Kansas is the capital of road kill!
Seriously! I have discovered that there is an enormous amount of dead animals on the side of the road that normal people never even realize! I know this sounds gross, but seriously. In our Kansas portion alone, we saw tons of skunks, squirrels, hawks, little field mice, a few cats, lots of armadillos, and even a huge buck. (Who knew there were so many armadillos in Kansas??) I even saw entrails yesterday, as well as a thing (unidentifiable) that had been run over so many times that it was as flat as the pavement. I know, this is disgusting, but I think I am traumatized because of it!
Anyway, we are now in Stillwater, Oklahoma staying with one of Steve’s friend from CU. We got in last night and have all today to rest and take care of laundry and bike maintenance stuff. How nice is that! The last few days have been a lot better–finally starting to get into the swing of things, and the popped tubes have finally lessened, which is always a great time saver.
We spent a night in the town of Otis, Kansas, which is essentially one street with a few houses and many closed up businesses. We happened to start talking to an older guy named Mert who let us sleep in his immaculate backyard, as well as fed us Pepsi and let us shower, which was desperately needed at that point. He was the funniest guy though–he loved to talk! He had this amazing collection of little cars that was valued at thousands of dollars, but the best part was that he ALSO collects knives/swords and guns. How random are those collections?!
We pushed into Nickerson the next night with nothing eventful. The following night was spent in Suppesville, and initially reminded us of the Twilight Zone! We had ridden all day into the South wind, so we were both tired and exhausted. We showed up in Norwich, but found out that they didn’t have any restaurants or food or anything, so we pushed five more miles into Suppesville. Well, we show up at the only restaurant in town, and there are weird mohawky-people, old people addicted to cigarettes that are two weeks short of dying from emphysema, and just strange randoms sitting everywhere. Too difficult to even explain but total scene out of the Twilight Zone—or so we thought. Turned out, our waitress was an incredibly sweet lady, and one of the “strange randoms” was her companion waiting for her to get off work. They let us sleep in their front yard and totally opened up their place to us. Amazing how first impressions can be SO WRONG, you know?!
We rode through another big storm yesterday to get into Stillwater and Wahab’s place. It’s amazing what the prospect of a hot shower and bed can do for your adrenaline, you know? We were five miles outside of town, starting to get excited for a night in a REAL place, so of course, I managed to run over a piece of glass and demolish my tube and tire. Entire tube blew out, and we had to huddle under an over pass to change the tube and patch up the tire enough so we could make it the last few miles. I bought a new tire today, and it wasn’t really a crisis situation by any means, but we were so excited to get into town, and that additional half hour was killing me! I definitely think I let every swear possible come out of my mouth!
Oh yeah–I have been forbidden by Steve to pet any dogs! I suppose it makes sense, but anyway. We were passing through a town called Damar, KS about a week ago, and we pulled in to fill up our water. Again, this “town” is probably only 15-20 people, so nothing too big here! Anyway, a dog from way down the street sees us, apparently wants company, and wanders down to hang out with us. I pet him for awhile while Steve fills everything up, we say goodbye to the dog, and start riding out of town. Of course, the dog follows. At the point, we’re still thinking it’s cute and nice, and what a sweet dog, but then we turned onto the highway, and he kept following. Long story short, this dog chased us for like 10 miles down the center of the highway, with Steve yelling at him to go home in his meanest voice and me trying my hardest to bike away as fast as I could. Unfortunately, this part of Kansas is so flat that the dog could see us for miles, and as long as he could see us, he was coming with us! We finally managed to make it over a little hill so he lost sight of us, and therefor, interest in us, but it was a little ridiculous. Dogs are always running out of their yards to chase us, and I’m not allowed to touch any of them anymore. Sad!
Anyway, this is really long so I’m going to do something more productive on my rest day! Talk to y’all later!
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