Yesterday was quite an eventful day. First of all, I was riding "sweep". [Everyday two riders are the designated sweep riders, which means that they wear awesome bright yellow sweep capes and they stay in the back, carry med kits and make sure everyone is okay. You ride the whole day with your sweep partner and stop everytime another rider has a flat, does into a diner to eat, stops by a lake to swim, or just tools around in a small town. So it makes for a long, long, but rewarding day because you end up chatting up a storm with your sweep partner].
I had never been to Kansas prior to this trip, but all I heard about it from others was, "oh man, enjoy the midwest (insert sarcasm). It'll be so boring! Corn corn corn".
Well, I say not true. Kansas is one of the best states I've cycled through. Our first stop was Lawrence, KS - the hometown of our of our riders, Meryl. It's a liberal, college town (Kansas University, home of the Jayhawks) and very much like my university town of Ithaca, NY. Who would have thought that NY and KS could be so similar! But it's true and almost uncanny. The phrase about Lawrence is that it's 25 square miles surrounded by Kansas while the phrase about Ithaca is that it's 10 sq miles surounded by reality. Eco-friendly people and a lot of young, vibrant people. Small shops, few chain stores, very friends and with an AWESOME bike shop called Sunflower (KS is the sunflower state). They tuned up all of our bikes better than I've ever tuned mine up... free of charge.
Yes, Kansas has corn and soybean, but after two days of cycling, the landscape totally changed. We had arrived into the Flint Hills (look it up for pictures). Here, there is litigimate rolling hills (false, KS is certainly NOT all flat) where there is only a very thin layer of topsoil, too thin to grow crops. Instead, it's the perfect land to raise pastured cattle. Cattle everywhere. It's not irrigated here, so it contrasts greatly with the vibrant green cropland. Here, it's dry and dusty and I feel like I'm in the Wild Wild West. There are black, wooden cut-outs of cowboys on horses, or mounted Native Americans chasing buffalo. Here, there are no towns for miles and miles and when my sweep parter, Doug, and I arrived at first lunch, we were out of water. The van had already left in search for more liquids and had to drive for over an hour in order to fill up and bring us back water before we could hit the road again.
We mounted our bikes again and headed toward the "geographic center of the USA" located near Lebanon, KS. We had crossed the half-way mile marker. My odometer read 2000 miles. (actually 2500 including 500 miles of training). Onwards to Nebraska. The "Welcome to Nebraska" sign greeted us with bullet holes.... The sign was totally riddled with holes.... and a picture of a cowboy on a rearing horse. Behind the sign was a landscape totally different from what we had been riding through in KS. Prairies. Wild, preserved prairie land with rolling hills, shrubs, grasses, and no cropland. Thank goodness for a tailwind that pushed us home. 113 degrees. Excrushiatingly hot. So hot. I must have dunk over 6 liters of water that day. But soon the 70 miles appeared on my odometer and we rolled into Red Cloud, NE, our home for the night. We passed the public pool, where we found the other 30 riders who simoultaneously cheered, "super sweep!" Everyone had made it in safely. A bit dehydrated, some with not so great feeling stomachs, but all really satisfied with the eventful day.
Question of the day : is there a difference between a prairie and a plain (the great plains) and if so what is it? Everyone seems to have their own definition of the two words... what is yours? Let me know!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Forging the Mississippi River
We rode into the Great Plains, leaving the Northeast, the Appalachains, my home and familiar region behind. Crossing the Mississippi was for sure, one of the most memorable landmarks so far. Good-bye IL, hello MO. We all stopped and put our feet in water and washed our faces in the River (an symbol indicating that we would one day return to the river's bank).
Some interesting observations of the Midwest - a region in which, prior, I had never set foot:
People here are proud of their connection to the great 16th president of the US. KY was the birthplace of Lincoln, Indiana boasts that it's "Lincoln's boyhood home" and Illinois is the "Land of Lincoln". The churches where we stayed likewise were proud that they had some of the wooden shelves bought by the President's nephew's sister's daughter's cousin's best friend.
Why do I feel like I'm in the Midwest when I've never been here?
Of course there's acres and acres of corn, but also an equal acrage of soybean (I feel like everyone always thinks of corn, but there's just as much of the smaller soybean plant).
But overall, I'd say it's the way the sky looks. There is simply so much sky! It's huge and expansive and the colors of the clouds are like nothing else I've ever seen. They are full of color. Purple, gray, dark blue. We see great sunrises and sunsets and the clouds are giant and fluffy. And from this majestic sky, blows a strong strong wind.
Another interesting asepct of biking across the Midwest is that you become very talented at guessing the milage between where you are and the water tower you spy in the very distance. With the other cyclists, we making guessing games on how far the next water tower is. Sometimes the closest one is 5 miles away, sometimes, it's 15. And you can also guess that where ever you see the closest water tower, is where there is the closest town. So make sure you have enough water with you before you start off cycling!
And speaking of water, we must cross over dozens and dozens of rivers. These rivers are highly irrigated and thus their course is heavily altered by the farmers. It looks like the river banks have been dug such that the river follows are particular direction. They are brown and muddy and usually not too wide. Most of the fields that we've passed, however, have been quite flooded. There has been a lot of rain out here this spring and summer so the corn is small (too wet) and the fields are just swamped. That leaves lots of frog, snake and turtle roadkill to swerve around.
Some interesting observations of the Midwest - a region in which, prior, I had never set foot:
People here are proud of their connection to the great 16th president of the US. KY was the birthplace of Lincoln, Indiana boasts that it's "Lincoln's boyhood home" and Illinois is the "Land of Lincoln". The churches where we stayed likewise were proud that they had some of the wooden shelves bought by the President's nephew's sister's daughter's cousin's best friend.
Why do I feel like I'm in the Midwest when I've never been here?
Of course there's acres and acres of corn, but also an equal acrage of soybean (I feel like everyone always thinks of corn, but there's just as much of the smaller soybean plant).
But overall, I'd say it's the way the sky looks. There is simply so much sky! It's huge and expansive and the colors of the clouds are like nothing else I've ever seen. They are full of color. Purple, gray, dark blue. We see great sunrises and sunsets and the clouds are giant and fluffy. And from this majestic sky, blows a strong strong wind.
Another interesting asepct of biking across the Midwest is that you become very talented at guessing the milage between where you are and the water tower you spy in the very distance. With the other cyclists, we making guessing games on how far the next water tower is. Sometimes the closest one is 5 miles away, sometimes, it's 15. And you can also guess that where ever you see the closest water tower, is where there is the closest town. So make sure you have enough water with you before you start off cycling!
And speaking of water, we must cross over dozens and dozens of rivers. These rivers are highly irrigated and thus their course is heavily altered by the farmers. It looks like the river banks have been dug such that the river follows are particular direction. They are brown and muddy and usually not too wide. Most of the fields that we've passed, however, have been quite flooded. There has been a lot of rain out here this spring and summer so the corn is small (too wet) and the fields are just swamped. That leaves lots of frog, snake and turtle roadkill to swerve around.
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