Sunday, July 12, 2009
Day 27: Nevada, MO, to Iola, KS
Since the little camera was broken, we spent a little time this morning looking about Nevada for anywhere that might fix our camera. Unfortunately, Walmart was the closest thing they had to both a bike shop and a camera store. But we did capture some awesome pictures of downtown Nevada.
A lot of midwest towns have wall murals everywhere. Its a fantastic use of space.
People in the midwest also know how to build their courthouses.
We took US-54 out of town, heading straight into Kansas. The plan was to follow US-54 for a while before trying to hook up with the official Adventure Cycling route which passes through Chanute, just a little bit to our south.
It wasn't long before we hit Kansas. It was a hot day, and it wasn't even past nine.
Our next stop was in Fort Scott, which had brick streets throughout downtown. In fact, it was a nice downtown in general. We decided to stop for breakfast at the Nu Grill. Good food, better service, and a general feeling that we were actually eating somewhere local for once instead of just another Subway.
Believe it or not, we actually then spent some time shopping for books.
Then it was off to see Fort Scott.
Except Ft Scott cost money. So forget that. We rode on.
We followed the low, rolling hills of US-54 a few more miles before it was time to start looking for a bathroom to stop at. We ended up going a half mile off route to use the gas station in Uniontown. This gave us the chance to check out the local past time: painting your name on a silo.
Then things stated to get really empty.
The most enjoyable thing we had to do was check out Kansas's highway signs. They were the best of any state we'd seen so far.
A few miles down the road from Union Station was Bronson. Despite Google's promises, there was no gas station here.
Our next stop was in Moran. Right here we started to feel really, really good. The temperatures were high, so we stopped at the truck stop for a slushy, but most importantly the wind had picked up. And for once, it was a tail wind. We'd get the bike up to about twelve miles an hour, and suddenly it would feel like the wind would pick us up to almost twenty. So this couldn't be a long stop - we had to make use of the wind. But we did take time at this gas station to make some friendly conversation with a couple of kids who were fascinated by our bike and couldn't fathom how far we'd come.
The ride to Iola involved no turns at all, but took no time at all, since we were moving so fast. This was really new for us. We finished the day feeling great, and meeting our goal ahead of time (though, to be fair, it wasn't supposed to be a long day). Jillian wanted to press on and make up some time. We gave David a call, and he said the weather report looked good, but he wasn't sure these tail winds would hold. Ultimately I decided it would be better if we rested for the night, did some laundry, and bought some supplies at the Walmart.
The kind clerk at the awesome Super 8 gave us directions around town, and after leaving our trailer we set off to visit the Walmart and the Pizza Hut (Note - Googling this Pizza Hut on 1/10/10 came up with a bunch of health code violations). While at the Walmart Jillian had a lengthy conversation with a few folks while I did some shopping.
One of our primary reasons for going to Walmart was to get cleaning supplies. The bike was filthy and full of dust from the Katy trail. We ended up buying a serving tray for a dollar, a pair of women's leggings on clearance for a dollar, and some dish soap. When we got back to the hotel Jillian spent some time doing laundry and blogging, I spent the entire evening cutting the leggings into rags and scrubbing and cleaning every corner of the bike, then re-lubing everything. It took a long time, but the bike seemed to ride a lot better when I was done.
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| posted at: 01:10 |
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