every year…probably thousands. This is just one trail.”
How many more cyclists do we miss because we’re inside or they’re inside when we go by? They’re everywhere. It can be difficult to find the hotellers because they go into their rooms and disappear. The campers, budget travelers, make themselves more public once they are in a place. I always encounter more cyclists when I stay in the camps and hostels than when I stay at motels.

I was grouchy about my flat.
I went into the coffee shop, which was surprisingly empty of most things, ordered a chai that came out more like an egg nog and gave some thought to what I would do. The mountain bike rider had recommended the park just south of town. I needed to plug in.

At the Country Inn, my first question was, “Do you have wifi?”
“Not today. I have a router in a box but can’t quite set it up yet. The rooms are good though.”
I couldn’t complain about the price, particularly when my only other motel lodging accommodations were chain motels.
“Ok. Why not?”
“You can get internet at the library down on 8th, or you might be able to get the Best Western internet if you go out behind the room.”
Unfortunately those chain motels all have security codes for their wifi. The mountain biker also told me I could get wifi at Pizza Hut. I’d work it out.
I chatted a bit with the motel keeper.
“How long have you lived here?”
“Since 1962. I grew up in Kinsley. After my husband and I got married, we came here. I got a job working at the City and worked my way up to be City Clerk.”
“What do you like about living here?”
“I have a lot of friends. When you work at the City, you get to know everybody. My husband and I divorced when the kids were young. That’s a traumatic experience, and I didn’t want to leave. I also had a lot of friends, and I wanted to stay.”
“How did you get involved with the motel?”
“I’ve been doing this for 15 years. I worked at the City for 12 years. I had a friend who bought this place and then I came to help her because I was looking for a change in my work. She moved, and I bought the place. What’s your job? Are you a city planner?”
“I don’t think I want to be a city planner, but something kind of like that.” I couldn’t give a short answer to my work and went into a far from nutshell version of things. We definitely struck on transportation when I mentioned transit.
“We’re talking about getting bus service back here. We need it. Of course the bus isn’t coming to Larned. It might come to Dodge City. It’d be so nice. I remember when we used to have bus service and the kids could go places. Everyone gets used to driving out here in west Kansas. It’s nothing to drive two hours to go somewhere for the day and drive back. People in east Kansas won’t do that. They think it’s entirely unreasonable. It’s really far from everything out here. That’s just how it is. It would be so nice to have a bus. I hear they got funding for it but not enough to actually get the service going, so I think we’re going to have to wait for a long time yet.

Someone else came in for a room, and I took my leave and went to #16 to sort out what I would do about my chronic rear flat.

The nearest bike shop lay a day away in two different directions, east from Larned and either off route to the north or the south. “Maybe I can get a tube overnighted somewhere so I won’t have to go off route.” Before I showered, I put that idea in motion. By the time I showered, we learned it wasn’t possible. Nickerson was a two-day stop, not an overnight and pretty much all the way to Hutchinson where I could find a tube. Fine. So I was riding to Hutchinson in the morning.

I must have napped because I had the tube in the sink looking for a puncture in the evening when my brother called.
“Hey Kid. Delcie and the kids are in Kansas. We’re trying to figure out where you are to see if we can arrange a meet up.”
“I’m in Larned.”
“That doesn’t look very big.”
“It’s bigger than most of the towns I’ve been going through.”
“They’re south and east of you. Is there a place you could meet in the middle?”
“I don’t have much map to look at, and I don’t have internet here, so I can’t look.”
“What about Highway 50?”
“Oh yeah, I have just enough I can see that.”
“There’s a town, Maxville, that’s M-A-C-K-S-V-I-L-L-E. It looks bigger than Bel Pre. There’s also Stafford.”
“How far are they?”
“It’s 15 miles to Bel Pre. Stafford is another 20 miles. Macksville is 7.”
“Let’s shoot for Macksville. Would they be interested in breakfast? It’s kind of hard, it’s so hot in the day. The later I get moving, it’s just rough. It doesn’t cool down.”
“I hear ya kid. That’ll work. Macksville. That’s 22 miles for you.”
“Good. Ok.”
“Sonora said yes she would like to see you. Aidan said if you want him up that early then he’ll be cranky.”
“Well, I’ll be cranky if I have to ride in the heat of the day.”
“So noted.”

I wound up staying up late, but happily I found a pinhole in my tube and patched it. The second round of repair success gave me enough confidence to pull together an early departure in the morning. I got up extra early to write and make a trip to the library for internet connection. All that actually put me 45 minutes behind schedule in the morning, but I figured I could make it up somewhere by riding fast.