Getting the Heck Out of Dodge
Saturday June 1, 2019. Dodge City, KS to Great Bend, KS. 87 miles
Ascent 431 feet. Descent 1,086 feet. Cumulative 1,086 miles
This has been, and I am sure will continue to be, a really fantastic trip. I first wanted to bike across the US in 1976 when I heard that there was a group doing it to celebrate the country's bicentennial, but it wasn't reasonable for me to do it at that time as I had only been married two years and was entering medical school in the fall, without much money, so I needed to work. Now a mere 43 years later here I am in the middle of Kansas, almost halfway across the US by bike. We did reach a point today equidistant from San Francisco and NYC, but it is not our midpoint yet. We have traveled farther than the distance to San Fran and have farther yet to go. I believe our midpoint is at least 2 riding days away. The CrossRoads Cycling Adventure staff has been amazing, watching out for us, helping us wherever they can and really pampering us to the extent that you can be pampered on this sort of a trip. We are seeing places in our country on a daily basis that most Americans will never see in their lifetime, and gaining an even greater appreciation for what a great country we are fortunate enough to be a part of. We are seeing places where very few people live, but most of the ones who do would not want to live anywhere else.
While I have mentioned how flat the terrain has become, I know I haven't mentioned much about the changes we have seen over the last few days with a gradual greening with more and new vegetation. We didn't see anything you could truthfully call a tree for many days, and when you saw 3-6 or more trees, you knew there would be a ranch house or a farmhouse. You can still see for miles in every direction, and when you see a cluster of trees in the distance, you know that there is a town approaching. For the past 2-3 days you can almost always see a collection of grain elevators and usually a water tower even before the tress are apparent, and I'll try to guess how many miles away they are. Today I as a "Scenic View 1 Mile" sign, an thought "Really??||. I can see at least 10 miles in every direction, what can there possibly be to see in a mile that I can' already see? I never saw another sign for the Scenic View, nor did anyone else in our group who had seen the first sign, so we'll never know.
Not only is it greener, but everywhere you look the land is cultivated now after passing for days through areas where cattle and pigs are raised. There are still train tracks constantly beside our route. It is obvious that this region is truly feeding much of the nation.
We saw lots of wind turbines, especially during the first half of the day, and curiously there were long stretches where all the turbines on one side of the route were spinning and all those on the other side were not. I'm not sure how they decide which ones to shut down, but I presume that the grid had enough electricity without all of the turbines generating more. I was also mesmerized by the spinning of the turbine blades, especially when several of them fell in a row from my line of sight. First they were spinning together in synchrony and gradually the rotors might fall in order like the legs of the Radio City Rockettes or a water ballet. You have to think about something while you're biking 6-8 or more hours a day.
After seeing rivers that were totally dried up a day or two ago, we now entered an area where the effects of recent flooding were evident. There were pools of standing water of increasing size, and increasingly the smell of sewage at these spots. We saw some cattle standing in water midway up their legs, and creeks and rivers that were clearly still full beyond their usual banks. Talking to the man ahead of me in line at the Subway in Larned, I learned that their average annual rainfall here is 20 inches but they had 30 inches in a month this spring.
As I look back I have been whining about the weather conditions more days than not, so here goes today's whine. Last night, the forecast for today suggested that if we could get to tonight's stop by two-ish, we could probably avoid riding in thunderstorms. However, by this morning the forecast had changed such that there was a significant possibility of T-storms from about 7-10 AM, We now have two starting times, 1/2 hour apart to try to keep us all closer together, for SAG stops and to make their job of keeping track of 16 riders a little easier. And sure enough, as we waited for our starting time the sky kept getting darker and I heard a single long rumble of thunder, and I was itching to get out of Dodge. A very light rain fell as we started, but it stopped within 10-15 minutes and the dark clouds slowly rolled, back, but not before I saw a cloud pattern that I swear I saw on an afternoon at home when we had a small tornado which is rare in our parts. The day became progressively sunnier, and we enjoyed a moderate tailwind through much of the morning, but did not turn into a headwind that became progressively harder until we finished.. There was a Braum's Ice Cream about 500 yards before our hotel, so I was able to get a "recovery" chocolate malted milk shake before checking in.
I am learning not to buy trouble by checking the weather forecast further ahead than the next day.
Ascent 431 feet. Descent 1,086 feet. Cumulative 1,086 miles
This has been, and I am sure will continue to be, a really fantastic trip. I first wanted to bike across the US in 1976 when I heard that there was a group doing it to celebrate the country's bicentennial, but it wasn't reasonable for me to do it at that time as I had only been married two years and was entering medical school in the fall, without much money, so I needed to work. Now a mere 43 years later here I am in the middle of Kansas, almost halfway across the US by bike. We did reach a point today equidistant from San Francisco and NYC, but it is not our midpoint yet. We have traveled farther than the distance to San Fran and have farther yet to go. I believe our midpoint is at least 2 riding days away. The CrossRoads Cycling Adventure staff has been amazing, watching out for us, helping us wherever they can and really pampering us to the extent that you can be pampered on this sort of a trip. We are seeing places in our country on a daily basis that most Americans will never see in their lifetime, and gaining an even greater appreciation for what a great country we are fortunate enough to be a part of. We are seeing places where very few people live, but most of the ones who do would not want to live anywhere else.
While I have mentioned how flat the terrain has become, I know I haven't mentioned much about the changes we have seen over the last few days with a gradual greening with more and new vegetation. We didn't see anything you could truthfully call a tree for many days, and when you saw 3-6 or more trees, you knew there would be a ranch house or a farmhouse. You can still see for miles in every direction, and when you see a cluster of trees in the distance, you know that there is a town approaching. For the past 2-3 days you can almost always see a collection of grain elevators and usually a water tower even before the tress are apparent, and I'll try to guess how many miles away they are. Today I as a "Scenic View 1 Mile" sign, an thought "Really??||. I can see at least 10 miles in every direction, what can there possibly be to see in a mile that I can' already see? I never saw another sign for the Scenic View, nor did anyone else in our group who had seen the first sign, so we'll never know.
Not only is it greener, but everywhere you look the land is cultivated now after passing for days through areas where cattle and pigs are raised. There are still train tracks constantly beside our route. It is obvious that this region is truly feeding much of the nation.
We saw lots of wind turbines, especially during the first half of the day, and curiously there were long stretches where all the turbines on one side of the route were spinning and all those on the other side were not. I'm not sure how they decide which ones to shut down, but I presume that the grid had enough electricity without all of the turbines generating more. I was also mesmerized by the spinning of the turbine blades, especially when several of them fell in a row from my line of sight. First they were spinning together in synchrony and gradually the rotors might fall in order like the legs of the Radio City Rockettes or a water ballet. You have to think about something while you're biking 6-8 or more hours a day.
After seeing rivers that were totally dried up a day or two ago, we now entered an area where the effects of recent flooding were evident. There were pools of standing water of increasing size, and increasingly the smell of sewage at these spots. We saw some cattle standing in water midway up their legs, and creeks and rivers that were clearly still full beyond their usual banks. Talking to the man ahead of me in line at the Subway in Larned, I learned that their average annual rainfall here is 20 inches but they had 30 inches in a month this spring.
As I look back I have been whining about the weather conditions more days than not, so here goes today's whine. Last night, the forecast for today suggested that if we could get to tonight's stop by two-ish, we could probably avoid riding in thunderstorms. However, by this morning the forecast had changed such that there was a significant possibility of T-storms from about 7-10 AM, We now have two starting times, 1/2 hour apart to try to keep us all closer together, for SAG stops and to make their job of keeping track of 16 riders a little easier. And sure enough, as we waited for our starting time the sky kept getting darker and I heard a single long rumble of thunder, and I was itching to get out of Dodge. A very light rain fell as we started, but it stopped within 10-15 minutes and the dark clouds slowly rolled, back, but not before I saw a cloud pattern that I swear I saw on an afternoon at home when we had a small tornado which is rare in our parts. The day became progressively sunnier, and we enjoyed a moderate tailwind through much of the morning, but did not turn into a headwind that became progressively harder until we finished.. There was a Braum's Ice Cream about 500 yards before our hotel, so I was able to get a "recovery" chocolate malted milk shake before checking in.
I am learning not to buy trouble by checking the weather forecast further ahead than the next day.
Comments
Post a Comment