Assault on Kansas City

Part 40 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

The next entry in the journal is taped, and both tape and transcript are currently in long-term storage in a Dublin industrial estate. But because I love the loyal 3 readers of this series I’m going ahead with the entry anyway - from memory 12 years later.

Expect a lack of detail so, in this first non-contemporaneous entry, but I don’t want to skip this day as it’s an important one. It is the day I intend to cycle into Kansas City, where my 1 week halfway rest, of the entire Trans-American cycle, has been planned for months.

And also because if I make it then it will become the longest single day’s cycle on the trip so far - beating the previous longest of 110 miles from New York to Philadelphia, all the way back before I was knocked down.

Elsmore is in Allen County, the first of 5 counties in Kansas I’m planning on cycling in before entering Kansas City in Missouri. 120 miles seems absurdly ambitious, and will be impossible with any kind of wind.

In somebody else’s home I move quicker to get on the road. And I start earlier. My host is cooking breakfast. Pancakes. I have 7. And 4 eggs. And more. His eyes seem to widen as he watches the speed I put food away with, and he asks if I’d like another 3 pancakes. They and the rest of the table of food are devoured.

More food is put into my bags and then it is time for goodbye.

Back over railway tracks by the old grain elevator and along Main Street. I wouldn’t call it Main St except that is its name. In a town of surely no more than 40 buildings there are a 3 or 4 buildings joined together on either side of Main St. And they appear closed down.

Then I am back out onto Highway 59 and and cycling north about 9 miles to the bigger town of Moran. Before I get there I pass a bobcat on the road. He looks perfect. Except for the being dead part.

[This is long so I’ll stick the rest of this entry below the fold]

Read: Cycling Across America #40 »

The Spring sale of my paintings isn’t finished - Sunday is the final day - but things are relatively quiet now after the thousands who thronged to have a goo the first few days.

A lot of people were very good to me and in time I hope to thank them all, but for now here’s a few links to people talking about paintings they’ve bought from me, or just the paintings in general.

Go raibh maith agaibh!

  • Bock The Robber
  • Green Ink
  • Damien Mulley
  • Sam Problem Child Bride
  • Dante and the Lobster
  • Head Rambles
  • The Hangar Queen
  • Smaointe Fánacha Aonghusa
  • Sugar Britches
  • The Humble Housewife
  • Patrick James
  • Fat Mammy Cat

And big thanks to Mr Bock and Primal Sneeze for the sidebar love.

Read: Linky Thanky »

As we begin our 4th day in succession of blue skies over Dublin West, so grow the bottles on the ground.

It’s the summer weather.

2 days ago, from a field of carpeted green grass, I picked up the scattered smashed pieces of 13 bottles of Budweiser, 2 bottles of vodka, and 1 bacardi breezer (there’s always one).

Yesterday I walked the dog around 3 groups of underage people openly drinking bottles of Budweiser. I couldn’t really give a toss what they drink - when they grow up they’ll probably drink something else - but I do care how they behave.

And they behaved just fine. They weren’t loud or aggressive or spray-painting. Or any of those things that older people get bothered by about young people. They were male and female, they had footballs, and they had dogs. They just happened to also have drinks. And all of them were better dressed than I was.

Have you noticed how young people seem to be younger these days?

Meanwhile, freshly scattered over a square mile of otherwise perfect green grass, was an army of newly broken bottles of Bud.

I picked none of them up this time.

Instead I carefully lay down on the grass between the shards, and I watched my dog roll on her back and the planes head up into the blue sky and off to the land where my son lives.

Read: Blue Skies and Brown Bottles »

Part 39 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)

In the summer of 1996 I was attempting to cycle across the US. It was 4 years after I had cycled across Europe, and if it went to plan would be a much longer journey.

It did not go to plan.

8 days after the start I was knocked down in Virginia in a hit and run by a truck going 50 mph. Luckily my backward somersaulting left me with no serious injuries and 5 days later I resumed the trip on a new bicycle.

Just over 3 weeks later I was in south-east Kansas, still sore, and making my way towards my projected half-way rest in Kansas City:

September 9th Monday

Despite the relatively early wake at 7.30 I couldn’t manage to get on the road until 9.00 am. Quite simply that ruled out the 10 mile detour to see Big Brutus. Hopefully I’d see it from Highway 7 as I passed it maybe 5 miles away.

Highway 7 North. Straight for 24 miles. Wouldn’t a bend be so refreshing?

There was actually a bend but that was just where the road did a jink and they bent it where it joined a west road for half a mile and then it went north again.

Stopped after 7 and a half miles at a gas station store by the cross-roads for Big Brutus. Scammon it was called. Had a sausage biscuit from a microwave and a pint of milk (no ice tea and it was too cool outside for water, particularly in the shade from the trees). The woman serving wanted to know everything about me so I told her, god love her. She said I was very welcome in Kansas, and I felt it.

It was as if everybody knew you were coming from far away and headed a long way. This is the centre of the USA - why else would you be in Kansas on a bicycle?

[My editing skills have deserted me so I’ll stick the rest of this entry below the fold]

Read: Cycling Across America #39 »

3 years ago it was 18 months after my divorce was finalised, itself 9 months after my son’s mother and I had separated.

He was 8 years old, and the new routines of a divorced life were becoming established.

When somebody far away from Kansas City asked me how my son and I were now doing, I answered:

Mr Moo is doing great. Doing well at school and I only ever see him in great form. Our own relationship has strengthened, and I love it even more than before. Last summer helped a lot. The longer period of times we spent together really did him well, and seemed to eradicate the last difficulty he might have had regarding the break-up of his parents - which was in dealing with the handovers.

Our times together are a complete blast. Yes I miss the routines of years ago: of him coming into my bed every morning, and our breakfasts together, along with taking him to school and our daily football games, and stories and bedtime duties, but what time we have now is what we have and I have accepted it and genuinely do make the most of it.

Every Wednesday for 2 hours, and every second weekend, we are father and son. And half of all the holidays.

We listen to the radio, BBC and RTE, children’s dramas and entertainment. And pop programmes. I download odd and interesting animations for him to watch as his “Saturday Cartoons”. And I get my hands on longer things that we watch on the computer for I am still without television. We have watched 3 webcasted series of Doctor Who, and I have brought the world of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau and of Cool Runnings and Shaolin Soccer to him.

We walk the dog on the trail. We play GAA and soccer in the park. We go on hikes and we go camping. We play a ton of board games, from Mancala, and Othello, through Chess, Cul-de-sac, and Scrabble’s Upwords. And we’re deadly at Corx. We ride our bikes together, on trails, or just to the cinema. We get the buses, in a town where so few do, and sometimes we put our bikes on the buses. When it snows we sled together.

Inside we continue to draw and do art projects together. We have yet to finish a comic we’ve been working on. At night times we take turns at reading to each other and often still sing.

I take him to documentaries, French cartoons, and Chinese films. We eat at old haunts and new places.

His cousins and the rest of his mother’s family I include in our lives, and I also introduce him to other people and worlds. Staying in New York with my friend from home was a blast, as was the train getting there. I loved playing football with Mr Moo in Central Park. And I loved how he taught me all about the Dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum. But watching him remember New York has been wonderful too. There’s a memory there stamped for life.

In truth I often feel guilty at how much I enjoy my time with him.

See Also:
#30 My Kansas City Story, A Summary
All Posts in this Kansas City story

Read: Nobody’s Child #46 »