June 8, 2015
Day 34: Dodge City, KS to Lakin, KS; Someone Bought Me Breakfast
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(Note to readers regarding the elevation profiles; the profile is calculated from Point "A" on the map to Point "B" on the map. Since I am traveling east to west on the first half of this transcontinental journey, my route of travel is usually shown on the map as being from right to left. However, the elevation profile is shown from left to right, so it must be "reversed" in your head to understand it.)
Climbing Today; 974 ft -- Total So Far; 83,205 ft
Like most mornings of late, I rose at 4:00 am. James and Daniel did so as well, as we all want to get in some cycling before the heat and wind gets crazy. We were all rolling at 5:30 am, and life was just peachy. Here's a shot of the Boot Hill Casino as we departed;
Hopefully no one will die and be buried with their boots on today. I didn't donate any gambling money to the casino during our stay, but we did enjoy supper there on both nights. As it is with every other casino I've visited, it's interesting to observe the folks that patronize these places. It's always sad to watch folks that can't afford to throw their money away do so. But now it's time to move on, and none of last night's casino patrons are up this early in the morn, so we have the road to ourselves.
The plan today is to reach Deerfield, KS and camp at a commercial facility called the Deerfield Beach Campground. We all traveled together for a while, but as usually happens we tend to move at our own pace and James has taken the lead, followed by me some distance back, and Daniel a bit farther back. Lots of rabbits were seen scurrying about this morning, and the sunrise was quite glorious, as seems to be the usual case. We have become accustomed to cycling for an hour or so and then watching the sun peep up in our rear-view mirrors.
Houses in the plains were once built into the side of a hill and constructed using sod. Tom Gay was a former Chief of the Engineering Geology Section, Geotechnical Branch, Engineering Division, Tulsa District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Tom was my boss when I transferred from the Little Rock District to the Tulsa District in 1977. He grew up near the small town of Freedom, OK and once lived in a sod house. While sod houses are no longer used for residences, hybrid homes are still built using the earth for insulation. Here's one I passed this morning;
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As always, I was hungry after cycling for a couple of hours. Cimarron is located at the crossroads of highways 50 and 23 and is big enough to have a few stores and even a stoplight. Rolling into Cimarron I was hoping for a cafe, and I found one. I stopped at Richie’s Café for some breakfast, walked inside, and was greeted by the local breakfast gang consisting of a few farmers and merchants. I didn't want to waste much of the cooler (well, not-as-hot might be a better descriptor) morning time, so I ordered biscuits and gravy and made quick work of it. Imagine my surprise when I went to pay and was told that a lady who had left earlier had bought my breakfast because her son was also a cyclist! My reply was “She shouldn’t have done that,” but it made my day. What a nice gesture, made all the more pleasant by the stealthy way she did it. I’ll have to remember and do that myself sometime.
At 33 miles into today’s ride, I reached a milestone as I logged 2000 miles on this journey. Gee whiz; the daily challenges have kept me so busy that it seems like I just started yesterday, how could I have possibly traveled this far already? But as I looked back and thought of the hardships in crossing the Appalachians and Ozarks and the present challenges with the wind and heat in Kansas, I begin to recall each day and it hit home; I really HAVE traveled this far, and I was feeling pretty good about it. Barring some strange unforeseen incident, I should make my goal of Pueblo and maybe even get just a wee bit farther down the road.
Navigation is certainly easy out here; you can see where you are going for many miles ahead. A cyclist can easily see things ahead that will take more than an hour to reach. The grain tower in the center of the photo below is only about 3 miles away, but the one to the right of it that's barely visible over the horizon is 15 miles away in the town of Pierceville.
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As I rolled westward I came upon this sign;
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Uhh.. I think it wouldn't be possible to get this far into Kansas and not be aware of the wind currents. Certainly so if you are traveling by bicycle; the cross-winds have tossed us around like rag dolls and the headwinds are enough to make one cry, or at least cause you to go a little insane. To be fair to Kansas, though, the truth is that we have been lucky and have had very little headwind to contend with; we certainly haven't endured any strong all-day headwinds, and for that I'm quite grateful. And the tailwinds; what tailwind? I have been dreaming of a great tailwind, but the very best we get is a slight tailwind component from a mostly south cross-wind. This morning our route out of Dodge City has us heading northwest and we were hoping for a slight tailwind component from the predominant south winds, but no such luck; we actually have a headwind to add to today's challenge. So be it then - "one bite at a time" I mutter to myself as I roll along. Kansas is a ripe area for wind power, and we have passed a lot of wind turbines along our route, most recently in the stretch east of Dodge City. At least twice a day an over-sized load has passed me, consisting of a turbine to be placed on a newly-built wind tower. On the outskirts of Garden City I found the source area of these turbines as there were acres of ground covered with them;
Apparently there were quite a few wind turbines being built in Kansas. That's good news; maybe enough wind towers will absorb all the wind energy and life will be easier for us cross-country cyclists; :>) Garden City, KS is no garden. But it’s not a bad place. I took the business route through town so I could find a place to eat and stock up on groceries for camping later. I found a barbecue place with a buffet special that fit my needs, and as I cycled on I came upon a Dillon’s grocery store where I picked up some can goods for supper, instant oatmeal for breakfast, and an apple and orange for good measure. I stopped at the last convenience store prior to getting back on U.S. 50 and had a chocolate milk and bought some allergy medicine and batteries for my portable Bluetooth keyboard, then I was ready to roll on.
I had passed a coffee shop in the downtown area and thought that would be a nice place to chill out for a while, but I thought that Daniel and James were ahead of me so I should push on. However, somehow they had gotten behind me in the city, and when they discovered the coffee shop they both decided to chill there for a bit. Daniel texted me, and I doubled back right away; the afternoon sun was punishing, and waiting it out for an hour or two was okay by me. And so we chilled;
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There was a Mexican restaurant next to the coffee shop, and that was too tempting to pass up, so we all ate there. Mounting up, we headed out of town and I snapped this pic on the outskirts.
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No offense intended to the local folk, but from what I saw I don't think that diet plan is working very well. We rode on towards our campground for the night, the Deerfield Beach Campground. When we reached Deerfield, we all agreed that we felt fresh enough to do a bit more tonight (I suppose we were all powered by refried beans and salsa), so we pondered our options and cycled on to the KenArk hotel in Larkin. For $66, in cash, we got a single room and a double room. The place was a dump; you get what you pay for, but there were no other hotels within 30 miles and we needed to crash. As usual, to avoid as much of the heat and wind as we reasonably can, we plan a 4:00am wakeup and 5:30 rollout tomorrow morn. Good night all…
Today's ride: 80 miles (129 km)
Total: 2,047 miles (3,294 km)
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