Well, only a week into middle America and I now have a new outlook. Though Kansas is indeed a pretty flat land this place has given me some real ups and downs. Put simply, I'm still very much riding through rocky terrain. Have fun with this post and don't be alarmed. Though a little put off I'm still strong in spirit and have had a great time even when sidelined at the worst--and yesterday it got bad. Here goes, enjoy...
My entry into Kansas proved quick and mostly easy. It was my pleasure to leave the congested city streets of greater Denver and rejoin the rural highways that are my bread and butter. Colorado was beautiful as some of my prior pictures can attest but there are a plethora of reasons why bike routes avoid big cities. Shoddy roads, cross-traffic, distracted drivers, non-existent shoulders, choking exhaust fumes, Denver had its share. Well, on a day that the eastern end of the Rockies were sucking a weather front dry, I was pushed out of the state by strong winds. Not always with me, they did help me put down two consecutive one hundred mile days.
Small town camping has been comfortable if not warm out here. City parks were easy to find and very hospitable. Ashton, KS had a beautiful park at the edge of a dry lake supplied with wood stacked around its large barbecues. It was the first night of this whole trip I'd had my own fire. I roasted some large rocks and brought them into my tent for a little extra warmth. Good thing. Despite descending below 4000 feet, I'm still waking up to below 40 degree temps.
The day after Ashton was warm if not hot. The temp was somewhere in the 80s and with that came extra activity amongst the local critters. I'd been lucky to see an absence of bugs on most of this trip and it was around this time that I came across my first live snakes. Two days ago I actually ran over one too small to catch my wandering eye until I was right on top of his tail. Anyway, struggling into the town of Norton on Saturday I saw a drivers license on the side of the road. I stopped, picked it up, and wondering why it was sitting there all alone, set my bike down to take a wider look around. Sure enough, further off the road and fifteen feet behind me I found a cluster of cosmetics surrounding an open purse. I spent ten minutes putting nearby business cards and sunglasses back in it and then rode off in search of a place to camp and a cold beer--I was anxious to see how Cal was faring at UCLA (damn Bruins got the best of my Bears).
After a beer and my typical dinner of cold Top Ramen and mashed up peanut butter sandwiches I called home. My internet-savvy folks were able to put a local phone number to the name on the ID I'd found. I called and left a message on a nondescript answering service. Sure enough, I was awakened at eleven by a frantic sounding woman inquiring about her purse. I told her where I was camping in Norton's sizable park and she promptly arrived to claim her property, all of which I'd found. It seems her purse wasn't stolen but simply left on the roof of her car which makes sense being that I found it at the beginning of a curve. Asking if I wanted some sort of reward I told her I'd settle for a picture to help tell the story and she was back on her happy way.
Reward? Hell no! So many people have done so many nice things for me out here that I was just glad to be able to return a favor. Finding her purse filled up my karmic tank. But only a little as I would soon find out.
It's rare that all the elements of the road align for a perfect day and Kansas hasn't been the exception. While nice to have flat terrain, north winds have proven a continuing problem and in Norton I awoke to a Sunday anything but. The night's low temperature became the day's high under the cloud of impending rain. Not wanting to waste a day, I raced through some light drizzle to a hotel for my first shower in 300 plus miles over the four mostly warm and dusty days since Denver.
Starting a day warm is a real help on the road. And as I've moved further east into Kansas, sanctuary has met me along the way. Inquiring about the legality of camping in the city of Lincoln's park, the gentleman chaperon of a group of boys I'd asked there made me a proposition. If I'd tell his cub scout troop about my adventure he'd let me crash in their sizable cabin situated in the park's center. Deal. The kids wore dumbfounded expressions as I explained what I was doing but did ask some pretty good questions about how I operate. Thinking on this reveals much. Most people ask me less how I do this than why, to which I reply that it's all about what I see. Ultimately that all depends on where--and who--I am. Such are adventure's revelations.
Now a great deal of the beauty of this solo trip is that I follow the whims of nature. I go where the roads, winds and my spirit take me. My methods and goal are fluid generalities. I wear no watch nor do I follow a set path. Well, I should have known that putting constrains on the game would not bode well. But in an effort to visit with people in central and eastern Kansas I've packaged and portioned my routine. I've set constraints and targets, scheduling myself for a series of three straight nights with family and friends. It was a long day that brought me to Herington, one fraught with troublesome roads, winds and finally two broken spokes. But I did make my destination just after sunset on Monday and was rewarded with great company, food and a warm bed. From there though, I had before me one hundred plus miles to make it to my friend Shanna's home in Lawrence. This was doable. I figured that as long as I started early I'd have no problem. I was wrong.
Yesterday my karmic tank ran dry. The day started great but quickly devolved as the morning stillness gave way to gusty winds pushing me back from my destination. At a crossroads I found myself blown into a lose-lose situation. I'd spent the morning getting beaten up by nasty cross-winds on a road with no shoulder. This posed a relative danger when being passed by large trucks. Think Maverick and Goose getting caught in Iceman's jetwash. Forget the delay, I was getting tossed around bad on Highway 56. So at the junction with Interstate 335 that cut my nasty grid route short with a near-direct shot to Lawrence safely but slowiy right into the wind I opted to change course. Avoiding the toll collector who wouldn't have let me onto the road, I ventured into the illegal. Winds and damaged bike (turns out I had three broken spokes, not two) I had my thumb out as I rode on the clean, wide shoulder of the freeway. Who would find me first, a sympathetic driver or the state police? Though it took eight miles over the course of a whole hour, I finally had my answer.
You know, there are a couple of my friends who would say that no cross-country trip is complete without an encounter with the law. Well, been there done that yesterday--times three. The first little piggy (sorry, poetic license precedes my real sense of respect for the profession) told me to get off the highway. So I rode on looking for an offramp not knowing that I was in the middle of a 28 mile stretch of road with no exit. The second watched me approach an overpass that I actually climbed the slope of only to discover that it was a dirt road going nowhere that I could see. Just shy of the very next overpass came cop number three. As soon as he exited the car I knew speaking wouldn't do me any sort of good as I watched his hands go to his cuffs and his cuffs go to my wrists. I got tossed in the Osage County slammer for violating section number 68-2004 of the vehicle code, 39-1-1(B): riding a bicycle on the Kansas Turnpike/I-335. I had my silly bike helmet strapped to my head the whole time. Quiet, then talkative, always polite I rejoined the flow after unwisely fighting the winds of the road. Deep inside I was kind of laughing. I knew this whole thing wouldn't amount to much and I was right.
The officer who took me in told the jailers that I was extremely compliant and I was the same with them. So much so that they had me in and out in less than an hour on a $250 bond, enough under my cash on hand to afford me a taxi (coincidence?). At first I was pushing for them to keep me overnight so I wouldn't have to inconvenience my friend who was expecting me. I'm glad I waited to make a phone call to the parents to alert the web of my latest overnight whereabouts since I was out so soon. On the street I remembered that they hadn't given me back my medication. Upon it's retrieval, the woman jailer who had gotten a kick out of my adventure and was also from California told me that she put out on the police dispatch that I would be walking north on Topeka Blvd. Sure enough, not five minutes later a local county sheriff pulled up and welcomed me into his K-9 unit and, after conversing with Shanna, drove me to a convenient rendezvous location with my friends. Only living a life like this can you follow up a cold trip to jail in cuffs with a personal police escort back to the closest home of sorts the Topeka area had to offer me.
I had a great second dinner (California jails have a lot to learn, in the hour I was in I was served a ham sandwich dinner) amongst a lot of laughs with Shanna Morgan Kimzey and her family. After another warm night's sleep and a trip to a Topeka towing facility this morning, I'm back on the road. A short day today to the home of another family friend and then I'll realign myself and my now fixed bike fully to flow of the winds and road, south and east and onward to the Atlantic. Almost November, 2000 miles and a month in, I'm well on my way and looking forward to whatever the miles have to bring--ups, downs, and all.
Until next time,
-Tony
Thursday, October 26, 2007
P.S. As soon as I got my property back on the way out of the slammer I snapped a few pictures. Here's my self taken mug shot and a view of my cell. Believe you me when I say these were luxury accomodations.
