Tough Times

Rolling "Hills" with bluestem grasses where they did cattle drives

Smart cows - it was darned hot (96+)

A hill in Kansas

Mini oil rig, another common sight in E. Ks

I expected Kansas to be easy. Flat, breezy, sunny with the occasional tornado, and easy. For the past two days, I've been pedaling at least as hard as I was in the Blue Ridges and only having slightly better speeds. The prairies are lovely - lush green, spots of trees and scrub, sapphire blue lakes (and muddy creeks). Eastern Kansas does have some gentle changes in terrain (not exactly true hills, but it isn't truly flat either). Most of the area is dedicated to cows and corn, and most of what we've been passing has just been fenced-in grasslands. The problem comes when you add heat (our days start before 7:00 with temperatures in the high 70s), humidity (never below 70%), and the wind. Oh the wind. Though the weather channel usually claims something around 15 with gusts up to 23mph, this wind feels insane. There are a few different feelings you get riding in such constant, blustery wind. The one that predominated the day yesterday was that of the wind wrapping around everything. I could feel the eddies being created on the right side of my body, and it felt like I had some kind of clothing on my lower legs while pedaling. After a bit, I couldn't tell which direction the wind was blowing without looking at the grass because it was pushing on every available piece of skin. Today, the wind made it feel like there was some wall pressing against my side or lead bricks connected to the sheltered half of my body. The wind controls speed too, of course. There was definitely a threshold (even in a headwind) around 7-8mph that the wind wouldn't let me drop below and wouldn't let me get far beyond. Yesterday, we did 65 miles from Chanute to Eureka, and none of that was with a tailwind. Today we did 35 miles (20 off route) in to El Dorado, and all of it was with a headwind. 50 miles over the past two days have been on a major US highway (only one beep), and the pressure fronts coming off the passing traffic are crazy tough to deal with. I'm already leaning with most of my weight in to the wind, and I get pushed a few feet one way or another whenever something passes moderately close to me. Wahoo. Most of my focus has been on staying upright the past couple of days. Beyond that, I keep my head down and keep pedaling. Since I've been staying in survival-mode, I haven't paid too much attention to the surroundings. Dad's at about the same point, though he's also been dealing with hamstring cramps. Tomorrow we'll continue off-route through the northern part of Wichita and go back toward route and Hutchinson. It will be yet another long ride, but Kansas it all about convincing yourself to keep turning the wheels. There isn't much to stop you, but there's certainly enough from the sun and wind to discourage ya. Speaking of sun, over the past couple of days, I've managed to get quite nasty sunburns. I've been applying/reapplying sunscreen like mad, but I don't think the spray stuff we've been using works to well. We're switching over to the other form my mom brought now that I have a thin line of 3rd degree on my leg (ouch). The high mileage days also have my saddle sores in horrible shape. Anti-monkey-butting frequently; hope it helps.

Kansas Time

Giant turtle - turtles and frogs have been quite common in MO

We went through Houston and Texas County, but a longhorn?

They have odd signs in Kansas

Flat, but still Missouri

Kansas and western Missouri are pretty flat places, and there's been a lot of rain around here recently (approximately 10 inches within the week). As such, our travel has been humid and threatened by flooding. Actually, all the creeks we've passed have looked quite full. The puddles have also looked like whitewater with all the wind. No problems yet, but when we left Everton yesterday, we had to get the owner of the lodge thing to check out the roads we were headed toward. We hung out for a bit, waiting for a storm to clear, but eventually, we got on the road for a 65 mile ride to Pittsburg, Kansas. The morning was chilly, windy, humid, with some rolling hills (down to a creek and then back up to the fields), but it quickly got sunny, humid, and flat. We had a 15-20mph wind kicking most of the day, and while it was a cross wind/tailwind for the first half of the day, the second half was all headwind. 30 miles in, we hit our one town (and water resupply point). Getting in to town, we had 4 miles of the tailwind, and I didn't drop below 20mph that entire stretch (wahoo). Golden City, MO has a locally-famous diner named Cooky's, and they had some wonderful food, wonderful pies, and wonderful people. We ate a ton, hit the road, and for the next 20+ miles we had a pretty annoying headwind. We were both kinda struggling (heat, windburn, sunburn, cramps = sucks), but we finally hit the state line (at around 58 miles) and a gas station (yay V8). 7 miles later, we hit the hotels/restaurants/grocery stores and collapsed.
This morning, we got out early for another 60 mile day (into Chanute, KS). The terrain is as expected (flat), and we made it 40 miles by 11:00. Heat indexes were over 100 today, and once the sun came out, our abilities deteriorated. We did have some lighter wind, and we did manage to keep our speed up a little. Tomorrow is looking even hotter. Yerg.

Yee Haw

So, I definitely feel like an Alabama girl right now. I'm sitting on a camo couch with a cold beer (that I was drinking as I cooked tonight). There are antlers, skins, stuffed birds, and a bunch of things related to hunting dogs all around me, and I'm feeling pretty comfy. We had a 57 mile ride today, and we've ended up in a pretty awesome little hunting-lodge-type place. The day started off cool and humid, with some really awesome little rolling hills that were close enough together that you could use the speed off one downhill to get up and over the next rise. Dad and I were having a blast, but the day got hotter, and the rolling hills grew some teeth. I was mildly sweaty, which meant that dad was soaked (and, as a result, not feeling wonderful). We both needed more salt, and we were popping Nuun (think gatorade meets airborne tablets) like mad. We stayed well taken care of, though, since there were gas/grocery type places pretty well spaced out. From Marshfield, we went through Fair Grove, Walnut Grove, Ash Grove, Grove Grove, Grove Grove Grove, Groovey Grove (ok, so the last three might not be real), and finally ended up just outside of Everton (complete with camoflauge furniture). The owners of the place are super nice, and everything's on the honor system. We did have some ridges up from creeks today, but nothing like the Ozarks. We flatten out tomorrow and head into Kansas (one step closer to Colarado = excitement). Tomorrow is gonna be tough, though. We have a 60+ mile day, and there's only one place to resupply between here and our destination. Eek. Hopefully we'll both be feeling good and we'll find enough water to get us there in one piece.

My uterus is trying to kill me...

30 mile ride today, complete with cramps the entire way. My legs felt ok, but it is pretty darn tough to pedal 30 miles when nearly all of your abdominal muscles are hurting. We got to Marshfield pretty early in the day (even after a late start due to rain). Was a humid ride with more rolling hills (perhaps more descending than climbing). And we got a hotel and some wireless for the evening. Since Farmington, my ear's been getting better and my asthma has calmed down a bit (for those of you who worry far too much). Altitude chart looks like we'll be flattening out again soon, and we're within a few days of Kansas. Wahoo. Also almost done with a book about philanthropy and Africa. Hoping to start one on immigration soon. If you have any reading suggestions, let me know, cause I'm really enjoying having books on the trail.

Some more distance - Summersville to Hartville

Lunch. Yum.

We managed to recover pretty well with all the catfish and sleep. Thus, once we were out of the Ozark Rivers (which were the same teal color as the Buffalo in Arkansas), we were feeling a ton better on the rolling hills that were still at some elevation (around 1500 here). We got out of Summersville early, made it to Houston by 10. Got a second breakfast and tried to get mail (hadn't arrived, so we forwarded whatever may come). We were heading for Bendavis, but we got there early, and the one store (which was also the one place to camp) was closed. This also meant that our lunches consisted of snickers and cliff bars. We took another 17-20 miles to get to Hartville for a grand total of 66 miles. It was mostly rolling, with a few hills, though none as steep as the ones in the Ozarks (a semi-reliable source says there were some 17-24% grade hills there). The day was perfect for riding though. It started out with 20 miles in a cool, overcast mist, and then, we had about 10 miles with clouds, 10 miles with sun and no wind, and 20 miles with sun and wind. A ton of trucks with horse trailers passed us on this ride and the ride through the Ozarks, but the drivers in this part of Missouri are generally better to be on the road with. In other words, I didn't think I was about to die every 4 minutes. Yay. We got to Hartville, didn't like the look of the courthouse lawn, so went to a town park by a lake. There was a group of trucks chillin and playing music, a group of trucks there for a coon dog trial (no Louisa, alack), and a little girl who was determined to tell me about the 5 sheep who she was goiong to have when she grew up. They were going to eat orange juice and milk out of bike bottles, but they would still be thirsty. The story kinda made my night. The coon dogs were awesome, and after showing (think AKC meets hoedown) the dogs, they went off somewhere to see how many coons the dogs could tree. We set up our tent, as did another cyclist doing sections of the transam, and I got to sleep in short order. A thunderstorm came in around 5am, so we got up and attached the fly. I was pretty happy with the day though; the legs felt great.

The Ozarks - I guess they are real hills

We got up in Ellington thinking we had 70 miles in us for the day. Ate some oatmeal, drank some water, and headed off into the mountains. We had 30 miles before a resupply point, and we were traveling through the Ozark National Scenic Riverways area. It was gorgeous, but we were getting our butts kicked. We both bonked multiple times before making Eminence - the town at the 30 mile point. The think about seeing scenic rivers is that you climb a ridge, then descend to the river, then climb the next ridge. Continue that pattern for a while, and ya start getting a little tired. It was a warm day out, with less wind than we needed, and we worked pretty hard to get 45-50 miles to Summersville. There was one OJ stop that had 40 hummingbirds visiting something like 6 feeders on the porch. Twas insane, but awesome. I had my second mini-crash going up a hellacious hill from one of the rivers (by the town of Alley Spring), when I shifted and my gears didn't. The road was steeply banked, and I couldn't get my foot unclipped in time, so I fell over sideways going about 2mph to the amusement of a car coming my way and another a bit behind me. Just a few bruises, but since it was at the bottom of the hill, I got to push my loaded bike up a crazy steep hill. There was only one really good view of the mountains, but it was lovely and forrested. Just sad that we were struggling and bypassing so many canoe/tube rental spots on the birthday. I'll get over it soon. We did get plenty of catfish for lunch and dinner and got to sleep in a cozy little place in Summersville.

Farmington to Ellington

This is where we sleep about an eighth of the time

Fallen trees and messed up gears on a hill

Missouri drivers east of the Ozarks are jerks (and yes, that is censored from what I actually think of them). The truckers here are a heck of a lot sketchier than anything in Kentucky, and I just don't enjoy feeling the draft of an 18-wheeler sucking me in toward the very large wheels. I'm also not a fan of being cussed out by 70-year-old couples driving tan Buicks. Or being honked at, swerved toward, yelled at, or driven off the road. But between the point where we crossed into Missouri and Ellington, that's exactly what happened. We took a 68ish mile day out of Farmington (where we had an awesome Hawaiian shaved ice, an useful doctor's visit - yay inhalers, and a good night's sleep) into the beginnings of the Ozarks. The weather was sunny, windy, and good riding weather. There've been a ton of downed trees in Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri, both from the states trying to get stuff away from the roads and power lines and from recent storms. The rivers in Missouri have looked a ton better than the ones in IL and KY - less muddy, less smelly, more enticing as swimmin' holes. :) We ran into another dad and college kid who were doing a flip-flop on the transam and spent the night with them in the town park in Ellington. Though we were a little tired coming into Ellington, I felt ok for the next day.