June 12, 2006
Day 33: Golden City to Chanute: I JUST RODE MY BIKE ALL THE WAY FROM VIRGINIA TO KANSAS!!!
I was planning to spend lots of time here in Pittsburg, KS getting this website updated and eating real food, but it's blissfully cool today, and I don't have a headwind, so y'all are just gonna have to wait. Today I gotta ride!
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Later...
Woke up to my cell phone alarm in the Golden City hostel and rolled out of bed. I hadn't gotten to sleep very early and wasn't very excited to get up until I remembered my BlueGoose breakfast pie in the fridge. This is why I bike. So I can eat pie for breakfast (actually, it was sugar free, so it wasn't QUITE so bad for me!)
I had a short day planned to Pittsburg where I wanted to catch up on my woefully neglected journal and eat some ethnic food (c'mon, there's gotta be ethnic food somewhere in a college town!), so I rolled out of town in the cool morning, happily heading west for the Kansas border. I'm so excited for Kansas. It's flat. Even if the wind isn't ideal, it's flat. I know how to deal with that. The one mile x one mile grid system of the flat Midwest was coming into focus on my map as I made a run for the border. I stopped at the little convenience store just before the state line to get a substandard snack and contemplate entering my next state. I also needed to contemplate my plan for the day since I'd picked up a little bit of a rare tailwind and the overcast, almost dreary, sky seemed to be keeping temps in check.
I was a little lonely, though, too. I wanted to share this border crossing with someone, wanted someone to be excited that I'd made it this far, so when I got to the 'welcome to Kansas' sign, I tried to call a couple of people. No one answered their phones, so I called the Writing Lab I work in to talk to our office manager Hsiao-Ming. She's been such a huge supporter of the trip-buying a map and tracking my route in the office, paying for a hotel night in Kentucky when I was soaking wet, and handing out my website info to friends and students. We talked for a few minutes, then I headed on the few miles to Pittsburg.
By the time I got to the library, I knew I didn't want to stop in Pittsburg for the night. I just couldn't let the tailwind and cool temps go to waste. I spent about 45 min at the library checking email and posting a brief update (oh, and paying bills ), asked the librarians about the best ethnic food around, and headed to Frontera. I was really hoping for something a little more exotic than Mexican food, but it was really good. And they had Pepsi. I stayed too long talking to the workers and getting refills, but the wind was still with me when I left.
Girard didn't get much of my attention, but I'd been advised to keep an eye out for some large Pepsi formations along the next stretch of highway. Just when I'd almost given up hope of finding them, they appeared at a gas station in Walnut. Large storage tanks cleverly disguised as Pepsi, Mt. Dew, and Diet Pepsi. And they were being repainted. It was my lucky day! The guys handed me a brush and let me join in for a moment (ok, just long enough for the photo op), laughing at my trans-national Pepsi quest. Inspired, I chugged down a Pepsi in the store and headed toward Chanute and a 90+ mile day.
Lost the tailwind somewhere along the way but was still trying to figure out how to make this a 100 mile day. The Chanute campground was on the south side of town, and there weren't other options for more than 30 miles, so Chanute it was.
As I pulled into the park, I saw tents. And bikes! Lots of them! I had finally caught up with the Adventure Cycling group. I knew they couldn't be far ahead of me, and the lady at the store in Walnut said a bunch of bikers had been in during the day. Given the time she'd seen them, I was pretty sure they'd be here, but it was great to finally meet them. I pulled into camp right before their dinner time, and they offered to let me eat and camp with them. WooHoo!
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Post-dinner, I listened to their stories and shared a couple of my own. Some of them seem pretty tired, but they look like they're a pretty laid back group overall. I'll probably end up riding with them tomorrow, too, since Eureka makes the most sense as the next stop. Talked to Alvin, the leader, quite a bit tonight about Adventure Cycling's leadership training and his role as a leader (ok I didn't really talk that much! Alvin likes to talk and was excited to share his experiences). That was one big reason I wanted to catch up with the group. I'd thought about doing their training next year and wanted to hear more about it than I'd been able to find online. It was well past my bedtime by the time we quit talking, and Alvin says the group gets up pretty early. Guess that means I will be, too!
FOLLOW UP: Apparently someone in the group had seen the brief message I'd posted from the Pittsburg library when they arrived at the Chanute library, so when he saw me rolling in, he told the group, 'If you look over there, you'll see Joy rolling into camp' (or something like that). So when I introduced myself, it surprised a few people that he was correct! I thought that was pretty impressive until I was told later on that someone else in the group had just had a dream about a young lady showing up at the camp in Chanute. Creepy
Today's ride: 94 miles (151 km)
Total: 1,692 miles (2,723 km)
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