July 12, 2024
Day Twenty-eight: Valentine, Nebraska to Springview, Nebraska
I was tired after the long ride yesterday. I was only going to ride 50 miles today, so I didn't need to leave extremely early, although, given how hot it would get later, leaving as early as possible would have made more sense.
Instead I messed around in my room. I turned on the TV to a local station, KELO, mostly to see the weather forecast, but left it on while I did some chores. The station has branded its viewing area as "Keloland."
As in "Here's what's happening in Keloland today...", "It's going to be a hot one in Keloland!", "HyVee has recalled tainted cheese in the Keloland area", blah blah blah.
They must have repeated this irritating made-up word hundreds of times this morning.
I checked out the motel breakfast (adequate), and then, when I was finally outside, ready to ride at this ridiculously late hour, I spent some time talking to a 70-something motorcyclist. As expected, he had questions about my tires. He even squeezed both of them. I felt his judgment: I haven't inflated the tires since the beginning of this trip. I'm slightly afraid I'll break a valve stem or allow sealant to escape through the valve stem if I mess with them.
The motorcyclist said he was "jealous" of me. "Why?!" "Because you're in such good shape." I will shamelessly accept compliments like this while I'm bike touring.
I rode away. It was hot. I got on my route, which would be NE-12 all day. It was supposed to be a very low-traffic road, but it wasn't that empty. A lot of the traffic early on was converted school buses transporting paddlers and tubers to various points upstream on the Niobrara River.
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Another reason traffic today might have been heavier than usual: The motorcyclist had mentioned that there was a bridge out on US-20, and he and his group were going to have to detour around it.
Sure enough, about a half hour after I left, the motorcyclist and his friends passed me, all waving and giving the thumbs up sign.
Scenery was pleasant. A mix of sandhills and corn fields.
My map showed a community called Sparks. Wikipedia says it has a population of seven. I didn't have high hopes for it, so I was very happy to find, when I pulled off NE-12 onto a dirt road for a short distance, to find this great country store and post office.
I went inside, bought some drinks and strawberry Pop-tarts, and sat at a table with the woman running the place. I love this kind of community store. It was jam packed with all kinds of miscellaneous stuff. The woman, about my age or a little older, was friendly. She asked about traveling by bicycle, and I mentioned that I'd bike toured in 44 states. I was shocked when she told me she'd only been in FOUR states in her entire life!
I hung around longer than should have, given how hot it was getting. And now, for the first time on this trip, there was a little humidity, although nothing as severe as where I'm from.
Back on the road. The rest of the day, to my destination of the town of Springview, was not especially pleasant. I mostly had a cross wind, but a few times the road curved to the south, and I was blasted with a hot headwind.
Something I keep forgetting to mention in these daily writeups: On every bike tour, a different song gets stuck in my head for days at a time. On this tour, for at least the last ten days, that song has, unfortunately, been the 1970s gospel song "One Day at a Time". Why does someone like me, not religious in the slightest, even know this song? Because it was a constant presence in my childhood. My mother's side of the family contained several preachers, and people on her side of the family were constantly singing and playing this kind of stuff. For those who are not familiar with it, the lyrics are "One day at a time, sweet Jesus, that's all I'm asking from you."
My adapted version replaces "day" with "mile". The many cows I've passed seem bemused by my renditions of this modified version as I've passed them on many miles of empty roads.
I arrived in Springview, population 240. It seemed to have a lot for a town so small: A bustling convenience store, and small supermarket across the street, several open businesses. It didn't look like a ghost town.
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The first thing I did was find my lodging for the night, "Hiland House." The owner, a local ranchwoman, happened to be there when I arrived. The place appeared to have formerly been apartments for elderly people. (This was in fact what the lady at the Sparks store earlier had told me.)
It strongly resembled the apartment my grandmother lived in when she was in her 80s and 90s. A little kitchen. Same kind of carpet and linoleum. A shower designed for old people.
Before cleaning up, I walked the short distance to the convenience store, got a large fountain Diet Pepsi, ordered a pizza, then walked across the street to the supermarket to get a half gallon of chocolate milk, then, when the pizza was ready, took it all back to my old-person apartment.
Later I walked around town and took a few photos. Other people were out walking between the convenience store and the supermarket. The temperature still read 96 degrees on the sign outside the convenience store.
Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 1,859 miles (2,992 km)
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