Day 49: rest day in Pueblo.
Last day of Week 7!! Time is flying by.
We enjoyed two nights hosted by warm showers host, Allen, who was so gracious as to feed us salmon, salads, pot pie, smoothies, and oatmeal.
For those who don’t know, warm showers is a network of cyclists who host other cyclists in their home for free. Hosts have no obligation to cook, so that was an added and welcome bonus. We also had a bed, a shower, and a prime location next to Burrito Betty’s where we had the best breakfast burritos ever made.
We are rested and ready to press on toward the Rockies tomorrow!
Days 48: 40 miles. Fowler to Pueblo
Well, I have not had good internet or any wifi, so blogging hasn’t been possible.
We had no wind or a tailwind all the way across Kansas, and for the last three days in Colorado. Can’t believe how lucky we have been. We do hear that the headwinds have been bad in the northwest so I imagine we will pay our dues at some point, but for the moment we are just enjoying it. And we are halfway there!!
Pueblo city: so much art and color and people and music and food!!
The cinnamon roll to kill all cinnamon rolls. Part of a breakfast that included an omelette and a huge pancake! 😂
On the way to Pueblo: One of our first views of the Rockies!
Prairie dog! Did you know they squeak to warn other prairie dogs you are there?
The landscape has changed: more hills, less grass, new birds. I hardly ever even see a red-winged blackbird anymore. I did see a swainson’s hawk the other day (a first for me). I ID’d it using my Merlin app. And the app picked up a blue goshawk, but I didnt see it. The eastern meadowlark has been my new companion. Their call has a similar quality as the wood thrush, which was a comfort in the hills of Kentucky and Virginia. Have I mentioned this yet? The song sounds a bit like tinker bell and it was such a contrast to the suffering of riding up those hills and the cacophony of crowing roosters and barking dogs I would listen for it and always find it. I knew it would disappear in the plains but have been happy to have the meadowlark in its stead. I wonder what birds will come next?
Max just graduated from Harvard and is riding from Washington to Cape cod before beginning a year as a research assistant.
Woke in one piece before heading to Pueblo. The nights storms skirted us repeatedly, but their constant threat weighed on us as we tried to sleep and their winds whipped our tents incessantly until about midnight. Quite a night!
Also, just realized I loaded the pics for this day all backwards. Ah well!
Here is the laundromat we planned to shelter in if a tornado came. You can see my tent in the background.
Day 47: 57 miles. Haswell to Fowler
We slept under threat of storm in Haswell too and also woke to sun after escaping serious weather.
My only granola had m&ms in it. FYI, not too yummy on oatmeal.
Beautiful skies all day.
And the black eyed Susan’s wouldn’t stop.
Some interesting bike art.
Grain silos sometimes look like skyscrapers in the distance.
The Arkansas river. Looking a bit muddy.
The town of Fowler train depot.
At first the office to our RV park was closed, and I thought uh oh, because we had nowhere else to stay. But I eventually found someone to check us in.
Then it was ice cream and off to the pool.
Day 46: 50 miles. Sheridan lake to Haswell
We rode a quick 30 miles with another tailwind then stopped for breakfast with David who spent the night in the Sheridan lake church with us. We had what has become a fave: an omelet and a stack of pancakes.
Then Deidre and I hung out in a Loves truck stop because there was no rush to get to Haswell where we expected no services. We thought we might shower but it was $16!
Eventually we got back on the road. The mild temps and tailwind are making this part of the trip, where we expected to suffer, quite easy.
That night we camped in this park with a pavilion, which was a relief as I thought we would be in a little field with no cover. The forecast was for storms.
If you zoom in you can see the falling down shed that is the outhouse!
The town was a mix of dilapidated buildings (this one was next to the park) and signs of life, like the cute post office.
Day 45: 100 miles from Dighton to Sheridan Lake
Kansas treated us well. I feel like we snuck through without waking a beast. No headwinds and in the last two days, no heat.
We have climbed to 4000 ft! And with the tailwind, we haven’t even noticed. That is going to change, but we have enjoyed it while it has lasted.
Although Kansas has been beautiful, the last miles today were very industrial. It’s as if the farm size has been growing as we have traveled west, with the little homesteads of Kentucky giving way to the bigger ranches and sweeping corn fields, all culminating with feedlots today and huge crops of wheat and corn managed using humongous equipment I have never seen before. There were also large pools of waste water along the side of the road to catch runoff. The sky was still amazing and every once in a while, a regular old green field gave me “something to lean my eyes against” as one farmer put it.
Our hotel this morning. The Deighton Inn.
We have been on rt 96 forever!
The CAFOs were hard to ride past. The stench was awful, and the cows just stared.
I donated my Colson Whitehead book to the public library in Leoti so I didn’t have to carry it. They had a vegetable garden out front!
Sometimes the approaching grain silos would look like a high rise, as if a city were on the horizon!
I met David who had been behind us for a few weeks. He is staying at the same church with us tonight and will pass us tomorrow. Good to see another cyclist and compare notes!
My lunch: I had to ask for a plain biscuit then I put cheese on it.
We made it to Colorado and the sign was missing!
These vast stretches of dead zone were demoralizing.
But still, I spent many hours cranking tunes from Steve’s most recent play list for me: Dollar Store Ditties and flying across Kansas. can’t believe our luck with the tailwind!
There are storms rumbling as I write, so I’m grateful for shelter in sheridan lake bible church!
And that’s my final Kansas post!
We got up to storms but persisted on in rain and dark. Felt a little risky so we will delay tomorrow if it is raining again. We discovered quickly that we had a bit of a tailwind that we hadn’t anticipated. I rode so fast I was 8 miles from our intended destination by 9:30 am. So we decided to go 10 miles further to the next town. I ate lunch there and waited for Deidre. The town had a bit of a creepy vibe, I have to say. So many businesses were closed. They had 3 hotels, all fallen into disrepair. This is common in so many of these towns. You see the dilapidated infrastructure of what used to be quaint and prosperous towns before all of the industry went overseas. This particular town even had an old building labeled “opera hall” that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades.
With nowhere to stay but the city park next to the rundown pool with no water in it, we decided to press on 30 miles to the next town and take advantage of the tailwind.
We are in a hotel that reminds me of the show Shitz Creek. It literally still has the original windows from the 50s, and maybe the same carpet. 😂 It also has the original shower built out of cinderblocks and tile. It’s pretty cool. But with that old vibe it also has a personal touch. Water in the fridge. Towels folded on our beds. Candy in a bowl. The lady at the front desk was really sweet. And we have a microwave where I heated my tomato soup for dinner. So no complaints here. Happy to have a bed!
The opera house with all the windows boarded up.
I thought this shed, painted with graffiti supporting a high school track team was cool. How fun that someone let the kids do that!
Silhouettes of native people on a hill? Don’t get me started.
A caravan with 4 of these oversized loads passed me today!
Have I mentioned there are oil wells all over Kansas?
This is half of our 1950s hotel room. We have the family suite with 4 double beds! We trashed it about 2 seconds after arriving with all of our wet stuff.
Day 43. 68 miles from Hutchinson to Great Bend, KS
A private place to pee. You gotta do what you’ve gotta do. With 30-40 miles between towns. This is what happens.
It’s amazing how hot it gets by 1 pm. We get up at 4 am and leave every day at 5 to try to arrive wherever we’re going by then. Today I arrived at 1:45 and that was a bit too late. It was 97 degrees by then. We were going to camp in a church pavilion surrounded by town folk setting off fireworks, but then the folks at the church invited us to sleep inside. So we are in a little bit of heaven.
It was a beautiful day riding by the Quivira National Wildlife refuge. So many birds! Lately I no longer hear the bobwhite. Only heard it once today. Today was all about the eastern king bird and the Baltimore oriole. I saw 4 or 5 of the latter!! I had only seen that bird a few times before. And then there was a wetland right in the middle of all the grass. We are reminded this used to be an ocean floor. I have to read more about that, but the soil is sandy and there is a beachy feel, which is so strange in Kansas (at least to me).
We started the day in the dark in town.
Then the sun rose and the moon stuck around.
Than the flocks of … starlings?
We got lucky when our side of the road had new pavement.
A random antelope! We also saw a town of prairie dogs, but no pics of that.
So many yellow flowers!
Who knew grass could be so beautiful?
Not a great pic but this is the wetlands—that’s water in the distance.
Mike and I chatted for a long time about riding in all the states, he was a wealth of information and energy!
I arrived just in time— before the heat really kicked in and my body gave out.
Donna and John welcomed us and set us up in central Baptist for the night. Thank you to them and the congregation. What would we do without so many kind people?
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