Cycling Across America #39
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]
Traffic not too bad - a few trucks and I moved off the road where necessary. When roads are this straight it’s hard to judge distance. When is that oncoming car going to reach me?
That biscuit, together with the blueberry muffins and that 2-week-old stick of chocolate back in the motel, was to get me to Girard where I would load up with food and drink. Fields of green, and cattle everywhere. Often they would shelter in the shadow of a lone small tree. Once today I startled a herd of almost 100 and they all ran and ran. Big Brutus was not visible from the road I was told - correctly.
Maize and corn and soya interrupted by large smatterings of brilliant wild sunflowers. I passed a large home-made wind machine with slogans on it. “Fascists run our Land” etc. I was about to photograph the one that said “Patriots Arm Themselves” when dogs in the blocked up house beside it freaked out. I pedalled on immediately.
The town called Cherokee had no store visible but even with a pure blue sky it was not that hot and I not that thirsty. Took a photo of a pink cross with “Think Pink” written on it, against a background of corn, and another of a Little League baseball hut.
In cycling terms you would describe the land as flat but it was not carpet like. There were slight hills and you could never see for more than 5 miles at a time. The only problem with the day was the headwind. From the North it reduced me to 10mph for most of the day. It would not cause any great difficulty today but would probably render a 120 mile cycle into Kansas City, Missouri impossible tomorrow. Especially with the back wheel wobble.
Girard. A square like Columbus. I went ’round to look. On the east side was a cafe. 11.30 lunch for me so, in a wonderful little diner cafe. Meatballs and spaghetti with green beans, a bowl of apple sauce (?) and a couple of pieces of freshly baked bread. A coke and a water only to drink. She gave me too much change but I corrected her.
Outside Sky 7 news were filming with the County Court House in the background. I took a photo of only the second Vietnam War Memorial I’d seen. It was a “Moving Wall” and there was a helicopter beside.
Turned left on 57, passed the Sonic and the gas stations and my last chance of drink for a bit. A 2 foot comfortable shoulder for 6 miles and then turn right onto K-3. No shoulder, but no cars. The land was getting flatter. No houses anywhere. In the crisp sunlight the colours of the crops were fabulous.
Brazilton. Unincorporated and no store. Now I could use a drink. Only one more town between here and Elsmore, 25 miles away. Getting dodgy. How stupid I’d been to go off in here without water. 8 miles to Hepler. Keep going. Lots of Maize. Still plenty of cattle. Hepler was incorporated, but no store. However there was a drink vending machine. Mountain Dew and a Pepsi. From a phone across the road I rang Kansas City and left a message so removed from the one I’d prepared over the previous 10 miles. A tiny Post Office next door. I went in for stamps. I stayed an hour.
The postmistress was a beautiful Cherokee. She and her friend were delighted to meet me. They asked how my bum was and I got interviewed for the local newspaper. A couple of other women came in and we all talked and laughed. It was really tiny, something like 24 square feet.
They taught me about crops in the area including Milo, which sounds like Maize, and various different grasses. One woman had a farm of about 1,000 acres (not unusual here) of which 70 she left as prairie ’cause it was old and natural and she said that’s why most people did it too. I nearly forgot to buy the stamps, it was so difficult to leave I enjoyed myself so much. It was the postmistress’ birthday. She used to work in Girard where the cross-country cyclists pass through all the time to collect their mail. Nobody comes through Hepler, she told me.
-Was it not out of your way?
-Your whole country’s out of my way, I said.The woman who worked for the paper said she saw me in Girard earlier in the day. I was starting to love Kansas.
20 miles to go. The middle 10 going west a welcome break from the wind I was fighting all day. And the land got flatter and flatter. And prairie sections appeared. Different grasses, magnificent in the sun, and still finished off with a sprinkling of those sunflowers. And fields of milo, and soya, and short grass for the cattle. Grasshoppers were constantly jumping into the wheels, their pinging noise the only one I’d hear apart from their regular racket from the fields. The trees were all small and bushes often appeared. At one stage I was up high enough to see for 20 to 30 miles East and South and North. Kansas was awesome, so few houses, so truly beautiful, so majestic. I was loving it. Passed an emu farm before reaching US 59. A tiny bit of traffic here but I had a two foot shoulder and only 5 miles to go.
Into Elsmore (population 101) and found a building that looked big so it might be the City Hall, with a yellow house beside it, and an RV across the road. Those were my kind of directions and this is a wonderful house.
Before showering I drank lots of ice tea, ate a magnificent dinner, including peach tart for dessert with ice cream, talked with a great extended family including kids, and drove to the lake in Bourbon County and back. I was shown a large rattle-snake skin and given some rattles to keep. They spoke of how the area had changed from small farms to big farms so that nobody lives much in the country outside of these villages anymore. And since everybody drives big distances they shop elsewhere so these little towns have no stores anymore.
The family are from about 2 miles away and love the land - with good reason. It is really, really beautiful in a very alluring way.
My host is a mail man who works from 8 until 1.30 or so, 6 days a week. That gives him a living and lets him fish and hunt and pick mushrooms, and do all the things he likes. He likes when visitors come ’cause then he gets to have some pie.
I’m so glad I’ve come this way, but even with a 7.00 am start tomorrow morning Kansas City, Missouri is probably 10 miles too far.
Read the Next Entry in My Bicycle Trip Across America
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
That was worth the painfully long wait! Keep ‘em coming.
You’re just the fellow. Bock needs help with cycler’s bum! Which salve and so forth. Make haste, Eolai - it sounds like a real throbber.
I’m loving this, Eolai. Did you have to carry a lot of stuff with you?
Sugar - They’re coming. I fear when I don’t have much time though that the posts will be longer with all the tedius minutiae that comes from cycling alone - because it takes time to edit them shorter. Regardless, I’ll pump them out.
Sam - Bock the Throbber? I know there’s a few dwellings by me in these US cycle journal excerpts on saddle soreness. A question of too much information I suspect, as is my way.
There are experts who will tell you what weight of stuff you can or should carry when doing long-distance touring, and clearly there are limits, but I just arrived at what worked for me over time. There are essentials, and you learn efficiencies, but the nature of each trip and your own values will dictate the amount of stuff that you carry.
Yes I carried a fair bit, but considering it’s for a trip projected to last 3 months or so, it’s not that much. I may even have done a journal entry that runs through what I’m carrying - and I’m now looking forward to finding out.