Monday, July 13, 2009
Day 28: Iola, KS to El Dorado, KS
Today's ride was to the mythical city of El Dorado. Except, much like Nevada, they pronounce it El Dor-A-do. We were beginning to wonder if Kansas was running out of short a sounds.
Unfortunately this morning's ride also started out in a bit of a drizzle. So we started out in a bad mood. Jillian got cold, very quickly, but we both knew the temperatures were going to climb rapidly into the 90s. She really wanted to stop and put more clothes on, I wanted to keep going since it wasn't that cold, and she'd be too hot soon. Every conversation we had seemed to not work. We tried resetting twice. Each time we'd just pretend it was a brand new day and everything was good. Eventually the sun came back out, we warmed up, and we felt like we were moving along again.
Today got empty in a hurry.
Really empty. So empty that we started to wonder where in the world we could stop for lunch. The Garmin didn't show anywhere to stop between Yates Center and Eureka - 32 miles away. But right outside of Toronto, we came upon what we first thought was a mirage. Lizard Lips.
Their satellite dish may have been what drew us in.
Lizard Lips was empty when we got there, but we were immediately impressed by their ability to combine a grocery store, a deli, a butcher shop, a bait and tackle store, and a gas station. We sat down at the little cafe/deli and ordered a few sandwiches. Behind the counter was a white board featuring a list of names no longer allowed to receive store credit, right next to a list of names no longer allowed to write checks. In such a small community, it must be hard to be called out like that.
Lizard Lips saved us that day, giving us a place to recharge. When we set off again, there wasn't a whole lot to see.
And there wasn't a lot of space on the side of the road. The paved shoulder was a little more than a foot wide, with another three feet of crushed stone beyond it. To a car, it would appear we weren't using the shoulder at all, but we can't ride on crushed stone.
Only a few miles farther down the road we found a rest stop. This was again a very pleasent surprise. While stopped here we chatted with a few RVers. Bicycle tourists have an interesting relationship with RV drivers. Usually people who drive RVs aren't very good at driving large vehicles (unlike truckers, who were usually the most polite drivers on the road). But RVers are so friendly when they get out of their vehicles that you can't help but love them. We met a friendly couple who offered to make us dinner in their RV when we arrived in El Dorado, and gave us some bottles of water. Thank you!
Past the rest stop we many miles until we found a tree, where we stopped for a little break.
For what's always rumored to be the flattest, most boring state in the union, there was a surprising amount to see. To our north there were hundreds of cattle moving across a large, rolling hill. To our south you could see a vast plain, with little dots that must have been cattle. No buildings though.
Again, as it got to be near about four in the afternoon, a tail wind picked up. We sailed into El Dorado and rode through the typical four lane terrible commercial district to get to the west side of town where we checked into another Super 8. Unfortunately, there weren't any first floor rooms available, but the friendly staff let us keep the bike in the small laundry area for the night. We hiked across the street to Playa Azul for a Mexican dinner. It got terrible reviews on Google, but we thought the food was good, fairly priced, and most importantly, they had beer that wasn't Budweiser. Neither of us are heavy drinkers (in fact, Jillian may not have had more than one drink the entire trip), but after a 90 mile day in 90 degree heat, you get this craving for carbs and you're very thirsty. A good beer meets both those needs perfectly.
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