From Pittsburgh, I made the last leg of my journey through Kansas, which was only six miles, and made the other leg of twenty four miles through Missouri to meet Tim. The wind was doing its own thing in Missouri compared to a constant head wind in Kansas. I couldn't figure out where it wanted me to go but was thankful for those small bouts of encouragement when it was at my back. Added to that was the desire to reach Golden City, my last stop heading east and then it was all south from there.
On my way, I hit a couple of rainstorms that weren't torrential but were a torment when it came to my comfort on the road and the leisure I took to get where I needed to go. I took a small refuge in a small church to await the passing of the side-winding rain. As I made my way closer, I passed a few cyclists wearing the same jerseys and we did the usual wave-hi-how-are-you. A mile down, I passed more cyclists wearing the same jerseys as the group before. We waved. A mile or two further on down, I passed another group adorned with the same jerseys. At this point, I started to get the idea that all of these people were together and tried to ask who they were but they took my hollering and asking to my hollering hello as though I were hard of hearing and I needed to yell my "hellos" to everyone at the top of my lungs as though a train were passing. . .as though as though. One of the earlier guys I waved to yelled back at me "Kookie's Kitchen has excellent pies!" and he was gone. That made me think about the idea of passing cyclists while on tour across the country. Aside from the status quo of passing them and just waving and saying "Have a good ride", what would you yell if you wanted to tell them one quick, important thing about one of the town's they were coming up on that you'd already experienced and might be able to give a good tip about? And I guess telling a fellow cyclist about where to find good pie would fall in that category and I must say that he was right.
I made it to Golden City and found Kookie's Kitchen where I had told Tim and his wife to meet me seeing that the Kitchen had good pie. I entered into the diner and looked around, calling Tim and trying to figure out if he made it before me or not. It was hard to tell because the place was such a hustle of bustling people in such a narrow space that I really couldn’t find my bearings. All of a sudden, a young man who looked like he just stepped out a desert, showered, and put on a smile approached me and stuck his hand out. It was him. . .Tim.
After telling me I looked a bit crazed and that the road hadn’t done me well(always a good friend), we started in on talking about my trip thus far and what we were expecting on the road ahead. We had a few good laughs and went out to his car to retrieve his bicycle and baggage from the car. He was half-bit prepared without sunscreen and no helmet. I laid my face in my hands, trying to understand his reasoning behind no helmet and other small detail-ish things and settled on him not remembering which was reasonable enough knowing who I was dealing with. He bid his love a lovely day and we started off toward Arkansas, going the wrong way for about ten feet and then turning around to get our heads on straight in order to straighten out our route.
We had a heavy head wind going south and were exhausted by the time we made it around fifteen miles or so. We made our first pit stop in a cemetery, ready and willing to let anyone who found me to just bury me right there and then. We continued on and being that I had started collecting local floral from Kansas, I figured it reasonable to keep on gathering ye’ flowers in Missouri, so I was always on the lookout for something new. Passing some purple something at one point here and there, I finally pulled over and rummaged for my journal where I was keeping these samples. While I was digging through my bags, digging because I could never remember where I put anything in eighty pounds worth of luggage, two motorcyclists were riding by and slowed to see if we needed any help. Say what you will about how most of those bikers look, some almost as worse as we looked, but they are some of the friendliest blokes on the road. There’s not a particular common bond found between cyclists and bikers, but there is a comradery between us in that we’re both traveling on two wheels? Either way, I thanked them for the offer but we were alright. And as they rode off, I thought of what we were doing, and turned to yell back as they drove off, “We’re just pressing flowers!” I yelled to the point where I knew they wouldn’t hear me so as not to embarrass Tim; but it was a funny thought and I took advantage in being vocal about it. It was his turn to lay his face in his hands. At this point, I knew I had the right person on the road with me. We were a pair and three’s company.
We made it to Reed and found where our flat roads met an end and started on our first uphill battle. It wasn’t big, but it was my first one on the journey and would be a precursor to what was to come. We trudged up, the whole time me huffing, puffing, and cussing Tim for dragging me into this mess(even though I was the one who convinced him to meet me; it was just nice to find someone else to blame for what I was putting myself through rather than myself). I introduced him to the world of asking strangers on the side of the road about the surrounding towns and where a good place to stay would be. We found Sarcoxie per a Reed-ian and discovered Casey’s Grocery and fell in love with the most convenience I had found and both of us would find on the trip until we would hit Russellville, AR. They had subs, coffee, fruit, and so much more. We purchased what seemed to be a rag-tag dinner and sat, well, more slid, against the wall of the building and began to eat when one of the ladies who worked inside asked if we wanted to sit inside in the back. We agreed and she grabbed two milk crates and went on to explain that she did this for her kids all the time and set the crates in the back of the store(not in a separate room, but in the store itself) and we had dinner in the middle of the small convenient store and laughed at the thought that we looked homely enough for a woman’s motherly instincts to kick in and offer us comfort.
After we finished, we set up tent behind a church across the street and just around the corner from our next route change. It was nice to have someone to talk to and aid in the speed of my setting up camp. We talked until the fireflies signaled the getting late of the evening and we retired in southern Missouri to the pressing matters of an exciting venture that awaited us for the next four days.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Of Getting Back to Reality
I stayed a Schmidt for one more night for no other reason than they asked, I said "Sure", and it's fun being a Schmidt. I worked at the pool the next day selling concessions to better pay my dues to such hospitality. I played shoot 'em up video games with Chuck, who kicked my butt at every corner due to the fact that I'm completely in the dark when it comes to anything that has to do with a console; especially if it doesn't have a N64 or Original Nintendo stamped on the face. While playing, Chuck asked me if I would be staying another night. I thought to myself, If only I could. . .but I knew if I did, I definitely would never want to leave. I told him my legs were getting restless and I had to be on my way, quoting Good Will Hunting, "I've got to see about a girl." We had a good laugh and I retired to bed.
The next day, I did my bidding of farewells to the family, making one last trip to the pool so I could see off the rest of the worker-bee family. I rode off into another scorching day with a clean jersey stained with miles and a couple of dryer sheets in my bags to keep the upcoming days smelling fresh enough to fool myself.
From here, I had plans on meeting up with an old college mate of mine in Golden City, Missouri. Tim Walton is a married man who convinced his wife that he was stupid enough to join me on a trek from Missouri back to Russellville, Arkansas; and he is. I rode from Eureka through a few more small ghost towns hosting nothing but one road and a few condemned buildings supported by walls that could only talk of the good ole' days when they were able to support conversations about the future that would never be. One town had a neighborhood watch that I could only fathom that the only thing they had to watch was the wind; but, who am I to say they didn't have troubles in such a small town. . .such as wolves stealing babies as such.
I made it to Chanute, KS and found that there wasn't a whole lot going on and I just found the closest(only) camping ground and pitched tent. I showered in the public bathroom as I had been in most of the parks and camp sites on my trip and read the usual graffiti splayed on the walls of the shower and made me really nervous about showering in a place where men felt sure enough to sketch their sketchy thoughts about such things I'd rather not draw out in detail so as to believe that these thoughts were jokes and not a reality hoping to be played out on some out-of-state traveler who had no other choice but to use their facilities. . .After a restful night. . .I bolted from the town and made pretty good timing to Pittsburgh, a town of over 10,000. Just outside of the town, I took a pit-stop in front of a chicken farm on a rural road and got the biggest kick out of chasing chickens in my cleats, trying to capture them on camera to document the countless number of chickens, ducks, and roosters clucking around the grounds. If it weren't so far away, I would like to have taken a picture of this one creature that I can only explain as having the body of a chicken, the neck of a goose, and the face of a sunflower. I had a good laugh, not at its expense, but to myself in feeling bad for such a creature caged with a bunch of normal looking animals.
I found the local park in Pittsburgh which was big enough to have a permanent little amusement park for kids that had a train that ran through the entirety of the park, including past me pitching my tent in my spandex where I imagined if the conductor, hunched up in a ball in the engine car that was as big as a three wheeler you had when you were a child, were pointing out all the spots in the park, he would say, "And there's a man in tights setting up a tent in the middle of our city park. Just wave and maybe he'll go away," to which they all would wave with blank stares on their face and I would just smile and keep on trucking with my cooking and camping as though I were in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. It was a fun little thought and I couldn't wait to get through the night so I would be able to ride out in the morning and meet with Tim so I could have another person with me to talk to besides me and the cows.
The next day, I did my bidding of farewells to the family, making one last trip to the pool so I could see off the rest of the worker-bee family. I rode off into another scorching day with a clean jersey stained with miles and a couple of dryer sheets in my bags to keep the upcoming days smelling fresh enough to fool myself.
From here, I had plans on meeting up with an old college mate of mine in Golden City, Missouri. Tim Walton is a married man who convinced his wife that he was stupid enough to join me on a trek from Missouri back to Russellville, Arkansas; and he is. I rode from Eureka through a few more small ghost towns hosting nothing but one road and a few condemned buildings supported by walls that could only talk of the good ole' days when they were able to support conversations about the future that would never be. One town had a neighborhood watch that I could only fathom that the only thing they had to watch was the wind; but, who am I to say they didn't have troubles in such a small town. . .such as wolves stealing babies as such.
I made it to Chanute, KS and found that there wasn't a whole lot going on and I just found the closest(only) camping ground and pitched tent. I showered in the public bathroom as I had been in most of the parks and camp sites on my trip and read the usual graffiti splayed on the walls of the shower and made me really nervous about showering in a place where men felt sure enough to sketch their sketchy thoughts about such things I'd rather not draw out in detail so as to believe that these thoughts were jokes and not a reality hoping to be played out on some out-of-state traveler who had no other choice but to use their facilities. . .After a restful night. . .I bolted from the town and made pretty good timing to Pittsburgh, a town of over 10,000. Just outside of the town, I took a pit-stop in front of a chicken farm on a rural road and got the biggest kick out of chasing chickens in my cleats, trying to capture them on camera to document the countless number of chickens, ducks, and roosters clucking around the grounds. If it weren't so far away, I would like to have taken a picture of this one creature that I can only explain as having the body of a chicken, the neck of a goose, and the face of a sunflower. I had a good laugh, not at its expense, but to myself in feeling bad for such a creature caged with a bunch of normal looking animals.
I found the local park in Pittsburgh which was big enough to have a permanent little amusement park for kids that had a train that ran through the entirety of the park, including past me pitching my tent in my spandex where I imagined if the conductor, hunched up in a ball in the engine car that was as big as a three wheeler you had when you were a child, were pointing out all the spots in the park, he would say, "And there's a man in tights setting up a tent in the middle of our city park. Just wave and maybe he'll go away," to which they all would wave with blank stares on their face and I would just smile and keep on trucking with my cooking and camping as though I were in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. It was a fun little thought and I couldn't wait to get through the night so I would be able to ride out in the morning and meet with Tim so I could have another person with me to talk to besides me and the cows.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Of Hospitality and Family
When I awoke early the next morning, I started getting everything together in a very slow and lethargic manner, feeling very grimy and dirty as I was still wearing my jersey and covered in the filth of a seventy mile ride from the day before. After getting everything together, the same lady from the night before pulled beside me and told me that if I wanted to use the facilities of the pool to take a shower seeing that they were giving lessons and the showers were open. I thanked her and asked if there was a Becky that worked at the pool because the Scotsman that I bunked with at the Tribune city park told me to stop in Eureka and ask for Becky. The lady answered that she was Becky and I told her that the Scotsman said "Hi" and that he was doing good and still traveling well. She was happy to hear and she told me that she does offer her house up to cyclists and that if I wanted, I could go there and chill for the day or if I wanted to stay the night, I could do that as well. I thanked her and rolled my bike over to the pool and took my shower, feeling more refreshed than a morning flower dabbled with dew facing a rising sun. I breathed in a fresh start and decided that I might need to use Becky's laundry and waited for her to return by reading some of my book.
When she came back, I waited a bit and when I stood up, a young girl stepped out with her hand held out, introducing herself as Betsy, Becky's daughter, asking me if I was going to stay with them for the night. I spoke with her mother about laundry and agreed upon a place to sleep inside for the night. I followed her to her house to which she gave me a grand tour and said some quotable things that I really enjoyed hearing:
"This is my home. I don't do anything special for you guys. It is what it is. I just ask that you make yourself at home."
I enjoyed hearing some directness from another human being tinged with respect to the fact that I'm a simple man with simple pleasures in life. I feel as though she understood the cycling culture due to the fact that she's housed so many of them and she knew that it didn't take much to make us feel comfortable. After the tour and the pointing out of the washer/dryer, I came to the conclusion that she wasn't just offering up her house to me; she was making me apart of that house for however many few days I felt like I needed to gather myself. She needs to have clones of her and her family scattered along this route, especially in the desert where a cyclist longs for warm people such as herself.
She told me she would be in and out, as would her five kids, and I should make myself at home in every respect. When she left, I started my laundry and looked into the sink and found a perfect way to make myself feel at home and show my appreciation at the same time. I did the dishes while I waited for my clothes to wash and dry. Throughout the day, which I spent reading and writing a bit, I was slowly introduced to her kids one at a time. Betsy, I had met at the pool. Brooke came in behind Betsy. Later, the only boy, Chuck, who I had to give props to for coming out as head strong as he has living with five other women. Bailey came third. And Becky, the last daughter, was the last to officially meet. Each of them, separately, were just as kind as their mother. And as the afternoon wore on, and the pool began to close, they all started to gather together as a family, and when that happened, the music started playing and they began their circus dance of raucousness and horseplay. I thought to myself, as I sat there and answered all of their questions and inquiries and watched as they flung themselves here and there, how entertaining. But I tagged right along with their silliness very slyly and tried to fit right in, making smart remarks and throwing the jokes in with the best of the mixes and muddles. We had dinner and they started talking about other cyclists they'd put up and the different type of people they'd met; I won't go into detail as I don't want to ruin your stay when you find your way coming through Eureka and in the depths of the kindness of these wild hearts. Then, the subject of puppy chow came up and when I had related to them that I'd never had the snack, all of them held their hands to their mouths in different fashions as to show the different ways one can be surprised and made references to the rock I had lived under and how much my life wasn't complete!
So, with the plans of making puppy chow that night, I accompanied Brooke to the pool where we got the vacuum ready. When they had planned on going to the pool for the weekly cleaning, I don't think they expected me to jump at the chance, but I hadn't had a pool in eight to nine years and hadn't vacuumed one in the same time, if not longer. It's not that I enjoyed doing it when I had it, but if I could indulge myself just once without having to do it all summer, I would tag along and indulge myself as such.
The rest of the family met up poolside and Chuck and a few others dove in to enjoy the empty water. They had an exciting challenge in trying to drag Brooke into the pool and I almost flung her in myself just to sate the anticipation of seeing her hit that water. They say that Chuck is a state champion wrestler and after seeing him tackle and mangle with Brooke, I could see where he acquired the strength and practice to become such a talented tosser. I helped finish up the pool and felt very accomplished in cleaning a pool after so long and still being able to do a decent job. We packed everything and headed back home. When I got there, Bailey and her friend decided to drag me out to get a watermelon. We got the watermelon seeded with good laughs and silly jokes popping in and out of the car.
When I entered the house, I found puppy chow being churned about in a big bowl and dove right in to the addicting food. It was as good as they had explained and I took half a cup and realized that any more would make me explode rich goodness all over the place. So, I settled myself on that and talked a bit more with Becky, the mom, before she was suddenly called to her motherly duties once again. So, left alone in the living area with everyone else in their respected rooms, I sat at their grand piano and messed around for a while, letting my fingers become acquainted with the keys and the familiar touch of ivory and my ears to the once-upon-a-time chimes of the keys on string and the chords that rung out, taking me back to the upright back at home. I hadn't played in ages and was glad to be in front of the black and white buttons that would set off an explosion of harmony that made me smile so, reflecting my teeth back at the white keys in front of me.
When she returned, Becky set my place on the couch and as I was very grateful, we bid each other "Goodnight" and I fell asleep with the thoughts of being a part of a strange family that day and living in a home after being on the road for eleven days. And it's not that eleven days is a long time, but to have the comfort of a home and family reminded me that I couldn't wait to get to mine so that I may wake up every morning close to a familiarity that warms one to the bone. So, I must make a public appreciation to the Schmidt family for making me one of their own for one night. Today, the morning after, I leave a McDonald and look forward to being closer to the friends and family that make me so.
When she came back, I waited a bit and when I stood up, a young girl stepped out with her hand held out, introducing herself as Betsy, Becky's daughter, asking me if I was going to stay with them for the night. I spoke with her mother about laundry and agreed upon a place to sleep inside for the night. I followed her to her house to which she gave me a grand tour and said some quotable things that I really enjoyed hearing:
"This is my home. I don't do anything special for you guys. It is what it is. I just ask that you make yourself at home."
I enjoyed hearing some directness from another human being tinged with respect to the fact that I'm a simple man with simple pleasures in life. I feel as though she understood the cycling culture due to the fact that she's housed so many of them and she knew that it didn't take much to make us feel comfortable. After the tour and the pointing out of the washer/dryer, I came to the conclusion that she wasn't just offering up her house to me; she was making me apart of that house for however many few days I felt like I needed to gather myself. She needs to have clones of her and her family scattered along this route, especially in the desert where a cyclist longs for warm people such as herself.
She told me she would be in and out, as would her five kids, and I should make myself at home in every respect. When she left, I started my laundry and looked into the sink and found a perfect way to make myself feel at home and show my appreciation at the same time. I did the dishes while I waited for my clothes to wash and dry. Throughout the day, which I spent reading and writing a bit, I was slowly introduced to her kids one at a time. Betsy, I had met at the pool. Brooke came in behind Betsy. Later, the only boy, Chuck, who I had to give props to for coming out as head strong as he has living with five other women. Bailey came third. And Becky, the last daughter, was the last to officially meet. Each of them, separately, were just as kind as their mother. And as the afternoon wore on, and the pool began to close, they all started to gather together as a family, and when that happened, the music started playing and they began their circus dance of raucousness and horseplay. I thought to myself, as I sat there and answered all of their questions and inquiries and watched as they flung themselves here and there, how entertaining. But I tagged right along with their silliness very slyly and tried to fit right in, making smart remarks and throwing the jokes in with the best of the mixes and muddles. We had dinner and they started talking about other cyclists they'd put up and the different type of people they'd met; I won't go into detail as I don't want to ruin your stay when you find your way coming through Eureka and in the depths of the kindness of these wild hearts. Then, the subject of puppy chow came up and when I had related to them that I'd never had the snack, all of them held their hands to their mouths in different fashions as to show the different ways one can be surprised and made references to the rock I had lived under and how much my life wasn't complete!
So, with the plans of making puppy chow that night, I accompanied Brooke to the pool where we got the vacuum ready. When they had planned on going to the pool for the weekly cleaning, I don't think they expected me to jump at the chance, but I hadn't had a pool in eight to nine years and hadn't vacuumed one in the same time, if not longer. It's not that I enjoyed doing it when I had it, but if I could indulge myself just once without having to do it all summer, I would tag along and indulge myself as such.
The rest of the family met up poolside and Chuck and a few others dove in to enjoy the empty water. They had an exciting challenge in trying to drag Brooke into the pool and I almost flung her in myself just to sate the anticipation of seeing her hit that water. They say that Chuck is a state champion wrestler and after seeing him tackle and mangle with Brooke, I could see where he acquired the strength and practice to become such a talented tosser. I helped finish up the pool and felt very accomplished in cleaning a pool after so long and still being able to do a decent job. We packed everything and headed back home. When I got there, Bailey and her friend decided to drag me out to get a watermelon. We got the watermelon seeded with good laughs and silly jokes popping in and out of the car.
When I entered the house, I found puppy chow being churned about in a big bowl and dove right in to the addicting food. It was as good as they had explained and I took half a cup and realized that any more would make me explode rich goodness all over the place. So, I settled myself on that and talked a bit more with Becky, the mom, before she was suddenly called to her motherly duties once again. So, left alone in the living area with everyone else in their respected rooms, I sat at their grand piano and messed around for a while, letting my fingers become acquainted with the keys and the familiar touch of ivory and my ears to the once-upon-a-time chimes of the keys on string and the chords that rung out, taking me back to the upright back at home. I hadn't played in ages and was glad to be in front of the black and white buttons that would set off an explosion of harmony that made me smile so, reflecting my teeth back at the white keys in front of me.
When she returned, Becky set my place on the couch and as I was very grateful, we bid each other "Goodnight" and I fell asleep with the thoughts of being a part of a strange family that day and living in a home after being on the road for eleven days. And it's not that eleven days is a long time, but to have the comfort of a home and family reminded me that I couldn't wait to get to mine so that I may wake up every morning close to a familiarity that warms one to the bone. So, I must make a public appreciation to the Schmidt family for making me one of their own for one night. Today, the morning after, I leave a McDonald and look forward to being closer to the friends and family that make me so.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Music That Makes the Wheels Turn 'Round
This will be a short post. I just wanted to take some time to explain how I've gotten through a lot of these headwinds and difficulties I might have run into during my travels. Music. For those of you who don't know me very well, I like, nay, love music. It's sort of the grease and oil in my own internal gears that spin and move the thoughts and things in my mind. It's become a half influence in my life and here is a list of some of the artists that have influence the miles and actions I've taken in these past twelve days: O Brother Where Art Thou? Soundtrack, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Bernard Fleischmann, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Blind Melon, Blind Pilot, Bob Dylan, Bon Iver, Buena Vista Social Club, Cake, Clap Your Hands Say Yea, Damien Rice, One Hall & Oats song, The Daylights, Deer Tick, the one-hit wonder of Dexy's Midnight Runners, Edith Piaf, Explosions in the Sky, Frightened Rabbit, Green Day's album Nimrod, accidentally played Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes' If you don't know me by now, The Helio Sequence, Glen Hansard, J. Roddy Walston and the Business, John Hartford, Louis Prima, Moby, Modest Mouse, Old Crow Medicine Show, Orchestre Baka de Gbine, Paul McCartney & the Wings, Pela, Pink Floyd, Pixies, Radiohead, Roger Miller, The Rolling Stones, The Rat Pack/variations of its members, Sly & the Family Stone, The Temper Trap, The Twilight Sad, Waldeck, The Walkmen, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Wilco, Wolf Parade, Delta Spirit, Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone, and the thoughts in my head that ran rampant from one place to another like a rabbit dodging cars.
I know that it might seem like a lot but you have to spread these bands and songs out in a twelve day period where some days I didn't listen or some I only listened to a bit and some I did nothing but listen. My favorite songs are the ones in the mixes I've made especially for being on the bike and they've proved to be the most mind easing and helpful. Please let me know of any other music that I might enjoy listening to on the road and you will have a special place in my heart. There's only so much room. So act fast. Kidding. There's no room. Kidding. There's a whole lot of room because no one's there. Kidding. My heart's beating so fast on this trip that I can't keep any body still in there.
This post is dedicated to Eric Brumley. Music is the minute hand that makes the hour grow faster.
I know that it might seem like a lot but you have to spread these bands and songs out in a twelve day period where some days I didn't listen or some I only listened to a bit and some I did nothing but listen. My favorite songs are the ones in the mixes I've made especially for being on the bike and they've proved to be the most mind easing and helpful. Please let me know of any other music that I might enjoy listening to on the road and you will have a special place in my heart. There's only so much room. So act fast. Kidding. There's no room. Kidding. There's a whole lot of room because no one's there. Kidding. My heart's beating so fast on this trip that I can't keep any body still in there.
This post is dedicated to Eric Brumley. Music is the minute hand that makes the hour grow faster.
Shaking My Tail in the Tailwind
After a wonderful experience in Newton, I headed out and when I first turned on the road that would take me east, all the way to Cassody, I found a most glorious discovery: overnight, the wind had shifted and was coming out of the west and blowing hard east! I was fired up in all regards and decided that I would make the most of this day and go as far as my will would take me; and in this wind, my will was just as happy and strong as my legs. I started to go and the more I rode, the better I felt. I had my music playing and I was dancing in the saddle. Kansas may have been kicking me in the face throughout the past five days, but it was my turn and I was kicking it in its paved butt, tearing apart the tar with rapid gusts of pedal strokes. I was smiling the whole way and just taking in all the beauty. Kansas, in being barren, can get pretty tiring if one is having to go against the wind and struggle to make it across the state; however, when the wind is at your back and it's nothing but a breeze to get where you're going, the scenery turns beautiful with the white-as-angel clouds strutting across the blue-as-ocean sky like thousands of heavenly spaceships slowly drifting through. And I couldn't have picked a better day to find the rolling hills of eastern Kansas than a day where the wind had a hand on my back to aid in my ascents. The grass was kind of green that whoever invented the word green must have looked upon to come up with the word 'green'; and that green rolled this way and that forever and ever and the whole of the countryside looked as though it had just jumped right out of a photograph and into the world.
I made it to Cassody in no time at all and blinked my eyes and all of a sudden I was headed south toward Rosalia. I braved the crosswind, not letting my spirits get carried away in any sort of side manner. I made it to Rosalia with a few more cyclist meet-and-greets tucked away in my fanny pack. I stopped in and ate at the Old Hat Cafe where I was told my more than a couple of people that they cooked the best burgers in the state and the lady there was as sweet as could be, talking about how she raised her own cattle and cut her own meat. The burgers had no preservatives in them and they were 100% natural beef. I have to admit that the burger was very good but I didn’t get to enjoy the company of the sweet lady and got to talk with Cowboy Jim about politics and raising cattle and cutting the hooves on goats and teaching his kid how to play sports(“sports that most city boys don‘t get to play, like football and baseball“) I didn‘t understand that logic but went along listening being that I didn‘t have much of an option. He was a fun guy who had a zest for life and really had a good head on his shoulders when it came to family and the more important things; I could have done without the politics, but I still got a kick out of his kicks.
I made it to Highway 54 and hopped on the wind wagon heading east and found where the elevation dropped tremendously. I coasted for a total of six miles on three to four different hills that had me hollerin’ out to the world like some cowboy whose horse was buckin’ and broncin’ in a fit and frenzy.
I pulled into Eureka and found the city park where I set up camp. A lady pulled up and told me if I had been a bit earlier, I could have taken a dip in the pool. I was set up by that point and too tired to worry too much and thanked her anyway. Without the provisions of the pool, I laid down in my tent in my own filth . I didn't put up the rain flap seeing that the sky was clear and I read some of my book before staring at the sky. Aside from the stars, the fireflies were blinking on and off like a silent chorus, playing a song in their flashes, putting me to sleep with a concert of crickets humming in the background.
This post is dedicated to Old Chicago Restaurant in Conway, AR and my friends within
I made it to Cassody in no time at all and blinked my eyes and all of a sudden I was headed south toward Rosalia. I braved the crosswind, not letting my spirits get carried away in any sort of side manner. I made it to Rosalia with a few more cyclist meet-and-greets tucked away in my fanny pack. I stopped in and ate at the Old Hat Cafe where I was told my more than a couple of people that they cooked the best burgers in the state and the lady there was as sweet as could be, talking about how she raised her own cattle and cut her own meat. The burgers had no preservatives in them and they were 100% natural beef. I have to admit that the burger was very good but I didn’t get to enjoy the company of the sweet lady and got to talk with Cowboy Jim about politics and raising cattle and cutting the hooves on goats and teaching his kid how to play sports(“sports that most city boys don‘t get to play, like football and baseball“) I didn‘t understand that logic but went along listening being that I didn‘t have much of an option. He was a fun guy who had a zest for life and really had a good head on his shoulders when it came to family and the more important things; I could have done without the politics, but I still got a kick out of his kicks.
I made it to Highway 54 and hopped on the wind wagon heading east and found where the elevation dropped tremendously. I coasted for a total of six miles on three to four different hills that had me hollerin’ out to the world like some cowboy whose horse was buckin’ and broncin’ in a fit and frenzy.
I pulled into Eureka and found the city park where I set up camp. A lady pulled up and told me if I had been a bit earlier, I could have taken a dip in the pool. I was set up by that point and too tired to worry too much and thanked her anyway. Without the provisions of the pool, I laid down in my tent in my own filth . I didn't put up the rain flap seeing that the sky was clear and I read some of my book before staring at the sky. Aside from the stars, the fireflies were blinking on and off like a silent chorus, playing a song in their flashes, putting me to sleep with a concert of crickets humming in the background.
This post is dedicated to Old Chicago Restaurant in Conway, AR and my friends within
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Kansas' Kitchen a la Karen
I left Hesston and found that I would have been better off just riding into Newton the night before. Apparently, there had been a few storms that had been going through Kansas and what they left behind was a thirty mile per hour wind going north. I was heading, like I said, south to Newton. Those nine miles took forever. I figured I was going about two to four mph and, really, before I knew it, I was heading east three miles to Newton, dealing with the crosswind. Either way, I finally made it into Newton and stopped at the Sonic where a slush sounded amazing. I sat a bit and pondered on what I wanted to do. I was either going to go the rest of the way into Cassody or stay in Newton and take a day off from riding. A day off sounded pleasant and I soon found that my decision was well worth it.
I made it down Main Street and entered into a quaint little downtown area with shops and things for me to keep myself busy until I decided upon a place to stay. I found an old book shop and browsed around there for about thirty minutes or so, finding a couple of books of poetry and Charles Dickens' Hard Times. I didn't pick it out for the reason that you might be thinking. I definitely have gone through some difficult times, but I wouldn't categorize them as hard. I've had too much fun for this adventure to be labeled as hard. I would rather say that it's been exciting with a hint of danger.
Anyways, I left the store and just a couple of businesses down, there was a little cafe: Karen's Kitchen. I didn't know what to make of it at first. It had the look of a bakery and a coffee shop and when I found Karen at the register taking my order, she explained what the place was and it pretty much was a coffee shop and diner where they made their own bread(so, sort of a bakery). With my intuition working on a good level, I had a nice afternoon sitting in the coffee shop and talking with Karen about this and that, more of this and a little of that. The inside was a nice little mix of feelings and nuances. In the sitting area, pictures and paintings from local artists looked over with deep emotion at those who might be having a quiet conversation. Across from there, an antique piano stood upright, surround by a couple of high top tables, the scene very nostalgic and welcoming for musicians who might play every once-and-a-while in the eatery. Only having been there for a year, their local accumulation was already booming, evident in the pictures of friends and acquaintances that were pinned in the middle of the Kitchen. I had a good feeling about the place and the feeling stayed with me during and long after I left. "Big enough for a good time Small enough for good friends." I couldn't have said it better myself.
With good food and a heaping of pleasing coffee rumbling around in my belly, I walked around the area for a bit, getting cash out for my books and stopping in a shop called Ten Thousand Villages. Come to find out, there were around one hundred of these shops around the country, including one in Little Rock. The premise was, or what Denise told me, that poor artisans from third-world countries made particular items and this company sold those items in these shops and the full price of the object went to that particular artisan who made it. The Mennonites were a big part of the organization in that a lot of the Mennonite women worked in these countries with these artisans, sort of a connection to the United States. There were all kinds of crafts including instruments, jewelry, cards, and other interesting doo-dads. I purchased a card for Bangladesh and made my way out of the store feeling pretty good about how the day was turning out: getting a few books, getting localized in the coffee shop environment, and helping others around the world. You stop me from cycling and I'll show you what I can do.
I went back to the Book Reviews, the name of the store, and purchased my books. From the assistance of Karen and her kitchen, I found the local park where I would camp out for the night. The Athletic Park of Newton was huge. I'd say there were three playgrounds for kids, a municipal pool, a good one hundred picnic tables, a tennis court, a baseball field, and a statue of, what I think was the Mennonite founder. I set up camp next to the statue and took a shower in the pool's shower room. Clean and refreshed from a hard day of R&R, I pulled out my newly purchased book, Hard Times, and began to read for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Later into the night, I took a walk around the place where the hooligans(teenagers)of the area were starting to crawl out of their teeny hidey holes to jolly about the place, throwing a surprising number of cuss words that slid down the kiddy slide and rocked back and forth on the swing set, staining the playtime equipment for all the little kids to enjoy the next day. Dodging the language and the nonsensical shouting, I tried not to remember that I might have(or was)like that once before. An interesting little bit was going on in front of what looked like the public school; it was some sort of rehearsal for a play or dance. What had caught my attention in the first place was what sounded like a classical piece playing on a radio fronted by a French or German woman singing, in her respective language, a beautiful song that had to be about love, because, let's face it, when we hear a foreign singer singing, we automatically think they're singing about love; I jump to that. The kids were placed in their respected spots and the boys were twirling girls around with one lone girl kneeling down in the middle of them all and a young boy behind her. He moved around her and picked her up as though her character where hurt and alone and he was her rescuing prince. All of this was being played out at a distance from me and was in the foreground of a dark, gray sky stricken with bouts of lightening. I don't know why, but the scene was really beautiful and I stored it in my memory for years to come. I made my way back to camp through the slow flicker of fireflies that lighted my way. I crawled in and read a bit more of the book and fell asleep to the rain falling on the tarp stretched tight over my tent, playing a trickling beat to my slumber.
I woke up this morning and made my cup of Piñon coffee and packed everything up. I'm prepping myself at Karen's this morning before I head out and would like to say that I'm almost tempted to stay another night, but I'm afraid I might find myself stuck here. It's a nice town and I will definitely find myself back in the bowls of the Kitchen a la Karen.
Until next time.
This post is dedicated to Bill and his family.
I made it down Main Street and entered into a quaint little downtown area with shops and things for me to keep myself busy until I decided upon a place to stay. I found an old book shop and browsed around there for about thirty minutes or so, finding a couple of books of poetry and Charles Dickens' Hard Times. I didn't pick it out for the reason that you might be thinking. I definitely have gone through some difficult times, but I wouldn't categorize them as hard. I've had too much fun for this adventure to be labeled as hard. I would rather say that it's been exciting with a hint of danger.
Anyways, I left the store and just a couple of businesses down, there was a little cafe: Karen's Kitchen. I didn't know what to make of it at first. It had the look of a bakery and a coffee shop and when I found Karen at the register taking my order, she explained what the place was and it pretty much was a coffee shop and diner where they made their own bread(so, sort of a bakery). With my intuition working on a good level, I had a nice afternoon sitting in the coffee shop and talking with Karen about this and that, more of this and a little of that. The inside was a nice little mix of feelings and nuances. In the sitting area, pictures and paintings from local artists looked over with deep emotion at those who might be having a quiet conversation. Across from there, an antique piano stood upright, surround by a couple of high top tables, the scene very nostalgic and welcoming for musicians who might play every once-and-a-while in the eatery. Only having been there for a year, their local accumulation was already booming, evident in the pictures of friends and acquaintances that were pinned in the middle of the Kitchen. I had a good feeling about the place and the feeling stayed with me during and long after I left. "Big enough for a good time Small enough for good friends." I couldn't have said it better myself.
With good food and a heaping of pleasing coffee rumbling around in my belly, I walked around the area for a bit, getting cash out for my books and stopping in a shop called Ten Thousand Villages. Come to find out, there were around one hundred of these shops around the country, including one in Little Rock. The premise was, or what Denise told me, that poor artisans from third-world countries made particular items and this company sold those items in these shops and the full price of the object went to that particular artisan who made it. The Mennonites were a big part of the organization in that a lot of the Mennonite women worked in these countries with these artisans, sort of a connection to the United States. There were all kinds of crafts including instruments, jewelry, cards, and other interesting doo-dads. I purchased a card for Bangladesh and made my way out of the store feeling pretty good about how the day was turning out: getting a few books, getting localized in the coffee shop environment, and helping others around the world. You stop me from cycling and I'll show you what I can do.
I went back to the Book Reviews, the name of the store, and purchased my books. From the assistance of Karen and her kitchen, I found the local park where I would camp out for the night. The Athletic Park of Newton was huge. I'd say there were three playgrounds for kids, a municipal pool, a good one hundred picnic tables, a tennis court, a baseball field, and a statue of, what I think was the Mennonite founder. I set up camp next to the statue and took a shower in the pool's shower room. Clean and refreshed from a hard day of R&R, I pulled out my newly purchased book, Hard Times, and began to read for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Later into the night, I took a walk around the place where the hooligans(teenagers)of the area were starting to crawl out of their teeny hidey holes to jolly about the place, throwing a surprising number of cuss words that slid down the kiddy slide and rocked back and forth on the swing set, staining the playtime equipment for all the little kids to enjoy the next day. Dodging the language and the nonsensical shouting, I tried not to remember that I might have(or was)like that once before. An interesting little bit was going on in front of what looked like the public school; it was some sort of rehearsal for a play or dance. What had caught my attention in the first place was what sounded like a classical piece playing on a radio fronted by a French or German woman singing, in her respective language, a beautiful song that had to be about love, because, let's face it, when we hear a foreign singer singing, we automatically think they're singing about love; I jump to that. The kids were placed in their respected spots and the boys were twirling girls around with one lone girl kneeling down in the middle of them all and a young boy behind her. He moved around her and picked her up as though her character where hurt and alone and he was her rescuing prince. All of this was being played out at a distance from me and was in the foreground of a dark, gray sky stricken with bouts of lightening. I don't know why, but the scene was really beautiful and I stored it in my memory for years to come. I made my way back to camp through the slow flicker of fireflies that lighted my way. I crawled in and read a bit more of the book and fell asleep to the rain falling on the tarp stretched tight over my tent, playing a trickling beat to my slumber.
I woke up this morning and made my cup of Piñon coffee and packed everything up. I'm prepping myself at Karen's this morning before I head out and would like to say that I'm almost tempted to stay another night, but I'm afraid I might find myself stuck here. It's a nice town and I will definitely find myself back in the bowls of the Kitchen a la Karen.
Until next time.
This post is dedicated to Bill and his family.
Yoo Hoo Moo
I made the rest of my way to the first town that presented itself to me in Kansas: Tribune. As I rode through the level ground, I crossed the time zone and before I did, I stopped and looked on into the future, into tomorrow, wondering what crazy adventures it had in store for me. I crossed over and stopped once more. I looked behind me into a land of yesterday, where there was a me an hour before crossing the desert from Colorado Springs and exploring abandoned houses. I could see a me gasping for water, smacking his dry lips where the sand had settled in its cracks. I felt bad for the me that was going to have to go through those tribulations, but I will say, I wouldn’t go back to warn myself for anything in the world. I was glad to be out of yesterday and into a new day.
Coming into town, I spotted the RV of my Canadian mates and waved my last wave that I would wave to the traveling troupe. I asked directions to the local park where I knew I would be able to set up camp as the map so informed.
I made it to the park and searched for a good fifteen to twenty minutes for the gazebo in front of the municipal swimming pool(as every town with a population over 1,000 seems to have). After meandering around like a lost child, I found that I had passed it when I first entered and that there was a cyclist already sitting there. Both of us were a bit confounded on how we didn’t see each other when I rode into the park and we had a good laugh. The gentleman was traveling by himself and was, like most, heading west; though, I feel like he might be alone on his reasoning. He is initially from Scotland and dragged his words and phrases with a slightly thick accent that I hung onto with every ounce of my hearing. He had left Washington D.C. and was going to Australia to see his wife who was studying there. He had already gone across America once on bike and was a professional Tri-athlete and all of this at the age of seventy three. We had a good long talk about bicycles and bicycling in Great Britain of which I had stirred up and was keenly intrigued upon knowing. The park was definitely at full capacity that evening: kids in and out of the pool and softball games being played into the late hours of the night, the low, mumbling of the announcer rattling out the stats on bases and players up to bat and standing on the pitcher’s mound. I finished my dinner with the show going on around me and found that my neighbor didn’t drink coffee and always woke up at six in the morning to leave, neither of these things giving me the chance to make coffee for the two of us in the morning; but, mainly because I was still young and spry and not daft enough to get up that early while traveling across America even though I have found myself up around six thirty or seven a couple times already. We bid each other good night and retired to our respected tents set up under the pavilion that we shared.
I awoke late in the morning to find he had cleared out and I did the same. I stopped at the mom n’ pop diner where I had a good breakfast to get me to my next town, Scott City. The lady there was fun to talk to and had me sign the cycling log. She told me that I “was stupid. You’re traveling by yourself. You need to be careful.” And in my defense, I told her that “I couldn’t find anybody stupid enough to go with me.” We had a good laugh.
I left Tribune behind me and found that the winds had picked up and I found myself trudging along with more effort. There is something to be said about Kansas. The state surely does have a lot of cows roaming it’s flat fields; moreover, I must say that they are a curious bunch of creatures, these cows. Now, when I pass these cows, and I know that everyone has done this at least once(and if you haven’t, you’re either lying or I’m still holding a child within me somewhere): I go by a cow, or group of cows in the case of Kansas, and give out a long Moooooo! Half the time I don’t, but the reaction, either way, is always the same when I pass by. One cow looks up and, one by one, the others raise their heads from their chewing and grazing to watch me pass by. And as I go on further, I look back and there’s always that one that’s still looking on. So, I have to think to myself how it must be going on in their head. First, in the case of me not mooing and just riding by, the one will look up and say to the others, “Hey, Gloria, take a look at this. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” says Gloria. “Hey, George, what do you think?”
George looks up, “Not sure.”
And so on and so on, some cows keeping their heads down saying, “Just don’t look at it. It’ll probably just start mooing if you do.”
Second, in the case of me letting out a mooing sound as I pass by, most all the cows look up at once and I like to think that they’re thinking, Hey, there’s a cow riding that bicycle. How can he afford that?
These are the things that are going through my head as I pass any livestock of cow or horse(or llama) and you have to give me that there’s not much else to do out on the road when you’re cycling except watch the lines on the road go by and think a lot about a lot of things; so, you have to resort to talking with the cows, even though their conversation-keeping skills are about as good as llamas, it’s still something fun to do and keep yourself occupied, helping the time along nicely.
Being that there are a lot of cows in Kansas, most have to be driven to some place or another at some time or another. And when you’re cycling and that cow truck goes by you and you’re unfortunate to have the wind in your face, a thick, moist smell of cow manure wafts in the breeze and makes itself at home in your nostrils, creating a crappy filter for any other smell that might want to investigate your sense of smell. It’s a bit difficult to deal with at first but you get used to it after a while and accept it as part of that natural smell that comes with cycling and it becomes almost. . .floral.
I made it about forty or so miles from Tribune and was getting close to Scott City when the exhaustion started settling in hard on my mind and body. I was five miles away and was slowly just giving up as the wind was unrelenting and intent on making my ride miserable. At this point, a strange thing happened. I started talking to myself out loud. Now, this isn’t the regular conversational talking that I’ve done before just to pass the time and have someone to talk to. Don’t think of me as crazy or anything, it’s just that I think a part of me found that I was giving up and it came out to urge me on. I have to say that when it comes to motivation, I do a pretty good job in pushing myself to do something. If I had to say that there was another side to me, I would say that it was extremely optimistic, even more so than I might be on a regular basis. It’s comforting to know that there’s a part of me, when push comes to shove, that will get me to where I need to go. Send in the troops! I’ll send them in to battle!
Needless to say, the last three miles were the hardest I’ve ridden since the beginning and I finally made it into Scott City. I found a fellow cyclist, or he found me, at an intersection and told me to follow him to the Athletic Center where he and two others were staying the night. I paid my twelve dollars that would get me a roof over my head and a shower to get myself clean. I had dinner with the two that had met each other halfway going west and had a few good laughs over a few good stories that we swapped. We were all bunked in the locker room with our sleeping bags and I actually woke up around six o’clock in the morning with the rest of them and we all packed up. The two I had dinner with left together and I told them to enjoy that tail wind they’d been enjoying at my expense and I headed to the diner with the other fellow to have breakfast, getting to know more about him and we gave each other the heads up on certain towns the other would hit along the route. I thought how funny it was that each of us were excited about getting to the next town but in light of meeting someone going the opposite direction, dreaded the idea of the other having to go through a town he’d already been through. Just a funny thought. I’m just full of ‘em.
I made my way to Ness City where I battled a heavy headwind tinted with a slight crosswind. I found a gentleman outside of Leoti who was dealing with a flat and no pump. When he found out that I was a mechanic, he was much relieved in me showing him how to change a flat and he was very grateful and we agreed that God must have put us in the right place at the right time. He was training for Hotter Than Hell 100 and I can only wish him luck and pray that he trains well.
With that, I made it to Ness City and not much else can be said because like they say, whoever they might be, “the rest is written.”
This post is dedicated to a dear friend of mine. A Yoo Hoo.
Coming into town, I spotted the RV of my Canadian mates and waved my last wave that I would wave to the traveling troupe. I asked directions to the local park where I knew I would be able to set up camp as the map so informed.
I made it to the park and searched for a good fifteen to twenty minutes for the gazebo in front of the municipal swimming pool(as every town with a population over 1,000 seems to have). After meandering around like a lost child, I found that I had passed it when I first entered and that there was a cyclist already sitting there. Both of us were a bit confounded on how we didn’t see each other when I rode into the park and we had a good laugh. The gentleman was traveling by himself and was, like most, heading west; though, I feel like he might be alone on his reasoning. He is initially from Scotland and dragged his words and phrases with a slightly thick accent that I hung onto with every ounce of my hearing. He had left Washington D.C. and was going to Australia to see his wife who was studying there. He had already gone across America once on bike and was a professional Tri-athlete and all of this at the age of seventy three. We had a good long talk about bicycles and bicycling in Great Britain of which I had stirred up and was keenly intrigued upon knowing. The park was definitely at full capacity that evening: kids in and out of the pool and softball games being played into the late hours of the night, the low, mumbling of the announcer rattling out the stats on bases and players up to bat and standing on the pitcher’s mound. I finished my dinner with the show going on around me and found that my neighbor didn’t drink coffee and always woke up at six in the morning to leave, neither of these things giving me the chance to make coffee for the two of us in the morning; but, mainly because I was still young and spry and not daft enough to get up that early while traveling across America even though I have found myself up around six thirty or seven a couple times already. We bid each other good night and retired to our respected tents set up under the pavilion that we shared.
I awoke late in the morning to find he had cleared out and I did the same. I stopped at the mom n’ pop diner where I had a good breakfast to get me to my next town, Scott City. The lady there was fun to talk to and had me sign the cycling log. She told me that I “was stupid. You’re traveling by yourself. You need to be careful.” And in my defense, I told her that “I couldn’t find anybody stupid enough to go with me.” We had a good laugh.
I left Tribune behind me and found that the winds had picked up and I found myself trudging along with more effort. There is something to be said about Kansas. The state surely does have a lot of cows roaming it’s flat fields; moreover, I must say that they are a curious bunch of creatures, these cows. Now, when I pass these cows, and I know that everyone has done this at least once(and if you haven’t, you’re either lying or I’m still holding a child within me somewhere): I go by a cow, or group of cows in the case of Kansas, and give out a long Moooooo! Half the time I don’t, but the reaction, either way, is always the same when I pass by. One cow looks up and, one by one, the others raise their heads from their chewing and grazing to watch me pass by. And as I go on further, I look back and there’s always that one that’s still looking on. So, I have to think to myself how it must be going on in their head. First, in the case of me not mooing and just riding by, the one will look up and say to the others, “Hey, Gloria, take a look at this. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” says Gloria. “Hey, George, what do you think?”
George looks up, “Not sure.”
And so on and so on, some cows keeping their heads down saying, “Just don’t look at it. It’ll probably just start mooing if you do.”
Second, in the case of me letting out a mooing sound as I pass by, most all the cows look up at once and I like to think that they’re thinking, Hey, there’s a cow riding that bicycle. How can he afford that?
These are the things that are going through my head as I pass any livestock of cow or horse(or llama) and you have to give me that there’s not much else to do out on the road when you’re cycling except watch the lines on the road go by and think a lot about a lot of things; so, you have to resort to talking with the cows, even though their conversation-keeping skills are about as good as llamas, it’s still something fun to do and keep yourself occupied, helping the time along nicely.
Being that there are a lot of cows in Kansas, most have to be driven to some place or another at some time or another. And when you’re cycling and that cow truck goes by you and you’re unfortunate to have the wind in your face, a thick, moist smell of cow manure wafts in the breeze and makes itself at home in your nostrils, creating a crappy filter for any other smell that might want to investigate your sense of smell. It’s a bit difficult to deal with at first but you get used to it after a while and accept it as part of that natural smell that comes with cycling and it becomes almost. . .floral.
I made it about forty or so miles from Tribune and was getting close to Scott City when the exhaustion started settling in hard on my mind and body. I was five miles away and was slowly just giving up as the wind was unrelenting and intent on making my ride miserable. At this point, a strange thing happened. I started talking to myself out loud. Now, this isn’t the regular conversational talking that I’ve done before just to pass the time and have someone to talk to. Don’t think of me as crazy or anything, it’s just that I think a part of me found that I was giving up and it came out to urge me on. I have to say that when it comes to motivation, I do a pretty good job in pushing myself to do something. If I had to say that there was another side to me, I would say that it was extremely optimistic, even more so than I might be on a regular basis. It’s comforting to know that there’s a part of me, when push comes to shove, that will get me to where I need to go. Send in the troops! I’ll send them in to battle!
Needless to say, the last three miles were the hardest I’ve ridden since the beginning and I finally made it into Scott City. I found a fellow cyclist, or he found me, at an intersection and told me to follow him to the Athletic Center where he and two others were staying the night. I paid my twelve dollars that would get me a roof over my head and a shower to get myself clean. I had dinner with the two that had met each other halfway going west and had a few good laughs over a few good stories that we swapped. We were all bunked in the locker room with our sleeping bags and I actually woke up around six o’clock in the morning with the rest of them and we all packed up. The two I had dinner with left together and I told them to enjoy that tail wind they’d been enjoying at my expense and I headed to the diner with the other fellow to have breakfast, getting to know more about him and we gave each other the heads up on certain towns the other would hit along the route. I thought how funny it was that each of us were excited about getting to the next town but in light of meeting someone going the opposite direction, dreaded the idea of the other having to go through a town he’d already been through. Just a funny thought. I’m just full of ‘em.
I made my way to Ness City where I battled a heavy headwind tinted with a slight crosswind. I found a gentleman outside of Leoti who was dealing with a flat and no pump. When he found out that I was a mechanic, he was much relieved in me showing him how to change a flat and he was very grateful and we agreed that God must have put us in the right place at the right time. He was training for Hotter Than Hell 100 and I can only wish him luck and pray that he trains well.
With that, I made it to Ness City and not much else can be said because like they say, whoever they might be, “the rest is written.”
This post is dedicated to a dear friend of mine. A Yoo Hoo.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Lessons on Crosswinds and Crossing Borders
After leaving Olney Springs, I knew I had a long stretch of nothing in between there and Eads, Colorado, where I planned on staying for the night. I started out and rode through more of the sand and dust that I'd been taking in since Pueblo. I stopped in Sugar City which isn't as sweet as you might think; unless the sand was sugar itself, I don't think there's much to munch on there. I left Sugar City and made my way through more desert on a road that had been running parallel to the railroad tracks where I'd been waiting for a train to pass so I could feel like a real traveler riding alongside the train and the conductor waving at me, tooting his horn to spur me on further. I soon came to the assumption that there hadn't been a train on that track for ages or that I might have just been in the area at the wrong time.
Getting hungry around one to two o'clock, I decided to stop at a rest area to cook up some purple whole peas and rice on my stove. The town, or collection of a couple of houses, was called Arlington. As I was getting my food ready, a truck pulled up and asked the usual questions to which I gave to usual response. The lady in the passenger seat stepped out to talk with me longer after the gentleman left. Kathy Anderson is a little old lady who lives in the house just across from the rest area. She put it together for the cyclists that came through, seeing that us cyclists have to be the only exciting thing coming through there apart from keeping up with the cows. She acted like a tour guide and gave me a run down on the area and how she was a fourth generation cattle rancher and pointed out where her nephew lived and her neighbors and the school house that was no longer a school house and hadn't been since 1963. She told me how the roads were formed by men in wagons and it was curved because "all they were carrying for supplies were three barrels of moonshine" and she said this with a laugh at the end in a real quick manner as though she'd said that line a thousand times before and the only person who laughed at it now was her because she was the only one who could keep up with her speech. I concluded, after she had left me to my food which I had been glancing at from time to time, that she was the tour guide of nothing, which, in my opinion, is a hard feat to pull off; but, she did it with pizzazz.
I made the last track to Eads and let me tell you, I was so happy to make it there after traveling on that road. It wasn't heavily traveled, but there was a bump ever six feet and by the time I checked in, I felt like what an older Jimmy Stewart often looked like: an old, tired basset hound who had been dragging his rear end through a field of rocks all day. I settled in and had dinner, where I was excited about some pie but found out that they pre-whip all of their homemade pies. . .who does that? They could have sold me a pie if they didn't do something so silly. Oh well.
Leaving Eads, I found that the winds started to pick up and I was dealing with a pretty heavy crosswind for most of the way to this point and the gust had only gotten stronger the next morning. Making my way to Sheridan Lake, my last stopping town in Colorado, I became accustomed to trying to adapt to the crosswind. As much as it might want to blow you into the next county, you have to try and find a median on the road by leaning into the wind very slightly; however, then you run into the problem with the wind stopping for just a moment and you find yourself over-compensating on your lean and almost run off or more into the road. So, in all, it take a little time and finesse to train yourself to tackle the kind of wind that makes you feel like you might be carrying three barrels of moonshine on your bike rather than your luggage.
I stopped at the Sheridan Lake gas station and was looking for the bicycle shop that the map had informed me that lay somewhere in the area. I asked the attendant and she pointed behind me to an aisle and stated that they sell a couple of tubes and a pump and that was their shop. Disappointed and discouraged about what other shops lay ahead of me, I sat outside the station and relaxed in the shade. At this point, three cyclists pulled up bearing nothing but themselves and water bottles. I found out that they were from Canada and were clocking one hundred and twenty miles a day. At first, I thought they were crazy seeing that they didn't have any provisions but soon found out that they had a support RV behind them. I think I would hate having a support car in that I would have more readily available to me an escape from my exhaustion and just hop on in and drive to the next town. They might not have been that weak, but I think I would give in at some point and take a nice drive.
I began to leave and we all looked behind us at the looming, building black cloud coming toward us. I decided to go and try and beat it and deal with the few drops that I might get on the way into Kansas. I rode down the road, expecting them to pass me at any point but never found them. I guessed they stayed behind seeing that the rain started to fall. I rode through the rain where it picked up in a couple of spots and died back down. I felt pretty good about making it through without too much damage.
At the border, I stepped off of my bike and took a picture of the "Welcome to Kansas" sign so I could send it off to a few friends to mark my progress and triumph of finally making it out of the desert alive and pedaling. As soon as I pushed the 'send' button, the sky opened up and the bottom fell out. Golf ball sized hail started pelting down on me and the bike. I tried to ride a few feet before the hail thickened and I couldn't even see in front of my face. I pulled over and teepeed my bike over me and waited for the punches to subside. Eventually, after a long five minutes, it stopped and I stood up not able to believe what had just happened. I immediately wanted to take back the action of taking a picture of my crossing over into Kansas. I apologized to the state and went on, hoping that Kansas had forgiven me for documenting its insides. I rode for Tribune, the next town on my overnight agenda and held my head down against the wind, stabilizing each mile as it slowly passed by.
Getting hungry around one to two o'clock, I decided to stop at a rest area to cook up some purple whole peas and rice on my stove. The town, or collection of a couple of houses, was called Arlington. As I was getting my food ready, a truck pulled up and asked the usual questions to which I gave to usual response. The lady in the passenger seat stepped out to talk with me longer after the gentleman left. Kathy Anderson is a little old lady who lives in the house just across from the rest area. She put it together for the cyclists that came through, seeing that us cyclists have to be the only exciting thing coming through there apart from keeping up with the cows. She acted like a tour guide and gave me a run down on the area and how she was a fourth generation cattle rancher and pointed out where her nephew lived and her neighbors and the school house that was no longer a school house and hadn't been since 1963. She told me how the roads were formed by men in wagons and it was curved because "all they were carrying for supplies were three barrels of moonshine" and she said this with a laugh at the end in a real quick manner as though she'd said that line a thousand times before and the only person who laughed at it now was her because she was the only one who could keep up with her speech. I concluded, after she had left me to my food which I had been glancing at from time to time, that she was the tour guide of nothing, which, in my opinion, is a hard feat to pull off; but, she did it with pizzazz.
I made the last track to Eads and let me tell you, I was so happy to make it there after traveling on that road. It wasn't heavily traveled, but there was a bump ever six feet and by the time I checked in, I felt like what an older Jimmy Stewart often looked like: an old, tired basset hound who had been dragging his rear end through a field of rocks all day. I settled in and had dinner, where I was excited about some pie but found out that they pre-whip all of their homemade pies. . .who does that? They could have sold me a pie if they didn't do something so silly. Oh well.
Leaving Eads, I found that the winds started to pick up and I was dealing with a pretty heavy crosswind for most of the way to this point and the gust had only gotten stronger the next morning. Making my way to Sheridan Lake, my last stopping town in Colorado, I became accustomed to trying to adapt to the crosswind. As much as it might want to blow you into the next county, you have to try and find a median on the road by leaning into the wind very slightly; however, then you run into the problem with the wind stopping for just a moment and you find yourself over-compensating on your lean and almost run off or more into the road. So, in all, it take a little time and finesse to train yourself to tackle the kind of wind that makes you feel like you might be carrying three barrels of moonshine on your bike rather than your luggage.
I stopped at the Sheridan Lake gas station and was looking for the bicycle shop that the map had informed me that lay somewhere in the area. I asked the attendant and she pointed behind me to an aisle and stated that they sell a couple of tubes and a pump and that was their shop. Disappointed and discouraged about what other shops lay ahead of me, I sat outside the station and relaxed in the shade. At this point, three cyclists pulled up bearing nothing but themselves and water bottles. I found out that they were from Canada and were clocking one hundred and twenty miles a day. At first, I thought they were crazy seeing that they didn't have any provisions but soon found out that they had a support RV behind them. I think I would hate having a support car in that I would have more readily available to me an escape from my exhaustion and just hop on in and drive to the next town. They might not have been that weak, but I think I would give in at some point and take a nice drive.
I began to leave and we all looked behind us at the looming, building black cloud coming toward us. I decided to go and try and beat it and deal with the few drops that I might get on the way into Kansas. I rode down the road, expecting them to pass me at any point but never found them. I guessed they stayed behind seeing that the rain started to fall. I rode through the rain where it picked up in a couple of spots and died back down. I felt pretty good about making it through without too much damage.
At the border, I stepped off of my bike and took a picture of the "Welcome to Kansas" sign so I could send it off to a few friends to mark my progress and triumph of finally making it out of the desert alive and pedaling. As soon as I pushed the 'send' button, the sky opened up and the bottom fell out. Golf ball sized hail started pelting down on me and the bike. I tried to ride a few feet before the hail thickened and I couldn't even see in front of my face. I pulled over and teepeed my bike over me and waited for the punches to subside. Eventually, after a long five minutes, it stopped and I stood up not able to believe what had just happened. I immediately wanted to take back the action of taking a picture of my crossing over into Kansas. I apologized to the state and went on, hoping that Kansas had forgiven me for documenting its insides. I rode for Tribune, the next town on my overnight agenda and held my head down against the wind, stabilizing each mile as it slowly passed by.
Mennonites If I Might
When I woke up in my room in Sterling, I felt as though I might have been better off camping seeing that I slept with just as many bugs as I might have in a tent. And though the rooms might have been a bit on the wilting side, I can't complain because the Sterling Inn is very kind and fun to talk with about whatever might come up.
I had a father's day brunch at the local home cookin' diner and picked up a few provisions at the market. I headed back into the wind and found that I would be dealing with a heavier crosswind than a headwind. And from there to around thirteen miles out of Hesston, there really isn't much to tell. It got pretty hot and the wind remained at a constant pace of heavy and unrelenting. At reaching the fifteen mile mark to Hesston, where I would turn south and go to Newton, my goal for the night, I found that my water had reached close to boiling and I decided on "that" house for a fill up on ice water. When I rode up, the dogs outside were mixed with emotions on how to deal with me. One was very upset that I had made my presence known and the other was too old to care about another human. I knocked upon the door and waited with the dogs. When the door opened, there stood a young boy about the age of fifteen and a young girl around the same age standing behind him, both looking confused and curious about my arrival; and that's often to be expected in the case of there being one home ever half a mile and a knock comes upon your door and a young man in spandex is standing there looking like he just stepped out of a swamp. I broke their concentration and asked if they could fill the bottles I was holding with ice water. As they took the bottles, I heard a lady from inside say, "Invite him in." When I stepped in, I found eight to nine faces staring at me. Now, I had just finished reading, in the last town, on my map about the history of Kansas and how the Mennonites were a big part of some of the towns.
"Hello everyone," I said, looking around to see whether or not this visit was going to be awkward, and I was able to rule the sleeping one out as a potential what-are-you-doing-here set of eyes. The floor had about twenty or so toy horses and a play barn scattered where the kids had been playing. They were all gathered in the living room, talking among themselves, aside from the napper.
"Hello. We're Mennonites. Have you heard of us. You have. Well, today is Father's Day and I'm the father. These are my two sons Phil and (name here, the sleeping one)," the older of the men responded.
I was waiting for the rest of the introductions seeing that they looked like a regular set on The Waltons, but nothing came and he invited me to sit down. They pulled up a chair for me and I sat in their little circle. The kids sat in the kitchen behind me, looking in on this stranger and hanging onto the conversation. The television wasn't on because there was none; I almost wanted to go and get the lady from Ness City to come and talk about Twilight with them so they weren't so distant from the important issues of our world. However the initial meet and greet might have went, they turned out to be a real pleasant bunch of people. I found myself just talking away about my travels and answering their questions about my home and family and what I was doing in Colorado. I learned about their refrigeration business. They made me feel right at home. All I needed was a pair of overhauls since I already had the beard going. But they seemed to get a real kick out of me. After about fifteen to twenty minutes, I realized that the day was growing shorter and I had to bid them adieu, thanking them for their hospitality. Before I left, the father asked me my last name.
"McDonald," I said.
"Well, have a safe journey, McDonald," he closed. I had never been called by my last name except maybe by a teacher in school when they called out roll. It was, in an odd way, pleasing to hear. It was really familial and familiar and in leaving, I felt warmed by the Mennonites aside from the scorching sun that was pounding down on me.
As I left, the children were out on the front porch waving and saying goodbye. The experience with the Mennonites made me think about how lucky and blessed I was to have such a close family back at home. I was and am glad to have such an extensive family surrounding me and consider myself a family man, one who enjoys his family and hopes to mirror that same concept in his own life in the distant future.
I made my way further down the road with the wind picking up even more to the north, blowing me all over the road this way and that. More that way than this.
As a cyclist, you start to pick up on when a car is coming up behind you and I mastered that talent a couple of years ago. So, when I heard this particular car, I was waiting for the pass and became curious when it never did. It pulled up alongside me and the man driving started having a conversation with me right there on that two-lane highway. I told him I was headed home to Arkansas and I was hoping to get to Newton by the end of the night.
"You know it's 103 degrees out, don't you?" he asked. "Or did you not want to know that?"
"No," I said, "I didn't really need to know that."
He started laughing and I thought to myself, Why are you laughing? Did you pull up beside me because you needed a good laugh. You don't think I know it's hot? You're in a car, laughing at a suffering man on a bicycle, though it is my choice, still. . .Give me a break here and just let me try and make it without you getting your kicks out of my kinks. He made up for it in the end saying that his two boys were lifeguards at the pool in Newton and since they would be close by the time I got there, he would see what he could do about getting me in. He gave me his number and went on his way, leaving me prey to the wind.
When I got five miles from Hesston, I decided that I would stay in Hesston for the night being that the wind was blowing north at 20 mph and I had to go south to Newton. I edged my way into town and found the first food joint that was open, which happened to be a dairy bar with shakes and malts and such. I went in and got a shake with an order of sweet potato fries. That shake was such a perfect ending to a long day in the sun.
So, last night I found the Inn I would be staying in and made myself at home, taking a dip in the pool and writing to my audience. I leave this morning for Newton and from there, who knows where my decisions will take me or leave me. Either way, I'm homeward bound.
I had a father's day brunch at the local home cookin' diner and picked up a few provisions at the market. I headed back into the wind and found that I would be dealing with a heavier crosswind than a headwind. And from there to around thirteen miles out of Hesston, there really isn't much to tell. It got pretty hot and the wind remained at a constant pace of heavy and unrelenting. At reaching the fifteen mile mark to Hesston, where I would turn south and go to Newton, my goal for the night, I found that my water had reached close to boiling and I decided on "that" house for a fill up on ice water. When I rode up, the dogs outside were mixed with emotions on how to deal with me. One was very upset that I had made my presence known and the other was too old to care about another human. I knocked upon the door and waited with the dogs. When the door opened, there stood a young boy about the age of fifteen and a young girl around the same age standing behind him, both looking confused and curious about my arrival; and that's often to be expected in the case of there being one home ever half a mile and a knock comes upon your door and a young man in spandex is standing there looking like he just stepped out of a swamp. I broke their concentration and asked if they could fill the bottles I was holding with ice water. As they took the bottles, I heard a lady from inside say, "Invite him in." When I stepped in, I found eight to nine faces staring at me. Now, I had just finished reading, in the last town, on my map about the history of Kansas and how the Mennonites were a big part of some of the towns.
"Hello everyone," I said, looking around to see whether or not this visit was going to be awkward, and I was able to rule the sleeping one out as a potential what-are-you-doing-here set of eyes. The floor had about twenty or so toy horses and a play barn scattered where the kids had been playing. They were all gathered in the living room, talking among themselves, aside from the napper.
"Hello. We're Mennonites. Have you heard of us. You have. Well, today is Father's Day and I'm the father. These are my two sons Phil and (name here, the sleeping one)," the older of the men responded.
I was waiting for the rest of the introductions seeing that they looked like a regular set on The Waltons, but nothing came and he invited me to sit down. They pulled up a chair for me and I sat in their little circle. The kids sat in the kitchen behind me, looking in on this stranger and hanging onto the conversation. The television wasn't on because there was none; I almost wanted to go and get the lady from Ness City to come and talk about Twilight with them so they weren't so distant from the important issues of our world. However the initial meet and greet might have went, they turned out to be a real pleasant bunch of people. I found myself just talking away about my travels and answering their questions about my home and family and what I was doing in Colorado. I learned about their refrigeration business. They made me feel right at home. All I needed was a pair of overhauls since I already had the beard going. But they seemed to get a real kick out of me. After about fifteen to twenty minutes, I realized that the day was growing shorter and I had to bid them adieu, thanking them for their hospitality. Before I left, the father asked me my last name.
"McDonald," I said.
"Well, have a safe journey, McDonald," he closed. I had never been called by my last name except maybe by a teacher in school when they called out roll. It was, in an odd way, pleasing to hear. It was really familial and familiar and in leaving, I felt warmed by the Mennonites aside from the scorching sun that was pounding down on me.
As I left, the children were out on the front porch waving and saying goodbye. The experience with the Mennonites made me think about how lucky and blessed I was to have such a close family back at home. I was and am glad to have such an extensive family surrounding me and consider myself a family man, one who enjoys his family and hopes to mirror that same concept in his own life in the distant future.
I made my way further down the road with the wind picking up even more to the north, blowing me all over the road this way and that. More that way than this.
As a cyclist, you start to pick up on when a car is coming up behind you and I mastered that talent a couple of years ago. So, when I heard this particular car, I was waiting for the pass and became curious when it never did. It pulled up alongside me and the man driving started having a conversation with me right there on that two-lane highway. I told him I was headed home to Arkansas and I was hoping to get to Newton by the end of the night.
"You know it's 103 degrees out, don't you?" he asked. "Or did you not want to know that?"
"No," I said, "I didn't really need to know that."
He started laughing and I thought to myself, Why are you laughing? Did you pull up beside me because you needed a good laugh. You don't think I know it's hot? You're in a car, laughing at a suffering man on a bicycle, though it is my choice, still. . .Give me a break here and just let me try and make it without you getting your kicks out of my kinks. He made up for it in the end saying that his two boys were lifeguards at the pool in Newton and since they would be close by the time I got there, he would see what he could do about getting me in. He gave me his number and went on his way, leaving me prey to the wind.
When I got five miles from Hesston, I decided that I would stay in Hesston for the night being that the wind was blowing north at 20 mph and I had to go south to Newton. I edged my way into town and found the first food joint that was open, which happened to be a dairy bar with shakes and malts and such. I went in and got a shake with an order of sweet potato fries. That shake was such a perfect ending to a long day in the sun.
So, last night I found the Inn I would be staying in and made myself at home, taking a dip in the pool and writing to my audience. I leave this morning for Newton and from there, who knows where my decisions will take me or leave me. Either way, I'm homeward bound.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Winds, Flats, and Fireworks
Seeing that wireless internet is as far and few between as the towns out here, I'm going to take this chance to skip a few towns and play catch up with my whereabouts. I'll start in Ness City, Kansas and talk on my trip into Kansas in a later post.
By the time I got into Ness City, I had been rolling through a two day head wind. Needless to say, I was exhausted and ready to fall in for the night, right after I found something to eat. I stopped in the nearest and only restaurant and took a load off my feet and ate upon the provisions of the short-lived town. When I had finished and walked out to my bicycle, I found the rear tire had gone flat. I wasn't surprised seeing that it had seemed low for the past one hundred miles or so; and I'm not saying that I didn't try to air it up, it's just I had assumed the weight I was carrying was taking a toll on the tire and tube and thought nothing of it, trudging along as best I could on low pressure. And I had to deal with the fact that three times already when trying to air up my low pressure, I pulled the valve right out of the tube, causing a gash that was far from repairable. So, at this point, I realized that the flat was inevitable and long overdue and I was glad that it happened in town and only walking distance from the hotel; though, I had planned to camp at the park which was more riding distance of which I was out of luck in doing.
I walked my bike over to the Ness City Motel, which from the inside, looks nice and stable. I waited for a moment before the lady came to the front desk to check me in. She was somewhere in her early fifties and she was short and stalky with a wondering eye; not that her wondering eye has anything to do with her character, I'm just keeping the description at full mast. Heck, I have a wondering eye; it's just that my other one is lazy so they cancel each other out. To set up the conversation, a few of the guests were calling in about the cable not working. So, before I went up to my room, I made some smart remark about whether or not the cable was working. We had a good laugh and I told her it wouldn't matter because I don't watch too much television. She was aghast.
"You don't watch T.V.?" she asked with her mouth hanging open like one of those fun house entrances at a circus.
"No. Not a whole lot. On occasion, I do," I responded.
"Not even to watch Twilight?" she asked as though I hadn't said anything. At that point, she was either being sarcastic or for real. I really couldn't tell which because she started out sarcastic and could have switched over being that she had one of those exciting and unpredictable personalities. So, I walked in the open door.
"You're a Twilight fan then?"
"Oh yes," she said with gusto! "It's one of the best romance stories out there."
"Really?" I asked.
"I don't go to the theaters for anything; but I can't wait 'til November when the new one comes out. I'll be camped out on the front steps the night before."
This lady was a hoot and I had to get out before the gettin' got goin' without me holding on. I thanked her for her time and she told me where to put my bike and I unpacked and settled in my room, which is where I got the scoop on what forty-five dollars a night gets you. I'm not going to go into detail about complaints or anything since it was a bed and a shower and I can't complain about that when I could have been sleeping in my own sweat which I had done a few nights so far on my trip out here.
Before I pulled in under the blankets, I found the hole in my tube that had been giving off a super slow leak in my air pressure. I patched it up and laid it out. Sleep overcame me.
The next morning, I got everything together and the rear wheel back onto the bike, pumped and ready to go. After I pulled all of my luggage down to the bike and prepared the now all-too-familiar routine, I found the tire had deflated a little bit. So, I took the tube back out and patched what I thought might be other problem areas. Getting the whole package wrapped up and ready to go, I had breakfast and headed east into the wind that was still howling in my face with a slight cross to the south.
As I rode out of town, I found that the three patches I had so tediously applied did nothing but provide an image of me knowing what I was doing. The tire still seemed low, so I stopped occasionally to air it up, but to no avail. The last time that I tried to give it a little pep-pump was truly the last time. I pulled the pump off and did it again. I ripped the valve from the tube. I threw the pump down and had a few words with it. I don't feel like it understood me. It just sat there amidst the rocks, looking off into the wind, wishing it had that kind of force to better aid me in my quest to get anywhere.
At that point, without any spares or anywhere close to get them, I knew I had to make it to Great Bend, Kansas where a friend from home had made some inquiries and found that there was a bicycle shop located there. It was sixty miles to Great Bend and I knew I would have to get a ride there somehow, but I wasn't going to sit in the one spot and try to get somewhere because the only way to get somewhere is to get there and one can't get anywhere sitting in one spot. So, I started walking my bike, or half a bike, toward Great Bend, turning to stick out my thumb to any passing truck that would be able to haul my vehicle. About two miles down the road, a truck was kind enough to stop in front of me. As I approached, he was already opening his bed and asking me where I was going. I asked him first so that I wasn't taking him too far out of his way. He was heading east. I was heading to Great Bend. He was going through Great Bend. Great!
Forty miles hasn't gone by so fast for me in so long as that drive did. We talked about bicycles and about what he did. Come to find out, he was a teacher and for the past three summers, around this time, he worked for a firework company that set up those tents and thrived off of those and the stores they owned. Apparently, it was a multi-million dollar business and had up to six hundred tents, each employee such as himself in charge of ten to twelve tents at a time. The whole system was really intriguing and I would have never given those tents another thought on how they were ran until he started giving me the scoop. The people you meet.
He dropped me off at the bicycle shop where I unloaded my luggage and took my bike in. Todd, the young man running the Golden Belt Bicycle Shop, was a huge help in letting me use his stand after I told him that I had just returned from Barnett's. He had gone there a couple of years ago, so we had a good time talking a little bit about bikes and such things. I put my bike up in the stand and gave my new rear tube and tire proper air pressure including my front one which had been running just as low; we will not discuss how low I was riding them seeing that the irony between me coming from a bicycle mechanic school and the situation I had gotten myself into with tubes, of all things, was too much for me to bear.
After fixing myself up for the next leg of my journey and seeing that I hadn't gotten any riding in that day, I decided to ride south to Highway 19, which would take me east on NE 140th Ave. When I came to the eastbound road, I found it to be very desolate as far as traffic goes and that's only because even driving a car on that road would give you a headache. As pretty and quiet as it was out there, the road was a bit mangled and proved to be a rough ride. Since I had started out late, I had decided to camp somewhere between where I was and Nickerson. But, since I had lost an hour in entering Kansas and the days were longer, I had a lot more sunlight to get me through to Sterling, just north of Nickerson and the closer of the two when it came down to the sun setting. And when the sun sets in Kansas over stretches of grain fields, the colors of the sky come out in true form. The setting sun sneaking away behind some stretched clouds in the west shining on the cotton-ball clouds in the east and coloring them in with numerous shades of pink, purple, and orange just over a bottom layer of blue-gray that added to the mysticism swirling in the sky, bidding me Goodnight as I made my way over the Arkansas River and into the little town of Sterling.
By the time I got into Ness City, I had been rolling through a two day head wind. Needless to say, I was exhausted and ready to fall in for the night, right after I found something to eat. I stopped in the nearest and only restaurant and took a load off my feet and ate upon the provisions of the short-lived town. When I had finished and walked out to my bicycle, I found the rear tire had gone flat. I wasn't surprised seeing that it had seemed low for the past one hundred miles or so; and I'm not saying that I didn't try to air it up, it's just I had assumed the weight I was carrying was taking a toll on the tire and tube and thought nothing of it, trudging along as best I could on low pressure. And I had to deal with the fact that three times already when trying to air up my low pressure, I pulled the valve right out of the tube, causing a gash that was far from repairable. So, at this point, I realized that the flat was inevitable and long overdue and I was glad that it happened in town and only walking distance from the hotel; though, I had planned to camp at the park which was more riding distance of which I was out of luck in doing.
I walked my bike over to the Ness City Motel, which from the inside, looks nice and stable. I waited for a moment before the lady came to the front desk to check me in. She was somewhere in her early fifties and she was short and stalky with a wondering eye; not that her wondering eye has anything to do with her character, I'm just keeping the description at full mast. Heck, I have a wondering eye; it's just that my other one is lazy so they cancel each other out. To set up the conversation, a few of the guests were calling in about the cable not working. So, before I went up to my room, I made some smart remark about whether or not the cable was working. We had a good laugh and I told her it wouldn't matter because I don't watch too much television. She was aghast.
"You don't watch T.V.?" she asked with her mouth hanging open like one of those fun house entrances at a circus.
"No. Not a whole lot. On occasion, I do," I responded.
"Not even to watch Twilight?" she asked as though I hadn't said anything. At that point, she was either being sarcastic or for real. I really couldn't tell which because she started out sarcastic and could have switched over being that she had one of those exciting and unpredictable personalities. So, I walked in the open door.
"You're a Twilight fan then?"
"Oh yes," she said with gusto! "It's one of the best romance stories out there."
"Really?" I asked.
"I don't go to the theaters for anything; but I can't wait 'til November when the new one comes out. I'll be camped out on the front steps the night before."
This lady was a hoot and I had to get out before the gettin' got goin' without me holding on. I thanked her for her time and she told me where to put my bike and I unpacked and settled in my room, which is where I got the scoop on what forty-five dollars a night gets you. I'm not going to go into detail about complaints or anything since it was a bed and a shower and I can't complain about that when I could have been sleeping in my own sweat which I had done a few nights so far on my trip out here.
Before I pulled in under the blankets, I found the hole in my tube that had been giving off a super slow leak in my air pressure. I patched it up and laid it out. Sleep overcame me.
The next morning, I got everything together and the rear wheel back onto the bike, pumped and ready to go. After I pulled all of my luggage down to the bike and prepared the now all-too-familiar routine, I found the tire had deflated a little bit. So, I took the tube back out and patched what I thought might be other problem areas. Getting the whole package wrapped up and ready to go, I had breakfast and headed east into the wind that was still howling in my face with a slight cross to the south.
As I rode out of town, I found that the three patches I had so tediously applied did nothing but provide an image of me knowing what I was doing. The tire still seemed low, so I stopped occasionally to air it up, but to no avail. The last time that I tried to give it a little pep-pump was truly the last time. I pulled the pump off and did it again. I ripped the valve from the tube. I threw the pump down and had a few words with it. I don't feel like it understood me. It just sat there amidst the rocks, looking off into the wind, wishing it had that kind of force to better aid me in my quest to get anywhere.
At that point, without any spares or anywhere close to get them, I knew I had to make it to Great Bend, Kansas where a friend from home had made some inquiries and found that there was a bicycle shop located there. It was sixty miles to Great Bend and I knew I would have to get a ride there somehow, but I wasn't going to sit in the one spot and try to get somewhere because the only way to get somewhere is to get there and one can't get anywhere sitting in one spot. So, I started walking my bike, or half a bike, toward Great Bend, turning to stick out my thumb to any passing truck that would be able to haul my vehicle. About two miles down the road, a truck was kind enough to stop in front of me. As I approached, he was already opening his bed and asking me where I was going. I asked him first so that I wasn't taking him too far out of his way. He was heading east. I was heading to Great Bend. He was going through Great Bend. Great!
Forty miles hasn't gone by so fast for me in so long as that drive did. We talked about bicycles and about what he did. Come to find out, he was a teacher and for the past three summers, around this time, he worked for a firework company that set up those tents and thrived off of those and the stores they owned. Apparently, it was a multi-million dollar business and had up to six hundred tents, each employee such as himself in charge of ten to twelve tents at a time. The whole system was really intriguing and I would have never given those tents another thought on how they were ran until he started giving me the scoop. The people you meet.
He dropped me off at the bicycle shop where I unloaded my luggage and took my bike in. Todd, the young man running the Golden Belt Bicycle Shop, was a huge help in letting me use his stand after I told him that I had just returned from Barnett's. He had gone there a couple of years ago, so we had a good time talking a little bit about bikes and such things. I put my bike up in the stand and gave my new rear tube and tire proper air pressure including my front one which had been running just as low; we will not discuss how low I was riding them seeing that the irony between me coming from a bicycle mechanic school and the situation I had gotten myself into with tubes, of all things, was too much for me to bear.
After fixing myself up for the next leg of my journey and seeing that I hadn't gotten any riding in that day, I decided to ride south to Highway 19, which would take me east on NE 140th Ave. When I came to the eastbound road, I found it to be very desolate as far as traffic goes and that's only because even driving a car on that road would give you a headache. As pretty and quiet as it was out there, the road was a bit mangled and proved to be a rough ride. Since I had started out late, I had decided to camp somewhere between where I was and Nickerson. But, since I had lost an hour in entering Kansas and the days were longer, I had a lot more sunlight to get me through to Sterling, just north of Nickerson and the closer of the two when it came down to the sun setting. And when the sun sets in Kansas over stretches of grain fields, the colors of the sky come out in true form. The setting sun sneaking away behind some stretched clouds in the west shining on the cotton-ball clouds in the east and coloring them in with numerous shades of pink, purple, and orange just over a bottom layer of blue-gray that added to the mysticism swirling in the sky, bidding me Goodnight as I made my way over the Arkansas River and into the little town of Sterling.
A Llama and Rattle-Snake Jim & Co.
Out of the desert and into civilization. On the road that would take me just around three hundred miles to Alexander, Kansas. I had that "here-we-go" look in my eye and lion's blood running through my legs. This is the road that laid out it's welcome mat and placed little towns filled to the brim with convenience just for me; maybe not to the brim and not all just for me, but it felt like it after crawling out of the pits of sand and sage spotted with tumbleweeds that whistled out the loneliness found in their wake. This is where I would start meeting others like myself. Cyclists.
The first one I met was about fifteen miles down the highway. Like most of the other cyclists I would meet, he was going west. But he was unique in that he was walking his bike along the shoulder. My first thought was that he was having trouble. I slowed down and called across the dashing cars to see if he needed any help. He motioned that he was just tired in the legs. At that point, I turned the tables seeing that my pump had fallen off somewhere behind me(and I don't blame it; if I were my pump, I would jump ship too). I asked if he had a pump that I could use and he waved me over. As he was digging for the pump, I asked him the obvious question that any traveler would ask another, "Where are you coming from?", and the rest would follow: How long? Where to? etc.? He was from Nepal and had been riding since 2003 and has been through seventy or so countries and making his way to Denver. Still taking that bundle of information in, I ran back across, dodging cars and jumping over hoods, and topped off my tires with air. When I made it back, we exchanged information/websites and I helped him with a good way to get to Denver, telling him about a marvelous route called South Meridian that was flourishing with bounty. . .kidding. He gave me his summary of his travels where it talked about having gone through six bikes and been beaten up by bandits. All of a sudden, my trip through the desert didn't seem that bad and I decided to leave that little adventure out of my "this is what's happened so far" summary. I bid him good luck and safe travels as he did the same and we went our opposite ways.
I made it further on down Highway 96/50 and turned on the back highway which cut off from 50 and continued as 96. The first town I came to was Boone, the first of many Population: Not enough, Size: Two seconds. I stopped at a (Very) General Store where I realized I was out of cash and Boone had yet to realize there was a world going by outside of them. Sam Elliot, the cashier, with his handlebar moustache that could have seconded for actual chopper bars, told me of the ATM at the VFW and I said LOL, G2G, No thanks. . .so, I sat outside for five minutes and chatted it up with a cycling couple from Kentucky enjoying a few months on the road, she on summer break and he taking three months off from making cabinets. They had the whitest teeth and I did everything I could to make them laugh or smile, wanting to take in those "pearlies" as much as I could, but they were hoarding them to the best of their abilities, so I wished them luck and hoped their teeth rotted out. . .kidding. . .
Outside of Boone, since I didn't take advantage of the store, I stopped by a couple of trees and sat in the shade eating some jerky I had picked up outside of Pueblo. As I was sitting there, I stood to stretch and looked around me. As usual, there were fields on the other side of me where cows and such were grazing. Then, a car passed and all of a sudden, staring at me from right up against the fence that didn't stand but five feet from the road, was a llama; just. . .staring. It must have been wondering the same thing I was, "What is that doing there?" Out of all the places to stick a llama, Boone was obviously a lovely place mixed right in with the cows and horses. So, I casually walked across the road, edging my to the fence where the llama, we'll say it was a he, was doing a sort of five-step-length pace left and right, feeling what must have been antsy about me approaching. At first, I treated it like a cat, holding my hand out, letting it smell me out, only because I've never read on how to approach a llama when confronted by one, which I was when it stared me down and said "Come here" with its sixth-llama sense. When it seemed to nuzzle up to my hand, I made to pet him and he backed off a bit. I switched back to the cat tactic and he went back to sniffing, then I slyly turned my hand over, going in for the pet under his chin and he was putty in my hands. I scratched and rubbed his. . ..snout? and he laid his head into my arm, looking at me longingly with those deep, lonely black eyes. I took this opportunity to sit and talk with him; the conversation was sort of one sided and he didn't have much input on any of the topics I brought up; he finally got tired of me and went back to grazing what little grass he had to go for. When I got up to leave, he perked up and looked my way and he started to, I guess, whine. It started out sounding like a donkey then went into a high-pitched moan like. . .like he didn't want me to leave. As honored as I felt, I told him I had to go and I would send other cyclists his way. And I do to this day.
Leaving that curious encounter, I rode and rode until I was about five miles out of Olney Springs and one hour away from a setting sun at my back. I made a couple of last minute, "I'm fine" calls and "I miss you" rings and finished the last bit with a song I made up going in my head. It went something like this(you have to hum it like it were an Irish lullaby):
I'm prayin' for a town just o'er the rise
A town that I miss with such sparkling eyes
Olney Springs, you lay me down in sheets of white linen
Olney Springs, why have your women. . .
gone away?
Don't ask me. It just appeared. So, hungry and ready to settle in, I was just about through the town without seeing a restaurant when I passed an antique shop that said Uncle Billy's Favorite Things and I suddenly smelled burgers coming out of the building. I pulled in and found that it was a restaurant, thinking how silly I felt for thinking it was an antique shop, though at the same time, I wouldn't have been surprised if any of these towns would rather have a junk store instead of a eatery. Either way, I walked in and found a table in the back where fifties music was playing and records and pictures of Elvis, Frank, and Dean were pinned the wall. I fell in love with the little place and ordered my food. The table just across the room was occupied by three cowboy lookin' dudes with the hats and all. They were mumbling amongst themselves, giving me a couple of second glances. My first thought was that I was in tights and it was probably a bit too much for their hardened senses. And when I got my food and they were mingling about, making to leave, one of them approached my table.
"You sure are red. Where you headed?" he stated.
I was taken aback, completely caught off guard by the voice that emanated from this rugged form. I looked up and saw a toothless grin that held the voice of what could best be described as if a child were talking and he had a matured, country lisp; and I say toothless, but he had a couple wedged in there like tilting barns.
"Yeah, I got a bit of sunburn back a couple of days ago. I'm headed back home to Arkansas," I replied with a smile.
"Orkanso. I mean Arkansas," he restated.
I looked at him with curiosity, "What's your name?" holding out my hand.
"Jim," he started, putting his rough, withered hand in mine, "my friends and I have a place for you cyclists if you need a place to stay."
"Oh, thank you, but I'm camping out in the park just across the way. . ."
". . .yeah, the park. Well, do you need some lotion for your skin? I've got some back at the house," he offered.
"Actually, that would be really helpful. Thank you."
"I'll just bring it to your tent when you head over there."
"That sounds great. So, what do you do around here?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Well, I'm a rescue pilot," he responded with his hands on his hips, still grinning and nodding his head.
"What's that like?"
"I'm always on call."
"Do you do anything else?"
"I catch rattlesnakes."
I was stunned. "Really. How is that?"
He held out his arms, "What do you think? Look at all those bites. The government sends me little vials about the size of your finger and I fill them up with venom and they pay me $100 a bottle."
"That's too cool. So, you're from around here?"
"Nope. New York. It felt like I was living in a jail. So, now I live out here where you have to drive eight miles just to get gas."
I laughed a little and paid my tab. "Well, I'll meet you over there. I guess I'm going to go and pitch tent."
New York I thought. I would have never guessed that one. At least I got a good conversation out of a local seeing that my last one with llama didn't get very far. I made it to the park and met my park mates for the evening. They were three folks my age, two guys and a girl, from Michigan. They were riding to raise money for their hometown and towns like it if I remember correctly. They come from a post-industrial town where GM left town and left many jobless. I would venture to say that would be another story in itself.
As I was setting up my site, Jim came lumbering over with a big bottle of lotion in his hand. "Thanks," I exclaimed, lathering up the burns.
He introduced himself to the others and I mentioned he was a rattlesnake catcher. He told us that we were in a good spot to run into them.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah, and if you see one, you know where to grab it, right?"
"The head."
"No, the tail. You grab the tail and swing him to your right and then to your left like this," he said, giving the motions.
Whoo-doggie I thought, bring 'em on. I know how to wrastle me some rattlesnakes. And I was serious with the thought. I found it pretty intriguing and dangerous to wake up and have to deal with a snake; though, when push came to shove, I'd probably scream like a banshee if that rattle invaded my bubble. I held up my fists when he finished as though I were fighting one of his prized foes and he just laughed, slapping my hands away.
I thanked him again and after a couple of lingering fifteen minutes, he was back to his house. I sat up with my three companions and we exchanged talk of our travels when good ole' Jim came back into camp, bearing gifts of jerky, soda, and pop-tarts for each of us. After another batch of lingering and chatting, we bid him and each other goodnight, not before we shook hands on me making coffee in the morning for everybody.
We woke up and as I was making coffee, you'll never guess who was there to greet us with the sun. Jim was back with Gatorade for each of us and he watched me make coffee and went into talk about "cowboy" coffee for about ten minutes and was off into the wilderness before we started packing, no doubt to fly a plane into a 911 call involving a rattlesnake. And after we were all packed and our dishes washed, we wished each other safe travels. Before I set out, I did one last look around for Jim so I could thank him for all of his help, but he was more than likely still off on one of his Jim adventures with four rattlesnakes hanging off of his arm as he trudged through the woods like a gentle Goliath of a two-second town.
*note* One, please bear with my dialogue; I'm still trying to get it right and the fact that I could never do Jim justice without the reader actually listening to him and Two, this is the only time that I will ever use LOL or G2G. . .ever.
The first one I met was about fifteen miles down the highway. Like most of the other cyclists I would meet, he was going west. But he was unique in that he was walking his bike along the shoulder. My first thought was that he was having trouble. I slowed down and called across the dashing cars to see if he needed any help. He motioned that he was just tired in the legs. At that point, I turned the tables seeing that my pump had fallen off somewhere behind me(and I don't blame it; if I were my pump, I would jump ship too). I asked if he had a pump that I could use and he waved me over. As he was digging for the pump, I asked him the obvious question that any traveler would ask another, "Where are you coming from?", and the rest would follow: How long? Where to? etc.? He was from Nepal and had been riding since 2003 and has been through seventy or so countries and making his way to Denver. Still taking that bundle of information in, I ran back across, dodging cars and jumping over hoods, and topped off my tires with air. When I made it back, we exchanged information/websites and I helped him with a good way to get to Denver, telling him about a marvelous route called South Meridian that was flourishing with bounty. . .kidding. He gave me his summary of his travels where it talked about having gone through six bikes and been beaten up by bandits. All of a sudden, my trip through the desert didn't seem that bad and I decided to leave that little adventure out of my "this is what's happened so far" summary. I bid him good luck and safe travels as he did the same and we went our opposite ways.
I made it further on down Highway 96/50 and turned on the back highway which cut off from 50 and continued as 96. The first town I came to was Boone, the first of many Population: Not enough, Size: Two seconds. I stopped at a (Very) General Store where I realized I was out of cash and Boone had yet to realize there was a world going by outside of them. Sam Elliot, the cashier, with his handlebar moustache that could have seconded for actual chopper bars, told me of the ATM at the VFW and I said LOL, G2G, No thanks. . .so, I sat outside for five minutes and chatted it up with a cycling couple from Kentucky enjoying a few months on the road, she on summer break and he taking three months off from making cabinets. They had the whitest teeth and I did everything I could to make them laugh or smile, wanting to take in those "pearlies" as much as I could, but they were hoarding them to the best of their abilities, so I wished them luck and hoped their teeth rotted out. . .kidding. . .
Outside of Boone, since I didn't take advantage of the store, I stopped by a couple of trees and sat in the shade eating some jerky I had picked up outside of Pueblo. As I was sitting there, I stood to stretch and looked around me. As usual, there were fields on the other side of me where cows and such were grazing. Then, a car passed and all of a sudden, staring at me from right up against the fence that didn't stand but five feet from the road, was a llama; just. . .staring. It must have been wondering the same thing I was, "What is that doing there?" Out of all the places to stick a llama, Boone was obviously a lovely place mixed right in with the cows and horses. So, I casually walked across the road, edging my to the fence where the llama, we'll say it was a he, was doing a sort of five-step-length pace left and right, feeling what must have been antsy about me approaching. At first, I treated it like a cat, holding my hand out, letting it smell me out, only because I've never read on how to approach a llama when confronted by one, which I was when it stared me down and said "Come here" with its sixth-llama sense. When it seemed to nuzzle up to my hand, I made to pet him and he backed off a bit. I switched back to the cat tactic and he went back to sniffing, then I slyly turned my hand over, going in for the pet under his chin and he was putty in my hands. I scratched and rubbed his. . ..snout? and he laid his head into my arm, looking at me longingly with those deep, lonely black eyes. I took this opportunity to sit and talk with him; the conversation was sort of one sided and he didn't have much input on any of the topics I brought up; he finally got tired of me and went back to grazing what little grass he had to go for. When I got up to leave, he perked up and looked my way and he started to, I guess, whine. It started out sounding like a donkey then went into a high-pitched moan like. . .like he didn't want me to leave. As honored as I felt, I told him I had to go and I would send other cyclists his way. And I do to this day.
Leaving that curious encounter, I rode and rode until I was about five miles out of Olney Springs and one hour away from a setting sun at my back. I made a couple of last minute, "I'm fine" calls and "I miss you" rings and finished the last bit with a song I made up going in my head. It went something like this(you have to hum it like it were an Irish lullaby):
I'm prayin' for a town just o'er the rise
A town that I miss with such sparkling eyes
Olney Springs, you lay me down in sheets of white linen
Olney Springs, why have your women. . .
gone away?
Don't ask me. It just appeared. So, hungry and ready to settle in, I was just about through the town without seeing a restaurant when I passed an antique shop that said Uncle Billy's Favorite Things and I suddenly smelled burgers coming out of the building. I pulled in and found that it was a restaurant, thinking how silly I felt for thinking it was an antique shop, though at the same time, I wouldn't have been surprised if any of these towns would rather have a junk store instead of a eatery. Either way, I walked in and found a table in the back where fifties music was playing and records and pictures of Elvis, Frank, and Dean were pinned the wall. I fell in love with the little place and ordered my food. The table just across the room was occupied by three cowboy lookin' dudes with the hats and all. They were mumbling amongst themselves, giving me a couple of second glances. My first thought was that I was in tights and it was probably a bit too much for their hardened senses. And when I got my food and they were mingling about, making to leave, one of them approached my table.
"You sure are red. Where you headed?" he stated.
I was taken aback, completely caught off guard by the voice that emanated from this rugged form. I looked up and saw a toothless grin that held the voice of what could best be described as if a child were talking and he had a matured, country lisp; and I say toothless, but he had a couple wedged in there like tilting barns.
"Yeah, I got a bit of sunburn back a couple of days ago. I'm headed back home to Arkansas," I replied with a smile.
"Orkanso. I mean Arkansas," he restated.
I looked at him with curiosity, "What's your name?" holding out my hand.
"Jim," he started, putting his rough, withered hand in mine, "my friends and I have a place for you cyclists if you need a place to stay."
"Oh, thank you, but I'm camping out in the park just across the way. . ."
". . .yeah, the park. Well, do you need some lotion for your skin? I've got some back at the house," he offered.
"Actually, that would be really helpful. Thank you."
"I'll just bring it to your tent when you head over there."
"That sounds great. So, what do you do around here?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Well, I'm a rescue pilot," he responded with his hands on his hips, still grinning and nodding his head.
"What's that like?"
"I'm always on call."
"Do you do anything else?"
"I catch rattlesnakes."
I was stunned. "Really. How is that?"
He held out his arms, "What do you think? Look at all those bites. The government sends me little vials about the size of your finger and I fill them up with venom and they pay me $100 a bottle."
"That's too cool. So, you're from around here?"
"Nope. New York. It felt like I was living in a jail. So, now I live out here where you have to drive eight miles just to get gas."
I laughed a little and paid my tab. "Well, I'll meet you over there. I guess I'm going to go and pitch tent."
New York I thought. I would have never guessed that one. At least I got a good conversation out of a local seeing that my last one with llama didn't get very far. I made it to the park and met my park mates for the evening. They were three folks my age, two guys and a girl, from Michigan. They were riding to raise money for their hometown and towns like it if I remember correctly. They come from a post-industrial town where GM left town and left many jobless. I would venture to say that would be another story in itself.
As I was setting up my site, Jim came lumbering over with a big bottle of lotion in his hand. "Thanks," I exclaimed, lathering up the burns.
He introduced himself to the others and I mentioned he was a rattlesnake catcher. He told us that we were in a good spot to run into them.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah, and if you see one, you know where to grab it, right?"
"The head."
"No, the tail. You grab the tail and swing him to your right and then to your left like this," he said, giving the motions.
Whoo-doggie I thought, bring 'em on. I know how to wrastle me some rattlesnakes. And I was serious with the thought. I found it pretty intriguing and dangerous to wake up and have to deal with a snake; though, when push came to shove, I'd probably scream like a banshee if that rattle invaded my bubble. I held up my fists when he finished as though I were fighting one of his prized foes and he just laughed, slapping my hands away.
I thanked him again and after a couple of lingering fifteen minutes, he was back to his house. I sat up with my three companions and we exchanged talk of our travels when good ole' Jim came back into camp, bearing gifts of jerky, soda, and pop-tarts for each of us. After another batch of lingering and chatting, we bid him and each other goodnight, not before we shook hands on me making coffee in the morning for everybody.
We woke up and as I was making coffee, you'll never guess who was there to greet us with the sun. Jim was back with Gatorade for each of us and he watched me make coffee and went into talk about "cowboy" coffee for about ten minutes and was off into the wilderness before we started packing, no doubt to fly a plane into a 911 call involving a rattlesnake. And after we were all packed and our dishes washed, we wished each other safe travels. Before I set out, I did one last look around for Jim so I could thank him for all of his help, but he was more than likely still off on one of his Jim adventures with four rattlesnakes hanging off of his arm as he trudged through the woods like a gentle Goliath of a two-second town.
*note* One, please bear with my dialogue; I'm still trying to get it right and the fact that I could never do Jim justice without the reader actually listening to him and Two, this is the only time that I will ever use LOL or G2G. . .ever.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The House of Nowhere and Nobody
I left Monday morning loaded with plenty of water and protein in my body to keep me energized. I looped back around to where I had left and stopped where the pavement ended. I stood with my bike and we both stared down as far as we could see. I patted its head and made sure it was ready. It didn't say anything back because it's a bike, but I felt that it was ready.
The problem with dirt roads isn't that they're made up of dirt and sand; it's that they aren't smooth in any way, shape, or form. This one in particular was ribbed throughout most of its width. It was like trying to wind my way through a maze, trying to avoid having to go over the thirty little bumps in a row.
Starting out on this leg of my journey, I was prepared to not run into any conveniences such as houses where I could stock up on water. This assumption had a bit of backing with the road itself and the endless stretch of cracked sand and cacti hugging me on either side of the road. However, about ten miles down the road, I noticed the top of a house coming into view. As I came closer to the drive, I noticed that it was some sort of villa standing proud out here in the middle of nowhere. It made me think that a don from one of Zorro's enemies lived there; so, in that light, I cautiously parked my bike at the top of the driveway, just at the edge of the road and gathered the water bottles that had air and space in them and strolled down the lengthy stretch of gravel to the house. Upon gaining ground and approaching the house itself, things appeared to be a bit deserted.
Now, you might say, "Tyler."
And I would say, "Yes?"
"Of course it seems deserted. You're in a desert."
Having brought that to my attention before you could make some smart remark as such, I made sure that it wasn't just the desert that was making this situation feel deserted, seeing that a desert could make a keg party seem deserted. It wasn't the desert. It was this sense of abandonment; a sense that maybe no one lived here anymore and things were just. . .left behind. I scaled the two steps and rang the bell that had no sound. I waited to see if anyone might have heard the act of me pushing the button and then knocked after no answer. I looked around and became curious about whether or not it was lived in or not. I peeked through the glass door just to the right of the front door and noticed an empty room. In seeing what looked like no one lived there, I tried the handle and it moved under the pressure of my two fingers. I pushed it slightly open and stuck my head inside (I'm having deja vu writing this by the way) and looked around. It smelled very comforting, like a home should. I could see the backs of a couple of dinner chairs in the kitchen. To be safe and sure that the owners weren't just at work, I backed away and decided that no one was home, but still keeping the idea that it was abandoned in the back of my head, which leads me to wonder why it was abandoned. . .what do you think?
After re-strolling up the drive and hopping on my bike and readying my rump for more bumps, I went on to finish the desert road I'd gotten myself into. I found that it wasn't as long as intended, just long in a sense of the quality of the road and that I was in the middle of the desert looking at the same bush over and over again, giving me the sense that I was stuck in a mirage.
I finally made it into Pueblo, got preventative-maintenance directions from the filling station and made my way to 96 east. When I got to Highway 96, I turned west, went until I realized my mistake and turned around and went back east; I was finally heading east on my intended road. This was my start and this is what would take me out of Colorado and out of the desert for a very long time to come.
The problem with dirt roads isn't that they're made up of dirt and sand; it's that they aren't smooth in any way, shape, or form. This one in particular was ribbed throughout most of its width. It was like trying to wind my way through a maze, trying to avoid having to go over the thirty little bumps in a row.
Starting out on this leg of my journey, I was prepared to not run into any conveniences such as houses where I could stock up on water. This assumption had a bit of backing with the road itself and the endless stretch of cracked sand and cacti hugging me on either side of the road. However, about ten miles down the road, I noticed the top of a house coming into view. As I came closer to the drive, I noticed that it was some sort of villa standing proud out here in the middle of nowhere. It made me think that a don from one of Zorro's enemies lived there; so, in that light, I cautiously parked my bike at the top of the driveway, just at the edge of the road and gathered the water bottles that had air and space in them and strolled down the lengthy stretch of gravel to the house. Upon gaining ground and approaching the house itself, things appeared to be a bit deserted.
Now, you might say, "Tyler."
And I would say, "Yes?"
"Of course it seems deserted. You're in a desert."
Having brought that to my attention before you could make some smart remark as such, I made sure that it wasn't just the desert that was making this situation feel deserted, seeing that a desert could make a keg party seem deserted. It wasn't the desert. It was this sense of abandonment; a sense that maybe no one lived here anymore and things were just. . .left behind. I scaled the two steps and rang the bell that had no sound. I waited to see if anyone might have heard the act of me pushing the button and then knocked after no answer. I looked around and became curious about whether or not it was lived in or not. I peeked through the glass door just to the right of the front door and noticed an empty room. In seeing what looked like no one lived there, I tried the handle and it moved under the pressure of my two fingers. I pushed it slightly open and stuck my head inside (I'm having deja vu writing this by the way) and looked around. It smelled very comforting, like a home should. I could see the backs of a couple of dinner chairs in the kitchen. To be safe and sure that the owners weren't just at work, I backed away and decided that no one was home, but still keeping the idea that it was abandoned in the back of my head, which leads me to wonder why it was abandoned. . .what do you think?
After re-strolling up the drive and hopping on my bike and readying my rump for more bumps, I went on to finish the desert road I'd gotten myself into. I found that it wasn't as long as intended, just long in a sense of the quality of the road and that I was in the middle of the desert looking at the same bush over and over again, giving me the sense that I was stuck in a mirage.
I finally made it into Pueblo, got preventative-maintenance directions from the filling station and made my way to 96 east. When I got to Highway 96, I turned west, went until I realized my mistake and turned around and went back east; I was finally heading east on my intended road. This was my start and this is what would take me out of Colorado and out of the desert for a very long time to come.
A Doctor and a Dwarf
A journey where everything goes as planned and without a hitch is not an adventure. An adventure is when you have a hiccup and when you get rid of that, you have a cough, and when you get rid of that, you have a sunburn, and when you get rid of that, you have an itch. "If life's not beautiful without the pain, I'd rather never even see beauty again." Modest Mouse
After a good night's rest, I hit the road and gave my farewell's to Hanover and that lasted about two seconds. Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds later, I found Hanover Road just after the church which would take me to Old Pueblo Road; however, at this point, I had it under good authority from an outside source that there's a road off Hanover that will take me all the way south to Pueblo, giving me the opportunity to skip Old Pueblo and its uncertainty. So, I headed down Hanover in search for South Meridian with two full bottles of rain water. By the time I made it to South Meridian, I had ran out of water and was sitting just a mile down the road with my head in my right hand, scooping the dust and dirt that the road was comprised of into my left hand. I understood that my source couldn't tell from a map that it was a dirt road, but it was the last thing that I needed at the time. So, here I was again, with two choices: keep on going and risk the depths of the desert or keep on Hanover and try Old Pueblo Highway, which supposedly mirrors the major highway to Pueblo. I sat there, playing with the dirt and sucking it in as if it were a new life source that I might be able to market; I could feel the bones underneath my meat turning into fossils. This is what it would come down to; people would wonder, How did the Tyler become extinct? And the world may never know. . .Without water and food, I gathered what was left of me and turned around, choosing the more sane way seeing that making foolish decisions is what got me out there in the first place. When I left the desert road, I could feel the sands begin to tip over, timing the hours until I would return.
I stopped at the first house I could find, asking the lady for water. She was Hispanic and clearly had no idea how to take me. I don't think death would want me knowing how I might of looked. If you could limp on a bike, that's what I did on down until I was finally headed south, mirroring the major highway. And then it ended, not even thirty minutes from leaving the desert.
Luckily, it ended at an underpass and I found the perfect shady spot to suck in what remaining bits of dry air After about five or so cars and a handful of "What's that melting pile of sweat in the dark tunnel?", a car finally stopped to ask how I was. Remember not too far back when I said something about my pride dwindling? Well, this is where is was obsolete.
"Not so good, sir," I told him through some huffs and dreary turns of my head.
The man got out of his car; he was a stout man with a huge beard and long, tangled hair. "My name's Gimli. . ."
I was drawn to reality at that point and my eyebrows cocked up, my eyes widened, and my mouth hung slightly open. This was the last thing that I needed: proof that I was losing my mind from exhaustion. Now, don't get me wrong, I could have heard the name wrong, but I'm pretty sure I heard the man right. Before I could let the Lord of the Rings character go on, I told him, "I think I just need to eat. I haven't had any food in a day-and-a-half, hardly any water, and I'm just. . .done."
"Should I call an ambulance?" he asked
"I really don't know," I let out.
When he moved his car out of the way, another car stopped and asked if everything was alright. From what I could tell, Gimli gave the gentleman the down-low and the gentleman agreed to stay with me so Gimli could go and fight off some orcs. Gimli wished me well and drove away.
The other man emerged from behind his car with a pair of stethoscopes around his neck. Great, I thought to myself. This guy looks intense. He walked up and started asking me questions about who I was, where I was from, what I was doing, and having me squeeze his fingers as “tight as I can”. I knew he was trying to make sure I wasn’t a complete lost cause to the real world. All the while he was doing this, he was on the phone with someone else, explaining the situation and saying that he was a retired army medic and had served in Vietnam and the such. A dwarf and a doctor. I felt pretty well protected at this point, even though I could also feel myself just slipping away, mumbling food over and over again.
“That was the Fountain fire department. They’re sending a medic up here to make sure you’re going to be alright. From what you’ve told me, you came pretty close to having a heat stroke.”
Excellent.
The ambulance came and halfway carried me into the back, asking me what I wanted to do, giving me options in Fountain, the closest town north of where we were, such as restaurants and hotels I could stay in to re-energize. I agreed on Fountain. One of the firemen offered me a couple of Gatorades, saying they might be out of date, but I was welcome to them. Now, a foolish man might not have taken the offering. A sane man would have. In my case, a delirious man would stick out his hand and take whatever was given to him, even if it was a dead rabbit that he'd found on the road, saying that I might be able to cook it for some food. I'd probably had thought that was Gatorade; either way, I made my way to Fountain in the back of the ambulance.
When we got to the fire station, they directed me to the Super 8, informing me of a truck stop just a couple of blocks down from the motel and a sit-down burger joint where I could stock up on some food. With that, they gave me directions to Pueblo, seeing that I was playing my wondering idiot part very well that day. I took the instructions and looked them over. Now, take this moment to remember where I've been this day. . .I was to take South Meridian all the way down to Pueblo. The whole inside of me just sank to the ground as I stared at the piece of paper as it were my eulogy.
I stayed in Fountain for a couple of days, eating two dinners and two breakfasts at the diner. I took those days to recover physically and prepare mentally, thinking whether or not I wanted to go all the way back to Meridian. I decided it was the only way and I would leave Monday morning for a long haul over the deserts back, laughing in its face with my bottles of water and packs of beef jerky.
*note* None of this stuff is as intense as I am making it out to be. I was aware of my surroundings and well enough to function, just not on a bike. As one of the medics stated, "So there's really nothing wrong with him. He's just exhausted." I just needed to make it sound like a ride in an ambulance was worth it.
After a good night's rest, I hit the road and gave my farewell's to Hanover and that lasted about two seconds. Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds later, I found Hanover Road just after the church which would take me to Old Pueblo Road; however, at this point, I had it under good authority from an outside source that there's a road off Hanover that will take me all the way south to Pueblo, giving me the opportunity to skip Old Pueblo and its uncertainty. So, I headed down Hanover in search for South Meridian with two full bottles of rain water. By the time I made it to South Meridian, I had ran out of water and was sitting just a mile down the road with my head in my right hand, scooping the dust and dirt that the road was comprised of into my left hand. I understood that my source couldn't tell from a map that it was a dirt road, but it was the last thing that I needed at the time. So, here I was again, with two choices: keep on going and risk the depths of the desert or keep on Hanover and try Old Pueblo Highway, which supposedly mirrors the major highway to Pueblo. I sat there, playing with the dirt and sucking it in as if it were a new life source that I might be able to market; I could feel the bones underneath my meat turning into fossils. This is what it would come down to; people would wonder, How did the Tyler become extinct? And the world may never know. . .Without water and food, I gathered what was left of me and turned around, choosing the more sane way seeing that making foolish decisions is what got me out there in the first place. When I left the desert road, I could feel the sands begin to tip over, timing the hours until I would return.
I stopped at the first house I could find, asking the lady for water. She was Hispanic and clearly had no idea how to take me. I don't think death would want me knowing how I might of looked. If you could limp on a bike, that's what I did on down until I was finally headed south, mirroring the major highway. And then it ended, not even thirty minutes from leaving the desert.
Luckily, it ended at an underpass and I found the perfect shady spot to suck in what remaining bits of dry air After about five or so cars and a handful of "What's that melting pile of sweat in the dark tunnel?", a car finally stopped to ask how I was. Remember not too far back when I said something about my pride dwindling? Well, this is where is was obsolete.
"Not so good, sir," I told him through some huffs and dreary turns of my head.
The man got out of his car; he was a stout man with a huge beard and long, tangled hair. "My name's Gimli. . ."
I was drawn to reality at that point and my eyebrows cocked up, my eyes widened, and my mouth hung slightly open. This was the last thing that I needed: proof that I was losing my mind from exhaustion. Now, don't get me wrong, I could have heard the name wrong, but I'm pretty sure I heard the man right. Before I could let the Lord of the Rings character go on, I told him, "I think I just need to eat. I haven't had any food in a day-and-a-half, hardly any water, and I'm just. . .done."
"Should I call an ambulance?" he asked
"I really don't know," I let out.
When he moved his car out of the way, another car stopped and asked if everything was alright. From what I could tell, Gimli gave the gentleman the down-low and the gentleman agreed to stay with me so Gimli could go and fight off some orcs. Gimli wished me well and drove away.
The other man emerged from behind his car with a pair of stethoscopes around his neck. Great, I thought to myself. This guy looks intense. He walked up and started asking me questions about who I was, where I was from, what I was doing, and having me squeeze his fingers as “tight as I can”. I knew he was trying to make sure I wasn’t a complete lost cause to the real world. All the while he was doing this, he was on the phone with someone else, explaining the situation and saying that he was a retired army medic and had served in Vietnam and the such. A dwarf and a doctor. I felt pretty well protected at this point, even though I could also feel myself just slipping away, mumbling food over and over again.
“That was the Fountain fire department. They’re sending a medic up here to make sure you’re going to be alright. From what you’ve told me, you came pretty close to having a heat stroke.”
Excellent.
The ambulance came and halfway carried me into the back, asking me what I wanted to do, giving me options in Fountain, the closest town north of where we were, such as restaurants and hotels I could stay in to re-energize. I agreed on Fountain. One of the firemen offered me a couple of Gatorades, saying they might be out of date, but I was welcome to them. Now, a foolish man might not have taken the offering. A sane man would have. In my case, a delirious man would stick out his hand and take whatever was given to him, even if it was a dead rabbit that he'd found on the road, saying that I might be able to cook it for some food. I'd probably had thought that was Gatorade; either way, I made my way to Fountain in the back of the ambulance.
When we got to the fire station, they directed me to the Super 8, informing me of a truck stop just a couple of blocks down from the motel and a sit-down burger joint where I could stock up on some food. With that, they gave me directions to Pueblo, seeing that I was playing my wondering idiot part very well that day. I took the instructions and looked them over. Now, take this moment to remember where I've been this day. . .I was to take South Meridian all the way down to Pueblo. The whole inside of me just sank to the ground as I stared at the piece of paper as it were my eulogy.
I stayed in Fountain for a couple of days, eating two dinners and two breakfasts at the diner. I took those days to recover physically and prepare mentally, thinking whether or not I wanted to go all the way back to Meridian. I decided it was the only way and I would leave Monday morning for a long haul over the deserts back, laughing in its face with my bottles of water and packs of beef jerky.
*note* None of this stuff is as intense as I am making it out to be. I was aware of my surroundings and well enough to function, just not on a bike. As one of the medics stated, "So there's really nothing wrong with him. He's just exhausted." I just needed to make it sound like a ride in an ambulance was worth it.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
What Strong Winds You Have: Looping Around Colorado, Part II
The Conqueror Inside is Out to Lunch
Let me give you an idea of what Highway 94 is like. Spacious; and when I say spacious, I mean that the state of Colorado didn't plan their development around this stretch of road. Now, I knew the way to go and that it would take me to where I needed to be; but, I like to spice things up a bit. After conquering the first hill that just about pulled my spirit into the mountains that I was just about abreast to, I could see another one looming ahead of me about ten or so miles down the road. I stopped at a honky-tonk to refuel on water just before the hill; and when I honky-tonk, I'm not talking about the one's you might think of when you walk into a VFW, I mean a middle-of-nowhere, nothing-but-a-bar-and-chairs, Cowboy Up honky-tonk. It only helped seeing a Coors Light truck sitting out front. The woman and her daughter inside were kind enough, the daughter telling her mom, "This is the guy we seen on the bike." Cute. Getting back on my bike, I stood and looked at the hill. Now, I want you to follow with me on a demonstration. Take your hand and put it in front of you, palm facing away, just parallel to your face as though you were about to wave at someone. Tilt it away from you about two degrees. That's the hill that was taunting me; the road that rolled out like a tongue sticking out, teasing me. There was nothing red-carpet about it. While looking at this hellish hill, I noticed a four way intersection just before the it started to rise. At that moment, all of the doubts in my mind about making it up that hill without death tickling my spine outweighed any sensible logic and as I made my way into the intersection, there was a brief moment that I was actually going to go straight and eventually save myself a lot of hassle, but I turned right, giving in to what I thought might be a short cut. These were the thoughts running in my mind as I made my way down this newly found highway(Ellicott, if your following my labyrinth route on a map): The highway goes south and that's where Highway 96 is. It'll take me there just the same. Looking back on it now, I feel that this was the point that the sun started having an effect on me.
Mother Nature doth not have a sense of humor or any sense at all. Mother Nature just. . .does. She is the one constant that never stays the same. That day, my first day out, was full of sunshine and blue sky and not a stitch of cloud sewn into the sky. And before you go against the direction of the wind, you really don't think which way it's blowing. When I turned south on Ellicott, I found out real quick which way the wind was blowing. North. If I had to invent a new way of saying it, I would say more northiest than south; though, it may not have been that much of a head wind, but I think that the lack of substance in my body at the time and the weight I was carrying really made the force seem a lot. . .northier than your normal north. So, with the thought of pushing through the wind and hoping that this highway really made it all the way down, I didn’t think about the sun, only that it was out and had the same sun-like qualities as it always does; however, the sun thought a lot of me. It really left an impression on any exposed parts of my body that I had offered up as a sacrifice. In the end, where I am now, I went from soaking up the sun to the sun soaking up every bit of energy that was left in me by what little amount of substance I had been able to obtain.
By the time I made my first rest stop on Ellicott, I realized that I was in no way prepared for this adventure, or at least this first leg. I’d pretty much broken this leg of my journey by not thinking ahead and not realizing that I was going through desert where water and food was very far and few in between and just relying on hope and a hand full of “we’ll see’s”. I also had my first offer of assistance at this stop. A young boy pulled over.
“Do you need a ride,” he asked.
“No,” I started, “I’m alright. It’s just been a long ride. Just taking a rest.”
He did sort of a half-laugh, surfer-dude nod of his head and got back in his car to leave.
“Wait,” I shouted and ran up to his window, “does this highway take me all the way down to Highway 96/50?”
He looked down the road and cocked his head a bit, “Yeah,” he squirmed out, “I’m pretty sure it does. Yeah, I think so.”
I stood there, staring at the uncertainty that was colored all over his face like a paint-by-number done by a toddler. “You’re throwing in a lot of ‘pretty sure’ and ‘maybes’. Are you sure?” I asked him one last time.
“Yeah,” he ended.
“Does the wind stopping blowing north further on down the road?” I asked in a serious manner.
He sort of half-chuckled and surfer-dude nodded his head saying, “Yeah.”
“I’m just kidding, bud. Thanks for the offer. Have a good day.”
I shook his hand and with that, he was gone. The rest of my journey on this highway laid in the hands of a sixteen year old that had no clue where I was, more so than me.
I took that in full confidence and hopped on the saddle toward Highway 96 out of Pueblo. Then, about fifteen minutes down the road, Ellicott Highway ended. I could see it coming from a couple of miles away. Squirrel Creek Road. I hit a temporary end to my southern journey. I stood there with my mouth open, trying not to let out any of my pride which had dwindled to a boiling pea. To my left, there was a foot left of paved road until it turned to dirt and to my right, west, from where I had just traveled miles before. I was forced to go west, knowing that a dirt road would only take me deeper into this scarcity that lay so dense around me.
My next encounter with a desert local was just twenty minutes after the kid. I stopped a lady for assurance that going west was better than going dirt-road east. She called her boyfriend, who’s house we could see, so I felt a little awkward talking to him knowing that I could wave at him and he could see me waving with a big arrow over my head that said “Wondering Idiot in Tights Here” He told me to keep going west until Peyton Highway, which I would turn south on. Go down that until I hit Hanover road just past the church. It all sounded simple, and it was. I took the slightly rolling hills of Squirrel Creek and turned on Peyton Highway where I passed my first tumbleweed on my journey out here in the west. That’s for you, Grandfather. Going down Peyton, I was starting to realize the full effect the sun was having on my skin when I looked down at my legs and could see the very distinct line where it went from very white to purple. “Not a good color for me,” as someone put it. And it isn’t. That’s when I started looking for trees of some sort to offer me a little shade for a little rest. I finally spotted some two to three miles on down the road and when I came upon them, a full fledged high school presented itself to me. I pulled into the parking lot of the district building next to it and laid down in the shade, all the while looking around for signs of any kind of life that might attend such a school. It was a decently sized school, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine where the kids came from. That’s when I figured I was in one of those towns they build just for horror movies. Back to me on the parking lot, I was asleep. When I woke up two minutes later, I knew it was time to set up camp and sleep.
So I set up camp next to Horror-town Hanover and as the afternoon waned, the evening rolled in along with a hefty amount of clouds that brought on some rain and thunder. I was blessed to find rain and held my water bottles under the drain pipes, finally collecting the much needed water, looking around wishing that someone could see me pulling off this survivor-man-like adaptation. I laid in my tent, thought about home and people in that home-part of my memory, and fell asleep to the rain thumping off the tent flap.
Let me give you an idea of what Highway 94 is like. Spacious; and when I say spacious, I mean that the state of Colorado didn't plan their development around this stretch of road. Now, I knew the way to go and that it would take me to where I needed to be; but, I like to spice things up a bit. After conquering the first hill that just about pulled my spirit into the mountains that I was just about abreast to, I could see another one looming ahead of me about ten or so miles down the road. I stopped at a honky-tonk to refuel on water just before the hill; and when I honky-tonk, I'm not talking about the one's you might think of when you walk into a VFW, I mean a middle-of-nowhere, nothing-but-a-bar-and-chairs, Cowboy Up honky-tonk. It only helped seeing a Coors Light truck sitting out front. The woman and her daughter inside were kind enough, the daughter telling her mom, "This is the guy we seen on the bike." Cute. Getting back on my bike, I stood and looked at the hill. Now, I want you to follow with me on a demonstration. Take your hand and put it in front of you, palm facing away, just parallel to your face as though you were about to wave at someone. Tilt it away from you about two degrees. That's the hill that was taunting me; the road that rolled out like a tongue sticking out, teasing me. There was nothing red-carpet about it. While looking at this hellish hill, I noticed a four way intersection just before the it started to rise. At that moment, all of the doubts in my mind about making it up that hill without death tickling my spine outweighed any sensible logic and as I made my way into the intersection, there was a brief moment that I was actually going to go straight and eventually save myself a lot of hassle, but I turned right, giving in to what I thought might be a short cut. These were the thoughts running in my mind as I made my way down this newly found highway(Ellicott, if your following my labyrinth route on a map): The highway goes south and that's where Highway 96 is. It'll take me there just the same. Looking back on it now, I feel that this was the point that the sun started having an effect on me.
Mother Nature doth not have a sense of humor or any sense at all. Mother Nature just. . .does. She is the one constant that never stays the same. That day, my first day out, was full of sunshine and blue sky and not a stitch of cloud sewn into the sky. And before you go against the direction of the wind, you really don't think which way it's blowing. When I turned south on Ellicott, I found out real quick which way the wind was blowing. North. If I had to invent a new way of saying it, I would say more northiest than south; though, it may not have been that much of a head wind, but I think that the lack of substance in my body at the time and the weight I was carrying really made the force seem a lot. . .northier than your normal north. So, with the thought of pushing through the wind and hoping that this highway really made it all the way down, I didn’t think about the sun, only that it was out and had the same sun-like qualities as it always does; however, the sun thought a lot of me. It really left an impression on any exposed parts of my body that I had offered up as a sacrifice. In the end, where I am now, I went from soaking up the sun to the sun soaking up every bit of energy that was left in me by what little amount of substance I had been able to obtain.
By the time I made my first rest stop on Ellicott, I realized that I was in no way prepared for this adventure, or at least this first leg. I’d pretty much broken this leg of my journey by not thinking ahead and not realizing that I was going through desert where water and food was very far and few in between and just relying on hope and a hand full of “we’ll see’s”. I also had my first offer of assistance at this stop. A young boy pulled over.
“Do you need a ride,” he asked.
“No,” I started, “I’m alright. It’s just been a long ride. Just taking a rest.”
He did sort of a half-laugh, surfer-dude nod of his head and got back in his car to leave.
“Wait,” I shouted and ran up to his window, “does this highway take me all the way down to Highway 96/50?”
He looked down the road and cocked his head a bit, “Yeah,” he squirmed out, “I’m pretty sure it does. Yeah, I think so.”
I stood there, staring at the uncertainty that was colored all over his face like a paint-by-number done by a toddler. “You’re throwing in a lot of ‘pretty sure’ and ‘maybes’. Are you sure?” I asked him one last time.
“Yeah,” he ended.
“Does the wind stopping blowing north further on down the road?” I asked in a serious manner.
He sort of half-chuckled and surfer-dude nodded his head saying, “Yeah.”
“I’m just kidding, bud. Thanks for the offer. Have a good day.”
I shook his hand and with that, he was gone. The rest of my journey on this highway laid in the hands of a sixteen year old that had no clue where I was, more so than me.
I took that in full confidence and hopped on the saddle toward Highway 96 out of Pueblo. Then, about fifteen minutes down the road, Ellicott Highway ended. I could see it coming from a couple of miles away. Squirrel Creek Road. I hit a temporary end to my southern journey. I stood there with my mouth open, trying not to let out any of my pride which had dwindled to a boiling pea. To my left, there was a foot left of paved road until it turned to dirt and to my right, west, from where I had just traveled miles before. I was forced to go west, knowing that a dirt road would only take me deeper into this scarcity that lay so dense around me.
My next encounter with a desert local was just twenty minutes after the kid. I stopped a lady for assurance that going west was better than going dirt-road east. She called her boyfriend, who’s house we could see, so I felt a little awkward talking to him knowing that I could wave at him and he could see me waving with a big arrow over my head that said “Wondering Idiot in Tights Here” He told me to keep going west until Peyton Highway, which I would turn south on. Go down that until I hit Hanover road just past the church. It all sounded simple, and it was. I took the slightly rolling hills of Squirrel Creek and turned on Peyton Highway where I passed my first tumbleweed on my journey out here in the west. That’s for you, Grandfather. Going down Peyton, I was starting to realize the full effect the sun was having on my skin when I looked down at my legs and could see the very distinct line where it went from very white to purple. “Not a good color for me,” as someone put it. And it isn’t. That’s when I started looking for trees of some sort to offer me a little shade for a little rest. I finally spotted some two to three miles on down the road and when I came upon them, a full fledged high school presented itself to me. I pulled into the parking lot of the district building next to it and laid down in the shade, all the while looking around for signs of any kind of life that might attend such a school. It was a decently sized school, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine where the kids came from. That’s when I figured I was in one of those towns they build just for horror movies. Back to me on the parking lot, I was asleep. When I woke up two minutes later, I knew it was time to set up camp and sleep.
So I set up camp next to Horror-town Hanover and as the afternoon waned, the evening rolled in along with a hefty amount of clouds that brought on some rain and thunder. I was blessed to find rain and held my water bottles under the drain pipes, finally collecting the much needed water, looking around wishing that someone could see me pulling off this survivor-man-like adaptation. I laid in my tent, thought about home and people in that home-part of my memory, and fell asleep to the rain thumping off the tent flap.
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