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08-16-04, 10:49 AM
Hey:
I believe one more day and I am out of Kansas. Its not that I don’t like this state the people have been very friendly and the drivers have been more than courteous with giving a wide amount of room BUT I am ready to see trees again and have some thing to block the wind.
The closest thing to a tree ive sen in a few days have been telephone poles. The wind is always blowing and seems no matter which way you go it is fighting you. The past two days its been a wind out of the south a cross wind although it is much better than a head wind it did slow me to an average speed of 9.8 mph for the day. The road is fairly flat and the scenery is pretty much the same right now . fields of corn and harvested wheat and freshly plowed up fields. It’s a good thing there has been some rain or there would be huge dust storms. There have been some really large cattle feed lots with cattle waiting for their turn to get made into your next steak dinner.
Speaking of cattle, I forgot to tell you a while back…. I passed an area that was rounding up cattle to go to market. There are these big ranches 1,000’s of Acers each. They had th9ese holding pens and ramps the semis would back up to load. The cow boys were all on horses and driving them across the fields into the pens whooping and hollering as they got them penned up they would run them through a gate and count them maybe 4 of them would count 5 at a time and tally it all up at the end I watched for a while as itr was kind of interesting.
Yesterday while 4rioding I started to think I had to be the only one still out here since I haven’t seen any cyclists in a number of days. Wouldn’t you know it? Right after I said that to myself I came up an a guy and his wife on a tandem. We stopped and talked a bit took some pictures they7 started by quitting there jobs as engineers in the automobile industry I Detroit sold their house and headed north of Fairbanks Alaska to begin their ride in May of this year. I got some good info about a road in Colorado that is unsafe and an alternate route..
I saw this guy riding an interesting bike he is another sort of engineer and developed a solar water pump he sells. Any way he took solar panels and mounted them to a trailer and attached the trailer to a bicycle with an electric motor he can cruise at 8 mph and no pedaling. He is headed to Denver to protest and demand to know where 5the government spent $290 Billion coming up with alternate energy and the price of gas is still going up and our dependence on foreign oil is increasing every day. So later in the week I see the news paper did an article on him maybe it hit the news in your area maybe it didn’t
The bike is holding up ok I really do need to get a new seat though once I get to pueblo I will take an extra day there and tune up the bike and replace the seat. My legs are tired right now its been a short day its early just about 11 am I got 30 miles in and am calling it a day to rest and attack the road worth fresh legs in the morning. The other alternative today is go another 60 miles since there isn’t much in between here and there. Because I don’t have a schedule to keep to I can afford to take a rest now .
I am looking forward to getting past pueblo and into some scenic places of Colorado even though it means serious climbing. Finding a natural hot springs some place along the way would be a dream
I believe one more day and I am out of Kansas. Its not that I don’t like this state the people have been very friendly and the drivers have been more than courteous with giving a wide amount of room BUT I am ready to see trees again and have some thing to block the wind.
The closest thing to a tree ive sen in a few days have been telephone poles. The wind is always blowing and seems no matter which way you go it is fighting you. The past two days its been a wind out of the south a cross wind although it is much better than a head wind it did slow me to an average speed of 9.8 mph for the day. The road is fairly flat and the scenery is pretty much the same right now . fields of corn and harvested wheat and freshly plowed up fields. It’s a good thing there has been some rain or there would be huge dust storms. There have been some really large cattle feed lots with cattle waiting for their turn to get made into your next steak dinner.
Speaking of cattle, I forgot to tell you a while back…. I passed an area that was rounding up cattle to go to market. There are these big ranches 1,000’s of Acers each. They had th9ese holding pens and ramps the semis would back up to load. The cow boys were all on horses and driving them across the fields into the pens whooping and hollering as they got them penned up they would run them through a gate and count them maybe 4 of them would count 5 at a time and tally it all up at the end I watched for a while as itr was kind of interesting.
Yesterday while 4rioding I started to think I had to be the only one still out here since I haven’t seen any cyclists in a number of days. Wouldn’t you know it? Right after I said that to myself I came up an a guy and his wife on a tandem. We stopped and talked a bit took some pictures they7 started by quitting there jobs as engineers in the automobile industry I Detroit sold their house and headed north of Fairbanks Alaska to begin their ride in May of this year. I got some good info about a road in Colorado that is unsafe and an alternate route..
I saw this guy riding an interesting bike he is another sort of engineer and developed a solar water pump he sells. Any way he took solar panels and mounted them to a trailer and attached the trailer to a bicycle with an electric motor he can cruise at 8 mph and no pedaling. He is headed to Denver to protest and demand to know where 5the government spent $290 Billion coming up with alternate energy and the price of gas is still going up and our dependence on foreign oil is increasing every day. So later in the week I see the news paper did an article on him maybe it hit the news in your area maybe it didn’t
The bike is holding up ok I really do need to get a new seat though once I get to pueblo I will take an extra day there and tune up the bike and replace the seat. My legs are tired right now its been a short day its early just about 11 am I got 30 miles in and am calling it a day to rest and attack the road worth fresh legs in the morning. The other alternative today is go another 60 miles since there isn’t much in between here and there. Because I don’t have a schedule to keep to I can afford to take a rest now .
I am looking forward to getting past pueblo and into some scenic places of Colorado even though it means serious climbing. Finding a natural hot springs some place along the way would be a dream