Breckenridge, Colorado to Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado

This has been an incredible and beautiful ride. Of course I live here so for me it is the joy of seeing Barry, Lew and John ooo and ahhh over the landscape.

The four of us bike together so often that it seems appropriate to give the group a name.  At first it was the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That was too dark and didn't reflect the Englishman and three lawyers motif so we have either:

Barry and the Solicitors.

Or my favorite:

The Barrysters.

When Bill Foreman rides with us we are:

Barry and the Solicitors' Bill.

Green Mountain Reservoir

We met Janice who claims not to be an obsessive "birder" but she has seen a thousand at least.  She and her friend are watching a bald eagle nest with three hatchlings.  The were hatched roughly in April and will leave the nest any day now.

Eagles mate for life and have a thirty five year life span. Once they can fly, they have no natural predators.  Janice is particularly excited because eagles will have one or two hatchlings but almost never three. She has watched the parents hunt for fish and bring it back to the nest and strip the flesh from the fish and feed it to the hatchlings.

While waiting for their meal the hatchlings would spread and flap their wings.   Any day they will try to leave their perch that is eighty feet above the ground.  A third won't be able to control their descent and die.  Those that can are ground for a few days while the parents try to protect them until they too can fly freely.

We biked around this lake.  Lots of going up and down.  A few giggles at the Master Bate shop and the Nob ranch for Barry.

Highlight - we saw a family/group/ herd of Rocky Mountain Sheep along the road. They stayed there until a jerky kid came to fast and loud toward them. It was impressive to see them effortlessly scramble up steep gravel and rocky terrain.

Byers Canyon

This was a particularly beautiful stretch of the route with the Colorado River below. There's a railroad track and we saw an Amtrak passenger Train come through.

Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado

We're camping tonight near the Hot Sulphur Springs Resort.  Our campsite is a five minute bike ride down a gravel unpaved road.  It's very shady, beautiful but isolated and the mosquitoes are out.

80 miles today and Barry and I go in with Jim at about 5pm.  We had leftover chicken enchiladas thanks to Gina's extraordinary cooking for the group.  It was well received.

Map Meeting and tomorrow we'll cycle 60 miles to Walden, The Moose viewing Capital of Colorado.  We'll have to climb about a thousand feet or so to get over a pass but then it's all down hill.

After that Lew, Barry, Jim, Bill and I biked to the Hot Springs.  Lots of different nationalities here.  Russian.  Australia.  The kicker was Bill and I found ourselves in a Hit Tub with three very friendly South Koreans who live in Denver and work as Pastors for different denominations.

Feel tired but at least now I'm clean and ready for bed.

Breckenridge, Colorado, Rest Day

Day 50. Rest Days are wonderful but slightly bewildering when they come after only three days of biking.  We guard against feeling spoiled with the rationalization that we climbed close to seven thousand feet in altitude from Pueblo on the 22nd of June to Hoosier Pass on the 24th.

Stopping in Pueblo made sense after nine days of Kansas.  Breckinridge is such a beautiful little resort community that it would be a shame to have come coasting down here from Hoosier Pass, triumphant in our geographic victory over a major milestone in the trip - only to leave the next morning.

So we stay and are pampered.

The ACA - more specifically Phil - found a lovely condo unit that comfortably fit the whole group.  Of course my family had always planned for Breckinridge to be a family "reunion" semi-midway through the trip so GIna, Sophia, Mom, Carmen, Tim, and Raime came up so Gina rented a condo as well.  Kim, Tim's girlfriend and daughter Cecily joined us today.

Today was about enjoying all of them as much as I could spread the hours of the day.  Tim and I woke early and had breakfast.  Went to the bike repair shop.  Chatting with Mom and Carmen and Gina over their breakfast.  Light lunch with Guide Chris and legal colleague David Dworkin (who had made me aware of this tour) who had done a cross-country trip with Chris on the Northern Tier.

A little shopping, a little laundry and then all of us went up the free gondola up the mountain so Sophia and Raime could do the Alpine Slide.

Dinner with the whole group, including two friends of Bill's who live up here.

Again it's strange to have this dose of familiarity, friends, and family but intensely heartwarming to be so supported.

Fairplay, Colorado to Breckenridge, Colorado

Day 49.  Today was a short day of just 24 miles but the first twelve are up, up, up to Hoosier pass - but then it’s all down hill to Breckenridge.  So we are feeling pretty good and strong.

We made omelets for breakfast, a real welcome change of pace from our typical camping fare of yoghurt, cereal, fruit and breads.  Then it was time to pack up and start the climb.

We’re here in the heart of Colorado and Fairplay is in the heart of South Park.  It’s been made pop-culture famous by the famed satirical cartoon show of the same name.  So on the way out we stopped in the downtown for this shot.

The climbs here aren’t nearly as bad as they are in the Appalachians - at least the grades aren’t as bad.  However we have to contend with the altitude.

Technically it's all down hill from here. This 11,500 foot high pass is the highest point along the TransAmerica Trail, a highlight in its own right, and (to me) mind numbing accomplishment. What's amazing is that the Appalachian Mountains were HARDER because of up and down steep-steep-steep grades. The Rockies are taller but the inclines are more extended and moderate. For now it will be a thrilling downhill to Breckinridge and another rest day but with most of my family and friends coming up to spend the day with me.

Royal Gorge, Colorado to Fairplay, Colorado

Day 48.  Today's sixty-five mile bike ride can be divided into four neat little sections.

Bill and I biking up toward Currant Creek Pass

First Section- I had to cook tonight so I needed to make speed so I stuck with Bill.  We started out at 7AM, confident that while we had to ascend nearly 3,500 feet - that today at least the weather would be much cooler.  While there was a 20% chance of rain we could console ourselves that it would be refreshing and brief.  So we headed north into the mountains, starting with one dramatic decline that was only tempered by the fact that we would have to make up every foot we coasted down.

Second Section- We're going through sparsely populated country.  There was - at mile 21 or so - a turn off to a little burg of Guffy which might have a cafe - but Bill and I pressed on to mile marker 24 where Chris was to have put out extra water bottle across the street from a Schechter Ranch which also was known to host cyclists.

We got there in good time and decided to park our bikes, and walk across the highway to the ranch entrance.  I plopped down on the grass and savored my peanut butter sandwich.  Three-quarters of the way done, it began to rain.  So resigned, we got back up and crossed the street to get our bikes and put on our rain jackets.  By then the wind came up and the rain was cold.  My watch said it was 45° and it was getting bone chilling cold.  So I suggested to Bill that we head up the driveway to seek shelter.  We stood behind a cabin out of the wind and rain and waited.  And waited.

Looking toward the road I saw a massive cloud and fog bank till up the valley reducing visibility exponentially.  So we checked the cabin, found it unlocked, and crashed there.

By this time we got in touch with John, Barry, Lew and Tom who had taken refuge in Guffy.  We found out that Chris was on the way with the van to pick us up because it just wasn’t safe to ride when cars can’t see what’s five feet ahead of them.

Third Section- So Chris picked Bill and I up and then we headed South to pick up John, Tom, Lew, Barry and another self-contained cyclist.  Jim had managed to make good speed and get up to the pass before the cloud bank. Norm and Christine powered through the fog which, I thought, was too big a risk.

Chris said the weather was great north of Currant Pass so Tom, Lee, and I got out at the Summit to continue the ride.  The change in the weather was amazing- blue skies, puffy clouds and sun.

The road and terrain were made for me.  It was just a long downward slope from the Pass all the way north to Hartsel along with the wind I blasted past Norm and Christine. It was one of the few times ever where I  able to pass them.

I would pause at the crest of a hill, wrap up my rain gear and Christine would finally catch up and then I would get back on the bike and blast pass her.  Too fun and way too rare since she and Norm are much better cyclists then I am.

Then we stopped briefly in Hartsel with only eighteen miles to go. We had been doing close to thirty miles an hour after the Pass so I was hopeful to get into Fairplay and Jason’s house by 4:30.

Then the wind turned and it was a constant in-your-face and just unrelenting and kept us to a crawl.

I was down to maybe seven miles an hour.  I eventually caught up to Tom who was at five miles an hour. Lew fell behind at three to four miles per hour.

“Did you see that damn flag,” Lew asked me much later after food and drinks.  One of the ranches has a Rolling Stones Logo flag on a pole and it was just ramrod straight in the wind. “When I saw that’” Lew said, “I regretted having got out of the van.”

It took me two hours to get to Fairplay. One of the most miserable sections of road because of the wind. 

I pulled in nearly at six pm.

Jason's house is fortuitously on the ACA TransAmerica Route although we had to (a first for this trip) turn left at the Marijuana Shop called Wise Cannabis. He has opened his house and kitchen to us and even helped cook, adding three trout that he caught across the street.  The fish, combined with the pork ribs, made for an excellent recharging meal.

Great and surreal to be able to see family along the route and Jason had a fun time hosting us at “Chez Lord.”

Pueblo, Colorado to Royal Gorge, Colorado

Day 47.  Gina dropped me off at the Hotel at 6AM.  Breakfast and packed a sandwich and then we (John, Lew, Barry, Jim, and I) headed through the streets of Pueblo.  It's a nice route going through the city park at one point.

We are skirting around Lake Pueblo State Park and it is gorgeous country. The only blemish is the haziness of the air, which we learn later is the smoke from Utah fires.

The mountains are closer, and Pikes Peak looms large ahead of us as we are veering north.

Florence, Colorado

On October 22, 1983 Thomas Silverstein and Clayton Fountain, both inmates at then Federal Prison in Marion Illinois killed two guards in separate incidents using the same tactic. They turned their back to another cell where an inmate would quickly pick a lock and give the inmate a knife.

The Prison went to immediate lockdown that lasted 24 years.  The Director of Prisons, Norman Carlson, argued that a different kind of prison was needed to house those inmates who had no concern for human life. Those inmates already serving a multiple life term sentence are not deterred by yet another life term, and some chafe at their incarceration so much that they become suicidal/homicidal trying to leave prison. Y committing a crime so heinous in prison that it merits the death penalty.

Based on these recommendations, the Federal Government began construction of ADX just south of Florence, Colorado in Fremont County.   At the time, Fremont hosted nine prisons.  Now it hosts thirteen.

This new facility which is part of the Florence Federal Correctional Complex houses 410 inmates including the worst of the worst and some inmates who posed a threat if they had ongoing contact with the rest of the world.  It is called Supermax as well as the Alcatraz of the Rockies.

We were biking north into Florence, somewhat downhill and a great tail wind when we came upon the complex.  There are constant no trespassing signs and the building in the distance could be dormitories with Guard towers.  It houses four federal prisons ranging from minimum, medium, maximum and the ADX unit.  In the distance I could see one prison yard, probably the minimum security prison, with prisoners walking through the yard.

Otherwise it is a place that doesn't invite lookie-loos.   So we keep biking along until close by we come along a Motel 8 improbably isolated from nearby Florence until I figure out that the majority of the guests at this hotel are visiting prisoners.

Not anybody in ADX.  There outside contact is kept at a minimum.  It houses the Unabomber, the Boston Marathon Bomber, Terry Nichols who was an accomplice to the Oklahoma City Bombing and - fittingly - Thomas Silverstein whose casual killing of a prison guard gave rise to ADX.

Five Easy Pieces to Milkshakes

The last eight miles from Canon City were hot (101° degrees) and uphill and smokey and long.  The smoke isn't too bothersome, but the air is so dry that each breath dries the mouth and the body.

When we finally reached the eight mile mark the road leveled out and each side of the road became filled with the typical tourist "adventure" providers - helicopter tours, Dinosaur Land, Rafting, zip lines, etc.

We're staying at the Echo Park Campground, but across the street there is a Bar & Grill call the 8Mile and I suggested we go in there and cool down before we went into the campground.

"I'm so hot and thirsty, I'ld be surly to Phil," I said.  So we biked the extra 50 feet or so and got a table.  I walked up to the hostess, "Do you have ice cream?"

She nodded and began describing their sundaes.

"How about shakes?"

"No - we dont have those."

"Do you serve milk?"

"Yes."

"I see the bar there.  Surely you have a blender?"

"I guess."

"Then we have everything we need for shakes."

The manager showed us where to park the bikes and we sat down.  Kristyn, our waitress came out, "I hear you are my milkshake people.  I'm going to do my best. What else do you need?"

We all ordered water, lemonade and Arnold Palmer's and began the serious ritual of cooling down.  Kristyn came out with three chocolate and on vanilla milkshakes and they were heaven.

She used to work for the State Territorial Prison in Canon City.  "I had to leave because I didn't like what it was doing to me."  Fremont County has 14 prisons, and the industry is the largest employer in the county "and they know it and act like it," Kristyn said.

As miserable as we were, we got cooled down, and smiles came out and we felt so much better.  Our little group of four - three lawyers and an English men - have had this tradition and ritual for a while now and to have off-the-menu milkshakes was a treat.

Royal Gorge, Colorado

In retrospect it was a good thing that I put up my rainfly over the hammock.  We have thunderstorms, not a lot of rain, but plenty of wind. Still I remain wrapped in my hammock warm and dry.

It says we are in Cañon City but really we're eight miles west close to the Royal Gorge with the Arkansas River chugging through it at full capacity.  We're camping at the Echo Park Campground ( they have the best campground showers by the way) and we have had dinner, our nightly map meeting for the next day's riding and then then enjoying the gauzy sunset courtesy of wildfires is Utah and Leadville.

"Is it going to rain tonight Bill," I ask because Bill was a former Park Ranger and so he should have some nature cred.  We are told there is a 20% chance of rain.  Bill ponders a bit and says No.  Then he adds, "Of course that's just a guess and as about as accurate as any forecast.  It's worth what you paid."

So I left my rain tarp up and it rained.

The ride tomorrow will be challenging- nearly all up hill to some degree or another plus sixty seven miles.  It will be cooler, so that's a plus.  Then we'll be staying at Jason Lord's house in Fairplay.

---

• A reference to the classic scene with Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces.

“Dupea: I’d like a, uh, plain omelette, uh, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee, and wheat toast.

Waitress: No substitutions.

Dupea: What do you mean? You don’t have any tomatoes?

Waitress: Only what’s on the menu. You can have a number two - a plain omelette. It comes with cottage fries and rolls.

Dupea: Yeah, I know what it comes with, but it’s not what I want.

Waitress: Well, I’ll come back when you make up your mind.

Dupea: Wait a minute. I have made up my mind. I’d like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee, and a side order of wheat toast.

Waitress: I’m sorry. We don’t have any side orders of toast. I’ll give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.

Dupea: What do you mean you don’t make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don’t you?

Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?

Palm Apodaca: Hey, Mac . . .

Dupea: [to Apodaca] Shut up. [to the waitress] You’ve got bread and a toaster of some kind?

Waitress: I don’t make the rules.

Dupea: Okay, I’ll make it as easy for you as I can. I’d like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce, and a cup of coffee.

Waitress: A number two, chicken sal san, hold the butter, the lettuce, and the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?

Dupea: Yeah. Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven’t broken any rules.

Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken, huh?

Dupea: I want you to hold it between your knees. [Palm and Terry smirk]

Waitress: You see that sign, sir? Yes, you’ll all have to leave. I’m not taking any more of your smartness and sarcasm.

Dupea: You see this sign? [sweeps all the water glasses and menus off the table]”

Pueblo, Colorado, Rest Day

Coffee and breakfast today with the group. We all wake relatively early    We all do our little rest day routines.  Maps. Tours. Laundry.  Bike shop.

I did laundry at the hotel.  It was so dry and parched (we hit 101 degrees here) that I went across the parking lot and hung my laundry to dry on the railing of an unused building.  Gina asked I felt I had permission, which took me back a little.  We've gone a little feral over the past days hanging our clean clothes out almost anywhere to dry - lawns, fences, trees, and railings.  It's called Cycler's Christmas.

Nice group dinner tonight at The Place by the Roverwalk.  Being over half way through we are all starting to make plans form the end when we hit Oregon.  But the mountains are in front of us and we have almost seven thousand feet of altitude to go up.

Ordway, Colorado to Pueblo, Colorado

Breakfast & Lunch & Dinner

Rather than gas, our fuel is food and water.  So in the morning, depending upon how early the group wants to leave, we set up a breakfast and lunch table.

We're on a rotating schedule with two members of the group assigned to a schedule of making dinner.  Those two are then responsible for setting up (and putting away) the breakfast and lunch table.  Once we cycle through everyone all the names are mixed up and new combination and schedule are put up.

Breakfast.  We typically have cereal (granola goes very fast), oatmeal, coffee, yogurt, orange juice and fruit.  Bananas always, being as Barry puts it, the perfect food.  We'll have breakfast for a half hour starting at 6AM for early departures or push it to 6:30AM.

Lunch.  Most of the time we'll make lunch at the same time.  Granola Bars, energy Bars, fruit, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (the powerhouse of lunch) or cold cut sandwiches (including the Jim and Lew ever-requested hard salami.).  We'll get thing ready, bagged up and throw them in our bike bags.  Then as the need and opportunity arises we'll pull out something to eat during a rest break.

Dinners.  Whoever is in charge of dinner starts cooking at 4PM with the goal to be served at 6PM.  We've had: spaghetti, stir fry, steak wraps, chicken fajitas, chicken tacos, tortilla soup, hamburgers by John - always a favorite), sloppy Joe's, and most notably and disastrously Bill and Lew's ill fated effort to make meatloaf.

---

Outside of Ordway, east, in the town of Crowley we ran into this improbable small little burg with a large veteran's memorial.  Next to it, was this sign pointing to a "Restroom" that was literally a Portapotty.

Boone, Colorado

We are in the arid west, and have been doing so ever since Buhler, Kansas.  It was there we met a retired Farm Appraiser who told us that Buhler gets 31 inches of precipitation a year.  That amount is enough to raise crops without needing to avail oneself of aquifers or rivers.  "Heading west," he told us, Precipitation drops."

We are seeing that drop.  Kiowa County Colorado (where we were yesterday) gets fourteen inches of rain a year.  Crowley County - where we are today - gets twelve. The vegetation is getting more prickly, more desert scrub and sparse.

We are biking parallel now to the Arkansas River to the south of us.  We can see it, because there is green down south, and trees.

Since leaving Ordway we have passed nearly three or four prisons.  There's another down in Manzanola - which I only know about because I had to take a deposition of an inmate there many years ago.  It's difficult to see what the economic opportunities are here in southeastern Colorado.  There's agricultural activity but it has to be very hard scrabble and challenging.  Oil activity, like the fracking we see in Northern Colorado.  So there are prisons.

Water and rest stop in Boone - another desperately boarded up "downtown" - where the only business seems to be the Boone Country Hardware and Grocery Store.  It's run by a 92 year old genial man who sits next to the door and check out.  He was retired earlier, but said the walls were closing in on him, so he went to running this store.

Boone is also only 19 miles away from Pueblo and from Gina who is coming down for our rest day, our anniversary and her birthday.

Pueblo, Colorado

It's hot and the traffic is pretty heavy.  We're cycling on Highway 96 into Pueblo.  The mountains are coming into clearer view and despite the heat along the Front Range, there's still snow on the peaks.

Getting into Pueblo proper, the traffic and the road conditions got a little intense and at some points you just have to trust that the people behind you are paying attention.  I suppose that's true all of the time but it helped to have Jim biking with me. Two cyclists are a little more visible.

We have a much needed rest day here in Pueblo tomorrow.  We were to have continued west past Pueblo to stay and camp at a State Park but the group was not wild about that. Then Gina was able to book hotel rooms for the group at $30 less than what Phil was getting quoted at the same hotel and it fell within the Tour Budget. So the group is staying at a centrally located hotel near a bike shop, and Phil and Chris say Gina is a magical rock star.

Gina met me at the Great Divide Bike Shop which was on route with a wonderful cold Gatorade.  We dropped off my bike, and then took John and Lew who also dropped off their bikes, to the Hotel.

Gina and I celebrate our fifteenth anniversary tonight wandering along the beautiful Pueblo river walk which is patterned after the San Antonio version.

Eads, Colorado to Ordway, Colorado

Day 44.  Sixty mile ride today. The first twenty miles or so were more difficult because of the wind coming in from the North. It cut the speed down to about 11 to 13 MPH. The middle twenty were blessed with tailwinds and we could hit 26. MPH easily. That combined with a good pavement is like a smooth wine or Bourbon. Intoxicating.

We stopped briefly in a little burg called Haskell for Gatorade and to see the nation's smallest jail. Constructed in 1924 it's a small white plaster building next to the park that is a 120 square feet. It's no longer in use of course.

The small towns in Colorado a starkly different than those we found in Kansas. Those towns were struggling but most had perhaps improbably a little cafe or a Casey's or other convenience store. So many small towns here is southeastern Colorado seem to have just withered away. So many abandoned houses, and the landscape between the few little towns we see is grassland, prairie, and seemingly unproductive. We do see cattle grazing in the grasslands, a welcome alternative to the feedlots we saw cycling into Ordway, the Crowley county seat, where we'll spend the night.

When we started in Kansas we were at 920 feet in elevation. When we crossed over to Colorado we had climbed 3,301 feet which is why Kansas folks call heading west uphill. Here is Ordway we are at 4,300 feet.

Today for the first time we saw in the distance the Rocky Mountains and Pikes Peak. It is both exciting and sobering because up ahead we'll reach the highest point of the TransAmerica trail at 11,500 feet.

With all that climbing ahead of us we played pool at the Columbine Bar here in Ordway. It features a fabulous old wood bar back, Coors drafts in a frosty mug for a buck fifty, and pool between Norm, Bill, Christine, Lew, Jim, and I.

Larned, Kansas to Ness City, Kansas

Leaving Larned in the morning.  We have a 65 mile day ahead of us and a bit of detour along a gravel road because the road conditions have changed on the "official" route to be considered dangerous.

We left about 7:00 am - still not early enough, but I was able to keep up with Bill (Moab, Bike Guide, Mostly kind of true tales) which is a feat because he is such a strong biker that he easily out paces me even though he is 71 or so.  (More likely Bill was just being kind and slowed down)

The alternative route took us North, gave us a tale wind, and ran through beautiful country filled with wheat awaiting the harvest, and limestone posts.

The limestone posts are an excellent example of local needs taking a different shape and form based upon what was locally available.  The Homestead Act of 1862 opened the Kansas Prairies for settlement.  People from all over rushed to take advantage of the relatively free land, but did not anticipate the problems that the relatively treeless Kansas would pose - particularly in marking and enforcing property boundaries.  There simply was no material to make a fence.

Just under the sod, however in the area known as "Post Rock Country" the Greenhorn Formation left a uniform geologically thin layer of limestone just under the surface of the sod.  It is soft enough to shape, and cut, and notch when freshly quarried, but hardens over time when exposed to air.  By 1880s it was the most common form post, but these days it is quickly getting replaced with metal poles as the original limestone posts are becoming antiques.

Rush Center, Kansas

Meeting Effie Crowell née Million.

Effie has run Effie's Place for fifty two years.  Her restaurant is listed in the "8 Wonders of NW Kansas Cuisine" although Effie says she has no idea how she was included in that list. Her friends say it's her hamburgers.

Although the sign said "Open" Effie keeps her place closed during the summer because it gets too hot. She'll open up in the morning for friends, coffee and cake and fortunately she welcomes all cyclists with the same.

Bill and I arrived about 9:00 AM and were greeted like old friends.  Effie stood up and shuffled over with coffee for Bill and water for me, and then the rest of the table plied us with cake and cookies.

Everyone (other than ourselves) at the table was born within twenty miles of the table.

Effie is 92 years old and still lives in the house that she and her husband purchased across the street when he returned from the War in December 1945.  She has lived there ever since.  She is sharp and stern.  "I've only had to kick two people out of my restaurant," she told me, "and they haven't been back if they didn't make things right."  One man tried to play a change game on one of her waitresses by claiming to have paid with a fifty dollar bill when instead he had paid with a twenty.  He never came back.  The other was a regular who kept charging his meals, and she drew the line at $270.00 and wouldn't let him come to the restaurant until he paid up.  Her hamburgers are that good he paid cash the next day.

Sadly she has stopped opening her doors (other than her morning friends for coffee and cake) during the summer.  "It's just too hot," she says, eyeing the forty year old swamp cooler on the western wall of her restaurant.  Inside the place is decorated with tins and cans from at least five decades of household products.

She'll open the first Monday of November and her famous half-pound Effie Burger will be available to her public again.

Also at the table was George who at 87 has put down day-to-day farming and has left it to his two sons.  George grows wheat, milo (also known as grain sorghum) and cattle.  It's wheat harvesting season so the talk is about wheat.  Prices for wheat is about $3.75 a bushel leaving most farmers with only 10 cents profit per bushel.  It's planted in late September or October, George tells us, and harvested between June and July once the moisture gets right.

Moisture in hay is critical and it must be about 14% otherwise it was grow fetid and rot.  The trick, George says, is to wait for the head of the stalk to droop.  Then it's time.  The harvesting season "moves" ten miles each day from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Border and the highways are filled with harvesters for hire.

"When I started farming," George said we didn't have combines until 1950 or so and those were only eight feet." (Meaning that a combine would harvest eight foot wide swatch of wheat.) "Now the combines are easy to drive and spread 35 to 40 feet."

Effie meanwhile came out of the kitchen, shuffling, with a massive pitcher of ice water for our water bottles until I lept to my feet to help.  At 10 o'clock it was time to leave and we offered to pay or tip for our cake and water.  She would have none of it.

Ness City, Kansas

As of Rush Center, Kansas we are on Highway 96 and we will be on this highway, straight and west until we reach Pueblo, Colorado.  It's our next rest day and we arrive on my anniversary with Gina and she will be there and that makes every little mile even better to bike and grind away.

It's just getting hot, and so we slog on, and keep a good pace.  We arrived in Ness City, Kansas a little after One PM and made an obligatory stop at the Frigid Creme for treats (small strawberry shake and large limeade).

Tonight we stay and sleep at the United Methodist Church - a large imposing brick building on the northern end of the town.  All of us are in the basement fellowship hall were it's cool, air conditioned, and we have spread out air pads, and sleeping bags in between the tables.

Another city pool today, and these are becoming such joys because they are all different in various ways, but also so similar.  The Ness City Pool gets my nomination for being the least safety conscious pool in middle America thus far.  It is located in a park in such a way that it would be terribly challenging to drive anything (say an ambulance) up to it close.

The life guards - all pretty young lithe creatures - were blissfully unaware of what was going on in the pool.  One lifeguard station by the deep end, remained unmanned during our entire time at the pool.  But the water was cool - but not cold - and it was a great way to cool down and shake the dust of the day's road off of us.

Dinner tonight by John and Philip.  A great pasta dish without sauce, with sautéed vegetables and Italian sausage.  We're to bed early tonight - we have an 80 mile day ahead of us in hot weather so we'll try to start even earlier.

Sterling, Kansas to Larned, Kansas

Overheard:

Britton: Christine, Let's start with the obvious truth that this is a man's world.

Christine: We like to let you think so.

Britton:  Well on the trip we men just pull over almost anywhere to pee.  The world is our bathroom.  There's very few places we won't consider when it comes to roadside urination.  But with women cyclists I would imagine you have more limited options.

Christine:  Any ample shrub or tall grasses will do.  I love cornfields.

---

Mile 12 there was this lovely fun sign offering water and a little shady rest area for passing bikers.  These kinds of courtesies and gifts - we call them trail magic or trail angels - are one of the unexpected joys of traveling by bike.

Water. Water.  Water.  After that we think a little about food - energy bars or sandwiches.  But water always.

The pavement is awful.  Bumpy,  Lots of holes.  Bumps that jar the hands and behind.  It is the only blot on an otherwise perfect day.

Near Hudson, Kansas

It's not too hot in the morning, but this pavement sucks.  The landscape is beautiful, almost like stepping into the iconic Andrew Wythe painting and of course my personal favorite - curious cows in ponds.

Nice water stop at mile 26.  If the spigot in the church yard wasn't working, Chris would have left eighteen water bottles here.  There was a nice tree and shade here so by the time I pulled up I saw Bill and Tom - our early bikers - still there.  Norm & Christine - who left last so as to reach Seward at 11 also pulled up.

Nice water break, lying in the grass, telling jokes that made me laugh so much that my belly hurt.

Seward, Kansas

Mom's Bar & Grill

The little town of Seward, Kansas has a population of 69 and other than Mom's Bar & Grill - no other services.  At Mile 36 of our 54.5 mile day it comes at a welcome time and point.  We got there at 11am just as they were opening.

The fact that they are open is a bit of a mystery because there are absolutely no signs whatsoever advertising that there is this speck of service in an otherwise empty map.  No arrows, signs or other advertisements.  To get there you have to leave the paved road, go down a gravel and sandy road and you know you are there because of all the trucks and cars parked outside.

In fact we weren't even sure if Mom's was open, but it was only a mile detour north and on our way I saw a large Pepsi truck coming out of town and then I felt reasonably confident that something was open to merit a Pepsi delivery.

Mom keeps the grill and the bar sides a little separate but on the the grill side it was packed.  Good food and large ice filled drinks - always a welcome thing for us cyclists.

For Barry, our resident vegetarian, the menu was depressingly similar to all of the other cafes before.  Hamburger, cheeseburger, beef sandwiches etc.  The only thing he could order was a grilled cheese sandwich and mushrooms.  However the mushrooms were breaded and fried - a presentation that only baffled Barry.

Larned, Kansas

Pulled into Larned about 2PM and headed first to the recommended coffee and tea shop called Scraps in downtown Larned.  It was a lovely and friendly polyglot of a store featuring sewing supplies, Tuxedo rental, scrap booking, plus a coffee shop.  The owner is an exuberant lady who offered to make us off-the-menu milkshakes while we cooled down in her air conditioned store in complete happiness.

The ride was short - only 54 miles or so - and it was a straight shot west.  It got hot - really hot 95° - after lunch and the last ten miles were getting miserable.  But we had a mild tailwind and were able to keep up a speed that ranged from 13 MPH to 18 MPH.

There are now five things that I rank or measure each day, or each portion of the ride:  Hilly?  Heat? Humidity? Wind? Pavement?  The morning was all good except for the pavement which was awful.  It just jarred my hands and behind.  When we crossed over a state highway it got better.  After lunch it was heat and for a small while - the wind.

We are passing a lot of east bound Transamers now and the past two days.  The TransAmerica Race started about two weeks ago in Astoria, Oregon and so they are starting to pass us here - expecting to complete the trip in less than thirty days.  They are packed light and minimal.  I don't know when they sleep or eat but I can't imagine it's at all pleasant.  We wave to them and them to us but there is no time for chats as we pass each other on this trip in opposite directions and purposes.

We also hit our first feedlot just south and east of Larned.  It's a real sad and depressing scene and smell, these large rectangular black fields filled with cattle, but no shade or grass or room to meaningfully roam - so different than the grassy hills and ponds we have passed this past week.

Tonight we are camped in the Larned City Park in Pavilion next to the Swimming Pool.  We shower and swim for free, another welcome and appreciated outreach of the city.  The pool is huge and large and filled with all the same characters and intrigues and dramas and family fun that we saw before and that we could not possibly see in the thousands of city pools dotting the Midwest.

The weather is a little worrisome.  He have black clouds to the north, and it's started to get very windy and lightening and rain so we are optimistically eating dinner while we keep an eye on the weather.

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Milestones.

Riding a bike across the country is all about not thinking about the four thousand miles but rather trying to dissect it into manageable little things.  Days, Towns. Maps. Intersections.

I wish I could say that most of biking is being rapt open-mouthed awe of the landscape we pass through, but the reality is I'm mostly watching the slightly wavering white strip of paint on the side of the road, or the back of another rider's bike.

And I let my mind wander.  I have music playing in one ear (great songs to bike to will be a topic for another day) and when it's hot, and difficult and miserable then all I can do is try to invent ways to make the day doable.  40 more miles to go - it's just two twenty mile rides.  Get me to the edge of a map, or to an intersection so I know where I am on the map.

Soon, we will pass multiple ways to carve this journey into halves - by days, by miles, and even by States.

Tonight we hit another milestone and will change maps.  We have twelve maps to get us across the country and we go from Map 8 to Map 7 so that's a small victory.

Any way to eat this whale one bite at a time.