You're Not in Kansas Anymore? - July 17, 2007

 You’re Not in Kansas Anymore?

(July 17, 2007)

 

I haven’t had time to update lately because I’ve been putting effort into pedaling westward. I am now in Overbrook, Kansas and just had lunch at Conrad’s Bar and Grill. The food was great and I had a long talk with the owner, Mary Boos, who has a diabetic daughter. Sadie, now 21, was diagnosed at four, currently attends college, and has decent control of her disease. (That means she watches everything she eats and takes her shots as needed.) Mary donated $100 and gave me a free meal.

Sitting in the library just now feels good...but outside it feels...not like Kansas...like Saudi Arabia. 

Lord, it’s hot!

 

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“Pull off two tens.”

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Most days, I bike about eighty miles now (531 in my first week back on the road). Sometimes not in the right direction, though. Once I got lost in Missouri and went in rectangles around various cornfields, trying to figure out where I was going. Nowhere, it turned out. Another night I went ten miles out of the way to find a state campground. The campground hosts, Mickey and Patty Smith, gave me coffee next morning, and we ended up discussing Abraham Lincoln for most of an hour. I think Mrs. Smith said she dropped out of high school when young. But they both picked up an interest in our sixteenth president on their own and seemed to know as much as I did.

Another night, near Muscoutah, Illinois, I ran out of light and found myself riding into town as darkness was falling. A gentleman on a motorcycle pulled alongside, put it in low gear, and asked where I was headed. When I told him I was riding for diabetes he reached in his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, and reached them out to me. “Pull off two tens,” he said, “for a good cause.” I thought about grabbing the whole wad but knew I wouldn’t be able to make a getaway. So I took the money without stopping and he told me to have a safe trip and roared away. That night I had to camp in a cornfield again, but felt good about the kindness of those I’ve met on this ride.

Probably my best camping spot was one I stumbled on while riding the Katy Trail, not far from Columbia, Missouri. The KT is an old rail line (Kansas and Topeka) paved with gravel and good for bicycling. For twenty miles or so it follows the Missouri River, past cliffs pocked with caves. It was an enjoyable ride, and I was soon able to pitch my tent ten feet from the riverbank. Once again, I did the “pioneer shower” by jumping in the Missouri.

My tent on the banks of the Columbia River. 

Everything looks good. I am in touch with nature. I can hear fish leaping and falling back in the water. I can hear geese overhead. A nice couple (who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons) comes over from a nearby campsite and offers a beer. They inform me their family and friends are out on a boat and will be pulling in soon. Sure enough, the boat comes in soon after and fifteen young men and women disembark. (They have a floating trampoline they are towing behind their vessel, which looks like fun.) But it quickly becomes apparent their main cargo is beer. Not counting a lot of beer they have already consumed!

The group offers me another beer, which I accept, and later a steak off a grill they set up. Soon it’s dark. I need to rest up. So I decline the steak (having eaten at a buffet earlier) and turn in to sleep. At midnight my neighbors are still drinking and partying and the sounds of nature are drowned out by, “F- this,” and “f-that.” Indeed, the drunks apparently know only one adjective. As in: “f-ing beer! f-ing river! f-ing boat! f-ing steaks!” Thankfully, a storm rolls in with enough rain to chase them away...or so I imagine. A few of the “f-ing woosies” pack it in and go to their tents. But the dedicated drunks ignore the downpour and keep on f-ing drinking. Finally, round 2 a.m. everyone runs out of alcohol and f-ing enthusiasm wanes and everyone (including me) drifts off to sleep.

Riding the next day was hard. And not to seem petty: but I hope the knuckleheads who kept me up half the night had hangovers to die from.

You roll out of bed and get back on the bike. 

Alcoholics aside, people could not be more considerate. I camped one night at Pere Marquette Park, near the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. There I met Ted and Jan Werner, who invited me to their trailer for breakfast. Jan wrote out a $50 donation to JDRF and went further, packing lunch. Ted pumped up my tires – and I’m embarrassed to admit how low they were: 25 pounds pressure in the front, 34 in the back.

Like riding on flats.

Missouri was beautiful and I enjoyed crossing the state. In fact, as soon as I passed the Mississippi (on a ferry near Grafton) I felt better, like I was making progress.

Yesterday, July 16, I rode 90 miles. I was excited at lunch to cross paths with a group of bicyclers headed east from Colorado to homes in Milwaukee. Leader was Ron Haggard, a middle school teacher like myself, and the group included another adult (whose name I failed to catch) and four young men, Ron’s students. He has led several rides and had as many as 15 kids in his groups, and I think he said one year they rode from Florida to Maine. It was a pleasure to talk to people who could relate to what I’m doing. The four young men looked like they were in fine shape and I was impressed with their attitudes. They were wiry fellows, like Pony Express riders. No unnecessary ounces on these young men! Ron wished me luck, paid his bill, then came back and handed me $20 for JDRF. The second leader paid, came back, and donated, too.

I also admit I stopped one afternoon to visit a riverboat casino. A state law requires you to show ID and get a card which is inserted in the slot machines. This limits all losses to $500 in any two-hour period...so that the addicted gambler is – what - protected?

 

Yeah, from losing the house all in one day!

I sat down at a quarter slot, put in my card, fed in a twenty and started gambling. There were no tokens to insert and no jangling when winnings came raining down in a tray, as I remembered from trips to Nevada casinos in the past. Only a light signaled “wins.” So I started with a credit of 80 and kept hitting “play 3.” Every so often I “hit big,” for 2 credits! My gambling career was soon over. It went like this. Play 3, lose. 77 credits. Play 3, lose. 74. 71. 68. Hit 2. 70. 67. 64. 61. 58. Hit 2. 60. 57. 54. 51...rapidly dwindling to zero. It was as much fun as putting quarters in a Coca-Cola machine and watching nothing come out. And then doing it twenty-five times.

Heck with that...I wasted twenty dollars and was soon pedaling across America again. Poorer but wiser, I guess.