Friday, July 17, 2009

32: That's the Magic of Kansas

Stoker's Log Day Thirty Two

7/17/09

From Dodge City, KS

To Ingalls, KS and Garden City, KS

30.1 miles

10.0 avg mph

This morning we went on a rapid fire tour of Dodge City, a famous wild west town on the old cattle route and the setting for the show Gunsmoke. By rapid fire I mean I took most of the photos while pedaling.

We weren't exceedingly impressed with Dodge City, but it was a pleasant jaunt and we enjoyed being an odd spectacle that distracted tourists from all of the wild west flair. I actually got most excited about two businesses that probably didn't make the tourism brochures: I spotted a Wyatt Earp liquor store that reminded me of The Boondock Saints, and wouldn't you know that the McDonalds had the first tall sunflowers that we've seen in all of Kansas.

Less than twenty miles beyond Dodge we reached Cimarron, and our troubles began. First we got a flat tire; not a big deal in the grand scheme of bike problems, but a pain to fix all the same. We changed it at the edge of someone's front yard in the middle of town, where I got very distracted by a large and beautiful mystery bug who showed no fear of me.

With the flat tire fixed, we continued down the road until we reached a gas station, where we discovered a bigger issue: we had a broken spoke. Unlike a completely flat tire, it is possible to ride with a broken spoke, but it's not a great idea; it makes everything unsteady and soon enough other spokes will break or the tire will have a massive blowout. Regardless, we had to ride on: there was nothing helpful around us, but about 35 miles away was Garden City, which miraculously had a bike shop. If we could just make it there we would be fine.

We made our wobbly way down the road, crossing our fingers and counting the miles. Suddenly a loud shot rang out: in a second our tire was decimated, and we were stranded.

We sighed and got out our phones, planning to call an Enterprise shop that we'd seen on the Garmin. If their slogan was true, they would pick us up and we could drive to Garden City, still 30 miles away. We didn't count on Enterprise being out of vehicles, however. As we were discussing our other options -- which included walking several miles to the town that we could see in the distance, Ingalls, which was probably too small to be of any help -- a state trooper drove up and pulled over beside us. Based on how few cars were on the road, we couldn't believe our good fortune, but it actually wasn't luck that brought him to us. His wife had spotted us earlier and had called him to let him know that a strange tandem bicycle was on the road that he might want to drive out to see. He was expecting to find us cheerily riding along, not beside the road in need of rescue, but he was very eager to help. While he was calling around trying to figure out how to transport the bike and us, a guy in a pickup truck drove up and asked us if he could help out in any way. A few minutes later we had the bike shop address from the trooper and we and the bike were in Jon's truck, headed to Garden City. Sometimes I really do love Kansas.

Jon is in the construction business, so he and Kyle chatted about Leed certification, the relative merits of different concrete mixtures, and other things that I vaguely understood. His latest job was rebuilding a nearby town that was almost completely destroyed by tornadoes, so he also gave us some insight on reading the rapidly changing weather patterns and getting under cover whenever the sky turns green. Without those town-destroying tornadoes, however, most local construction workers wouldn't have any work right now; Jon said that while most issues and trends that start on the coasts fade considerably before they reach the middle of the country, the current economic crisis was a brutal exception. Jon also offered a response for the question that rattles around my head whenever I meet one of these wonderful Kansans: What on earth made you want to live here? Jon talked about the merits of being left alone in "fly over country," including never feeling crowded (after riding through New Jersey I guess I can understand) and never having to deal with real traffic: a bad commute is when he has to drive 65 mph instead of 70, or when there's more than one traffic light in his way.

Not only did Jon get us to Garden City, he also saved us a good deal of money there. Instead of taking us to the regular bike shop, he stopped at his friend Earl's tinker shop.

Inside was a crazy hodgepodge that resembled a garage sale, but Earl knew what he was doing and had treasures in those boxes and piles that he was willing to part with for almost nothing. He went outside with us to look at the wheel, and then dug out four spokes that would fit and sold them to us for a dollar. Amazing.

Jon insisted that we do the repairs back at his house, where he had a workbench and all manner of tools. Kyle was ecstatic to work on the bike in a proper space with proper equipment, instead of making do on the side of the road or in a cramped hotel room. Changing out a spoke is a tricky business, since it needs to be tightened exactly so that the wheel is balanced, or "true." Bike shops have truing stands for the purpose, but Kyle was eventually able to get it close enough to work. Jon was kind enough to invite us to the dinner he and his wife would be cooking in a few hours, but we were going to try to get in some more riding before dark, so we sadly had to turn him down. We said goodbye to our hero and got back on the road.

We didn't get very far before realizing that staying outside might be a very bad idea. The sky had begun to look very foreboding, and after all our discussion of severe weather we wanted to be on the safe side. We rode to an America's Best Value Inn and used their guest computer to check a weather map, and it didn't look good. We gave in and rented a room for the night, and a good thing too: twenty minutes later it was hailing outside.

Clearly, someone forgot to remind Kansas that IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE SUMMER. I mean, really, Kansas? Hail?

The hail prevented us from returning to Jon's house and taking him up on his dinner offer after all, but it wasn't a long storm so we eventually made it across the street to Lonestar. Over meat, potatoes, and delicious lemonades, we planned our next move. Both of us felt like we had to ride back to where our tire had blown and make up the miles that Jon had driven us. We just wouldn't feel right knowing that we had ridden our bicycle all the way across the country except for one thirty mile stretch in the middle. We were also both worried that the other person would disagree and argue about how crazy it would be to go backwards, so we were incredibly relieved to find that we were on the same page! We decided that our best bet was to book the hotel room for another night and spend tomorrow just making up the miles, which would be a little over 60 miles round trip and hopefully give us the afternoon and evening off.

For the past few days I've been creating verses of a song called "That's the Magic of Kansas," which chronicles all of the strange and undesirable aspects of the state.

"Ride for hours and the scenery stays the same / That's the magic of Kaaaansaaaaaas."

"Fifty long miles between small towns / That's the magic of Kaaaansaaaaaas." (Don't forget your jazz hands!)

And now, "Freak hail storms in the middle of summer / That's the magic of Kaaaansaaaaaas."

And while I stand by my dislike for many aspects of the area, today reinforced what we've found to be the true magic of Kansas: the fact that its people are as amazingly friendly and generous as everyone claims they are. Maybe they have to be kind and community-oriented in order to survive in a place with such wide open spaces, low population, and hostile weather; I don't know. But I will always maintain that Kansas has, hands down, the best people in the world.

I just don't understand how they handle the rest of life out here...

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