Day 22: Primitive Bugs Bites

Sleepin on skids in the greenhouse was rough. Bunches of bugs kept flyin around in our faces, we were all a little on edge, and lights were too bright from the parking lot. Oh well, at least it got us up early! (Nick and Luke pictured above, drowsily pulling themselves together). We truged over to the diner across the street and stared tiredly at each other for a good hour. Sam and Luke ate, but Nick was set on going back to the gas station cafe for his breakfast (Nick and Luke lost in tired thought over some coffee) .


Coffee was good and this Diner has a slew of coffee options! (as you can see by the picture below)

We made it back to the school board building and got our stuff together. The rest of the staff came in before we left and coldly stared us down (except for Barbara, she was kind). We didn't mind, the men dressed in cheap white collared shirts and ill fitting black slacks. They didn't come close to intimidating we spandexed three (Sam and Luke pictured below, dressed in their best finery for sitting at the School Board Conference table).


Enough fooling around, we were getting annoyed with Smith Center so we took off (Nick and Luke photoed below).


We made it up to Phillipsburg, KS for lunch. Sam and Luke went to a diner (they were drawn in by the Saw-Zaw being auctioned off by the cash register, pictured below) while Nick ran uptown to wash his clothes and eat 1/2 a half chicken from the supermarket. The heat was pretty bad, so we hung out at the library for a bit, and after a bit of discussion decided that we should make it a 100 mile day.


The riding was great after Phillipsburg. The trees finally disappeared and we felt like we were in the plains! Honestly, it was the first time we felt like we were out of the midwest the entire trip. The landscape was hilly and the high plains were full of cows, pasture land, abandoned houses and gorgeous rock outcroppings.

Old abandoned house and windmill

Pretty red barn

Fair Warning

Well, 100 miles didn't quite work out. We only made it 96 before a convenient park that offered primitive camping near Oberlin, KS lured us in. We pitched our tent and made dinner amidst swarms of mosquitoes (Nick and Luke pictured below at the primitive camp site). It was the first time we really regretted having not packed bug spray as the mosquitoes ravaged our supple skin. Night rolled around soon after dinner and we crashed into deep unconsciousness as we hit our sleeping pads...

Miles: 96

Morale: ass kickin-bug bitten

No storms, no flats, hordes of mosquitos

Day 24 : Digestion and Riding Are Mutually Exclusive

After a late start, we feasted on a hearty morning meal of oatmeal (our first time bolstering the hot cereal with the creamy power of milk; thanks to the Pham family Tony and Angel pictured with the trio above), chatted, and packed. Just a quarter of a mile outside of Bird City we noticed a brightly colored figured on the opposite shoulder of the road growing larger. It was our first encounter with a road warrior traveling eastward . The man was Doug Bahniuk, a 50 year old Cleveland man with Parkinsons disease riding to raise money to help fight Parkinsons (dougslastgreatsoloride.blogspot.com)


After riding for 10 miles, only a few miles from St. Francis we notice a nice farm house that is selling eggs, herbs, and such. We stop, are given cold water, chat about the problems of industrialized agriculture on the health of the planet and its people, purchase some herbs and jelly, and are directed towards a good lunch spot and grocery in St. Francis.

We decided to eat lunch at the St. Francis Dairy King, a greasy burger and milkshake joint that was completely slammed with business and too little employees (below). Our food took a long time and we decided to gorge deeply into the late afternoon, consuming burgers, fries, milkshakes, and cones.
(below: Thankfully Nick is entertained by a younger customer.)

(below: Luke, chocolate-vanilla twist cone in hand, mingles with the country folk)


St. Francis is only 15 miles from the Colorado/Kansas border. We decide to make a run for the border after 4 hours of gorging in the heat of the day. By 4:30 we are off. Just outside of town we notice another bicycling figure riding a half mile ahead of us. After 7 miles of riding Nick, who is uncharacteristically riding at a higher velocity than Luke and I, catches up to this enigmatic figure only to be snubbed. According to Nick, he peddled his ass off to catch up with the man. When he was 5 feet from him, the man darted off onto a nearby dirt road. After riding north on the dirt road for a minute or so, he allowed Nick to pass him by and headed back out onto hwy 36 for a little while longer before turning south onto a driveway. After a minute or two at the house he leaves the driveway and heads back east towards St. Francis. At this time, I am slowly pulling up the rear and pass him as he exists the drive (below: secret man dressed in jeans and long sleeve shirt with a bicycling cap adorned with a tilting mirror). At this time I was unaware about his snubbing ability, and went ahead to greet him, only to be snubbed with a snarling glar.

Only 5 more miles of flat terrain and we cross into Colorado and decide to take a good stretch and gather ourselves after the gorgefest. (below: Luke perches on the coolest state welcome sign)

(below: Sam stretches out with the state of Kansas behind him)

(below: Luke is pictured taking pictures of a sign describing good agricultural practices)


We road for 15 more miles from the border to a town called Idalia, Colorado. In Idalia we camped out behind a playground facility situated behind the high school football field. (below: dinner is consumed standing up)


Eastern Colorado is surprisingly flat but beautiful at sunset. I expected the Rockies to be a little rockier than this. Yeah that John Denver is full of shit man.


morale. B-
miles. 45
flats. none

Day 21: Kansas (A.K.A.The World's Life-Line)

Waking up clean with mattresses under our backs was certainly a treat, and after a few more jokes from Mister Jokey we took off to conquer mid-Kansas.

Mister Jokey was the husband of our married RV park hosts. If you havn't guessed, he was full of jokes. I'll grace you with two:

"So there was this yellow toad. His odd color found him the brunt of many mean jokes so we opted to go to the witch for a color change. The witch brewed him up a potion, he drank it, and poof, he was brown like all the other toads. Well, except for his member, it remained yellow. He demanded that the witch change it to brown as well, but she didn't know how. So she sent him off the the wizard.

A few minutes later a purple elephant strolled in, asked if he can be changed to grey like all the others. So the witch mixed up a potion, he drank it, and poof he is all grey, except for his member. He puffed up a storm and demanded that it be changed to grey as well. The witch shruged her shoulders, and advised (with a smug grin) that he runs off to the wizard. "How do I get to the wizard?" the elephant asked (very perturbed). Oh, that's easy exclaimed the witch, just follow the yellow pricked toad!"

hahaha, okay, I won't torture you with the second one...

We took off from our room and headed off towards Smith Center. About 6 miles out we were suddenly overtaken by other 5 cyclists wearing silly looking spandex shorts and skin tight jerseys. Turns out that they were the same "bike and build" cyclists we met at the church in Pittsfield, IL (just way ahead of the others). We chatted for a bit and pulled into their rest stop to take a picture of the trailer that hauls all of their gear (pictured below).

The stop was short and we pulled back out into the road to enjoy the scenic hillery of Kansas.

After a few more miles we found a sign that excitedly proclaimed that we were in the geographic center of the United States! (pictured below) The sun kept us from basking in the centric glory for more than a few minutes and we pushed on...

To further boost our Kansan pride, we discovered (via the sign pictured below) that Kansas Agriculture is the World's Life-Line! All this wheat is the mainstay of the world foodstuffs, and everyone should thank American industrialized agriculture for ensuring a steady dumping of genetically similar, subsidized goods into the hands of third world farmers so they don't have to break a sweat to create and maintain a diverse domestic agricultural market that encourages a sustainable food-production system. Note the blood dripping from the phrase "The World's Life-Line" in the picture (then again, maybe it's oil). Disturbing but fitting.

We made it out of the wheat fields and into the city in center of Smith county. It is cleverly named Smith Center. Upon entering Smith Center we found a delicious cafe inside a gas station and gorged on $5 footlong subs/garlic cheesy bread. We then hit up the library and blogged our brains out (library pictured below).

The weather report wasn't looking so good by the time the libray closed and we were warned by some police officers that a big hailstorm was coming, and we should find shelter. So we went back to the gas station cafe...

The storm was HUGE. Screaming wind, hail, and torrents of rain blasted us for about 2 hours. Sam managed to convince the woman working at the Smith County school board to let us keep our bikes in her office, so we left them there and ran back into the fray (Sam pictured below, screaming at the storm like a wild-man).

Well, the storm ruined our chances of our getting out of town for the day, so we decided to convince some motels that we deserved a room at a discount price. Our pathetic wet-dog looks didn't help at all and the best offer we got was a concrete floor and shower for $30. Defeated (captured in the forlorn eyes of Nick and Luke pictured below) we went back to the gas station cafe and talked the attendants into despising us (except for the librarians and Barbara the nice school board woman, everyone in Smith Center was cold to us).

We played around a bit, and the bored wet coldness brought out the new-aged pirates in us (three pictures below).

We eventually began to buy and eat candy. Sammo made a commemorative 1000 mile Reese's Peanut Butter Cup display (pictured below), which we promptly ate (and our stomachs made us soon regret).


We eventually pestered the gas station attendants enough that they gave us a free pizza! Yum, it immediately sat poorly in our stomachs but such is life...(Nick pictured below, nervously unsure what the pizza is about to do to his bowels)By the time we got our pizza, it was almost 10pm and we had no place to stay. We checked out the local road side park, but it was all wet and we couldn't get to our tent because it was locked up in the school board's office until the next morning. So we snuck into an emptry greenhouse at another strip mallish store and slept the night away on some elevated skids (Sam pictured below, preparing his sleepin pad).


Thanks to the Barbara of the Smith County school board for leting us store our bikes in their building for the night!

Miles: 31

Morale: stormy

No flats, but big rain

Day 23. Hydrogen Powered Trucks and more Kansas ditch- weed

After rousing only to tend to our quickly festering mosquito bites, we decided to go out for breakfast in downtown Oberlin, KS. We packed up and deposited excrement in the nicely kempt campground outhouses (oh yeah, behind the outhouse Sam and Nick discover another bountiful crop of wild marijuana-- pictured above; Kansas is the only state where any of us have ever stumbled upon wild pot.) Breakfast consisted of large omelets for Luke and Nick, and a large waffle for Sam (below: Nick rides gingerly into Oberlin priming his mustache in anticipation for his omelet).

After filling up and stretching out, we departed for a 30-mile journey to the next Kansas county seat, Atwood. I must regress for a moment and fill you in on the layout of northern Kansas. When traveling through Kansas on Hwy 36 there is 13 counties which are almost all 30 miles wide. Each county has a county seat located generally smack dab in the middle not far off of 36.
Because we aim to travel 60 miles a day, we normally try to ride from one county seat to the next by lunch and then finish at the next by night fall.

Between Oberlin and Atwood we saw some beautiful landscapes. (below: Notice the dryness and quite barren vegetation at 3,000 feet . These regions are impossible to farm and exhibit a different side of Kansas, the High Plains)

We stopped in Atwood at the first gas station we saw. Inside, we met several interesting folks, including a man who knows a Kansan women who moved to Athens to teach at the College of Osteopathic Medicine, and an even more peculiar interaction with an even more peculiar man who is purportedly in the final stages of creating his own hydrogen powered car (pictured below). Forgetting his name, we will simply call him hydro man. Hydro-man spent 30 minutes explaining that he and another partner have discovered how to split hydrogen and the oxygen. He attempted to field Nicks more prying chemistry and physics based questions, but came off sounding quite rhetorical, spouting off things like how many grams of hydrogen are in a liter of water and his most glaringly repetitious rhetoric which he must have said 37 times, "we'll be going down the road for free.....on water."


If you haven't yet gathered from my writing, we all viewed this man with an incredulous eye but were still completely enthralled with his enthusiasm, courage, and libertarian gusto. While Luke and I retired to the gas station to feast on rice pudding and blueberries, Nick and Hydro-Man chatted about their distrust for the government, especially an ill-advised agricultural system that champions the exclusive use of macro nutrients.

(below: entering Atwood Luke is clocked by the police radar at 13 mph below the speed limit, only exemplifying our crawling pace.)

We eventually finished chatting and gorging at the gas station and made our way to the public library to avoid the heat while catching up on facebook and such. We left the library around 5:00 and were hoping to make it to St. Francis, KS.

(below: the terrain changed dramatically after leaving Atwood to a more gradually rolling and eventually flat agricultural land)



below: flat wheat fields surround us as we approach McDonald KS. Combines follow behind Luke for awhile and we eventually evacuate to the side of the road allowing them to pass, but as we wait on the side of the road for them to pass, they turn off onto the road behind Nick.

Riding 45 miles after 5:00 was a bit ambitious, and we decide to call it quits at the first ice cream shop , located in Bird City, KS, some 15 miles east of St. Francis.


After sucking down milkshakes, we headed in to town to scrounge around for some lodging. A few houses in on the main drag we notice a man and a woman skanking it on their porch (note, skanking it is a term some friends and I use to describe the simply act of chilling; it has nothing to do with promiscuity). They inquired where we were traveling to and fro, and then I asked, "can we camp in your lawn?" They agreed and we let down our hair. Tony and Angel (the aforementioned they) offered us beer and egg rolls. We accepted them ravenously. Eventually Tony's sons, Tony and Steven emerged and hung out. We spent the next couple of hours eating, chatting about life in small town Kansas (having moved there from Denver only 2 years prior), and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

(below: Luke and Nick listen intently between bites of the most delicious egg rolls we ever consumed)

(below: Tony telling a good story while taking a break from congratulatoryily smacking Sam on his sunburnt back for being the smart one)


Thank you so much Tony, Angel, Tony, and Steven.

Morale. too high to move
Mileage. 60
Weather. hot and crispy